國語量詞選擇的口語實驗

A Production Experiment of Mandarin Classifier Selection

林靜怡(Bonnie Ching-yi Lin)

指導教授 ： 謝國平

國立臺灣師範大學/文學院/英語學系/碩士(2001年)

摘要

摘 要
中文的量詞系統（Chinese classifier system）長久以來都是語言學家很感興趣的話題。本研究特別著重在國語量詞在口語中的選擇情形。我們一共討論三個關於量詞選擇的潛在因素，分別是「量詞與名詞之間的語義關係」、「量詞出現所在的句法結構」以及「名詞物體外觀的變化」。
在本文的第一個部分裡，我們著重在數字之後的量詞選擇情況。實驗的結果顯示當量詞與它所修飾的名詞之間的語義關係十分接近時，此量詞的表現會保存的相當好。反之，當量詞與其修飾的名詞之間的語意關係較疏遠時，量詞則比較容易被中性化（即以個取代之）或由其它意思相近的量詞所取代。
這篇研究的第二部分則在討論指示詞（demonstratives）之後的量詞選擇情形。我們比較在數字之後及在指示詞之後的量詞其中性化程度的不同。結果顯示當量詞出現在指示詞之後時，較常被中性化，且此差異達到統計上的顯著差異。
最後一個部分所討論的是在量詞選擇的過程中，認知機制（conceptual mechanism）所扮演的角色。我們以相同的物體、不同的姿態（形狀、大小等外觀上的差異）來測試受試者的選擇是否會不同。結果並不如預期。受試者似乎並不受物體外觀的改變而影響到他們量詞的選擇，他們始終偏好選用自己詞彙中較偏好的量詞來修飾同一個物體（名詞）。換句話說，在選擇量詞的過程中，特定量詞與名詞之間連用頻率（collocation frequency）的高低似乎比物體外觀的形狀來得重要。

關鍵字

國語量詞 ； HASH(0xafec0e8)

並列摘要

ABSTRACT
The Chinese classifier system has always been an intriguing and interesting topic under discussion. In this study, we focus on the classifier selection of Mandarin Chinese speakers. We discuss three potential factors underlying the Mandarin classifier selection—semantic relation between classifiers and the following nouns, the syntactic environment where classifiers occur, and physical traits of the target objects.
In the first part of the study, we specifically examine classifiers after numerals. The results indicate that when the semantic content of a particular classifier is close to the following noun, this classifier is more likely to be preserved. As the semantic relation between a noun and a classifier gets more distant, the classifier tends to be either neutralized to a general classifier ge or substituted to another specific classifier which has certain overlapping semantic feature with the original classifier.
The second part of this thesis deals with classifier selection after demonstratives. We compare the neutralization of classifiers after numerals (with the data we obtained in the first part of the study) and demonstratives. The result shows that classifiers occurring after demonstratives are neutralized more often than those after numerals, and the difference reaches statistic significance.
The last part of this research investigates the conceptual mechanism underlying classifier selection. With the change of physical traits of the same target objects, we expect subjects to react differently and choose different classifiers according to the most salient perceptual feature of the two pictures (of the same target object). However, the result is not as expected. Subjects seem not to be influenced by the change of shapes, sizes, etc., they nevertheless tend to choose the classifier in their lexicon that collocates with a particular noun most frequently. That is, collocation frequency seems to play a bigger role than conception in classifier selection.

並列關鍵字

classifier ； Mandarin classifier

參考文獻

謝麗雪. 1995. An analysis of Chinese classifiers used in a translation task. 華岡英語學報 1:17-36.

____. 1996. Comparing the Chinese lexeme “pian” with “kuai”. 華岡英語學報 2:103-115.

Ahrens, Kathleen. 1994. Classifier production in normals and aphasics. Journal of Chinese Linguistics 22:203-247.

Aikhenvald, A. Y. 2000. Classifiers: A typology of noun categorization devices. Oxford University Press.

Allen, Keith. 1977. Classifiers. Language 53:285-311.