情态助动词“难”的语法化研究

A Study of the Grammaticalization of the Modal Auxiliary Verb “Nan”

The valuable modal auxiliary verb of Chinese Tough-Construction, “S+Nan+V”, is originated from the Yidong of adjective “Nan” in the Pre-Qin Period. Primitively, the adjective “Nan” represented Yidong along with verb object to form structure “A+V” which may be considered unsteady serial verb construction. Under the circumstances, the semantic feature of “Nan” means “considering difficult” which expresses that someone thinks it’s difficult to do something. When the subject ahead of “Nan” extended from agent to experiencer or vacancy, “Nan+V” bear the possibility of Reanalysis which stands for either “someone thinks it’s difficult to do something” or “something is hard to do” or “it’s hard to do something with someone”, and then “Nan” initiated the evolution toward modal auxiliary verb. When subject further extended to patient, the features of structure “Nan+V” are in line with the ones of modern Chinese Tough-Construction, and then the semantic features of “Nan” stands for “it takes great efforts to do something”. Furthermore, “Nan+V” converted the Yidong of adjective into the phrase of modal auxiliary verb, and “someone thinks it’s difficult to do something” semantically evolved to “something is hard to do”. After the grammaticalization has been completed, various types of atypical structures have also been generated on the basis of typical structure. The phrase structures of modal auxiliary verb have been evolved and inherited until now.

汉语难易结构“S+难+V”中的估价类情态助动词“难”产生于先秦时期，来源于形容词“难”的意动用法。最初，形容词“难”表意动带上动词性宾语时，构成“A+V”结构，可看作不稳定的连动结构，此时“难”的语义特征为[+感到困难]，表示“某人认为做某事困难”。当“难”前面主语S由施事扩展到当事或空缺时，“难+V”具有重新分析的可能性，既可以分析为“(某人)认为某事难做”，也可以分析为“(某事)不容易做”或“不容易与某人做某事”。“难”开始向情态助动词演变。当主语S进一步扩展到受事时，“难+V”的结构特点与现代汉语难易结构一致，“难”的语义特征为[+费力]，“难+V”由形容词表意动语法化为情态助动词短语，语义上由“感到做某事困难”演变为“某事做起来困难”。“难”的语法化过程完成后，在典型结构“S受事+AV难+V”的基础上产生了不同形式的非典型结构。这些情态助动词短语结构经过后世的发展一直沿用至今。