A Corpus-based Study On The Unmarked Tense Of English Material Processes

There is no doubt that Halliday, as the founder and master of systemic functional linguistics, has made great contributions to the development of both systemic functional linguistics and - linguistics in general. However, we know any linguistic theory is flawed in some way. Therefore, there comes the later improvement on theories from different perspectives. Some researchers, from different theoretical aspects, questioned and verified the hypothesis of the unmarked tense in material processes put forward by Halliday. Systemic functional linguistics maintains that the correctness and the explanatory power of a theory must be inspected in the actual language use. So this study sets out to explore the unmarked tense in material processes in terms of verb classes and genres / text types based on the corpus.This study adopts both quantitative and qualitative research methods. First, we collect the corresponding texts as research materials according to text classification. Then we code and label the material clauses in each text, which amounts to 1000 in each text types and to 5000 in all five text types. Then we code and label the material clauses according to Vendler's verb classification, and use corpus concordance tools AntConc to retrieve database and the Excel to do data processing. Last, we analyze and discuss research results, which are explained with the help of the theory of instantiation.It is found that both the verb classes and the text types may have a bearing on the choice of tense in material processes. The unmarked tense in material processes is not the'present in present',and it isn't an 'either this or that' issue. It manifests as a continuous phenomenon. Different verb classes and different text types have their own continua of the unmarked tenses.With respect to verb classes, the unmarked tense of material processes realized by activity verbs is a continuum with simple present tense and simple past tense at the unmarked end, and with future perfect tense at the marked end and other transitional tenses in the intermediate zone; the unmarked tense continua of the material processes realized by verbs of accomplishment, achievement and state are composed of simple past tense and simple present tense at the unmarked end, continuous tenses at the marked end and other transitional tenses in intermediate zone.With respect to text types, the unmarked tense continuum of material processes in narration adopts simple past tense as its unmarked tense, future tenses as the marked tense and other tenses in the intermediate zone; the unmarked tense continua of material processes in description and report are formed by simple present tense and simple past tense at the unmarked end, future perfect tense at the marked end and other tenses in the intermediate zone; the unmarked tense continua of material processes in exposition and argumentation take the simple present tense as their unmarked tense,future continuous tense and perfect continuous tenses as their marked tense and others as transitional tenses.Based on corpus and Halliday's material processes theory, this study does a in-depth analysis on the factors of affecting the unmarked tense of material process, and puts forward a more comprehensive and effective judgment standard of the unmarked tense of material process. This provides useful verification and complements for Halliday's hypothesis on the unmarked tense of material process, and also proves that the corpus-based research method is of great significance to the verification and improvement on linguistic theories.