Genus Plus Differential Method and Place Names: An Exploration Based on Embodied-cognitive Toponymy

The old saying in The Book of Changes as "extracting inspiration by observing our body nearby and the things afar" not only states the principle of building the Chinese characters, but also reveals the experiences and cognitive causes of the other levels of language, which can be regarded as a precursor of "Embodied-cognitive Linguistics" nowadays. In this old saying, the words "body" and "thing" refer to the "embodiment", and "extracting" refers to the "cognition". Based on which place names are made, and this is the basic idea of Embodied-cognitive Toponymy. As the word-building and the Chinese character-formation are mainly based on the "genus plus differential method" in Logic, which should be included in the process of making the place names.