Prosodically Constrained Bare- Verb in ba Construction
韵律控制的把字句
Shengli Feng 冯胜利

Abstract 摘要
There is a traditional belief that a bare verb in the ba construction is never allowed. While often observed, the rule does not always hold true, as I propose to show in this paper. In poems, for example, bare verbs are commonly used to form ba constructions. In everyday speech, disyllabic bare verbs in the ba construction are also allowed, whereas a monosyllabic counterpart is strictly banned in the same environment. Given this, it is argued that the Bare Verb Effect in ba constructions is constrained neither by syntax nor by semantics, but primarily by prosody. The argument made here strongly supports the proposal made in Feng (1995) that the interactions between syntax and prosody are bi-directional: Syntax governs prosody and prosody also constrains syntax. The prosodic constraints developed in this paper can also be viewed as well-formed conditions on all ba sentences which cannot surface until all of the relevant types of structural constraints (syntactic, semantic and prosodic) are satisfied. The prosodic constraints could, therefore, be one type of interface condition under the assumption that all conditions are interface conditions and that a linguistic expression is the optimal realization of the interface conditions.

在汉语的句法研究中，一般认为把字句中的动词不能挂单。本文提出：这一规则尽管一般如此，但并不绝对。譬如，在诗歌韵文中，把字句的动词，无论双音节还是单音节，挂单均屡见不鲜；在口语里，双音节的挂单动词同样允许。口语里只有单音节动词决不挂单，即使其意义与双音节动词完全相同。据此，本文提出，动词挂单的把字句，既不能从句法上来解释，也很难从语义上来说明。这里真正起作用的是“韵律”。韵律是制约把字句动词的根本所在。这一分析，为“句法控制韵律，韵律也制约句法”（Feng, 1995）的理论，提供了有力的证据。本文认为：韵律规则可以看作一种不同类型的交接条件（Interface Condition）。如果语法规则可以视为交接条件，如果语言表达都是交接条件相互作用的最佳条件，那么，把字句的表达，同样必须在其韵律条件与其它交换条件的相互满足中，才得以实现。

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