英语动词过去时的非过去时意义的理据和语用推理

The Motivation and Pragmatic Inferences of Non-past-tense Meaning of the English Past Tense

英语动词过去时除表达事件或状态发生在过去的某一具体时间这一典型意义之外,还具有表示现在时间或将来时间等非过去时间的非典型意义,即假设性和表态性。根据概念隐喻的理论,过去时隐含的距离隐喻是其非典型意义的概念隐喻。距离隐喻导致的语言间接性是形成虚拟和礼貌用语的认知理据。

The English past tense has a prototype time point of the past. In addition, it also contains the meaning that something or a state happens in a specific non-past-tense usage which is of non-prototype, such as the present tense and the future tense, which is called hypothetical past and attitudinal past. According to the conceptual metaphor , distance is the conceptual metaphor of the non-past-tense meaning. Distance produces indirectness of using language, which is the motivation of the subjunctive and politeness.