【作者】 楚会锋；

【导师】 沈莹；

【作者基本信息】 广西大学 ， 外国语言学及应用语言学， 2013， 硕士

【摘要】 作为不可或缺的语法项目,英语时态研究历来都是语言学家和语法学家关注的热点,而当前的英语时态研究主要有传统研究和认知研究两种范式。传统语言学家认为,时态是表示“时间区别的动词语法范畴”(比尼科,1991),而且,时态和时间之间还存在着一对一的对应关系,即一般现在时表示现在的事件,一般过去时表示过去的事件。然而,由于研究者对英语时间和时态之间关系的理解不同,英语时间和时态之间关系的“错位”就会随之产生。换而言之,除表示现在发生的事件或者存在的状态外,一般现在时还可以表示过去或者将来要发生的事件,一般过去时也出现了类似的情况。虽然传统研究范式多强调语言的规定性和描述性,但其解释性相对不足；而认知研究范式因其致力于语言研究的描述性和解释性,具有更为广阔的发展前景,并已取得一定研究成果。然而业界对该领域研究时间尚短,因此相关成果只是凤毛麟角,鉴于此作者试图采用认知研究范式,对英语的一般现在时态进行全面而又系统的分析,以期充实该领域的研究。根据认知语言学的原型范畴理论,同时结合英语一般现在时的5种用法,作者发现：首先,英语一般现在时的这5种用法构成了一个意义相互交叉的多义范畴；其次,一般现在时的瞬间用法是英语一般现在时这一范畴的典型成员,状态用法和习惯用法则是一般现在时中比较典型的成员,而现在时表示过去的用法和表示将来的用法是不太典型的成员,或者说是边缘性的成员。同时强调：现联性就是一般现在时这一范畴的家族相似性,也正是通过现联性,一般现在时这5种用法都与现在时间有着直接或者间接的联系,即时间层面上的联系和心理层面上的联系；最后,在解释一定的语境中我们选择一般现在时的原因时,作者尝试选用主观性这一概念,旨在阐明：说话人或者笔者的心理在一般现在时的非现在用法中起着不可替代的作用。另外,通过大量经典权威教材的实例分析,作者可以得出如下结论：现联性作为一般现在时这一范畴的家族相似性,把一般现在时的各种用法有机地联系起来,这样就有利于减轻语言学习者们的理解负担和记忆负担,以期在理论和实践层面上,验证认知语言学的普遍性和原形范畴理论的合理性,从而为中学英语语法教学提供借鉴。而且作者还可以证明：原型范畴理论在分析英语一般现在时的实践中,具有相当的灵活性和可操作性。最后作者坚信,今后从事语言研究的学者们,继续坚持认知语言学的研究范式,适当运用语料库之类的研究方法,他们的研究将会在更大程度上再现语言的本质。更多还原

【Abstract】 English Tense, an indispensable part in grammar, has become one of the highlight subjects studied by many linguists and grammarians, and the contemporary English tense studies are conducted mainly through the traditional approach and the cognitive approach. Traditionally, tense is accounted for as "a grammatical category for expressing time distinctions"(Binnick,1991) and there is a one-to-one correspondence between tense and time:the present tense indicating the present events/states and the past tense showing the past events/states. However, owing to the different understanding of the relationship between time and tense in English tense category, the "mismatching" occurs naturally. To put in more concretely, apart from the present uses, the English simple present tense can also refer to events/state that happened in the past or will happen in the future. The similar case goes with the past tense. Although it puts much emphasis on the prescriptiveness and descriptiveness of the language, the traditional approach is relatively weak in its explanatory power; on the other hand, because the cognitive approach attaches great importance to the descriptiveness and explanatory power in the language study, this approach enjoys profound prospect and has achieved some success in relevant research. However, it is just at the starting phase for the research circles to conduct the cognitive research, so the achievements in cognitive fields are becoming relatively rare. Therefore, by making use of the cognitive approach, the author will make a thorough and systematic analysis of the English simple present tense so as to substantiate the further research in this field,On the basis of the prototype theory of categorization and the five uses of the present tense, the author obtains the following findings:the five uses in the English simple present tense, first and foremost, constitute a polysemous category with interacting and overlapping members; then, the instantaneous use of the present tense is the prototypical member in the present tense category; the state use and the habitual use of the present tense are the good members of this category. As for the past use of the present tense and the future use of the present tense, these two uses fall into the bad examples or marginal/peripheral examples of this category. The other key point the author must put an emphasis on is that the present connectiveness is the family resemblance of this category. It is through the present connectiveness that the above five uses of the present tense have direct or indirect association with the present time, temporally or psychologically. Last but not least, in accounting for why the present tense rather than other tenses is used, the author adopts the concept of subjectivity aimed to illustrate that the human’s psychology plays an indispensable role in the non-present use of the present tense. Furthermore, the author arrives at the conclusions as follows:the present connectiveness as the family resemblance combines the above five uses into the present tense category, thus greatly reducing the learners’ burdens in comprehension and memory with the hope of validating the universality of cognitive linguistics and the rationality of the prototype theory theoretically and practically. In all, this finding can serve as one of key reference sources to the grammar teaching in middle school. Moreover, the author can verify plausibly the flexibility and workability of the application of the prototype theory to the English simple present tense. Lastly, the author is fully confident that, as long as the future researchers conduct their studies using the cognitive approach with the combination of such methods as corpus-based empirical research in due course, their studies will reveal the nature of the language to a greater extent.更多还原