Property Sentences From Panchronic Perspective

In natural language,there are many mismatches between forms and meanings and many phenomena that do not conform to traditional grammar,among which property sentences are typical examples.These paradoxical sentences have always been a hot topic for linguists.Language is established through prolonged social practice,so it is not only a description of the objective world,but a combination of the subjective and the objective.Therefore,the effective explanation of these phenomena should not be achieved by formal logic alone,but must be obtained with the help of human cognition.This thesis holds that panchronic view,this long neglected linguistic view,can help explain the psychological process of language users in understanding and producing property sentences.The concept of "panchronic" was first proposed by Saussure,which is independent of the synchronic and the diachronic.When we say that a proposition is panchronic or panchronicalized,it means that this proposition is not limited by time and can make sense in the past,now,and in the future.In fact,panchronicalization is de-temporalization,so panchronic is usually embodied in the usage of the simple present tense.Middle construction sentences,generic sentences and nominal predicate sentences are typical property sentences,and usually use the simple present tense.Therefore,this thesis aims to apply the theory of panchronicalization to study property sentences represented by the three types of sentences.Chapter three to five analyze each sentence respectively.First,the author compares the syntactic and semantic features of property sentences with those of event sentences and finds out that the three types of sentences all have a similar property meaning-"state" meaning.The author continues to explore the formation of property meaning:from panchronic view,the three kinds of sentences have been panchronicalized.Without the restriction of time,property sentences still make sense so they get property meaning.In addition,this thesis tries to make hypothesis about the formation of the three types of sentences and accidentally answers several questions frequently discussed.Middle construction sentences can use active voice to express passive meaning is because the panchronicalization weakens the transitivity of middle verb,so it loses the ability to assign case and as a result,the logical object moves into the position of subject.Generic sentences have the "gen" meaning,which are statement of the general state of a "class" of things,so it allows counter-example to be inconsistent with the statement.The nominal predicate is actually the panchronicalized verb naturally with predicative function,so it can serve as the predicate.From the perspective of cognition,this thesis provides sufficient evidence for the formation of the three types of property sentences and their property meanings,and also proves the explanatory power of panchronic view,which opens the way for further study of panchronic linguistics in the future.