Is there a lexical category of absolute adjective in Mandarin Chinese?
现代汉语有没有绝对形容词词汇范畴?
Robert Iljic 罗毅

Abstract 摘要
It is generally admitted that there is a small group of Chinese adjectives which refer invariably to constant, unchangeable qualities. On the formal level, these “absolute” adjectives, as opposed to “scalar” adjectives, are defined as being incompatible with intensifiers and can supposedly neither function as predicates without being followed by NP modification marker de nor enter a comparison. The only way to assign a property expressed by an absolute adjective would be a resort to shi...de equational sentence (pseudo-cleft). It is demonstrated here that these so-called “absolute” adjectives can, almost always, provided there is a suitable context, have a scalar acceptation. Therefore the opposition ‘absolute’ versus ‘scalar’ doesn’t simply amount to divide, once for all, the adjectives into two mutually exclusive sub-groups. For the same adjective the one or the other interpretation is a question of context, and possibly of the locutor’s intentions, but not merely a problem of intrinsic meaning of that adjective. Thus, there is no ground for establishing a special class of lexical items labeled “absolute adjectives”. If, nevertheless, the term “absolute adjective” were to be preserved it should be clearly understood as alluding only to the high statistical probability of certain adjectives to occur in shi...de equationals, and not as referring to a lexical category with specific grammatical characteristics. It is claimed that whatever the quality an adjective designates may be, it is a priori susceptible of two interpretations: variable or invariable, depending on the physical and cultural properties of the notions to which it is ascribed and/or on the aspect brought out by the locutor in one particular situation.

一般以为中文有一小部分形容词是一直拥有永恒不变的性质的。在形式上，这些“绝对”形容词与“程度”形容词相对，被定义为无法与“程度副词”一起出现，也不能出现在一个比较句里，并且当作谓语时，必须有“的”字后置。唯一用来决定绝对形容词特性的方法是凭借“是…….的”形式的等式句 (pseudo-cleft)。本文提出的证明是，此类所谓的“绝对”形容词如在适宜的上下文中，几乎都具有程度的意义，因此，“绝对”与“程度”就不是形容词两个互不相容的次词组。同一个形容词的某种意义或其它含义都是上下文的问题，或者视说话者的意向而定，而不是仅仅属于一个形容词的本身的含意。由于，对于已经定名为“绝对形容词”无法重新命一特殊名称，在使用这一名称时一定要作说明，即它仅存于较高的统计频率，一部分则属于“是……的”形式的形容词，而不是一个具有特殊语法特性的词汇范畴。

<< Back 返回

Readers 读者