本文针对8种语言中31个“生”义词语和59个“死”义词语的语义功能进行考察，对样本词汇相关的隐喻与转喻展开描写、归纳和说明。
本文首先以现代汉语为例，借助词典和语料库整理出样本词各项语义功能，随后引入框架–参数理论等理论工具对语义功能进行分析。本文指出，“生”语义场中的词汇将“生”语义场的基础意义分为“生育”“出生”“分娩”三部分，这三部分几位语义场基础义中的三种框架，不同的词汇因其语义指向不同而分属不同的框架；“死”语义场基础意义的对应框架则为“死亡”和“非自然死亡”，但这两项框架仅能对部分词汇的基础语义功能加以明确，无法对基础义进行彻底划分。同时本文提出，较之“死”语义场，句法结构在“生”语义场框架划分过程中发挥了更加明显的作用。
通过基础义框架的归纳，本文进一步指出，框架对“生”“死”语义场词汇隐转喻的影响主要集中在词汇隐喻范畴，词汇隐喻与基础义框架间均存在一定的对应关系。此外，二者的词汇隐喻均对有界事件存在明显的倾向性，而在无界事件隐喻中，“生”义词的语义功能多为动态的动作，“死”义词的语义功能则多为静态的性质或状态。与此同时，语言使用者的主观性也分别在“生”义词基础义的名词化和“死”义词的词汇隐喻中发挥一定的作用。
针对上述研究结果，本文指出，“生”“死”语义场间的词汇隐转喻既存在共性也存在差异，其共性来自于“生”“死”在社会生活中的普遍性与常见性，差异则来自于“死亡”的禁忌性、二者指涉主体的数量差异、主题死亡后状态的恒常性与人类对“死亡”概念的完型认知。

This paper investigates the semantic functions of 31 "birth" and 59 "death" lexical items in eight languages, examining the metaphorical and metonymical uses of sample words.
Using modern Chinese as a case study, dictionaries and corpora are utilized to compile the semantic functions of sample words. The framework-parameter theory is then introduced to analyze these semantic functions. The paper identifies that vocabulary in the "birth" semantic field divides its basic meaning into three parts: "give birth to," "be born," and "parturition," which represent three frameworks within this semantic field. Different words belong to different frameworks due to their varying semantic orientations. The corresponding framework for the basic meaning of the "death" semantic field is "death" and "unnatural death," but these two frameworks can only clarify the basic semantic functions of some words, and cannot provide a thorough division of the basic meaning. Meanwhile, this paper proposes that syntactic structures play a more obvious role in the framework division process of the "birth" semantic field than in that of the "death" semantic field.
Through summarizing the framework of basic meanings, it is further indicated that there is a significant impact on metaphorical and metonymical uses of sample words from both "birth" and "death" fields' frameworks, mainly concentrated within metaphorical domains with a certain correspondence between these uses and their respective basic meaning frameworks. Furthermore, both fields exhibit a marked preference for telic events; while metaphors related to atelic events tend towards dynamic actions for "birth" semantics or static qualities/states for "death" semantics. Additionally, language users' subjectivity plays a role in nominalization of basic meanings for "birth" metaphors and lexical metaphors related to "death".
Based on these research findings, this paper argues that while there are commonalities between lexical metaphors associated with "birth" and "death", differences arise from factors such as societal taboos surrounding death, variations in referent entity quantities, constancy regarding post-death states of subjects, as well as human's completion cognition of the concept of "death".