先秦助动词“可”的演变研究

A Diachronic Study on auxiliary verb ‘ke(可)’ in pre-Qin Chinese

This paper discusses the syntactic and semantic development of auxiliary verb ‘ke(可)’ in pre-Qin Chinese. The reason that the verb behind ‘ke(可)’ has passive meaning and does not take an object is because in the process of grammaticalization of ‘ke(可)’ from being an adjective to being an auxliliary verb, the ‘V’ in the syntactic structure of ‘VO, ke(可)’ has moved its position to the back of ‘ke(可)’. The reason that the verb behind ‘keyi(可以)’ can take an object is because the object of the preposition ‘yi(以)’ is located right in the subject position. The reason that the verb behind ‘keyi(可以)’ has active meaning is because the preposition ‘yi(以)’ of ‘keyi(可以)’ is used as an ‘as’ meaning. The auxiliary verb ‘ke(可)’ has three central meanings: ‘worth’, ‘root possibility’ and ‘permission’. Considering semantic relations between these three meanings, the path of semantic change could be ‘worth→root possibility→permission’. The meaning ‘worth’ would be derived from ‘fine, okay’, which is the meaning of adjective ‘ke(可)’.

本文主要对先秦助动词“可”的句法、语义演变过程进行探讨。“可”后动词表被动、动词不带宾语的原因，在于当“可”由形容词语法化为助动词时，“VO，可”中的V移到“可”之后。“可以”后动词可以带宾语的原因，在于介词“以”的宾语位于主语位置上。“可以”后动词表主动的原因，在于“可以”的“以”用作“作为”义介词。助动词“可”主要表示“值得”、“条件可能”和“许可”三种语义。这三种语义的演变路径是“值得→条件可能→许可”，其中“值得”义乃由形容词“可”的“尚好”义演变而来。