本文主要究考英汉本族语者及中国高阶英语学习者时间状语从句语序分布的动因。研究发现：1)英语时间状语从句前置或后置于主句均可，但以后置为其语序主导性倾向；2)汉语时间状语从句以前置为其绝对优势语序；3)中国高阶英语学习者习得英语时，其时间状语从句的语序分布也明显呈现出前置倾向，偏离了英语目标语的语序主导性倾向，这不仅关涉表层的语言迁移和深层的概念化迁移，而更与其基底的思维模式迁移相关，其根源在于王文斌(2013a,2013b,2019)提出的关于英语民族的强时间性思维特质和汉语民族的强空间性思维特质差异。

The present study intends to look into the motivation of the ordering distributions of temporal adverbial clauses demonstrated by English native speakers牞 Chinese native speakers and advanced Chinese EFL learners. It is found that the distributions are strikingly different in English and Chinese. Three main findings are presented in the study as follows. Firstly, the English language is inclined to have their occurrence in the sentence-final position; secondly, the Chinese language is disposed to have their occurrence in the sentence-initial position; thirdly, advanced Chinese EFL learners prefer to place temporal adverbial clauses in the sentence-initial position, which deviates from the dominant English sentence construction. Such an acquisition behavior is not only relevant to language transfer on the surface, but also related to conceptualization transfer in the deep level, and it is much more underlyingly associated with thinking-mode transfer, with its root cause lying in the fundamental difference between the English preference for pro-temporality and the Chinese preference for pro-spatiality, which is observed by Wang Wenbin (2013a, 2013b, 2019).