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On the Meanings and Pragmatic Functions of Progressive Aspect Marker

Author: LiuYuHui
Tutor: WangGuiZhi
School: Harbin Institute of Technology
Course: Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Keywords: aspect progressive aspect meaning semantic essence pragmatic function
CLC: H314
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2009
Downloads: 29
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Abstract

The concept of aspect can be traced back to Slavic languages and refers to the grammatical category of verbs. The academic circle has done a large number of studies and researches on aspect. As a world language, English also draws a lot of attention in this area—there are also a lot of researches and discussions about the aspect system in English. Aspect in English is one of the four grammatical categories of verbs and it refers to the internal structure of the contextualized verbs.The progressive aspect is one of the subcategories of aspect in English and takes the construction of“Be+V-ing”as its marker. The marker of progressive aspect used in sentences or context can perform the following characteristics: (limited) duration, temporariness, incompleteness, etc.. However, the above basic properties of progressive aspect are far from fixed. The progressive aspect in different context can have different semantic elements, which not only depends on the grammatical form, but also greatly depends on the situation types of verbs. For example, when activity verbs are used in progressive form, it indicates the action in progress; when momentary verbs are used in progressive aspect, it implies the repetition of actions; etc.. With the development of English language, the progressive aspect in current English system has greatly expanded in its semantic denoting area. Besides the above mentioned characteristics that the progressive aspect performs, it can also indicate some other special semantic meanings or modal colors.In order to accurately and correctly understand and use the English progressive aspect in practice, this paper expanded the illustration of the meanings and pragmatic functions of the progressive aspect on the basis of the researches of some previous scholars such as Quirk. Through recalling and evaluating the previous studies and researches, this paper tries to make an all-embracing and profound analysis on progressive aspect’s polysemic characteristics and its semantic essence. Based on the polysemic properties of the progressive aspect, there comes up many pragmatic functions which this paper also develops on. The research on the semantics and pragmatic functions of progressive aspect has great practical significance for English uses. The final part of this paper develops the practical implications and significance from two perspectives, respectively (English-Chinese) translation and communication in English.

On the Meanings and Pragmatic Functions of Progressive Aspect Marker

Abstract

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