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The Critical Characteristics of Chinese

Zi Gusheng (School of Foreign Languages, Yunnan Agricultural University)

Abstract: The Chinese system has been developing for millennia, in which Chinese characters have experienced successive evolution of the Oracle , the Bronze Script, the , the , the Grass Script, the Running Script, the Standard Scripts and the Simplified Script, let alone the variants of their pronunciation. With the development of computer technology, many flexible and pragmatic fonts have been created and used alongside, which makes the admirable and chameleonic Chinese characters appealing and puzzling to many beginners in learning Chinese. To make their learning Chinese more pleasant and fruitful, this paper briefly and analytically illustrates the pivotal characteristics of Chinese Chinese characters (CCC). Key words: Chinese character, script, writing style, font, pronunciation, meaning 1. Introduction Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family, which is also called Zhengwen, Putonghua, Hanyu, Huayu, Guanhua, Guoyu, Mandarin, and the like. Chinese characters have been developing with such a system in which most of the symbols represent concepts along with the corresponding pronunciations. The very first characters were created from the graphic representation of corresponding objects; for example, 日 (rì, sun) used to be the outline of the sun in the sky , 目 (mù, eye) used to be the profile of a pair of human eyes . In the course of evolution, pictographs, ideographs, composite ideographs, semantic-phonetic compounds, transformed characters and borrowed characters came into being to meet the needs of daily communication and records. Many homophones have been gradually accumulated, polysemies aggregated along, and various writing styles and fonts have been created as well. Generally the square-shaped Chinese characters, formed by strokes, carry their own specific orthography, pronunciation and semantics, which seems too arbitrary and perplexing for beginners and laymen to learn, master and use. Because of rectification, a majority of our daily or commonly used CCC do not carry their originally obvious or direct link between form, sound and meaning. As a result, the present simplified CCC make their writing simpler and more convenient, but much more difficult for beginners to learn and master. In order to familiarize those learners with Chinese characters and make their learning Chinese more enjoyable and fruitful, a brief account of the holistic characteristics of CCC with the evolution of Chinese characters and the intrinsic properties of CCC are illustrated and analyzed in this paper. 2. A Brief Account of the Holistic Characteristics of CCC with their Evolution The specific origin of Chinese characters is still waiting for greater efforts to determine though Chinese legend has it that Chinese characters were originally created by Cang Jie (the Left Historiographer of Emperor Xuanyuan, 仓颉, 轩辕黄帝左史官), who was an official recorder of the legendary Huangdi (Emperor Huang) of in about 2,600 BC, and archaeological findings with unearthed oracles during 19-20th centuries have traced Chinese characters back to the in 1,700 BC. Moreover, Chinese commentaries through the centuries hold that the fully developed form of Chinese characters can be traced back to Cāngjié (仓颉篇), a non-extant work of character recognition listing about 3,300 Chinese characters in . This legendary work has been purported to be compiled by , the Emperor’s Prime Minister (丞相) during the reign of the first Emperor of China, Shihuang (306 BC – 250 BC), on the grounds that currency, laws, weights, measures and writing were all systemized after the unification, and that nearly all the books were burnt during the disastrous campaign of “Burn Books and Bury Confucian Scholars Alive” (213 BC – 206 BC). Characters different from those found in the newly compiled Cāngjié were discarded so that the characters in Li Si’s Cāngjié in Small Seal Script became the standard, though Li Si’s Cāngjié was based on the characters used in all the seven former kingdoms before the . Philological and etymological researches have verified that Chinese characters were initially pictographs (also known as or ) symbolizing the referent of the real and concrete objects in the world. And it has been found that most of the primitive pictographs are only iconic, looking like the shape with the most important characteristic of the objects they stand for. For example, 目(mù, eye):

