Directionality of Atmospheric Water in Chinese: A Lexical Semantic Study Based on Linguistic Ontology

Why are fog, dew, and frost said to “fall” in some languages when they don’t the physical world? We explore this seeming infelicity study nature of linguistic conceptualization. focus on variations changes morphosemantic behaviors weather words Mandarin other Sinitic with an interdisciplinary approach establish links between expressions scientific facts. propose that use directionality is result conventionalization Chinese people’s inference from shared daily experience, well motivated terms a ontology reflects account natural phenomena. further demonstrate semantically relevant orthography by speakers can be directly mapped Hantology, formal based Suggested Upper Merged Ontology (SUMO). In mapping, radical ? y? “rain,” derived ideograph “rain” represent atmospheric water, provides crucial clues directional verbs parts speech words. Our findings also lend support language-based reconstruction traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) lay foundation for TEK research Sinosphere.