Linguistic representations of motion events: What is signifier and what is signified?

What sort of resemblance or analogy is “natural”? (What would an “unnatural resemblance” be?) What part of the linguistic message is to be considered the relevant “form of a sign” for a particular resemblance or analogy? And, most difficult for a psychologist, what are the referents for the terms “object” and “concept”—two very different notions; and what cognitive activities or states are to be construed as “our perception of the world”? In fact, we are dealing with mental constructs on both ends of the equation: construals of linguistic forms and construals of nonlinguistic experiences.