关键词: 的时候, 标记, 结构特征, 语义特征, 误用

Abstract: Basing on the study of spoken English data of 40 English prepositions in British National Corpus, this research has got the following conclusions: In the oral expression of English native speakers, the use of temporal meanings has taken small proportion of the overall use of English prepositions; English native speakers tend to use more period of time to express the temporal meanings; in most cases, the temporal meanings of prepositions which they use have got directions; native speakers tend to use more prepositions which have got temporal schema of ray; the temporal words which collocate with English prepositions are usually those words expressing short time within one day; in the meanwhile, these temporal words are mostly indirect temporal words; when expressing time, most of the English prepositions are used in past tense. By probing into the conclusions above, this research has dug out inner reasons for those conclusions. This research intends to arouse the vast majority of English practitioners' interest for temporal usage of English prepositions, make them deeply understand English temporal concept, and help reduce the obstacles to intercultural communication.