词义感染与删略生义

摘要:本文讨论两种词义衍生的过程,即“词义感染”和“删略生义”。前者(“词义感染”)被普遍视为汉语词语获得新义的重要途径,后者(“删略生义”)在文献中则鲜有提及。本文证明,汉语词义演变中真正“词义感染”的实例十分罕见,以往被认定为“词义感染”的实例,几乎均非“词义感染”的确凿例证,其中多数是“删略生义”,而后者实际上是人类语言获得新义的一种常见途径。ABSTRACT:In this paper, we discuss the process of two kinds of word meaning generating, namely “contagion” and “ellipsis”. The former (“contagion”) is generally regarded as an important way for Chinese words to acquire new meanings, while the latter (“ellipsis”) is rarely mentioned in the literature. This paper proves that the real cases of “contagion” in the evolution of Chinese word meaning are very rare, and most of the cases that have been identified as “contagion” in the past are not “contagion”, but “ellipsis”, which is actually a common way for human language to acquire new meaning.