Chinese character meanings

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Chinese character meanings (traditional Chinese: 漢字字義; simplified Chinese: 汉字字义; pinyin: hànzì zìyì) are the meanings of the morphemes the characters represent, including the original meanings, extended meanings and phonetic-loan meanings. Some characters only have single meanings, some have multiple meanings, and some share a common meaning.[1]

In modern Chinese, a character may represent a word, a morpheme in compound word, or just a meaningless syllable combined with some other syllables or characters to form a morpheme.[2]

The meaning(s) of a single-character word is the meaning of the character. The meaning of a multi-character word is usually based on the meanings of the characters in different relationships.[3]

Character meanings and morphemes

Morphemes are the minimal units of meaning in a language.[4] Chinese characters are morpheme characters, and the meanings of Chinese characters come from the morphemes they record.[5]

Most Chinese characters only represent one morpheme, and the meaning of the character is the meaning of the morpheme recorded by the character. For example: 

猫: māo, cat, the name of a domestic animal that can catch mice.

The morpheme "猫 cat" has one meaning, and the Chinese character "cat" also has one meaning. According to statistics, more than half of Chinese characters belong to this type.[6]

Some Chinese character corresponds to multiple morphemes, for example: 

姑: gū, noun, father's sister, aunt. 
姑: gū, adverb, temporarily, for now.

纤: xiān, the simplified form of "纖", fine: 纤尘 (fine dust) |纤维 (fiber).
纤: qiàn, the simplified form of "縴", the rope used to pull a boat: 縴夫 (boat tracker) | 拉纖 (pulling the boat rope).

Some Chinese characters only record one syllable in a polysyllabic morpheme and do not represent the morpheme alone, so they have no meaning in themselves, such as: 

characters 囫 and 圇 in word 囫圇， 咖 and 啡 in 咖啡, 葡 and 萄 in 葡萄， 蝙 and 蝠 in 蝙蝠, 蟋 and 蟀 in 蟋蟀.

And the individual characters in 

牛頓 (Newton), 紐約 (New York), 沙發 (Sofa), 奧林匹克 (Olympics).

and other multi-syllable transliterations of words.

Some character sometimes express morphemes and sometimes do not. For example: "馬" (horse) is a morpheme in "賽馬" (horse racing) and "馬路" (horse road) and has meanings, but it is not a morpheme in "羅馬" (Rome), "奧巴馬" (Obama), and "馬拉松" (marathon) and has no meaning of its own there.

Monosemous and polysemous characters

A character with only one meaning is a monosemous character, and a character with two or more meanings is a polysemous character. According to statistics from the "Chinese Character Information Dictionary", among the 7,785 mainland standard Chinese characters in the dictionary, there are 4,139 monosemous characters and 3,053 polysemous characters. The ratio between the two is 1:0.737. More details can be found in the table below:[6]

Chinese characters distribution by the number of meanings
Meaning level 0 1 2 3 4 5 Total
Meaning number 0 1 2 3~4 5~8 9 and above Total
Character number 593 4139 1622 1023 351 57 7785
% 7.617% 53.166% 20.835% 13.141% 4.509% 0.732% 100%

When a word is created, it is often assigned a single meaning. After a period of use, many of them become multi-meaning. The major categories of modern single-meaning (monosemous) characters include:[7]

  • Characters for words of daily necessities and foods. For example: 饃 (steamed bun), 韭 (leek), 凳 (bench).
  • Characters used for major organs of animals. For example: 腎 (kidney), 肝 (liver), 趼 (callus).
  • Terms for science, technology and health. For example: 鋰 (lithium), 醛 (aldehydes), 癬 (ringworm).
  • Characters for plant and animal names. For example: 猫 (cat), 鯉 (carp), 榕 (banyan).
  • Characters for surnames and place names. For example: 劉 (Liu), 邢 (Xing), 鑫 (Xin).

The meaning people assigned to a character when it was created is the original meaning (本義, 本义) of the character. For example, the original meaning of "兵" (bīng) is weapons. (multi-semantic-component character, 會意字, 会意字,[8] means holding the 斤 (jīn, weapon) with both hands 八.)

