虚拟语气 | 经济学人约翰逊语言专栏
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Far be it from the English to use the subjunctive
虚拟语气的流行可不是英国人掀起的。
A venerable grammatical nuance crossed the Atlantic and came back again
一项古老的语法细则穿越大西洋重返故土
It is oftenbemoaned in Britain that English is going to pieces—and Americans are generally to blame. Whether you call it decline or not, the moaners are on to something: America has indeed produced many of the innovations that have made their way into global (and British) English, for better or worse.
在英国,人们常常为英语分崩离析而叹惋,而把美国当作罪魁祸首。无论是否将其称为英语的倒退,这些发出感慨的人都确实点明了一个事实:无论如何,美国确实对英语作了很多创新,这些新的语言表达还融入了全球(也包括英国)的英语交流当中。
Bucking that trend is an intricate feature of old-fashioned English grammar that has not only survived in America but made a comeback in Britain, thanks to the unwitting preservation efforts of the Americans: the subjunctive. British commentators seem flummoxed by the unusual situation of Americans being more conservative than the mother country in this aspect of grammar.
不过,与这些创新背道而驰的是,虚拟语气这一古老繁琐的英语语法实现了逆袭。美国人在无意间固守虚拟语气,使之不仅在美国得以传承,并且重返英国。在这一条英语语法上,美国居然比英国还要保守,这种不同寻常的态度让英国评论家困惑不已。
The subjunctive in question is the present one, which can be distinguished by the lack of the usual -s on first- and third-person singular verbs, as in take instead of takes. (The subjunctive of to be is be.) Everyone knows a host of fixed phrases using it, even if they don’t realise they are subjunctives. Far be it from me. Heaven forbid. So be it. These are not declarations but a sort of wish, equivalent to May it be far from me. May heaven forbid. May it be so. Britain and America even have distinctive national refrains with a subjunctive: God save the queen and God bless America. These look a bit like imperatives, but they are not; the faithful do not order the creator of the universe around.
这里所说的虚拟语气是现在时的虚拟语气。在这种虚拟语气当中,第一人称和第三人称单数动词末尾不加s ,比如用 take 来取代 takes (to be 的虚拟语气是 be)。即使没有这个意识,但人们使用的很多固定短语当中都用到了虚拟语气,例如 “Far be it from me”(可不应该让我来), “Heaven forbid”(希望不要)以及 “So be it”(就这样吧)等等。这些短语并不是声明,也不是宣言,而是表达愿望,相当于“May it be far from me”“ May heaven forbid ” “ May it be so ”。甚至在英国和美国各自的特色惯用语中也使用了虚拟语气,比如“ God save the queen ”(上帝保佑女王)和“ God bless America ”(上帝保佑美利坚)。这几句话虽然看起来有点像命令语气,但其实不是,毕竟信徒可不会对上帝发号施令。
The transatlantic difference is that, in America, the subjunctive remained what linguists call “productive”, meaning that people use it in sentences never uttered before. Americans naturally write or say things like It is essential that every parent remain supportive or She suggested that he talk to someone else.
英美之间的差异在于,美式英语中的虚拟语气仍保留了语言学家所说的“创造性”,即人们会把虚拟语气应用到之前没有用过的句子当中。打个比方,美国人可以自然而然地写下或说出“It is essential that every parent remain supportive” 或者“She suggested that he talk to someone else. ” 这样的句子。
In Britain, the subjunctive had a very different 20th century. In 1906 the Fowler brothers, co-authors of “The King’s English”, a venerable usage guide, thought the subjunctive would not last another generation, a disappearance they approved of. But it did not disappear. An article in theObserver in 1936 referred to “the most remarkable phenomenon in modern American syntax, viz., the pedantic revival of the subjunctive”.
而在二十世纪的英国,虚拟语气的发展情况很不一样。1906年,福勒兄弟联合撰写了一本经典的英语用法大全《标准英语》,在书中他们认为虚拟语气不会延续到他们的下一代,并且认可虚拟语气的消失。但是,虚拟语气并没有消失。《观察家报》在1936年刊登了一篇文章,提到“在现代美国句法当中,最显著的现象就是迂腐的虚拟语气得到了复兴”。
By the middle of the century, revered usage writers in Britain such as Eric Partridge and Ernest Gowers were warning of the subjunctive as “a hallmark of officialese” which had “a formal, even pedantic air”. Another British commentator, Catherine Nesbitt, feared the return of the subjunctive was “now spreading so rapidly that, if left unchecked, it will do real damage to the structure of the language”. By the end of the 20th century it was firmly associated with Americans who, wrote Kingsley Amis, a novelist, “often indulge in subjunctive forms”.
