A Study On The Construction Of Schematic Semantic Representation Continuum For English Anterior Tenses And Aspects Category

The tenses and aspects of language reflect the human perception of time in the real world.In English,tenses provide the grammatical marking of time relative to the time of speaking,while aspects specify the matter of viewing in the time structure.In the world where humans live,both bounded objects and unbounded substance exist in space.Moreover,the movement of objects and substances takes time,which makes the characterization of events have distinct time attributes.The time axis is an effective way to locate an action.This paper mainly analyzes the construction of schematic semantic representation for English anterior tenses and aspects.Research on English tenses and aspects spans a long history,during which many distinguished grammarians have studied this language form.Among these scholars,Smith,Reichenbach,Quirk,and Lyons are representatives.Traditionally,scholars generally emphasize forms and ignore people's cognitive habits.With the development of linguistic research,cognitive linguistics represented by Langacker and Taylor has gradually become the mainstream of language schools in the new era.Distinguishing from traditional linguistics,cognitive linguists deem that the interpretation of language forms and grammatical rules must consider human cognitive operations.Inspired by previous research,this paper attempts to construct the schematic semantic representation continuum of the English anterior tenses and aspects category by using schema theory,categorization and construal operations in cognitive linguistics.Taking the present time as the reference point,this paper manages to construct the continuum from four dimensions: situations concerning the present viewed from the present viewpoint,anterior situations viewed from the present viewpoint,anterior situations viewed from the past viewpoint,and anterior situations viewed from the future viewpoint.From the above four viewpoints,this paper classifies the English anterior tenses and aspects category and construes the corresponding schema with specific examples.Meanwhile,this paper focuses on the construction of each temporal schema representation,the analysis of the differences in four categories,as well as the semantic differences between typical and atypical members.In this way,the semanticrepresentation continuum is constructed under the theoretical framework of cognitive grammar.In the construction of the continuum,the findings of this study can be summarized as follows:Firstly,the English anterior tenses and aspects category includes present perfect,simple past,past perfect and future perfect,which are different and similar in expressions.It is imperative to define and divide the categories.This paper transforms the abstracted syntactic and semantic statements into concrete expressions,which are easy for learners to understand and memorize.Secondly,given the difficulty in understanding the traditional grammatical classification methods,this study utilizes the form of schema representation in cognitive linguistics to describe the uniqueness of the four types of English anterior tenses and aspects category.Compared with previous theoretical input teaching,the semantic continuum is more intuitive and systematic.Thirdly,the author excavates the characteristics of typical and atypical members of English anterior tenses and aspects category.The prototype theory,viewing framework,mental space and other cognitive operations are adopted to adequately construe different semantics.Finally,four kinds of schematic semantic representations are obtained,which can be applied in practice and stand up to theoretical scrutiny.Fourthly,in the cognitive spaces of the material world,mental world and spatial-temporal world,this paper constructs the schematic semantic representation continuum of the English anterior tenses and aspects category.By converting the abstract tense-aspect grammatical categories into tangible schema representations,the relationship among reality,cognition and language in different time domains is established,thereby achieving the goal of accurate communication.In a word,based on previous tenses and aspects studies and cognitive linguistic theories,this paper aims to remove English learners' semantic confusion caused by the anterior tenses and aspects.The inconsistency and complexity between tense and time are the product of the cognitive synthesis of different mental spaces.More importantly,the effective combination of schematic semantic representation and cognitive theories can provide new ideas for the teaching of English anterior tenses and aspects.