Search results for "Désémantisation"

Les locuteurs confirmés du mandarin peuvent-ils concevoir le temps verticalement ?

2022

In Chinese, to express time, we take advantage not only of the horizontal metaphor – for example, qián and hòu (Mandarin 前 and 后 ; French avant and après) –, but also of the vertical metaphor – for example, shàng and xià (Mandarin 上 and 下 ; French haut and bas) –. But does this linguistic phenomenon reveal that confirmed Mandarin speakers can view time vertically? To resolve this problem, we sketched out a field survey; and the result obtained helps us to understand, in a psychosystematic way, the subductions of the so-called vertical characters shàng and xià (Mandarin 上 and 下 ; French haut and bas) in Chinese.