The meaning developed from the original meaning of a character through association is the extended meaning (引申義, 引申义). For example, "士兵" (soldier) is an extended meaning of "兵".

The meaning added through the loan of homonymous sounds is the phonetic-loan meaning (假借義, 假借义). For example, the original meaning of "其 (qí)" is "dustpan", and its pronoun usage of "his, her, its" is a phonetic-loan meaning.

A polysemous character have only one meaning activated in each specific application. In general, polysemous characters can be made unambiguous by the context. For example: the "開" (kāi, 开) in word "開門, 开门" (kāimén, open the door) means "to open", in "開工" (start work) means "to start", in "開車" (drive a car) means "to drive", and in "開水" (boiled water) means "boiled". If the polysemous character cannot be disambiguated in the context, ambiguity exist. For example: "借" in the sentence "我借他的書 (the book I borrowed from, or lent to, him)" can mean lending or borrowing.

Synonym characters

Synonym characters are a group of Chinese characters that have the same or similar meaning. The characters in a synonym group often differ in frequency of use and word-formation ability, and there are some (subtle) differences in meaning and emotional color. The knowledge of synonym characters will help us write Chinese more correctly and express meanings more accurately.[9] Here are some examples:

Characters 面 and 臉

Both 面 and 臉 have the meaning of "face". But there are some differences.[10]

Generally, "面" is not used alone in Mandarin, but only appears in multi-character words. For example, 見面 (to meet), 面目 (face and eyes), 面紅耳赤 (red face), 面黃肌瘦 (yellow face and thin muscles). The "面" in these words cannot be replaced by "臉".

"臉" can usually be used alone in Mandarin as a word flexibly, such as 臉譜 (facial makeup), 花臉 (painted face), 娃娃臉 (baby face), 圓/方臉 (round/square face), 一張可愛的臉 (a cute face). The "臉" in these words cannot be replaced by "面".

"面色" (facial color) can be expressed with "臉色". "臉" and "面" together constitute "臉面" (face, self respect).

Synonyms of "看" (looking)

The action or behavior of "看" (looking) has many synonym characters, for examples.[11]

  • Common expressions of looking or seeing include: "看, 瞧, 瞅 and 視".
  • Already seen: "見, 睹".
  • Seeing from a (long) distance: "望, 眺, 矚".
  • To look forward or upward: "瞻 (瞻仰, looking up; 瞻前顧後, looking forward and backward).
  • Looking down: "瞰", for example, 鳥瞰 (bird's eye view), 俯瞰 (overlooking).
  • Looking back or looking around: "顧, 張", for example, 瞻前顧後，環顧，東張西望.
  • Peep: "窺", 瞟, 瞥.
  • Concentrate on looking: "盯, 瞄"
  • To look with eyes widely open (angry or stunned): "瞪 (dèng), 瞠 (chēng)"
  • Take a brief look: "瞟, 瞥"
  • Look carefully: "察, 相"
  • Watch a big scene: "觀, 閱"
  • Look at the text: "閱, 讀" (read)

The development and change of character meanings

Increase and decrease of character meanings

There are two situations: one is due to the increase or decrease in meanings of the morphemes recorded in Chinese characters.[12] For example:

  • 總 (Chief, general) + 總工程師 (chief engineer), 總經理 (general manager), 總裁 (president), 總理 (prime minister), etc., (added extended meaning). So, "張總" may mean "Chief Engineer Zhang", "General Manager Zhang", etc.
  • 電 (Electricity) + 電器 (electrical appliances), e.g., 家電 (home appliances); 電視機 (TV sets), e.g., 彩電 color TVs. (added extended meaning)
  • 花 (huā, flower) + 消費 (spend). e.g., 花錢 (spend money), 花時間 (spend time). (added borrowed meaning)
  • 吊 (diào, hang, suspend), it was also an old monetary unit, a string of one thousand coins were called a diao. This meaning is no longer used in modern Chinese. (decreased meaning)

Another situation is that the meanings of a character increase or decrease due to the combination or differentiation of characters.[13] For example:

