Two-part Allegorical Sayings Xie-hou-yu in Taiwanese Southern Min: A Cognitive Semantic Analysis

Abstract

歇後語是一種很有趣的口語文體，它由兩個部分組成，語意重心在第二部分，展現豐富的語意和音韻的運作歷程。它並非固定而無法再分析的結構，使用者只能靠死記來使用它；反之，歇後語本質上為我們人類認知的一部份。它展現多層的隱喻、代喻和人類知識架構等語意上的運作（參看Lakoff 1993，Kovecses and Radden 1998，Fillmore 1977等人之論著）。本論文旨在從認知語意學的觀點，探究台閩語歇後語的本質，重心在探究其最終語意的衍生歷程。我們修正Geeraerts (1995)針對成語的分類架構和Ruiz de Mendoza’s (2003)分析成語所使用的隱喻和代喻互動類別，來分析閩南語歇後語，得到在四大類別下，有二十二種語意衍生的種類、十二種變化和十二種次變化。分析的結果顯示，所有的歇後語之語意皆可衍生，且三層的衍生為最普遍的基型。此外，代喻在台閩歇後語很普遍，所有的類型皆有牽涉到代喻。與隱喻相較，代喻在台閩語歇後語語意的衍生上所佔的角色比隱喻重。

Two-part allegorical sayings Xie-hou-yu, colloquial expressions whose second parts bear the main semantic weight, exhibit rich semantic and phonological operations. They are not unanalyzed fixed structures memorized by the users; instead, two-part allegorical sayings are conceptual in nature, exhibiting multiple semantic operations among metaphor, metonymy, and knowledge frame (cf. Lakoff 1993, Kovecses and Radden 1998, Fillmore 1977, among others). This study aims to explore the nature of two-part allegorical sayings in Taiwanese Southern Min from cognitive semantics point of view, focusing on the derivations of the intended meaning. We modify Geeraerts` classification model (1995) and Ruiz de Mendoza’s (2003) model of interaction types in analyzing idioms to account for the data and find twenty-two types of derivation under four major categories with twelve variations and twelve subvariations. The result shows that all two-part allegorical sayings are motivated with three stages of derivation as the common schema. Furthermore, metonymy is very pervasive in two-part allegorical sayings in Taiwanese Southern Min where all of the four types involve metonymy. Comparing with metaphor, metonymy plays a much more important role in the meaning derivation of the two-part allegorical sayings.