关键词: 体, 现时相关, 时间距离, 时, ERS

Abstract:

Based on ERS tense-aspect theory, the research finds that both English and Chinese have particular grammatical forms to express present relevance to past and future events. Present relevance embodies tense but not aspect. Present relevance to tense appears to be covert. In the expression of present relevance to future events, English “be-structures” express present tense (“be” in present tense) and Chinese sentence-final time particle “le” indicates present tense and ingressive aspect. In simple sentences without other time words in Chinese, some modal words like “yao/kuai yao” express present tense while “hui/jiang hui/jiang yao” indicate future tense. In the expression of present relevance to past events, both English and Chinese have four kinds of tense-aspect allocations, namely, present tense + ingressive/progressive/experiential/perfect aspects. Objective/subjective time remoteness in both English and Chinese doesn't hold a relation with proximate/remote tense. That is to say, the past/future tense does not exhibit a proximate/remote distinction, thus arguing against “past tense is equal to remoteness”. That past tense may express subjunctive, euphemistic and polite modality can be attributed to the economy principle of grammatical markers.