Time words are one of the most common words in Chinese. But a investigation among students who are learning Chinese in China shows that time words are little bit difficult to understand for its abstraction. Recently, one teacher of Chinese courses in China concluded some laws of time words in Chinese language.

The typical pragmatic function of noun is denotation. People use different nouns to denote different things. Things that typical nouns refer to are specific and three-dimensioned as well as occupy a certain space. The sense organs of human beings can feel the difference of things clearly. While time that time words represent don’t occupy space and can’t be seen or touched. That’s why the students of the Chinese courses in China felt that the time words are difficult to understand.

But the history of human is developing forward in time and the individual life is growing and fading in time as well. Time has quite important meaning for human and individual person. Human beings are feeling the pass of time at any time. If you are learning Chinese in China, you may have found that Chinese people usually compare the pass of time to that of water, for time has the same unboundedness with water as a whole. But time is quite important to human, so people use different time words to denote different time segments. This point will be not difficult for students of Chinese courses in China through this explanation.

According to the study of the teacher of the Chinese courses in China, the difference between time words and nouns is that time which most time words represent has an axial vector——a point of “quantity” on real time axis, which has placement.

When speaker is spreading the information about a certain thing as a topic, only by marking time can it become the proposition which connects reality and the listener can orientate on the real time axis so that information can be got. A communication example in the book of Chinese courses in China says that when listener hears something, such as “小王去北京了” or “小李要去北京”, he will often ask the opposite to provide the time when the thing occurs, “什么时候？” That is to say, unless the time when one thing happens can be got from context, the time location will be one of the necessary conditions that we receive information. Here the time refers to the time when the thing happens and one of the important factors that structure this thing. For this reason, time words are usually considered as the structure part of new information in sentences. Authors of the book also provide many other examples for the students of Chinese courses in China, which makes this function is easier to be understood.

The same pragmatic function of time words and nouns——denotation and to make time words strongly controversial; while the different part of time words and nouns——the placement on time axis and make time words become the structural part of new information as well. The teacher of the Chinese courses in China thinks that this is the foundation that time words of subject and adverbial modifier are different. We can compare:

(1) a. 问：明天做什么？ b. 问：我们做什么？

答：明天去北京。 答：我们去北京。

(2) a. 问：明天去北京吗？ b. 问：我们去北京吗？

答：不，明天去上海。 答：不，我们去上海。

“明天” in a certain context is the accordant comprehensive background knowledge of both sides. The example (1a) is a schedule, among which “明天” is topic, so is “我们” in (1b); question and answer are partly new information. In example 2, “明天” as topic is not in the negative range like “我们”. “明天” in both example 1 and 2 is topic. Seeing from sentence structure, it is the subject of topic.

The examples above are all picked from the book of the Chinese courses in China. In fact, Chinese courses in China also have many other books talk about this function of time words. You can find more functions from books.

The specific usage and function of time words need you to feel and conclude from real communications in daily life.