A Cognitive Study of the Tendency of Daytime Word-Formation from the Perspective of Lexical Typology
This paper investigates the word-formation tendency and cognitive motivation of the time words"morning","noon"and"afternoon"in 52 modern languages of 9 language families and ancient Chinese from the perspective of lexical typology.The research shows that:1)Languages of low latitude areas prefer words of"morning"and"afternoon"formed independently,while languages of middle and high latitude areas incline to form morning and afternoon based on"noon";2)The SPSS correlation analysis shows that there is a strong correlation between latitudes and the prominence of"noon"of all latitudes in word-formation,and that the critical point between the low latitude and the mid-high latitude is the inflection point of the prominence of noon;3)"Morning"shows more independence than"afternoon"and the connection between"afternoon"and"noon"is stronger than that between"morning"and"noon";4)Two patterns of the space-time metaphor exist in the word-formation of daytime periods:the static existence and the dynamic course.8 types of daytime word-formations are identified.Based on the development process of daytime period words in ancient Chinese,the economy principle of language and the gradualness of time cognition,two possible development paths of morning-afternoon and noon are proposed.
NETL
NSTL
万方数据
