The origin of the copula shi in Chinese
汉语系词 "是" 的来源
Sian L. Yen 颜祥霖

Abstract 摘要
Contrary to the widely held view that the copula shi 是 developed from the demonstrative pronoun shi 是 ‘this’, there is strong evidence that the copula in question originally came into the language as a particle of affirmation. Shi came to be used as an affirmative particle, because speakers of the language felt that is would be natural to use it as the antonym of the negative particle fei 非. Such a feeling apparently arose from the frequent association of shi 是 ‘right’ and fei 非 ‘wrong’ as a pair of antonyms. Shi thus came to be used as an affirmative particle in exactly the same syntactic environments where the negative fei could be used. Since the negative fei was most commonly used before a nominal predicate to negate it, its affirmative counterpart shi naturally began to appear before a nominal predicate, just like a copula. This theory of the origin of the copula shi accounts very well also for the contrastive and assertive use of shi introduced into the language in the same period.

虽然系词的“是”起源于用作指示代词的“是”的说法受到了不少学者的支持，各种证据显示这个系词是从用作肯定词的“是”发展出来的。因为“是”字在古汉语中跟“非”字是很常用的对语，“是”字就被用作跟否定词“非”字相对的肯定词。如此，用作肯定词的“是”开始出现在否定词“非”字所出现的环境。既然否定词“非”字最常用于主词与名词性述词之间，用作肯定词的“是”－正象一个系词－也就出现在这个位置。系词的“是”起源于肯定词的说法，不但可以说明系词“是”的发展，并且也可以解释现代汉语中“是”的其它用法。

<< Back 返回

Readers 读者