A Study On The Benchmark,Reference And Syntactic Functions Of Temporal Words

Time is a kind of invisible object that can’t be smelt or touched. It is also one of the most familiar and closely related to people’s daily life. People on the understanding of time reflected in language, with temporal words. This dissertation takes the temporal words in modern Chinese as the research object, describes the temporal words from the semantic point. According to the categorization theory of cognitive linguistics, this dissertation classifies the present form of temporal words. The internal structure of temporal words can be divided according to the form and the meaning. In the form of points that is the native form of time representation to derive the performance aspect of time in the form of conversion. In the meaning of points that constitutes the benchmark of temporal words. The external reference of temporal words is made by a three-dimensional space’s metaphor. This three-dimensional space’s metaphor has two different ways. One kind of metaphor with "time" as the reference performance on timeline is the reference of temporal words. This part of the content in dissertation is introduced in detail. Based on the expression of time words, this dissertation describe the syntactic function of temporal words from the ontic image, reference location and quantitative measurement three parts.This dissertation is divided into seven parts:The first part is the introduction. In the introduction, this dissertation introduces the related research of temporal words and expressions, the relationship between the study and previous research, the research methods and data sources used in this thesis.The second part is the time and the temporal words. This part is divided into three smaller parts. The first small part explains the time from physics, philosophy and linguistics three disciplines. The second part combines with categorization theory to classify the time of presentation from the perspective of cognitive linguistics. The third part classifies the temporal words from the perspective of grammar, semantics and expression. This part also introduces the semantic features of temporal words.The third part is the benchmark of temporal words. This part is divided into two smaller parts. The first small part is the internal structure of temporal words. This part classifies the internal structure of time from the perspective of form and meaning. According to the Markedness Theory, this part introduces three kinds of markers. The second part is the benchmark of temporal words. According to the reasons of the time benchmark, the benchmark of temporal words is divided into astronomical phenomena rules benchmark, artificially specified benchmark, characters and events in the benchmark, daily experience benchmark and current time benchmark. According to the number of benchmark, the benchmark of temporal words is divided into single and composite benchmark.The fourth part is the reference of temporal words. This part is divided into three smaller parts. The first small part analyzes the difference and connection between reference and benchmark. In the second part, combined with the cognitive metaphor, the dissertation analysis the three-dimensional space how to become one dimensional linear space, spatial azimuth reference theory how to be the time reference. At the same time, two different ways of metaphor are introduced. The third part divides the types of time reference.The fifth part is the use of benchmark and reference to analyze several groups of time words.The sixth part is the syntactic function of temporal words. This part is based on the expression of temporal words, respectively from the ontological image, reference location and quantitative measurement analysis the syntactic function of temporal words.The seventh part is the conclusion. This part is a summary of the article. At the same time, it also points out the shortcomings of the article.These seven parts are summarized in three aspects, the internal structure of temporal words, the external reference of temporal words and the syntactic function of time words. Based on these three aspects of the specific introduction and research, we draw the following three conclusions:Firstly, time benchmark is the embodiment of the internal structure of temporal words, is also consistent with the analysis of temporal words from the semantic point of view. This paper uses the analysis time from the angle of semantics, but also gives the semantic standard of judging temporal words. Classification for time benchmark, daily experience benchmark is an innovation in this paper. This innovation is mainly reflected in the recent popular in the community, and gradually developed into a trend and a fixed time corresponding to the holiday activities, as a benchmark for daily experience. The examples in this article are frequently appeared in recent years, and they have been used and accepted by people.Secondly, the time reference is the space direction reference from the three-dimensional space to the linear space, from linear space to linear time metaphor. Although space and time are not exactly the same in the process of metaphor, the spatial orientation of reference is also retained in time. Under the guidance of the theory of metaphor, with the help of the rectangular coordinate system and the polar coordinate system, the article will refer to the spatial orientation to the time axis. The "up and down, left and right, front and back," or "up and down, east and west, north and south" of the three-dimensional space become the "before and after" in the linear space. Linear space with a starting point and an end point becomes into linear time, which only has "before and after" and has no a starting point and an end point. This is the innovation of this article.Thirdly, from the time benchmark and time reference, we can obtain that the temporal words have the function of reference location and measurement. Time itself is a metaphor of space. This metaphor is a process of image. In other words, the image schema is more clearly explained the principle of metaphor. Therefore, the temporal words themselves have the function of image. The syntactic function of temporal words is based on the expression of temporal words. Different expression function, the temporal words can act as the syntactic composition is not the same, the other components of the sentence is not the same requirements. The syntactic function of temporal words ontic image is the innovation of this article.This dissertation from the temporal words of the internal structure analysis, to an introduction the external reference of time words, according to the idea from semantic to syntactic, finally achieve under the function of different expression temporal words act as the objective which component in the sentence.