钱军(1961—),北京大学英语语言文学系教授。主要研究方向为英语语言,语言学史。专著包括《结构功能语言学——布拉格学派》(1998),《句法语义学——关系与视点》(2001,英文本。1996—1997年,哈佛大学语言学系访问学者(Harvard-Yenching Institute Scholarship)。2007—2008年,耶鲁大学语言学系访问学者(Fulbright Visiting Research Scholar)。2009年,获捷克共和国Jan Masaryk奖章和奖状。其2008年于我馆出版的《英语词的构成与搭配》成为北京大学、中央民族大学、人民大学等高校英语专业教材。2012年于我馆出版编译的《雅柯布森文集》收入“西方语言学名家译丛”。
在我们学习英语的过程中,初接触和学习suggest这个词,是它表示“建议”的意思(propose(a theory,plan,etc.)POD).这也是词典通常给出的suggest的个义项(POD,OALD6,Collins COBUILD)。而“建议”一般是针对未来的事情,是针对没有发生的事情。而在上面的故事当中,suggest后面的三个句子(语法上叫作宾语从句),一个是现在进行时,两个是一般过去时。
对于这个例子里suggest的用法,《柯林斯COBUILD英语词典》(Collins COBUILD)有个解释:If you suggest that something IS the case,you say something which you believe is the case.它提供的例句如下:
I‘m not suggesting that is what is happening.
It is wrong to suggest that there are easy alternatives.
Their success is conditional, I suggest, on this restriction.
语境可以给我们许多帮助,但语境的作用不一定是的。实际上,面对多义词,即便英语是母语的人,也会犯错误。莫尔顿(William G.Moulton,1914—2000)是一位语言学者,①美国普林斯顿大学日耳曼语言文学教授,他在讲课的时候喜欢穿插奇闻轶事。他的学生霍尔(Jack Hall)曾经回忆莫尔顿在日耳曼语言学课上讲过的一个笑话(下画线是我加的):
In Germanic linguistics classes he liked to tell a supposedly true funny story about an older Germanic linguist, I’ve forgotten who, but I think somebody he studied under at Yale. This was during WWII days. Some official at Yale said to him:‘Somebody said English is just a German dialect. Is that true?’(Implication being it would be unpatriotic to consider English a German dialect.) The professor replied: “Oh, no, it‘s not a German dialect, it’s a low German dialect.” I think Moulton said the man was fired on the spot, but it got a good laugh from us students. (Mark L. Louden, William G. Moulton, 2008:167).
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