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From language to meteorology: kinesis in weather events and weather verbs across Sinitic languages

Author

Listed:
  • Chu-Ren Huang

    (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
    Peking University)

  • Sicong Dong

    (School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Harbin Institute of Technology)

  • Yike Yang

    (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University)

  • He Ren

    (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

Abstract

Interactions among the environment, humans and language underlie many of the most pressing challenges we face today. This study investigates the use of different verbs to encode various weather events in Sinitic languages, a language family spoken over a wide range of climates and with 3000 years of continuous textual documentation. We propose to synergise the many concepts of kinesis that grew from Aristotle’s original ideas to account for the correlation between meteorological events and their linguistic encoding. It is observed that the two most salient key factors of weather events, i.e., mass of weather substances and speed of weather processes, are the two contributing components of kinetic energy. Leveraging the linguistic theory that kinesis underpins conceptualisation of verb classes, this paper successfully accounts for the selection of verbs for different meteorological events in all Sinitic languages in terms of both language variations and changes. Specifically, weather events with bigger weather substances and faster weather processes tend to select action verbs with high transitivity. The kinesis driven accounts also predict the typological variations between verbal and nominal constructions for weather expressions. The correlation between kinesis and the selection of verbs is further corroborated by an experiment on the perception of native Sinitic language speakers, as well as analyses of regional variations of verb selections that do not follow general typological patterns. It is found that such typological exceptions generally correspond to variations in meteorological patterns. By explicating the pivotal role of kinesis in bridging weather events and the linguistic encoding of weather, this study underlines the role of cognition as the conceptualisation of physical and sensory inputs to sharable knowledge encoded by language.

Suggested Citation

  • Chu-Ren Huang & Sicong Dong & Yike Yang & He Ren, 2021. "From language to meteorology: kinesis in weather events and weather verbs across Sinitic languages," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-13, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:8:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-020-00682-w
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-020-00682-w
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    Cited by:

    1. Hongdi Ding & Sicong Dong, 2023. "Elevation and fog-cloud similarity in Tibeto-Burman languages," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, December.
    2. Renkui Hou & Chu-Ren Huang & Kathleen Ahrens, 2022. "Regional varieties and diachronic changes in Chinese political discourse," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, December.
    3. Sicong Dong & Yike Yang & He Ren & Chu-Ren Huang, 2021. "Directionality of Atmospheric Water in Chinese: A Lexical Semantic Study Based on Linguistic Ontology," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(1), pages 21582440209, February.

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