Structure

结构

In its most general sense, and especially as defined by structuralist studies of human institutions and behaviour, the term applies to the main abstract characteristic of a semiotic system. A language, for example, is a structure, in the sense that it is a network of interrelated units, the meaning of the parts being specifiable only with reference to the whole. More specifically, the term is used to refer to an isolatable section of this total network, as in the discussion of the structure of a particular grammatical area.

However, this application of the term to paradigmatic relationships is not as widespread as the syntagmatic conception of ‘structure’. Here a particular sequential pattern of linguistic elements is referred to as ‘a structure’, definable with reference to one of the various ‘structural levels’ recognized in a theory, e.g. ‘phonological structure’, ‘syntactic structure’, ‘morphological structure’, ‘semantic structure’. The set of items which contrast at a particular ‘place’ in a structure is then referred to as a system. This is the way in which the term is used in Hallidayan linguistics, for example, where it has a special status, as the name of one of the four major categories recognized by the theory: the category of ‘structure’ accounts for the ways in which an occurrence of one syntactic unit can be made up out of occurrences of the unit below it. In this sense, the morpheme has no structure, being the minimal unit in grammar.

按其最一般的涵义，特别是按人类制度和行为的结构主义学说的定义，“结构”是指一个符号系统的主要抽象特征。例如，语言是一个结构，其涵义是语言是互相关联的单位组成的一个网络，各部分的意义只有参照整体才能确定。较具体的“结构”是指整个这样的网络中可分离的一部分，如讨论某一语法领域的结构。

但是，这种聚合关系涵义上的“结构”使用的广泛性不仅指组合关系的“结构”；后者是语言成分的某一特定序列型式，可参照相关理论区分的各个“结构平面”之一来定义，例如有“音系结构”、“句法结构”、“形态结构”、“语义结构”等。一个结构内某一“位置”上一组语项的对立于是称作系统，例如韩礼德式语言学就是这样使用“系统”一语的，那儿“结构”有特殊的地位，是那种理论分出的四大范畴之一：结构这个范畴说明一个结构单位的现次如何由低一层次的单位现次组成。按这种涵义，语素没有结构，因为语法是最小的单位。