英、法双语的动词时态对析

Comparison and Analysis of the Tenses in English and French

英、法双语的动词时态有很大差异,体现出两语族对动词观察角度的不同;双语在时态的分布和使用上也很少完全重合或一一对应,表明两语言民族在思维方式上的差异。然而这些差异的背后隐藏着某些共性,如都围绕着时间参照点的时态确定"先时性"、"同时性"和"后时性",等等。外语工作者的一项重要任务就是发掘和研究这些异同,为人类的语言和思维研究做出贡献。

There are great differences between English verb tenses and those of French. Generally, we have more detailed tenses and more progressive tenses in English, but in French, the verb tenses are more general and we use so rarely progressive tenses that we can say there are not progressive tenses in French. From these differences, we can see that the two nations watch a same verb on the time axis in different viewing angles. English nation is used to observe things from a section, from a side and more closely but French nation usually from some distance or more entirely. Besides, it is very difficult to find two identical tenses in two languages, most of them cross and contain each other. An these differences show that the two nations are different in mode of thinking. But behind these differences, we should observe some similarities in these two languages： for example, ＂anteriority simultaniety＂ and ＂posteriority＂ of the verbs decide the place of the verb compared with the reference verb ; the ＂present＂ include a part of the past and a part of the future ; the ＂past＂ tense can leave some leeway to make the listener accept something more easily etc. One of our important tasks is to find these differences and similarities and contribute to the studies of the ＂variety＂ and ＂universality＂ of the languages.