試論與漢字相關的「言語錯誤」在漢語詞彙歷史演變中的作用

漢語歷史研究除了要揭示漢語在不同共時層面所表現出的各種變化，更要揭示導致變化的原因和總結變化的規律。然而，這並非易事。儘管古代文獻浩如煙海，卻因為用基本脫離口語的文言文寫成，其中很少或根本沒有記錄下變化的過程環節；生活在變化發生幾百年甚至上千年之後的我們，對當時的語言基本沒有自省的能力，無法瞭解這些變化究竟是如何發生的，以及它們的性質。 基於社會語言學「用現在解釋過去」的研究方法，作者嘗試觀察漢語在當今所發生的變異，發現這些變異的過程和原因，並與漢語在古代出現的種種變化進行比較。本文即是這種努力的初步成果。文章的結論是，使用者對語言固有成分在理解和使用上發生「言語錯誤」，是古今漢語詞彙演變的共同原因之一。而這些錯誤的發生，多與漢字有關。
Research on the history of the Chinese language needs to reveal not only the historical changes at different synchronic periods but also the underlying causes and rules. This is by no means an easy task as the historical changes of the Chinese language were rarely discussed in ancient documents currently available. Moreover, such ancient documents were largely written in wenyan wen, a classic written language of Ancient Chinese which shares a little features of spoken language. Consequently, it is almost impossible for us to understand the nature and processes of the historical changes of the Chinese language at different synchronic periods. Relying on “the use of the present to explain the past”, a principle widely employed in the field of sociolinguistics, this article examines the processes and causes of the contemporary variations of the Chinese language, which were further compared to the variations of Ancient Chinese. It argues that speech-mistake, including misinterpretation/misannotation and misuse, mostly relating to Chinese characters appears to be one of the major causes of the evolution of both Ancient and Modern Chinese vocabulary. Copyright © 2013 中央研究院語言學研究所.