A Research on the Semantic Mechanism on the English present perfect with a Special Respect to the Synchronic and Diachronic Environment of European Present Perfects.
| Project/Area Number |
15520313
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
English linguistics
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| Research Institution | Kyushu Institute of Technology |
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Principal Investigator |
GOTO Mariko Kyushu Institute of Technology, Faculty of Computer Science and Systems Engineering, Associate Professor, 情報工学部, 助教授 (20189773)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2003 – 2005
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2005)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,900,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,900,000)
Fiscal Year 2005: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 2004: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
Fiscal Year 2003: ¥700,000 (Direct Cost: ¥700,000)
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| Keywords | HAVE-Perfects / Perfect Participle / Tense-Aspect / Present Tense morpheme / Have or Possession / Immediacy / Imperfectivity / Speech-Act Situation / Auxiliary HAVE / the Present Tense morpheme / German Perfekt / the Speech Act / Aspectual Distinction / 時制の指示機能 / 古・中英語の完了形 / 完了形の使用文脈の特徴 / 結果構文 / 欧州諸言語の完了形 / アスペクト / 古・中独語の完了形 / 完了形のHAVE / 過去分詞の意味機能 / Reference Point / Current Relevance / 古英語の完了形 / 完了形の文脈の特徴 / 現在完了形と副詞句 / Temporal Profile |
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| Research Abstract |
The central claims of this report are 1) that the English present perfect is in the present tense, 2) that it profiles the speaker's intended present situation denoted by HAVE, elaborated by the participle, and 3) understanding the situation profiled by HAVE requires the recognition of discourse and the contextual factors in the speech act situation.
The present perfect is notorious for the difficult descriptive problems it poses. These problems ultimately have arisen from a failure to properly appreciate the relationship between the tense morpheme and the mechanism of the perfect construction itself. The first cause is the accepted picture that the present perfect describes a past event. One of the effects that leads us to this view is the typological fact that many European present perfect forms are known to express past events. The other is that the English tense has not been given an account satisfactory enough to explicate the nature of the tense morpheme attached to the present perfect. The second fundamental cause is the lack of sufficient awareness of the contextual factors crucially involving with use of the present perfect.
This research argues that the English present perfect can be considered to express a present situation because
(1)the English present perfect has been outside the influence of the semantic change from present to past which occurred in the central Europe and (2)the tense morpheme attached to the construction functions to indicate that the content of the clause holds at the present time identified by the speaker. Second, it argues that once tense, have, the perfect participle and the interaction of these are properly elucidated, the above characterization proves remarkably adequate in accounting for its usage.
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Report
(4 results)
Research Products
(24 results)
