A Cognitive Study Of The Polysemic Simple Present Tense

English tense system, as one of the main subjects, has always been studied by linguists and grammarians. Traditionally, tense has been defined as a verbal form for expressing time distinction, i.e. the present tense usually indicates the present events, while the past tense the past events. However, the simple present tense can also refer to the events/actions happened in the past or will happen in the future.According to cognitive linguistics, cognitive categories are made up of prototypes and non-prototypes. Family resemblance connects prototypes and non-prototypes together. In present thesis, the simple present tense is regarded as a polysemic category. The writer analyzes the general five uses of the simple present tense within the prototype theory to find out its family resemblance, i.e. its essence among its different uses. The writer also adopts subjectivity of the prototype theory to give a further explanation to the non-present use of the simple present tense.The current study aims to explore the essence of the simple present tense behind the grammatical structure through investigating the different uses in the polysemic category in details within theoretical framework of the prototype theory. Meanwhile, the subjectivity is adopted to explain the non-present use of the simple present tense. The typical examples are taken from English grammar books. In the category PRESENT TENSE, the state use is its prototypical member, while others are all its peripheral members. Subjectivity is a characteristic of language. The reason why language users choose certain type of tense is somehow determined by his/her emotions and opinions. Subjectivity can be regarded as an important factor to influence one's choice of the non-present uses of the simple present tense.