Proceedings of the 2020 3rd International Conference on Humanities Education and Social Sciences (ICHESS 2020)

A Cognitive Approach to the Symmetry and Asymmetry in “Up/Down+X” Compounds

Authors
Ranran Ma, Weibin Li
Corresponding Author
Weibin Li
Available Online 16 December 2020.
DOI
10.2991/assehr.k.201214.664How to use a DOI?
Keywords
“Up/down+X” compounds, symmetry, asymmetry, cognitive semantics, coca corpus
Abstract

Symmetry and Asymmetry are two fascinating linguistic phenomena, especially within a pair of compounds with directional morphemes like “up+X” compounds and “down+X” compounds. This paper will systematically study the features of forms and meanings of top 100 frequently used “up+X” compounds and “down+X” compounds which are singled out from coca corpus and meanwhile probes deeper into the formation mechanisms of the characteristics of symmetry and asymmetry of them in terms of cognitive semantics. This study suggests that these 100 pairs of “up+X” compounds and “down+X” compounds represent three features in forms and meanings: full symmetry, partial symmetry, and full asymmetry. In addition, the roles of the directional morphemes up and down in these pairs of “up/down+X” compounds with full symmetry, partial symmetry and full asymmetry differ from each other. This paper concludes that cognitive strategies have an important function in these phenomena, and furthermore human’s embodied experience are equally essential to this features.

Copyright
© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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Volume Title
Proceedings of the 2020 3rd International Conference on Humanities Education and Social Sciences (ICHESS 2020)
Series
Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research
Publication Date
16 December 2020
ISBN
978-94-6239-301-1
ISSN
2352-5398
DOI
10.2991/assehr.k.201214.664How to use a DOI?
Copyright
© 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
Open Access
This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

Cite this article

TY  - CONF
AU  - Ranran Ma
AU  - Weibin Li
PY  - 2020
DA  - 2020/12/16
TI  - A Cognitive Approach to the Symmetry and Asymmetry in “Up/Down+X” Compounds
BT  - Proceedings of the 2020 3rd International Conference on Humanities Education and Social Sciences (ICHESS 2020)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 1044
EP  - 1048
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201214.664
DO  - 10.2991/assehr.k.201214.664
ID  - Ma2020
ER  -