事件回指与光杆事件句的时间解读

Anaphoric Reference to Events and Temporal Interpretation of Bare Eventive Sentences

光杆事件句不含任何时间副词或体貌助词,其时间解读如何推导而来,成为汉语时间语义研究中的一个难题。本文发现,光杆事件句的时间解读与语境密切相关,在恰当语境下,除了文献中提到的过去时解读,光杆事件句还能表达将来时解读。据此发现,论文提出一种基于事件回指的动态分析。这一分析认为,光杆事件句的谓语是一种有定动词短语,其事件变量具有熟悉性,需回指到语境中已有事件;同时,时间属性是事件的固有属性;最后,通过事件回指,光杆事件句的事件变量复制语境中已有事件的时间属性,光杆事件句因而获得时间解读。

Bare eventive sentences are devoid of temporal adverbials or aspectual particles,and thus,the mechanism of how their temporal interpretation is derived constitutes a puzzle in tense semantics in Chinese.This study finds that the temporal interpretation of bare eventive sentences is closely related to the context,and that,in addition to the past interpretation mentioned in the literature,bare eventive sentences can also exhibit future interpretation.Based on this novel observation,the study proposes a dynamic analysis which relies on anaphoric reference to events.According to this analysis,the predicates of bare eventive sentences are definite verb phrases whose event variables are associated with familiarity condition and need to refer to events in the context.Meanwhile,temporal properties are claimed to be inherent properties of events.Then through their anaphoric reference to events,event variables of bare eventive sentences copy the temporal properties of events in the context and give temporal interpretations to bare eventive sentences.