A Study of the Trait of Temporality in isiZulu—By Contrasting and Comparing with Chinese and English
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摘要: 时间和空间是事物存在不可缺一的条件。作为交际和思维的工具,任何语言都具有时间性和空间性,但不同语言在时空性特质上往往表现出不同的特点,有些语言偏重于时间性表达,而有些则侧重于空间性表达。本文借用与汉语、英语的对比和比较,揭示祖鲁语侧重于时间性表达。首先,在祖鲁语中动词是构词和构句的基础和中心,动词性词根是基础,大量名词由动词派生而来,构句时各种语法意义均附着于动词,形成动词核心体。其次,时态是祖鲁语中非常重要的语法范畴,不但种类丰富,而且具有强制性。再次,祖鲁语中存在一类表示事件之间时间关系的助动词。这些语法特征都说明祖鲁语更侧重于时间性表达。Abstract: Both time and space are involved in all events.As the tool of communicating and thinking, human languages have temporality and spatiality.However, these two traits are different from language to language.While some languages are temporality-prominent, others are spatiality-prominent.By contrasting and comparing with Chinese and English, this paper examines the verb and tense in isiZulu.It shows that in isiZulu the verb plays a key role in word-formation, i.e.the verb stem is the basis, from which a large number of nouns are derived.Grammatical categories are normally attached to the verb in the syntactic structure.Besides, IsiZulu has a large number of tenses and aspects, which are syntactically compulsory.In addition, isiZulu has the so-called deficient verbs which play an important part in encoding the temporal relations of events.All of these traits can lead us to conclude that isiZulu is a temporality-prominent language.
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Key words:
- isiZulu /
- temporality /
- spatiality /
- verb /
- tense
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