earticle

영어

"zheng(正)", "zai(在)", "zhengzai(正在)", three of them are classified as temporal adverbs. they each have their own inherent time characteristics in the internal structure of a situation: "zheng" focuses on punctual time with simultaneity, "zai" focuses on durative time with continuity, "zhengzai" focuses on punctual time with simultaneity and durative time with continuity at the same time. Because of these differences in time characteristics, "zheng", "zai" and "zhengzai" have some different selection restrictions. These selection restrictions are summarized as follows: 1) Combing with verbs, "zai" and "zhengzai" should combine with continuous verbs, but cannot combine with non-continuous verbs, while "zheng" can combine with any verbs relatively freely. 2) Combining with the continuous adverbs and repeated adverbs, "zai" can combine with the continuous adverbs and repeated adverbs without any constraints, while "zheng" and "zhengzai" cannot combine with the continuous adverbs and repeated adverbs. 3) Combining with prepositions "cong(从)", they still have selection restrictions. In other words, "cong" indicates a point on a timeline, which is consistent with time characteristics of "zheng" and "zhengzai", while is not consistent with time characteristics of "zai". Therefore "zheng" and "zhengzai" only combine with "cong".