User Comments - zhou_rui

Posted on: Pay Verbs

Hi Bababardwan,

Glad to see other people are interested in this stuff. I'll try to address your questions.

First the characters. There are six principles （六書）that were used in creating characters. One principle used was pictographic 象形. One principle represented relationships (指示). Through these two principles many simple graphs were created. More graphs were then created by combining the simple graphs. Sometimes, they would pick a simple graph that had a semantic connection (形符) with a target word and then pick a graph that had a phonetic connection with it (聲符). These two characters would then be put together, resulting in a complex graph. This principle is called 形聲. Here are some examples:

礦 牲 時 瓏 期

See if you can identify the semantic pieces （形符） and the phonetic pieces (聲符).

Here are some examples of 象形 and 指示:

象形: 虎 鳥 象 指示: 上 下 久

As for homophones, trying to guess whether or not two modern Mandarin words were homophones in Old Chinese is difficult. We can see some things from 形聲 characters, though. That is: characters from the same phonetic series share the same place of articulation in syllable initial position in Old Chinese. Examples:

Alveolar

台 *lə > tái 始 *ɬjə > shǐ 怡 *ljə > yí

Velar

驗 *ŋrjams >yàn 臉 *g-rjam >liǎn 檢 *krjam > jiǎn

As for tone differences and homophones, tonal differences in Modern Mandarin may represent stark differences in Middle Chinese. So fǎ and fà could have been very different before.

There are fixed rules that capture tone changes. Here is a chart which may help. It shows the correlation between voicing of initial consonants and tonal development from Middle Chinese into Modern Mandarin. It's from a great book called 聲韻學 by 竺家寧.

---------------Voiceless---Nasal----Voiced

---------------initial--------initial-----initial

平 píng--------1st----------2nd-------2nd

上 shǎng------3rd----------3rd-------4th

去 qù----------4th-----------4th------ 4th

入 rù-----------All-----------4th-------2nd

The four characters on the left are the MC tonal categories. We don't know how they were pronounced. The three categories pertain to the voicing of initial consonants. The numbers represent tones in modern Mandarin.

As for multiple meanings being assigned to characters or borrowing 假借, this did happen. It is described in the 說文解字. The connection between the words is phonetic -- they chose a character that had a reading similar to the word they needed to represent. Since there were sometimes phonetic differences between the two words, we have duōyīnzì. As for sound change being intentional, I may be wrong.

Posted on: Pay Verbs

Old Chinese had no tones. 平, 上, 去, 入 are the tonal categories of Middle Chinese. The four tones of Middle Chinese are thought to originate in ending consonants which later disappeared. Old Chinese syllables with stop endings are generally accepted as the source of Middle Chinese 入-tone.

Posted on: Pay Verbs

Here is an explanation of and some examples for 假借. I hope it makes sense.

說文解字 'Explanation of simple graphs and analysis of compound graphs' by 許慎 Xǔ Shèn is the first true dictionary in China and perhaps the world. It was completed in 101 CE. It is concerned with the pronunciation, form, and original meaning of characters. In his introduction, Xǔ Shèn defined six principles (六書) which explain how characters were created. (From my notes.)

The six principles are:

1. 象形

2. 指示

3. 形聲

4. 會意

5. 專注

6. 假借

We are interested in the sixth principle – 假借 jiǎjiè – as it could create 多音字 duōyīnzì.

A new material or idea is introduced into society. There is a word to signify this novelty in the spoken language; however, it had yet to be represented by a graph and thus could not be written. Jiǎjiè describes a process wherein a preexisting graph can be assigned to the new word. It works like this; a character was selected, which had a pronunciation that was the same as or similar to the target word. The selected character was then used to represent the new word in the written language. Here's an example:

(1) 令 lìng : its original meaning (本意) was 命令. As its pronunciation is the same lìng in xiànlìng (縣 令), 令 was borrowed to represent 縣令的令 graphically.

After borrowing took place. Various methods were sometimes used to disambiguate the two different meanings of a character. The most common methods were changes in graph form. Here are some examples (The characters in parenthesis were the source characters):

來 (麥) 朋(鳳) 歌(哥)

When a change in graph form was not used to differentiate different meanings of a character, then there is a possibility for the emergence of a duōyīnzì – all that is need is variance in pronunciation between the two meanings. Variance sometimes existed at the get go, or it could have been achieved later through idiomatic sound change. Perhaps subtle phonetic differences existed initially and then were compounded on later by systematic sound change. This would result in a duōyīnzì with marked phonetic differences between its variant morphemes.

What kind of similarities do you see between homophones? Do you have any examples? I once had a teacher who said certain sounds correspond to certain meanings. I didn't believe it at the time. I think I have some examples. I'll try to find them.

Posted on: Pay Verbs

bababardwan,

I share your interest in etymology.

I'm putting something together.

Check back in a bit.

Posted on: Pay Verbs

Hi bababardwan,

Here are some possible reasons why. They were provided by Wikipedia. Wikipedia's explanations are weak, but it will give you something to think about. Pardon my bad translations.

假借 'Borrowed Characters' (from Xǔ Shèn's Liùshū)

古代用字少，因此產生一字多意。為了區別不同意思，說話時以變音來分別意思。

In ancient times, there were not as many characters. Therefore, multiple meanings were assigned to a single character. Pronunciation changes were used as a disambiguation device.

[編輯] 語音變異 'Phonological Change'

漢語在傳播過程中，與其他語言融合或自身發展時，會演生出許多讀音.

During the diffusion of the Chinese language, when it was mixing with other languages and changing within itself, many new pronunciations for the characters came into existence. (Some of these new readings coexist with previous ones.)

