本文針對明清閩南戲文中屬情感用語 (epithet) 的詈詞做初步探索。詈詞是說者對聽者主觀的憎惡的語言表現，這通常是語句所傳達的命題之外額外的主觀評價語意，反映對話者之間現場互動關係，詈詞的選用與對話者彼此的社會身份高低、情感的親疏有密切關係。詈詞常充當呼喚語 (vocative)，其主要特徵是不構成一般低層謂語所投射的論元 (Argument)，若以 Rizzi的功能範疇的階層說 (Rizzi 1997) 而言，功能範疇分三大階層 VP、TP、CP，詈詞反映交談者的情感互動，佔領比 CP階層中語勢 (force) 還高的結構位置。就語法功能而言，詈詞可分兩大類： (1) 名詞性詞組； (2) 謂語性詞組。前者可但不必然充當呼喚語，後者不可充當呼喚語，但可用來對聽者發抒情緒。兩者都可以促成交談者間感情上的親和力。總之，本文依據明清時期的閩南戲文（吳守禮 2001abcd、泉州地方戲曲研究社 2010）考察文本中詈語在上下文的語境中是如何的運作，並找出其中用法上的規律，從中推敲出交談者傳情系統的通則。

The paper is a preliminary study on swear words as a type of epithets in earlier Southern Min playscripts. Swear words are a linguistic manifestation of the speaker’s contempt toward the addressee, a subjective evaluative attitude beyond propositional meaning. It reflects the immediate interaction between interlocutors. The choice of swear words shows an intimate relationship between interlocutors with respect to their social status and intimate and distal emotional state. Swear words can often be used as vocatives and their main properties do not involve the projection of arguments by a predicate in VP. In terms of Rizzi’s hierarchy of functional categories (Rizzi 1997), there are three major layers of functional categories: VP, TP and CP. Swear words featuring the emotive interaction occupies a position higher than Force in the split CP. Swear words fall into two types in terms of their grammatical function: (1) nominal phrases, and (2) predicative phrases. The former can but need not be vocatives, whereas the latter cannot be vocatives, but can be used to express the speaker’s high emotional state with respect to the addressee. Both uses are conducive to the enhancement of solidarity between interlocutors in speech acts. In sum, the paper aims at exploring how swear words operate in contexts based on Southern Min playscripts of Ming and Qing periods (Wu 2001abcd, and Quanzhou 2010), ferret out the constraints of their uses and the principles underlying the interpersonal emotive communication.