A Cognitive Semantic Analysis of the Chinese Polysemous Word "Li"

Cognitive linguists believe that the various senses of a polysemous wo rd are not arbitrarily related but interrelated. They stress the close link betw een human body and mind, and contribute the meaning extension to people's embodi ed experience in the world. This paper takes the Chinese posture verb "Li" (st an d) as a case, and first explores into the motivation effect of image schema by c onducting a quantitative study, suggesting that meaning extension is based on em bodied experiences. Based on this, the paper compares the extension patterns of "Li" and "Stand" and finds out image schemas have cultural differenceS, whic h partly results in the difference in the extension direction of certain words i n different languages.