新马华语量词“粒”的泛化研究 = A case study on the generalization of Chinese noun classifier “li” in Singapore and Malaysia

历史语料证明了“实词虚化”是汉语词汇的总体发展方向。量词的泛化往往是由于量词的词义发生了虚化，使其获得更大的修饰范围。量词“粒”的泛化是新马华语的特有现象，其泛化的程度是其他使用汉语的地区所不能及的。目前关于新马华语的研究都略有提及“粒”的泛化现象，但是却缺乏系统性地探讨。前人一般从方言影响和量词语义的模糊性去解释，着墨点过于微观，无法看清“粒”泛化的全貌。本研究使用的材料主要来自语料库，运用数据统计和实例分析的方法，系统地展示了新马华语量词“粒”的泛化现象，更发现了“粒”出现了初期语法化迹象，即“粒”在“大粒人”和“放半粒”中充当代指功能。接着，进一步以跨地区的宏观视角观察分析，并证明了“粒”的泛化现象可以以语法化理论中的类推机制解释之。这个发现使我们能够从类推的角度探讨量词泛化，为汉语量词研究提供崭新的研究视角。把量词泛化放到语法化的理论框架下研究，将能更有效地预测个体量词泛化的前景。“Semantic bleaching” has been proven to be the general direction for the evolution of Chinese words. The generalization of Chinese noun classifiers, is often the result of semantic bleaching as such they obtain a broader range of nouns for modification. In our study, we will investigate the generalization of the classifier li (“粒”) in the context of Singapore and Malaysia Chinese. With the use of linguistic data from various corpora, we managed to reveal a holistic view of the generalization of li，and we also discovered the early sign of grammaticalization of li. Furthermore, through the comparison between the three Chinese-speaking regions, namely Singapore, Mainland China and Taiwan, we had proven that dialect influence is merely the catalyst for the generalization of li, the main driving force is the analogy of the grammaticalization of the measure word ge(“个”). The discovery made by this study should be useful for predicting the future trend of generalization for Chinese classifiers. It also provides a new perspective for the study of the generalization of Chinese classifiers under the theoretical structure of grammaticalization.Bachelor of Art