On Multiple Metaphors of the Concept of Time in Pre-Qin Classics
From ancient times,Chinese people have been accustomed to expressing uneasily-depicted abstract concepts with concrete and universal things observed in daily life.For their limited cognitive ability,they tended to concretize the ab-stract concept of time by using spatial orientation and objective entities,gradually internalizing it into conscious cognition of time.This realization process is the result of using metaphor as a way of thinking.TIME Metaphor in Pre-Qin classics mainly includes the expression of the dynamic passage of time,as well as the description of static calendars,seasons,and solar terms,which form two root metaphors:"Timg is space"and"Time is entity".