傳統上，中文的非完整體標記『著』常被分析成一詞多義，具有動態進行或是靜態持續兩種時態意義。本文論證這種一詞多義的分析方式不僅證據本身無法令人信服，也無法解釋『著』的所有句法分佈。相反的，我們主張，不管語境為何，動態語意的『著』和靜態語意的『著』都表達同樣一個意思，而且受同樣的認可條件限制。簡單地說，『著』的認可條件就是『著』只能選擇無自然終結點的事件類型當補語，在語意上則表示『著』的參照時間必須和它所修飾的事件的顯著時相重疊。

The Chinese imperfective aspectual marker-zhe has traditionally been taken to be ambiguous between a dynamic progressive reading and a stative durative reading. This paper shows that this ambiguity hypothesis cannot account for the full distribution of - zhe and that arguments for it are not convincing. Instead, a single unifying licensing condition and temporal meaning for -zhe are provided. This paper proposes that the use of -zhe is legitimate if and only if the complement it select is an atelic situation and that a proposition of the from -zhe(Φ) true at a reference time t if and only if t overlaps with the distinguished phase corresponding to Φ.