1 http://www.paper.edu.cn pictograph of a pair of eyes (originally , later on, , and );月(yuè, moon): pictograph of the moon ; 日(rì, sun): pictograph of the sun , 门(mén, door): pictograph of two leaves of a door facing each other . As time went on and people were eager to express some more complex ideas or concepts, a few ideographs were then created, which look like some visible things but denote something abstract. For example, 高 (gāo, tall, high), used to be , which looks like a high building at that time, implying “as tall / high as the house”. Gradually people learned to make composite ideographs by combining two or more pictographs to suggest an idea. The components for the composites can be different pictographs or identical ones. In this way, a number of new characters came into being and use. For example, 明 (míng, bright): a sun (日) and a moon (月), implying that it must be bright with a sun and a moon together in the sky at the same time; 好 (hǎo, good): a woman (女) with a child (子) beside, indicating that it is good like that; 森 (sēn, woods, forest): a tree (木) with another two trees, meaning such places as woods or forest in which there are many trees growing together Still, there were many objects and abstract ideas that were difficult to explicitly express through pictographs, ideographs or composite ideographs. Then came the phonetic-semantic compounds formed by adding different phonetics to significs, in which the signific suggests meaning, the phonetic indicates pronunciation, which may be twisted from its original or remain identical to its original. For example, “鸟” (niǎo, bird) is the general term for birds, but there are various birds in the world, and it is impossible to differentiate each of them by way of pictography or ideography. The dilemma was solved with the help of phonetic-semantic compounds as 鸽 (gē, pigeon), 鹤 (hè, crane), 鹅 (é, goose). These three characters have been created with “鸟” (niǎo, bird) as the signific and their own phonetic tokens, to stand for the corresponding different birds, though they are pronounced differently from the mother character “鸟” (niǎo). 像(xàing, like) is made of 亻(rén, person) and 象(xiàng, elephant), in which 亻(rén, person) is used to discern 像(xàing, like) from 象(xàing, elephant, though they sound the same. Moreover, some Transformed Characters (also called Transferred Characters or Derived Characters) were created with shared radicals or components to stand for the same referent, though they are pronounced differently and applied in different regions. For example, 老 (lǎo) and 考 (kǎo) share a common etymological root “耂” meaning “old”, implying they both mean “old” but differ in that one part is changed to indicate a different pronunciation at the beginning. 爸(bà) and 爹(diē) are a pair of transformed characters, both of which possess the radical 父(fù, father) and mean father, though 爸 was mainly used in the south, while 爹 in the north. With such new coinages, gradually gained a considerable collection of usable characters. In the course of applying those characters by different people in different circumstances or places, many existing characters acquired new meanings with the same or similar pronunciation, which have been called the borrowed characters (also known as phonetic loans). For example, 明(míng): bright (a.) → clear (a.) → understand, know (v.); 好: good (a., hǎo) → like (v., hào). As far as the borrowed characters are concerned, semantic and phonological variants of the same character(s) can be found in Chinese Chinese characters (hanzi), Japanese Chinese characters () and Korean Chinese characters ( or hanmun). For example, “汤” means “soup” in hanzi, but “hot water” in kanji, “soup” and “bath” in hanja; “勉强” means “to be forced” in hanzi, but “study” in kanji; “手纸” is pronounced “shǒuzhǐ”, meaning “toilet paper” in hanzi, while pronounced “tegami”, meaning “letter” in kanji. Even within CCC, the same character can be pronounced quite differently in mainland China and Taiwan, without mentioning different dialects. For example, 垃, 崖, 幢, 堤 are pronounced respectively in mainland China as lā, yá, zhuàng, dī, while in Taiwan as lè, yái, chuáng, and tí. To transcribe spoken Chinese of native Chinese speakers and mark the pronunciation of the characters concerned, over the past two centuries, four transliteration systems have been designed --- (1) Wade-Giles System, (2) Gwoyu Romatzyh, (3) Zhuyin Fuhao, and (4) System. Wade-Giles System is a system of recording and pronouncing Chinese characters in Latin letters. It was invented by Sir Thomas Francis Wade and Herbert Allen Giles in the 1870s. It came into use in 1895 and was modified by Herbert Allen Giles in 1912 (e.g. ai, chai, ch`ai, ch`uai, ch`üeh). Gwoyu Romatzyh,which was created by Y. R. Chao in 1920s eliminated the use of graphs and numbers to represent tones, and used letters instead (e.g. chai, chair, chae, chay).

