英语现在完成体表示的状态和语用解释

现在完成体的意义涉及三个方面,即完成体辖域下的命题、当前存在的某种状态以及相关的语境因素.在语义层次上,英语现在完成体在话语中引入一个在现时之前发生的事态以及由这种事态产生、在现时存在的一种状态.这种状态的具体情况需要根据完成体辖域下的命题(即基础事态)和语境因素进行一定的语用推理才能得到,因此可能产生不同的解读.对完成体意义的语用推理的难易程度取决于语境因素参与的程度.在有些情况下,完成体辖域下的命题是产生当前某种状态的直接原因.而在其他情况下,这种因果关系并不明显,两者之间的关系是由语境暗示的.

The State Indicated by the English Present Perfect and its Pragmatic Interpretation

The meaning indicated by the English present perfect involves three aspects: the proposition under the scope of the perfect, a current state and contextual factors. This paper holds that semantically the English present perfect introduces to the discourse an eventuality that occurred before the present time and a current state evoked by the eventuality. The specificities of this state should be pragmatically inferred on the basis of the proposition under the scope of the perfect (i.e. base eventuality) and related contextual factors, and this may cause different interpretations. This paper also argues that the degree of difficulty in the interpretation of perfect meaning depends on the degree of the participation of contextual factors in the interpretation. In some cases, the proposition under the scope of the perfect is the direct cause of the current state. In other cases, there is no explicit causality relation, and the relationship between the proposition under the scope of the perfect and the current state is implicitly indicated by contextual factors.