论过去时态的实质及其产生的理据

On the Essence of the Past Tense and Its Motivation

英语动词的过去时的实质是距离性,或表逆时针的时间距离,或表虚假意义的真实距离,或表客气委婉的心理距离。这是隐喻化的机制在起作用,是英语语言表达者将其原来认识两点间的距离的意向图式投射到事物或事件的真假域再投射到认知心理域的过程。

The essence of the past tense is remoteness,remote in time,remote in reality or in psychology.It is motivated by the mechanism of metaphor.It is a process that the concrete remoteness mapping into true-false domain,and then into psychological domain.On the other hand,we also discussed the past tense of the English verb from the pragmatic view.