The Word-building System Of "Ri" In Chinese From The Perspective Of Metaphor

The concept of“ri”(?“sun”)owns a multi-dimensional semantic system in the Chinese language.It has found its way into all major components of the Chinese language: its writing system,its morphology,its semantics and its syntax.The result is the “ri” word family mentioned in this thesis.It is the ri that our ancestors depend on to live a life,which absolutely contributes to its substantial role in Chinese culture.So a large amount of people tend to analyse and delineate things by capturing the characteristics of the “ri”.The group of words with the same category symbol of“ri”can be divided into three types: the words with “ ri ” radical,the compound involving the word “ri” and the idioms with the word “ri”.In the thesis,a large amount of data about “ri” from a variety of Chinese dictionaries and online Chinese corpus has been analysed to explore the Chinese word-family of “ri”.Sorting the words with“ri”radical,the compounds involving around the word “ri” and the idioms with the word “ri”,the thesis has found three types of cognitive metaphorical relationship.The words with “ri”radical bear metaphorical relationship with light,time,and weather;the compounds involving around the word “ri” have something to do with the features and function of the ri.Besides,the idioms with the word“ri”are related to the motion of the ri,the heat and the light generated by it from the perspective of cognitive metaphor.Meanwhile,the traditional Chinese culture and the metaphorical features in human's mind presented by “ri”are revealed.