Exploring the Temporal Expressions in Chinese from the Linguistics Perspectives
Abstract
Chinese offers an intriguing linguistic terrain for temporal expressions that is vastly distinct from many Indo-European languages, which use verb conjugation structures for this purpose. This paper delves deep into China's nuanced temporal nuances, exploring their implications on time delineation using uninflected verbs. Focusing on contextual clues, adverbs, particles and sentence structure we observe the interaction among these components that ensure clarity and precision when conveying temporal information. Notably, temporal adverbs such as "Gang Gang" and "Gang Cai", when used with aspect markers, create layers of temporal ambiguity which underline how language's inherent flexibility relies on shared contextual understanding. By conducting a comprehensive analysis of Chinese temporal expressions, this paper highlights the adaptability of languages, as well as their mutually reinforcing relationship between grammar and pragmatics, and culture and cognition in communicating time's complexity.
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