二十世纪中叶,埃里克·帕特里奇(Eric Partridge)、欧内斯特•高尔斯(Ernest Gowers)等名声在外的英国英语文法家警告称虚拟语气是“官样文章的标志,有一种正式到迂腐的腔调”。另一位英国评论员凯瑟琳·内斯比特(Catherine Nesbitt)担心虚拟语气的复兴“正以极快的速度扩散,如果不加以阻止,将会对英语结构造成实实在在的损害”。到了二十世纪末,大家都认为虚拟语气的复兴是美国人带起来的;正如小说家金斯利·埃米斯(Kingsley Amis)所言,美国人“时常沉迷于虚拟形式”。
What a strange fate. The subjunctive was common in the classic writings of the early-modern English period, particularly in the King James Bible—as in “hallowedbe thy name” or “before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice”. By the 1990s it was being treated by Amis and others as a vice a writer or speaker might “indulge” in. But such warnings were issued precisely because British scribblers were, in fact, indulging: use of the subjunctive increased markedly in the 20th century in Britain.
真是世事难料。虚拟语气在近代早期英语经典作品中很常见,在钦定版圣经中尤其如此,例如“hallowed be thy name”(愿人都尊你的名为圣)或 “before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice”(今夜鸡叫之前,你会三次不认我) 。但到了二十世纪九十年代,埃米斯等人已经把虚拟语气视作一种用英语写作或者说英语的人容易“沉迷其中”的不良习惯。之所以发出这一警告,也正是因为英国文字工作者的确沉迷于此:在二十世纪的英国,虚拟语气的使用率显著升高。
The case of an august part of old English grammar being regarded as a vulgar American import is an odd one. Writers of usage guides have tended to be a conservative lot. Typically, they look back to earlier stages of the language as a model, before recent corruptions.
把旧式英语中严肃正规的用法看作是来自美国的粗糙舶来品这一行为本身就很奇怪。英语文法书的作者往往比较保守,因为他们参考的是以前的语言示例,还没有受到近期英语变体的影响。
Apparently nationalism is an even stronger force than conservatism. Americans in the early republic tried to distance their English from Britain’s. And for its part, Britain has more recently pushed away from American English, first as an empire that could afford to condescend to its former colonies, later as a medium-sized power that both admired and fretted about American might. Those worrying about the Americanisation of British English have a point. The British English alternative to the subjunctive—using “should”, as inIt is essential that every parent should remain supportive—has declined on the islands as the subjunctive has returned.
与保守主义相比,民族主义显然对英语发展的影响力更大。建国初期的美国人努力将他们的英语和英国人的英语区分开来;而最近,则换作英国人排斥美国英语。一开始,这种排斥是基于英国作为一个帝国对旧殖民地的藐视心态产生的;后来英国沦落为中等强国,对强大的美国感到既羡慕又不安,于是这种心态就反映到了排斥美国英语上。对英式英语美国化的担忧不无道理:英式英语中虚拟语气的替代用法是使用should,比如It is essential that every parent should remain supportive,但随着虚拟语气的复兴,这种英式英语的用法在逐渐减少。
But this “Americanism” was born in England, and was used by many of its greatest authors for centuries. If it had survived in Britain, while Americans had invented the “should” replacement, it is easy to imagine how the American innovation would be judged. That it went the other way, scrambling stereotypes, should make those who decry language change take a closer look at what they are really talking about.
然而,虚拟语气这种所谓的“美国英语”其实就诞生于英格兰,而且很多伟大的英国作家已经使用这种结构长达数世纪之久。如果虚拟语气在英国得以保留,而用“should”代替虚拟语气是美国人的发明,那英国人会怎么评价就可想而知了。然而现实正好相反,打破了人们的固有观念,这样也能让那些动辄批评语言变化的人好好看看他们到底批评的是什么。
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