What is the term for alluding to a more formless concept by listing its specific members? (I only understand Vietnamese, but I guess this phenomenon is an influence of ancient Chinese.)

For example, we say "table-chair" to mean furniture, "month-year" to mean time, "land-water" to mean country, "spring-summer-fall-winter" to mean the cycle of time, "birth-old-sickness-death" to mean the cycle of life...

The concept being mentioned is at least a name of a category that individual listed member belongs to it, or in the two latter cases there is also a subtle connotation of never ending within it, and these are the first step to Eastern philosophy. Is there a name for this phenomenon? What would be a good source to learn it?



Related: Open-ended concepts in Chinese usually be alluded by listing specific examples. Would native English speakers find it hard to grasp the connotation?
At least in the context of 春夏秋冬 being used to represent the cycle of time, some might call that a "metonym". From The American Heritage Dictionary (on Wordnik):


  n. A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government or of the sword for military power.


"Washington" is often used to represent the US government, though it's really only a place. Maybe in the case of Chinese (or Vietnamese), such phrases are so commonly used that they become lexicalized as the standard means of expressing the concept.