根據Su（2002）與Huang（2010）的「說」的語法化路徑，「說」的
語法化路徑為：動詞句補詞標（complementizer）語法標記（pragmatic marker），「如果說」是上承「想要說」經由類推( analogy)機制演變而來，至此「說」的原始功能已語法化，不具動詞言說義，而是成為句補詞標。
Su (2005)認為說話者對當時語境的主觀認定常常是語意處理的重要依歸，本文發現，說話者傾向使用「如果說」來表現言談功能。在理論架構上，本文主要採取Sweetser（1990）的語言三域，以沈家煊（2003）、和李晉霞、劉云（2009）的理論為輔，合併為三個框架：「因果域」、「認知域」、「語用域」，「語用域」之下分為「語言行為域」、「隱喻推理域」和「後設語言域」，並且加入「傳信範疇」和「主觀化」加以討論「如果說」的「說」承載的功能。本文要討論的是語言結構反映出人類在自然語境中溝通的需要，因此我們的研究方法是比較「如果」與「如果說」在口語語料和書面語料中的使用傾向。
口語語料結果發現，「如果說」傾向認知域，根據傳信範疇(evidentiality)，這與說話者會採用「如果說」來表現自己對訊息來源的不確定，為一種弱信任態度有關。另外，書面語料結果發現，「如果說」在普遍使用在「隱喻推理域」上，這已經成為固定用法，可視為「如果說」的「詞彙化(lexicalization)」。「後設語言域」中，後分句對前分句的評價傾向負面評價，因此我們推斷，「如果說」吸收了「說」語法化後期過程的「反預期」語用功能，蘊含「半-反預期」語用功能。
根據原型理論（prototype theroy），來看「說」的語法化現象，「說」的核心語意為言說義，越往外擴張的語義便離核心語義越遠，但是邊緣的詞，還是依附於中心詞，故「如果說」已位於「說」語法化路徑末端，藉由「如果說」句式的還原，我們發現「如果說」的「說」其原始核心語義是來自「言說義」，經由不同的語法化機制，「說」的言說義漸虛，做為言談功能詞義漸重。

According to the grammaticalization paths of “shuo” , there are two paths(Su, 2002；Huang, 2010).Path one is: verb complementizer .Path two is: verb reportative marker pragmatic marker.”Ruguoshuo” is on path 1 from「want (xiangyaoshuo)」.The content meaning of “shuo” has bleached and became a complementizer.
Our semantic categorization of “ruguoshuo” is based on Sweetser’s (1990) classification of conditionals.There are three domains in the categorization: causal domain,epistemic domain and pragmatic domain.Su (2005) thinks the various uses of conditionals reflect that newly-recruited meaning may be related to the prototypical meaning when the speaker’s subjective evaluation on the current speech context comes into play.The results of all the data we collected show that the speaker usually use ”ruguoshuo” to express the pragmatic meanings.”Shuo” has come to have reportative function and can also be a pragmatic marker expressing such meanings as evidentiality , subjectative and quasi counter-expectation.In our investigation , it also shows that ”ruguoshuo” is a conventional usage in metaphorical inference domain which belongs to pragmatic domain.The high frequencies means that ”ruguoshuo” is a lexicalized word in metaphorical inference domain.
The grammaticalization paths of “ruguoshuo” is similar to “shuo”.According to Rosch (1973)’s prototype theory, the meaning of a lexical form is based on a single concept formation or whether it involves multiple concept formation, which entails a cognition process.”Shuo” in “ruguoshuo” come from the content meaning-to say and grammaticalizated into a functional complemetizer. Sometimes “ruguo” can be omitted and sometimes “shuo” can be omitted.

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資料庫和網路資源
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中文詞彙特性素描系統
http://wordsketch.ling.sinica.edu.tw/

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