ISSUES ON CHINESE PASSIVE

關於漢語被動句的幾個問題

石定栩(Dingxu Shi)

《Journal of Chinese Linguistics》 25卷1期 (1997/01) Pp. 41-70

摘要

This paper provides several descriptive generalizations about Chinese passive sentences: 1) unmarked sentences with a preverbal patient NP should not be considered passive; 2) there are two beis in passive sentences, of which one is a preposition and the other is a passive marker; 3) there is a semantic relationship between the moved object and the retained object, which can be characterized as that the combination of the verb and the retained object selects the moved object; 4) the correspondence between passive and active sentences does not always exist and such a relation cannot be established if there is a subject-oriented adverbial or modal in the sentence; 5) the morphological marking in Chinese passives is accurate, even in pivotal constructions. Which construction in Chinese should be considered passive? What are the functions and status of the morpheme bei? What is the relationship between the passive subject and the so-called retained object? Why certain passive sentences with medals do not have the same truth value as their active counterparts do? These questions often emerge in recent literature on Chinese passive constructions and the answers provided usually lead to more debate. This paper is an attempt to establish a comprehensive and accurate description of the phenomena related to these issues. No particular theoretic presumption is assumed and no stipulation will be made. The generalizations reached here may be adapted to suit any theoretic framework and can thus become the basis for satisfactory accounts for these phenomena.

並列摘要

本文對漢語被動句的特性進行總結歸納，得出以下結論：1）句中無“被”字標記的所謂受事主語句不應視為被動句；2）被動句中的“被”字實際上是兩個不同的詞，一個是介詞，另一個是表示動的語助詞；3）被動句的主與同“保留賓語”之間存在著嚴格的語義關係，如果將動詞與保留賓語視為合成動詞，這種關係就可以表述為合成動詞對主語的選擇；4）並非所有的被動句都有相應的主動句，如果句中存在表達主語意願的狀語或能願動詞，被動句就不會有相應的主動句；5）“被”字對動詞的標記作用準確無誤，即使是在兼語式的被動句中也同樣如此。