[編輯] 外語借字 'Characters borrowed from other languages'

以日本漢字最為明顯，日本漢字的讀法一般有二個以上，是因不同時間不同地方傳入的結果。

This process is most obvious in the history of Japanese. Kanji generally have two or more readings, due to the result of different place's influence on the language at different times. (The writer assumes the same kind of thing occurred in the history of the Chinese languages. I know many words were borrowed from Japanese.)

[編輯] 漢字簡化後的合併 'Merging through simplification'

Merging of characters during simplification caused the creation of many duōyīnzì.

Posted on: Pay Verbs

bababardwan,

In Chinese it is common to see a single character that signifies multiple morphemes with distinct pronunciations.

Some terminology:

多音字 duōyīnzì 'characters with multiple pronunciations': these characters are those that have more than one pronunciation. Differences in pronunciation often align with differences in meaning.

Some examples

還 huán; hái 把書還給我； 還要這個嗎

著 zhù; zhe 著作； 順著

曲 qū; qǔ 彎曲； 歌曲

樂 lè; yào 快樂； 中藥

了liǎo; le 了不起； 好了

沒 méi; mò 沒有； 沉沒

Some links:

http://py.kdd.cc/duoyinzifennei/

http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%A4%9A%E9%9F%B3%E5%AD%97

http://xh.5156edu.com/page/18317.html

Posted on: 《易经》的本意

David,

你对中国历史、文学和哲学感兴趣吗？

我对声韵学颇感兴趣。声韵学家也有其关键的书，即《广韵》（1008年）和《韵竟》（1161年）。

《广韵》是一部押韵的参考书。竺家宁云：

“爲什麽会有「押韵」的出现呢？古人平常作诗、押韵有哪些韵脚字可用，如果只是凭空去想，实在很费脑筋，一旦有人编成一部押韵的参考书，把属一韵的字归在一起，那麽，作诗、押运的时候，只要翻开所需的那个韵，就有一大堆字呈现眼前，供你选用。”

《广韵》的音系承袭了陆法言的《切韵》（601年），所以《广韵》就是一部「切韵系的韵书」。

古人怎麽注音？他们应用反切注音法。竺教授又说：

“反切的方法是用两字拼一个字的音，头一个叫「反切上字」，第二个叫「反切下字」。反切上字必与本字双声，反切下字必与本字叠韵。”

我用现代囯语举例子：

X= 本字

A= 反切上字

B= 反切下字

X, A B 切

兩，離講切 liǎng ← l(í) + (j)iǎng

講，覺兩切 jiǎng ← j(ué) +(l)iǎng

忙，馬旁切 máng ← m(ǎ) + (p)áng

六，冷又切 liù ← l(ěng) + ()iòu

知，折吃切 zhī ← zh(é) + (ch)ī

学者参照《广韵》的206韵能重建韵母系统。

下次我会讲《广韵》的编排方式，然後谈《韵竟》。

————————————————————————

我對聲韻學頗感興趣。聲韻學家也有其關鍵的書，即《廣韻》（1008年）和《韻竟》（1161年）。

《廣韻》是一部押韻的參考書。竺家寧云：

“爲什麽會有「押韻」的出現呢？古人平常作詩、押韻有哪些韻腳字可用，如果只是憑空去想，實在很費腦筋，一旦有人編成一部押韻的參考書，把屬一韻的字歸在一起，那麽，作詩、押運的時候，只要翻開所需的那個韻，就有一大堆字呈現眼前，供你選用。”

《廣韻》的音系承襲了陸法言的《切韻》（601年），所以《廣韻》就是一部「切韻系的韻書」。

古人怎麽注音？他們應用反切注音法。竺教授又說：

“反切的方法是用兩字拼一個字的音，頭一個叫「反切上字」，第二個叫「反切下字」。反切上字必與本字雙聲，反切下字必與本字叠韻。”

我用現代囯語舉例子：

X= 本字

A= 反切上字

B= 反切下字

X, A B 切

兩，離講切 liǎng ← l(í) + (j)iǎng

講，覺兩切 jiǎng ← j(ué) +(l)iǎng

忙，馬旁切 máng ← m(ǎ) + (p)áng

六，冷又切 liù ← l(ěng) + ()iòu

知，折吃切 zhī ← zh(é) + (ch)ī

學者參照廣韻的206韻能重建韻母系統。

下次我會講《廣韻》的編排方式，然後談韻竟。

--周銳

Posted on: 《易经》的本意

我知道了。謝謝！

Posted on: 《易经》的本意

「歪曲」与「扭曲」有差别吗？

歪曲：故意改变事物原来的面目，或对事物做不正确的解释或反映　'to distort; to misrepresent; to twist'

扭曲：歪曲　'to distort; to twist'

有一次我讲「歪曲」，然后我的朋友说：“没有人这样讲，应该说「扭曲」”自从这个交谈，我一直认为不能把这两词混为一谈。

Posted on: 拥抱艾滋病人

I second this. I am not complaining here. I bring this up in hopes of making CP even better.

Providing semantic knowledge should be a top priority at CP. The following is an example of what I mean by semantic knowledge:

具有 means 'to possess' and its object should be an abstract noun, such as 能力. Thus, there is a real difference between 具有 and 擁有.

This type of information should be provided visually through a PDF or within the site.

This kind of semantic knowledge -- that is, knowing what kinds of nouns a verb can license, and so forth -- has a real value. Here are some examples:

-- proficiency tests: distinguishing subtle semantic differences are common tasks; the SC-TOP (HSK of Taiwan) has a entire section dedicated to it.

-- articulate speaking: speaking properly in any language entails knowing when and when not to say a word.

-- writing: knowing when and when not to use a word can make or break effective writing.

Thanks for the service. I hope to see some improvements in this regard in 2010!