  • 姜 (jiāng): After the Chinese character "薑" (ginger) was simplified and merged into "姜", character "姜", which originally refers to surname Jiang, was added with the meaning of "ginger".
  • 他 (tā): This word used to refers to the third person singular pronoun. During the May 4th Movement, "他" differentiated into "他, 她 and 它" (he, she and it). The scope of character "他" has been reduced.
  • 它 (tā): The original meaning of the word "它" was "snake". It was later borrowed to mean pronoun "it" (increasing meaning), and later the original meaning was transferred to the newly created character "蛇 (snake)" (reducing meaning).[14]

Change of character meanings

There are three cases: [15]

  1. Enlarge the scope of the meaning. For example, character "河" originally only referred to the Yellow River in China. Later its meaning was enlarged to "rivers". Character 江 was created to mean the Yanzi River in China, now refers to large rivers.
  2. Reduce the scope of the meaning. For example, "子" used to mean both "sons" and "daughters", later only includes "sons".
  3. Conversion of meanings. For example, character "涕" originally meant "tears". Now it means “nasal discharge”. The original meaning of "脚" is "lower leg", now it means "foot, feet". Usually, changes of word meaning are caused by meaning extension.

Character meanings and word meanings

The meaning of a Chinese character is the morpheme meaning recorded in it. The meaning of a single-character word is its character meaning. The meaning of a multi-character word is generally derived from the meanings of the characters. The main ways to combine character meanings into word meanings include:[16][17]

Repeating the same character meaning to form the word meaning

Three are three subcategories:

  • The meaning of the character and the meaning of the word are the same. For example: 爸 (father), 爸爸 (father); 姐 (sister), 姐姐 (sister); 星 (stars), 星星 (stars).
  • The meaning of the character is basically the same as that of the word, differing only in degree, scope, tone, etc. For example: 剛 (just), 剛剛 (just); 常 (often), 常常 (often); 僅 (only), 僅僅 (only).
  • The meaning of the character is related to the word meaning, but not the same. For example: 人 (person), 人人 (everyone); 天 (day), 天天 (every day); 處 (place), 處處 (everywhere).

Combining character meanings to form word meanings

  • The meaning of the characters and the word are the same or basically the same, for example: 聲音 (sound) = 聲 (sound) = 音 (sound); 明亮 (bright), 等待 (wait), 誕生 (be born, birth).
  • The meanings of the characters are opposite to each other, for example: 反正 (anyway) = 反(negative) + 正 (positive); 買賣 (buying and selling), 前後 (before and after), 開關 (switch, on and off), 呼吸 (breathing, breath out and in).
  • The meanings of the characters are related. For example: 桌椅 (tables and chairs), 父母 (parents, father and mother), 品德 (character, quality and morality), 花草 (flowers and grass), 講解 (explanations, speak and interpret).

Character meanings modifying or explaining character meanings to form the word meaning

  • The meaning of the preceding character modifies the meaning of the latter character. For example: 紅旗 (red flag), 植物 (plant, planted thing), 微笑 (smile, slight smile).
  • The meaning of the following character supplements the meaning of the previous character. For example: 提高 (improve, lift high), 縮小 (reduce, shrink small), 學會 (learn well).
  • The meaning of the latter character describe the meaning of the previous character. For example: 年輕 (young, age young), 心慌 (flustered, heart nervous), and 手巧 (handy, hands skillful).
  • The meaning of the front character dominates the meaning of the character behind. For example: 讀書 (reading, read books), 唱歌 (singing, sing songs), 結果 (results, bear fruits).

Character meanings are synthesized into word meanings in a primary and secondary way

The main character meaning is generally the lexical meaning of the word, and the secondary character meaning is generally the grammatical meaning of the word.

  • The meaning of the previous character is supplementary, and the meaning of the latter character is primary. For example: 老師 (teacher), 容易 (easy), 阿姨 (aunt).
  • The meaning of the previous character is primary, and the meaning of the latter character is secondary. For example: 國家 (country), 石頭 (stone), 桌子 (table), 房間 (room), 花朵 (flower).

