A Cognitive Interpretation for Non-Past Uses of the Simple Past Tense

摘要

The non-typical uses of the simple past tense are rather popular and reflect people’s cognitive thinking. These usages are largely embodied in the counterfactual past, the indirect speech and the pragmatic softening. This research attempts to interpret these non-typical usages of the simple past tense employing the mental space theory. A cognitive interpretation of English simple past tense can better understand the cognitive mechanisms of counterfactual events.