英语词的意义与用法

在我们学习英语的过程中，*初接触和学习suggest这个词，是它表示“建议”的意思（propose（a theory，plan，etc.）POD）.这也是词典通常给出的suggest的**个义项（POD，OALD6，Collins COBUILD）。而“建议”一般是针对未来的事情，是针对没有发生的事情。而在上面的故事当中，suggest后面的三个句子（语法上叫作宾语从句），一个是现在进行时，两个是一般过去时。　　对于这个例子里suggest的用法，《柯林斯COBUILD英语词典》（Collins COBUILD）有个解释：If you suggest that something IS the case，you say something which you believe is the case.它提供的例句如下：　　I'm not suggesting that is what is happening.　　It is wrong to suggest that there are easy alternatives.　　Their success is conditional， I suggest， on this restriction.　　语境可以给我们许多帮助，但语境的作用不一定是万能的。实际上，面对多义词，即便英语是母语的人，也会犯错误。莫尔顿（William G.Moulton，1914—2000）是一位语言学者，①美国普林斯顿大学日耳曼语言文学教授，他在讲课的时候喜欢穿插奇闻轶事。他的学生霍尔（Jack Hall）曾经回忆莫尔顿在日耳曼语言学课上讲过的一个笑话（下画线是我加的）：　　In Germanic linguistics classes he liked to tell a supposedly true funny story about an older Germanic linguist， I've forgotten who， but I think somebody he studied under at Yale. This was during WWII days. Some official at Yale said to him：'Somebody said English is just a German dialect. Is that true？'（Implication being it would be unpatriotic to consider English a German dialect.） The professor replied： “Oh， no， it's not a German dialect， it's a low German dialect.” I think Moulton said the man was fired on the spot， but it got a good laugh from us students. （Mark L. Louden， William G. Moulton， 2008：167）.　　……