9 B.The structure of Chinese characters 汉 The traditional Six Categories of Character Construction 字 B)dealt with the structures of ('hinese characters.the last 的 two of whish (miually explanatory and loan)actually concern 世 界 the use of characters.The first four categories-pictographic. indicative,associative and pictophcnetic--cover nearly all strncuires of (hariers. 字 Pictographic characters 批 Pictographic characters use the graphic form to depict the 心 olje'copcerne(L.For example,.“H"(the sun),is written⊙， just a depiction of the sur.“j过"(the moon）was written D,to depict the moon overhead. Indicative characters Indicative characters employ abstract symbols to indicate ome bstract me'aning.For instance,“上”，“下”was written .in oracle bone inscriptions.It used the position of the short stroke against the long stroke.(above or below)to ex. press the notion of up and down respectively.“本”，“未"wexe written.making use of the symbol"-"to indicate the root or offshoot of a tree. Associative characters Associative characters united two or more components to produce a new meaning.For example.“休"was written体in its arcbaic form,consisting of人”(man)and术（树）”(wood, tree)to indicate rest under a irce.""(forest)was made up of two“木”(wUd). Picto-phonetic characters 12 Picto-phonetic character takes one side component as the
semantic symbol and another component as the phonetic sym- bol to make a new character.For example,.“I"'consists of"水？ 汉 (semantic symbol)and“T:"(phonetic symbol);“梨"is made up 字 of"木"the semantic symbol and“利”the phonetic symbol.Itis 的 noteworthy ihat the semantic symbol of a picto-phonetic char- 世 acter can only suggest the category of mcaning and can not 界 correspond to the meaning of the character dircctly.For exam- 汉 ple,“木"in“柳”can only suggest that pillow is a kind of tree,. 字 The phonetic symbol,on the other hand,may be different 概 from the pronunciation today due to the historical develop- 论 ment.For instance,“工”and“江”is not homophonic today. C.Word Formation As the written form of Chinese language,Chinese charac- ters are not consistent in the way of recording language in ancient and modern times.To be specific,in ancient times, one character corresponded to one word;and today,one char- acter corresponds to one morpheme.This results from the di- syllahic tendency in the development of Chinese language. Monosyllabic words prevailed in ancient Chinese.The earlier the time was,the more monosyllabic words there would be. Later,disyllabic words gradually took the place of monosyl- labic words.Consequently Chinese characters change to record the morphemes in most cases,For example,“老虎"used to be ""in ancicnt Chinese,which corresponded to the word.But in modern Chinese,“虎”becomes the disyllabic“老虎”.“虎”，im this case,corresponds to the morpheme“虎"in“老虎"only. This explains that the knowledge of Chinese characters is significant to the learning of Chinese language.As word is the 13
⊙ basic unit in the system of language,people usually put stress 汉· on word meaning only.But in modern Chinese,the meanings 字 of word are ofien buil on the meaning of word morpheme. 的 Thercfore,the knowledge of Chinese character will certainly 世 界 better the understanding of word',meaning and improve our level of Chinese language. 汉 字 D.Writing principles of Chinese characters 概 The writing principles of Chinese characters include two 论 aspects:one is of the individual character (stroke order),and the other is of the passage level (word order).Stroke order is based on the nced of efficiency and convenience in writing. The principal rules include“first left,then right”and“first top,then bottom",etc..This is also the way the ancient practiced and need no further cxplanation.Modern character order on one page,like other languages,is also from left to right in the same line.The lines are arranged from top to bot- tom.However,with respect to the history of Chinese charac- ters,this order has only a history of less than one hundred years.Traditional word order was arranged from top to bot- tom to form a vertical line,and the line,in turn,ran left- wards.This traditional layout had to do with the ancient writ- ing material-hamboo slips.Bamboo slips are bound together vcrtically by tanned leather straps.The most convenient way to write on them is from top to bottom in a line and from right to left betwcen the lines. 1
目 录 导读… 汉字概论… 1 咨序检索… 1 笔画检索… 1 正文… …1--319 后记…… 320
Contenis ntr0dCti0nt*… A brief history of Cbinese characters 1 Ajphabetical Index......................................... Stroke Index............ The Book… 1-319 Postscript 320