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Zhuyin Fuhao, developed in 1913, is a system based on the shape of the strokes of CCC. It was the major phonetic system used in China until the early 1950s and is still being used in Taiwan today (e.g. ㄓㄞ, ㄔㄞ, ㄓㄨㄞ). In the 1990s, Taiwan also started to work on a new system called “Tongyong Pinyin”, which uses the English to transcribe the sounds (e.g. jhai, chai, jhuai). The Pinyin System was developed in mainland China in the 1950s. It is a system of written characters, approved in 1958 and officially adopted in 1979 by the government of the People's Republic of China. Its use replaces that of the more complex Wade-Giles system, among others (e.g. zhai, chai). The reasons for adopting Pinyin may include promoting a national language, establishing a means for writing non-Chinese (minority) languages in China, and encouraging non-native Chinese speakers to learn Chinese. Pinyin has been accepted by the government of Singapore, the Library of Congress, the American Library Association, and most international institutions as the preferred transcription system for Chinese. In 1979 the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) also adopted pinyin as the standard Romanization for modern Chinese. At present, the Pinyin System is becoming the most widely-used phonetic system for CCC all over the world. Apart from the evolution of formation, the semantic and phonological aspects as stated above, CCC has also developed some distinctive writing styles and fonts. Here are some typical writing styles: (1) Script; (2) Bronze Script; (3) Large Seal Script; (4) Small Seal Script; (5) Clerical Script; (6) Standard Script; (7) Running Script; (8) Grass Script; (9) Simplified Script (see examples in Table 1).

Table 1 Examples of Typical Writing Styles of Chinese Characters

Note: This sample is selected from Evolution of Chinese Characters, A Guide to Written Language, Omniglot.

The (甲骨文, Jiǎgǔwén) is believed to show the earliest incised Chinese characters, most of which are pictographs inscribed on tortoise plastrons, ox scapulae or other animal bones. The Oracle Bone Script was developed in the period from about 1,400 BC to 1,200 BC, over several generations of kings in the Shang Dynasty (1,600 BC – 1,046 BC), so that there is no single defined form

3 http://www.paper.edu.cn for each character, and of the thousands of characters found from all the unearthed bone fragments, the majority remain undeciphered.. The Bronze Script (金文, Jīnwén ), also called Bronzeware Script or “Zhongdingwen”, is another primitive pictograph carved on ancient bronze objects like bells and tripods in the period from about 1,100 BC to 256 BC of the . The Bronze Scripts are not always regular in shape but more unified for each character compared with the Oracle Scripts. These two writing styles are out of daily common use but priceless for archeological studies on the etymology and evolution of Chinese language. The Large Seal (大篆, Dàzhuàn) and Small Seal (小篆, Xiǎozhuàn) scripts are regularized scripts, which are noted for the uniformity of thickness and space of vertical, horizontal and curved lines. They are often seen in , still used to write names on personal name chops, and occasionally used to write company names on buildings, stationery, name-cards. The Large Seal Script is believed to have been systemized during the reign of King Xuan (周宣王, 827 BC – 781 BC) in the Zhou Dynasty. It is characterized by vertically elongated characters of a regular appearance. The Small Seal Script is said to be systemized by Li Si (the Emperor’s Prime Minister) during the reign of the First Emperor (Qin Huang, 306 BC – 250 BC) of the Qin Dynasty. Characters in the Small Seal Script are less rectangular but more squarish. The Grass Script, also called Tachygraphy or Cursive Script (草书, Cǎoshū), is used mainly for . Grass Scripts originated during the (206 BC – 25 AD). In Grass Script, each character is written with one or two continuous strokes; even each character is connected to the succeeding one, which enables very rapid writing, though characters written in this way are difficult to read. With Grass Scripts calligraphers aim to produce aesthetically pleasing works of calligraphy, so legibility is not their primary concern. The Running Script (行书, Xíngshū) is a semi-cursive writing style in Chinese calligraphy. It was derived from the Clerical Script, and was the common style of handwriting for a long time after its development in the first centuries AD. The Clerical Script (隶书, Lìshū), also called the Official Script, is believed to be an official writing style developed from the Seal Script. It is highly stylized and highly angular in appearance. A character written in the Clerical Script is often larger in width than height. And as a precursor to , for modern readers of Chinese characters, clerical scripts are more legible, compared to Grass Script or Seal Script so that the Clerical Script is still being popularly used, mainly for emphasis and appearing prominent on advertisements, notices and logos. The Standard Script (楷书, kǎishū), also known as Regular Script, is believed to be derived from the Clerical Script and the Running Script. It developed in the 5th century during the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420 – 589), peaked in the 7th century during the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907), and is still used in Taiwan, Kong, Macau and among many overseas Chinese communities. A character in the Standard Script basically fits into a square space, with each character of roughly the same size and proportion. The Simplified Script or Simplified Chinese (简体字, Jiǎntǐzì) was developed from the Standard Script of traditional Chinese characters in the People's Republic of China. It was officially adopted by the People's Republic of China in 1949, promulgated in 1956, and stabilized in 1964. It is also used in Singapore and Malaysia. Its features are nearly the same as those of the Standard Script mainly except that some simplified characters written in the Simplified Script are of fewer strokes and look simpler than their counterparts in Standard Script and,sometimes, two or more traditional Chinese characters have been merged into one simplified character.. For example, 語言學 (yǔyánxué, linguistics) in the Standard Script becomes语言学 (yǔyánxué, linguistics) in Simplified Script; 發 (fā) and 髮 (fà) become one character in Simplified Script as发 (fā; fà). Along with the various writing styles, many different beautiful fonts or typefaces have been initiated and used with the rapid development of computer technology. For example, (1) “Songti, or Song typeface”, a standard font first used in the Dynasty (1368 - 1644) but popularly attributed to the (960 - 1279); (2) “Huawenxinwei”(华文新魏); (3) “Huawenxingkai”(华文行楷); (4) “Huawencaiyun”(华 文彩云); (5) “Youyuan”(幼圆); (6) “Fangzhengshuti”（方正舒体） (see examples in Table 2). With such a brief illustration of the development of Chinese characters, it is easy to feel the complexity and difficulty faced by both native Chinese learners and non-Chinese learners in learning CCC. And it is mainly the complexity of Chinese characters that constitutes a frustrating obstacle to eradicating illiteracy in mainland China and to popularizing the language among non-native Chinese learners. Fortunately great

