As the oldest and most frequently used conventional expressions,Chinese proverbs usually represent the way of thinking of the Chinese people.Metaphors,one typical type of Chinese proverbs,try to establish a relation of equality between two relatively dissimilar entities, such as time and money.The ability to understand and to use figurative language is related to one's social competence and professional achievement.In order to reveal the mechanism of proverb processing,the current study takes a close look at the nature of semantic properties and their inter-relationships in Chinese proverbs.522 Chinese sentential proverbs(the two clauses of the proverb are of the same syntax,e.g.,“人活脸,树活皮”)were presented to 360 university students.They were asked to rate the familiarity(1 for least familiar, 7 for most familiar), predictability(1 for least predictable, 7 for most predictable),agreement(1 for least matched between the two clauses,7 for most matched between the two clauses),degree of being understandable(1 for least understandable,7 for most understandable),and imaginability(1 for least imaginable,7 for most imaginable)based on a 7-point Likert Scale,as well as age of acquisition(AOA).Correlation and regression analysis were conducted based on these ratings. The results show a significant positive correlation between familiarity and each of the rest semantic properties,which are consistent with the findings of the previous work.A significant negative correlation between age of acquisition and each of the rest semantic properties is also observed in the current study.However,no significant correlation is found between familiarity and degree of being understandable,which might be due to the low rating of familiarity and the wide dispersity.In order to further reveal the inter-relationships of semantic properties, hierarchical regression analyses are carried out and show that familiarity,imaginabiltity,agreement,and age of acquisition significantly predict the degree of being understandable,while familiarity and age of acquisition significantly predict the predictability of proverbs. Our results demonstrate that familiarity and age of acquisition are two important factors which influence our understanding of Chinese proverbs. In addition, the semantic consistency between two clauses of a Chinese sentential proverb and degree of imagination also play an important role in understanding idiomatic strings.Imaginability is related to the theory of″Dual Coding,″which argues that visual and verbal information are processed differently and along distinct channels in the human mind, creating separate representations for information processed in each channel.The mental codes corresponding to these representations are used to organize incoming information that can be acted upon,stored,and retrieved for subsequent use.Both visual and verbal codes can be used when recalling information.The ability to code a stimulus in two different ways increases the chance of remembering that item compared to if the stimulus is only coded one way.Our results suggest that the processing of a Chinese proverb partially relies on the accessibility to visual code of a proverb which is primarily affected by culture. Therefore, Chinese culture could influence the understanding of Chinese proverbs. Specifically,in the creating process,a number of concrete concepts are used to express the abstract inter-relationships through their similarity,e.g.,the relationship between a person(人)and his/her reputation(脸)is similar to that between a tree(树)and its bark(皮).In other words,the reputation of a person is as important as the bark of a tree.In order to successfully understand the Chinese proverbs,it is important to learn about the deeper meanings of″face″and″reputation″in Chinese culture.That explains why the comprehension of a proverb is significantly associated with one's culture understanding.Based on the current study,more studies should be conducted with a focus on the understanding process of proverbs,which will help reveal the mental mechanism of Chinese and preserving Chinese culture.