ASYMMETRIES IN THE PROSODIC PHRASING OF FUNCTION WORDS: ANOTHER LOOK AT THE SUFFIXING PREFERENCE
ASYMMETRIES IN THE PROSODIC PHRASING OF FUNCTION WORDS: ANOTHER LOOK AT THE SUFFIXING PREFERENCE
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DOI：
10.1353/lan.2014.0105
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发表时间：
2014-12-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.1
通讯作者：
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Himmelmann, Nikolaus P.
众所周知，在世界各地的语言中，语法材料的词缀存在着相当强的不对称性，在类型学数据库中，后缀的数量远远超过前缀。本文认为，韵律，特别是韵律语法，是造成这种不对称性的重要因素。韵律词和短语的界限可能出现在词性功能词之后，其频率足够高，从而阻碍词缀所需的融合。相反，韵律界限很少出现在词汇宿主和紧随其后的游离体功能词之间。因此，韵律并不妨碍词汇宿主和后置虚词之间的融合过程，因此后置虚词更容易成为词缀。韵律短语不对称的证据来自两个来源：不流畅和双宾化，即语法PRoclitics可能是音位偏向(即与前一个主位短语)，但语法偏向从来不是音位偏向。早期对后缀偏爱的解释几乎完全忽略了韵律，因此也忽略了双音化中相关的不对称性。更重要的是，来自韵律短语的证据为解释后缀偏好提供了一个新的场所。韵律短语的不对称，根据这里提出的假设，是导致后缀偏好的一个主要因素，在话轮转换机制和言语产生机制中都有自然的基础。
It is a well-known fact that across the world's languages there is a fairly strong asymmetry in the affixation of grammatical material, in that suffixes considerably outnumber prefixes in typological databases. This article argues that prosody, specifically prosodic phrasing, plays an important part in bringing about this asymmetry. Prosodic word and phrase boundaries may occur after a clitic function word preceding its lexical host with sufficient frequency so as to impede the fusion required for affixhood. Conversely, prosodic boundaries rarely, if ever, occur between a lexical host and a clitic function word following it. Hence, prosody does not impede the fusion process between lexical hosts and postposed function words, which therefore become affixes more easily.Evidence for the asymmetry in prosodic phrasing is provided from two sources: disfluencies, and ditropic cliticization, that is, the fact that grammatical PRoclitics may be phonological ENclitics (i.e. phrased with a preceding host), but grammatical enclitics are never phonological proclitics. Earlier explanations for the suffixing preference have neglected prosody almost completely and thus also missed the related asymmetry in ditropic cliticization. More importantly, the evidence from prosodic phrasing suggests a new venue for explaining the suffixing preference. The asymmetry in prosodic phrasing, which, according to the hypothesis proposed here, is a major factor underlying the suffixing preference, has a natural basis in the mechanics of turn-taking as well as in the mechanics of speech production.*