从认知的角度看英汉时制系统及其表达差异

在讨论语言的时制系统之前，我们有必要先明确一下什么是时制。时制指的是句子表达的事件(event)所发生的时间，表现为该时间同一个参照时间点在时轴上的相对位置。毫无疑问，英语中存在着一个完备的时制系统，那么汉语中的情况如何呢?很多人认为，汉语中没有时制。“汉语中没有时制”蕴涵着两个可选命题：(1)汉民族没有时间概念。(2)汉民族有时间概念，但汉语不能表达事件发生的时间。

There is a tense system in Chinese, but it is very different from that of English. The difference is due to adopting different cognitive methods of time by these two languages. In addition, there are some obvious differences between Chinese and English when they express their tense systems. These differences are mainly decided by two factors: one is the difference between the Chinese tense system and the English tense system; the other is that Chinese and English are different language types.