Sinitic isolating morphology : A typological overview
从汉语方言变音现象谈汉语的形态类型
Résumé
This paper applies one of the four parameters proposed by Bickel & Nichols (2005, 2007) for morphological typology to Sinitic diminutive morphology (nominal category) and tense-aspect suffixes (verbal category).This study shows that although Sinitic languages are basically analytic languages, from the point of view of the degree of fusion of formatives with the stem, some Chinese dialects belonging to various dialect groups may exhibit non-linear formatives, such as tonal modification or ablaut, i.e that show a high degree of morphologization. These fine-grained parameters prove to be very useful for cross-dialect studies,not to say for cross-linguistic studies.
本文采用《语言结构世界地图集》( WALS) 对语言形态类型的四个参照项之一,即词干和构词、语法成分的融合度,来考察汉语方言的小称范畴和体貌范畴的标注方式。从其他三个标准看汉语确实是典型的分析型语言,但是在词干和构词、语法成分的融合度方面,汉语某些方言却显示出相当活跃的“变音”现象,有一定的内部差异。经过具体例子的分类和分析,表明这个尺度有利于跨方言比较研究,也有利于跨语言研究。