咸丰方言“打落”“不得下台”的语义演变机制

Semantic Evolution and Its Mechanisms in “Daluo” and “Bude Xiatai” in the Xianfeng Dialect

摘要: 目前针对咸丰方言词汇语义的专题研究相对有限。本文以湖北咸丰方言中的“打落”和“不得下台”两个词语为研究对象，通过结合母语者内省、日常口语语料、历史文献及CCL语料库，对这两个表达的语义演变路径及其机制进行了历时与共时的双重考察。研究发现，“打落”在历史上具有“打掉、使脱落”的物理动作义和“奚落、数落”的言语行为义。咸丰方言在保留物理动作义的基础上，进一步发展出“遗失、遗漏”的抽象义。其演变路径可概括为两条：一是由物理打击引申为人际言语攻击；二是由“物体脱离原位”这一结果状态，抽象为“脱离持有者控制”(遗失)，再进一步抽象为“脱离认知或事务处理范围”(遗漏、忘记)。“不得下台”在通用汉语中从“无法离开舞台”的字面义，发展为“无法摆脱尴尬或困境”的抽象义。咸丰方言在此基础上，将其语法化为“X得不得下台”结构中的程度补语，用以表示数量多、强度大、环境嘈杂等极高程度。其演变路径被拟构为：无法从空间(舞台)退出→无法从社交困境中退出→某种事态难以结束或收束→状态达到极高程度。论文认为，这两个词语的演变均体现了从具体到抽象、从物理空间到主观评价的趋势，但在具体的演变方向、虚化程度及语法化程度上存在差异。

Abstract: Research devoted specifically to lexical-semantic change in the Xianfeng dialect remains limited. This paper takes two expressions in the Xianfeng dialect of Hubei Province, “Daluo” and “Bude Xiatai”, as its research objects. Drawing on native-speaker introspection, everyday spoken corpora, historical documents, and the CCL Corpus, it conducts both diachronic and synchronic investigations into the semantic evolutionary pathways and mechanisms of these two expressions. The study finds that “Daluo” historically carried both a physical-action meaning (to knock off, cause to fall off) and a speech-act meaning (to ridicule, to chide). The Xianfeng dialect, while retaining the physical-action sense, has further developed an abstract meaning of “to lose, to omit”. Its evolutionary pathway can be summarized along two lines: first, an extension from physical striking to interpersonal verbal aggression; and second, an abstraction from the resultant state of “an object being displaced from its original position” to “being beyond the holder’s control” (i.e., lost), and further to “falling outside the scope of one’s cognition or the handling of a matter” (i.e., omitted or forgotten). “Bude Xiatai”, in standard Chinese, has evolved from its literal meaning of “being unable to leave the stage” to the abstract sense of “being unable to extricate oneself from an awkward or predicament situation”. On this basis, the Xianfeng dialect has grammaticalized it into the degree complement within the construction “X de bude xiatai”, used to denote an extremely high degree—such as a large quantity, great intensity, or a noisy environment. Its evolutionary pathway is reconstructed as follows: inability to withdraw from a physical space (the stage) → inability to withdraw from a social predicament → a state of affairs that is difficult to conclude or bring to an end → a state reaching an extreme degree. This paper argues that the evolution of both words reflects a trend from the concrete to the abstract, and from physical space to subjective evaluation; however, they differ in their specific evolutionary directions, degrees of semantic bleaching, and degrees of grammaticalization.