When Embodiment Meets Generative Lexicon: The Human Body Part Metaphors in Sinica Corpus

When Embodiment Meets Generative Lexicon: The Human Body Part Metaphors in Sinica Corpus Ren-feng Duann Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 11 Yuk Choi Road, Hong Kong renfeng.duann@polyu.edu.hk Chu-Ren Huang Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 11 Yuk Choi Road, Hong Kong churen.huang@polyu.edu.hk Abstract This research aims to integrate embodiment with generative lexicon. By analyzing the metaphorically used human body part terms in Sinica Corpus, the first balanced modern Chi- nese corpus, we reveal how these two theories complement each other. Embodiment strengthens generative lexicon by spelling out the cognitive reasons which underlies the pro- duction of meaning, and generative lexicon, specifically the qualia structure, complements embodiment by accounting for the reason un- derlying the selection of a particular body part for metaphorization. Discussing how the four body part terms— 血 xie “blood”, 肉 rou “flesh”, 骨 gu “bone”, 脈 mai “meridian”— behave metaphorically, this research argues that the visibility and the telic role of the qua- lia structure are the major reasons motivating the choice of a body part to represent a com- paratively abstract notion. The finding ac- counts for what constrains the selection of body parts for metaphorical uses. It also facili- tates the prediction of the behavior of the four body part terms in these uses, which can func- tion as the starting point to examine whether the two factors—visibility and telicity—also motivate the metaphorization of the rest hu- man body parts. 1 Introduction Human body is an important medium through which people understand the world. It is through the interaction between the human body and the environment that people make sense of what they perceive, with which they conceive. Body part terminology, therefore, is used extensively to rep- resent a variety of things, ranging from the physi- cal surroundings, time, situations, to a person’s emotion, temperament, behavior, etc. (e.g. Gibbs, 2006; Kovecses, 2002; Li, 2015). This is embodi- ment, which demonstrates how body part terms are used metaphorically. While embodiment provides cognitive reasons which underlies meaning pro- duction (e.g. Yu, 2003, 2007) and serves as the foundation of conceptual metaphor understanding and interpretation (e.g. Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, 1999; Johnson, 2008), it does not account for ex- actly what triggers the metaphorical use of a corpo- real term, or what constrains the selection of a body part term to represent a comparatively ab- stract concept. In order to answer this question, this research in- tegrates the theory of embodiment, a key concept in cognitive linguistics, with the theory of Genera- tive Lexicon (Pustejovsky, 1991, 1995), of which we focus on the qualia structure, by analyzing the lexical items containing body part terms in Sinica Corpus (Chen et al., 1996). Embodiment tackles how and where meaning arises, but it falls short in explaining what triggers the selection of a body part to represent an abstract notion. Generative lexicon functions as a way to study the representa- tions and relations of meanings, but it lacks the explanation …

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