言者确信度与条件概率——传信副词“显然”与“明明”的语义异同  

The Speaker's Degree of Certainty and Conditional Probability:Semantic Similarities and Distinctions between Evidential Adverbs Xianran(显然)and Mingming(明明)

作　　者：袁梦溪 YUAN Mengxi(College of Chinese Language and Culture,Jinan University)

机构地区：[1]暨南大学华文学院

出　　处：《当代语言学》2025年第2期205-221,共17页Contemporary Linguistics

基　　金：国家社会科学基金青年项目“汉语语气加强成分的多维语义学研究”(20CYY035)的资助。

摘　　要：副词“显然”与“明明”的词典释义高度接近,但其用法却有较大差异。本文利用语料库检索工具SketchEngine统计两者高强度搭配词的互信息值,由此证明:“显然”是狭义传信语,表达从间接证据推测结论的过程;而“明明”是广义传信语,表示言者确定所述信息为真,并对与该信息预期不符的另一项信息表达不解或质疑。为进一步揭示两者在言者确信度上的差异,我们引入条件概率进行定义:“显然p”表示言者认为理性的相关经历者在掌握间接推测证据e后都应该提高对于p的确信度,即P(ple)应提升至接近1的水平;“明明p”表示言者认为理性的相关经历者对于p的确信度都应该等于1,在确信p的条件下对于另一命题q都应该只有低确信度,即P(qlp)低于0.5。由此可见,“显然”和“明明”都展现了人脑根据新信息修正主观概率的贝叶斯推理过程。本研究也说明传信副词内部存在言者确信度上的差异,语义分析要慎用“确信”“确定”“加强肯定语气”等大致说法,尽量精准量化。The adverbs xianran(显然)and mingming(明明)have similar definitions in dictionaries,yet they exhibit significant distinctions in usage.To differentiate between the two,this study employs the corpus tool Sketch Engine to calculate the mutual information(MI)values of the collocations of xianran and mingming for comparison.It reveals that prominent collocates to the left of xianran include words such as lianse(脸色)‘face'and laikan(来看)‘see',indicating that xianran signals the process of drawing conclusions from observable indirect evidence.In contrast,significant collocates to the left of mingming are words like namen(纳闷)‘puzzled’and qiguai(奇怪)‘surprised',whereas the collocates to the right of it include que(却)‘but',pianpian(偏偏)‘of all things'and weishenme(为什么)‘why'.This suggests that mingming denotes the speaker's certainty about the truth of the information conveyed and that the speaker is questioning or refuting another piece of information that counters people's expectation of this information.From an evidential perspective,xianran is a narrowly defined evidential adverb that encodes the source of information.Meanwhile,mingming is a broadly defined evidential adverb,merely indicating the speaker's certainty about the truth of the information without encoding the source of it.To further elucidate the difference in the speaker's degree of certainty expressed by xianran and mingming,we have introduced conditional probability into the formal definitions.Xianran indicates speculation,hence the speaker's degree of certainty in the attached proposition p is less than his degree of certainty in directly asserting P,that is,the speaker's subjective probability for p(P(p))is close to 1 but less than 1.Xianran(p)suggests that relevant experiencers in general should increase their degree of certainty in p upon obtaining indirect evidence for p,that is,P(ple)should rise to a level close to 1.In contrast,mingming(p)indicates that relevant experiencers'degree of certainty in p shou

关 键 词：传信副词 言者确信度 条件概率 “显然” “明明” 

分 类 号：H146[语言文字—汉语]