How do Chinese Antonymous Cognate Words Emerge? A Study From the Perspective of Metonymy and Metaphor

Abstract

“Dialectics” and “contradiction theory” from philosophy are almost the only theoretical resource that can be cited to explain the reason for the formation of Chinese antonymous cognate words. However, this paradigm does not come from the law of thinking, and therefore cannot display the dynamic process of the formation of the phenomenon fundamentally. Metonymy and metaphor could be applied as thinking mechanisms to reveal the rules of the generation of Chinese antonymous cognate words. Briefly, the mechanism of metonymy activates the fission of etymology; while the metaphorical mechanism makes the basic image schemas mapping between different conceptual domains to help this particular type of cognate words to multiply in quantity. Furthermore, the reasons for the formation of metonymic and metaphorical mechanisms are explored under the theoretical framework of “Embodied-cognitive” linguistics while emphasizing the influence of “cognitive-cultural” factors in forming this unique linguistic phenomenon.