Add meaning and transfer meaning

  • Add meanings, for example: 景物 (scenery things) = 景致 (scenery) and 事物 (things) + (available for viewing)
  • Convert meanings (convert to another meaning), for example: 毛病 (毛: hair, 病:ill), fault, wrong (extension of word meaning)

Integrated approach

For example:

  • 前前後後, before and after (前後: positive and negative; 前前 and 後後: repeating); 平平安安, peace and quiet.
  • 寫字臺, writing desk (寫字 + 臺); 圓珠筆, ballpoint pen (圓珠 + 筆).
  • 創造性, creativity (創造 + 性); 科學家 scientist (科學 + 家).

A new expression

Professor Huang Changning and his team adopted a simple and effective method in corpus annotation. The relationships between the meanings of a compound word and its characters are divided into five types:[18]

  1. Same meaning, that is, A+B=A=B, such as "聲音" (sound) = "聲" (sound) = "音" (sound).
  2. Combine meanings, that is, A+B=AB, such as "品德" (moral character) = "品" (character) and "德" (morality)
  3. Add meaning, that is, A+B=AB+C, such as "景物" (scenery and real objects, + viewable).
  4. Partial meaning, that is, A+B=A or B, for example, "國家" (country) = "國" (country), "容易" (easy) = "易" (easy).
  5. Transfer meaning, i.e. A+B=C, for example “東西” (things) is not “東” (east) + “西” (west).

According to sampling statistics, categories 2 and 3 account for 89.7% of the compound words.

Be cautious when inferring the meaning of a word based on the meanings of its characters. Understanding the main ways in which character meanings are combined into word meanings is very helpful to Chinese learning. However, it is more reliable to check in reference books to verify your inferences.[19]

See also

References

  1. ^ Yang 2008, p. 170–172.
  2. ^ Yang 2008, p. 169.
  3. ^ Peking University 2004, pp. 206–209.
  4. ^ Fromkin 1993, p. 41.
  5. ^ Yang 2008, p. 171.
  6. ^ a b Li 1988, p. 1112.
  7. ^ Su 1994, pp. 126–127.
  8. ^ Qiu 2013, p. 124.
  9. ^ Su 1994, pp. 128–129.
  10. ^ Su 1994, p. 129.
  11. ^ Hu 1995, p. 228.
  12. ^ Su 1994, p. 121.
  13. ^ Su 1994, p. 122.
  14. ^ Li 2013, p. 236.
  15. ^ Li 2013, pp. 233–237.
  16. ^ Li 2013, p. 226.
  17. ^ Su 1994, pp. 130–131.
  18. ^ Yang 2008, pp. 173–174.
  19. ^ Li 2013, p. 228-229.

Works cited

  • Fromkin, Victoria (and Robert Rodman) (1993). An Introduction to Language (5th ed.). Orlando, USA: Harcourt Brace Javanovich College Publishers. ISBN 0-03-075379-1.
  • Hu, Yushu (胡裕樹) (1995). 現代漢語 (Modern Chinese) (in Chinese). Shanghai: Shanghai Educational Press.
  • Li, Dasui (李大遂) (2013). 简明实用汉字学 (Concise and Practical Chinese Characters) (in Chinese) (3rd ed.). Beijing: Peking University Press. ISBN 978-7-301-21958-4.
  • Li, Gongyi (李公宜，劉如水 （主編）) (1988). 漢字信息字典 (Chinese Character Information Dictionary) (in Chinese). Beijing: 科学出版社 (Science Press). ISBN 7-03-000862-6.
  • Peking University, Modern Chinese Language Teaching and Research Office (2004). Modern Chinese (现代汉语) (in Chinese). Beijing: Commercial Press. ISBN 7-100-00940-5.
  • Qiu, Xigui (裘锡圭) (2013). 文字学概要 (Chinese Writing) (in Chinese) (2nd ed.). Beijing: 商务印书馆 (Commercial Press). ISBN 978-7-100-09369-9.
  • Su, Peicheng (苏培成) (1994). 现代汉字学纲要 (Essentials of Modern Chinese Characters, Chapter 6) (in Chinese). Beijing: Peking University Press). ISBN 7-301-02597-1.
  • Yang, Runlu (杨润陆) (2008). 现代汉字学 (Modern Chinese Characters) (in Chinese). Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press. ISBN 978-7-303-09437-0.
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