Register Differences Between Zai and Dang: A Discussion of Register Properties in Terms of Spatiotemporality

From the spatio-temporal perspective, this article compares the register differences between dang and zai, and comes up with the following findings. Firstly, zai is spatio-temporally concrete; while dang-realis lacks the concrete spatio-temporal characteristics, dang-irrealis bears spatiotemporal-free attributes. Secondly, the difference of dang and zai in spatiotemporal characteristics comes from the nature of themselves, in that zai expresses an absolute time or space, with dang expressing a non-current time. Thirdly, spatio-temporal differences predetermine the register differences between these two words: zai is typical of informal Chinese, dang-realis of formal written Chinese, and dang-irrealis of literary use. Finally, it is pointed out that both spatio-temporal characteristics and register functions are licensed by specific syntactic positions. Adapted from the source document