4 http://www.paper.edu.cn efforts began to be made in the 19th century to simplify the characters. In 1949, a simplified system (Jiǎntǐ), which eliminated 1,053 variant characters, reduced the number of strokes of some characters,

Table 2 Examples of Commonly Used Fonts of Chinese Characters Typeface 汉语 (Chinese) 字体 (Font) 语言学(Linguistics) 图书馆 (Library) 1. Songti 汉 语 字 体 语 言 学 图 书 馆 2. Huawenxinwei 汉 语 字 体 语 言 学 图 书 馆 3.Huawenxingkai 汉 语 字 体 语 言 学 图 书 馆 4. Huawencaiyun 汉 语 字 体 语 言 学 图 书 馆 5.Youyuan 汉 语 字 体 语 言 学 图 书 馆 6. Fangzhengshuti 汉 语 字 体 语 言 学 图 书 馆

And reformed the original 214 radicals into 226 simpler ones, was promulgated in mainland China. The “Complete List of Simplified Characters” published in May 1964 officially listed 2,236 simplified characters. Now,the simplified system is the major used in mainland China, Singapore and among numerous overseas Chinese and non-native English learners. For the sake of reducing the inevitable disparity and the potential complexity, the next part of this paper mainly uses the CCC in Simplified Script, which is being popularly used around the world, for samples to analyze the intrinsic properties of CCC. And the pronunciations of the CCC used in this paper are shown in italicized Pinyin, which is popularly adopted around the world. 3. The Major Intrinsic Properties of CCC Unlike English words, which are linear and alphabetic, CCC are mainly spatial, square-shaped and morpho-syllabic. But there is something in common between English words and CCC. For example, English words are made up of letters, word root, prefixes, suffixes and stress; similarly CCC is composed of some essential parts, such as strokes, radicals and tones. With a basic knowledge of the main characteristics of CCC, learners will find CCC decomposable, meaningful, pleasant and interesting to learn or study. (1) Square Shape and Non-square Shape CCC in Standard Script always keep square-shaped in the same size with other characters in normally printed texts, no matter how simple or complicated the character is. For example, 人, 繁, 穴, 藏. But non- square shapes of CCC coexist in other writing styles (e.g. the Grass Script and the Clerical Script) and fonts (Fangsongti and Advertisement) for different pragmatic purposes. Learners of CCC are expected to be first aware of this property before and while learning CCC. With some efforts and constant visual perception, learners themselves can gradually appreciate the elegance of CCC, especially CCC in calligraphy, where a single character can become an admirable painting. For example,

A poem in Standard Script 寿 (shòu, longevity) in Grass Script Note: The Standard Script is selected from Eyrie of Calligraphy by Huang Yiqing, and the Grass Script from Wave Dancing Chinese Calligraphy by Lixin Wang.

