Abstract
Polysemy is a common phenomenon in all languages. Polysemy is the capacity for a sign to have multiple meanings, but can be a "semantic primitive" and "derived meanings". The semantic primitive is not equal to core meaning, and it represents a concept. In this paper, we will analyze the Chinese character "SHENG" from the perspective of metaphor. The semantic derivation of the semantic primitive has "a Concept Derivation Layer" and "a Property Projection Layer”. We propose that all the words have the same characteristic feature types with some explicit, and others implicit. Only those explicit characteristic feature types can be projected outwards, thereupon new meaning can be formed.
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Xiong, W., Zhao, L. (2013). Semantic Derivation Patterns of the Chinese Character “SHENG”—A Perspective from Metaphor. In: Ji, D., Xiao, G. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2012. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 7717. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36337-5_46
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-36337-5_46
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