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(2) Stroke and Its Assembly in CCC Stokes for CCC are just like letters for English words. They are the smallest elements of CCC, which are really the raw materials for constructing CCC. A Chinese character is composed of a , a number of strokes, or a single movement of the pen or writing brush in Grass Script (see the illustration of 寿 above). The order and direction in which the strokes are assembled is very critical in producing meaningful and beautiful characters, though most of the strokes proper are meaningless individually. Learning this property of strokes and the basic rules of can often ease the process of learning to recognize and write CCC. For example, 大(dà) means “big”; with another small dot “丶” in a different position, it may become 太(tài, too, much) or 犬(quǎn, dog); with another shorter line 一 put above it, 大(dà) can become 天(tiān; sky); with another stroke ノ(a slight curve falling leftwards, piě in Chinese pinyin) above it, 大(dà) becomes 夭 (yāo, die young; luxuriant). Although there are exceptions, CCC are generally written from left to right, top to bottom, horizontal strokes before vertical ones. The outsides of enclosed characters are written before the insides, and dots, strokes that cut through a character, minor strokes and bottom enclosing strokes are written last. For example, 国 (guó, country): 丨、冂、一、二、干、王、玉、 国. Here are the most basic and commonly used strokes:

(3) Radical and Single-Element Character Radicals for CCC are like the root for English words. In CCC, there are more than 200 radicals (250 are listed in Cihai, a Chinese lexicographic work compiled by Xia Zhengnong et al. and published by Shanghai Dictionary Press in 1999, excluding the overlapped), which are minimum ideographs, phonetic or semantic components for compound Chinese characters. Generally radicals refer to phonetics, significs and primitives. The phonetic of a character is a symbol that represents the "sound" aspect of that character, with which the pronunciation of that character can roughly be figured out, though the character does not necessarily pronounce the same as the phonetic in the original. For example, 工(gōng, work) serves as phonetic in 功攻汞贡红, which is pronounced similar to 工, though not exactly the same, 功(gōng, meritorious service), 攻(gōng, attack), 汞(gǒng, mercury), 巩(gǒng, consolidate), 贡(gòng, tribute), and 红(gōng, female worker, work done by women; hóng, red). The signific is a symbol which stands for the "meaning" aspect of that character. Significs can be further classified into primary significs and derived significs, of which the former is an indivisible base or minimum meaningful character itself, the latter can be derived from a primary signific in conjunction with others. For example, (1) primary significs: : 一 (yī, one), 人 (rén, person), and 口 (kǒu, mouth) are characters themselves and can function as radicals without much change of the original form as 人 in compounds like 会(huì, v. understand), 全(quán, a. whole, all), 伞(sǎn, n. umbrella); (2) derived significs: 二 (èr, two) is derived from 一 and 一, 大 (dà, big) from 一 and 人, 中(zhōng, middle) from 口 +丨.They are derived significs as illustrated, and radicals as 大 in 太 (tài, too, excessive), which can be analyzed as 大 + 丶, interpreted as “a little, even a 丶 dot more than being 大 big enough can become being too much or excessive”. The primitive is a symbol which is so primitive that generally it does not exist as an independent character but carries some meaning when it is used to create a new character. For example, 亻 is not a Chinese character, though it can be understood as the twisted 人 as in 仁 (rén, a. benevolent): One quality of harmonizing a 人 person with 二 others is being benevolent; 仙 (xiān, n. fairy): a 亻 person who always lives in a 山 (shān) mountain alone is generally a fairy. Usually, the right radical is a phonetic and the left radical is semantic. But this pattern can be reversed for some characters. And there are some other patterns, say, top-bottom and inside-outside radical

6 http://www.paper.edu.cn arrangements. For example, 肖(xiāo) is flexible with its location in its related compounds as phonetic, but is pronounced the same or similarly as in 消 (xiāo, disappear), 削 (xiāo, peel), 宵 (xiāo, night), 逍 (xiāo, carefree), 捎(shāo, take, bring), 稍(shāo, slightly, a little) and 哨(shào, whistle, patrol). Most CCC with 扌 as derived signific from 手 carry the functions and action of hand, such as 扎(zā, tie, bind, fasten), 打(dǎ, strike, hit, knock), 扔(rēng, throw, coast, toss), 执(zhí, hold, grip, grasp), 抓(zhuā, seize, grab, clutch), 抬 (tái, lift, raise), 提(tí, carry, raise, lift), 拉(lā, pull, draw, draw, tug). Even some radicals are so flexible as to be used as signific and phonetic in different CCC, e.g. 羊 (yáng, sheep, goat) serves as a phonetic for 洋 (yang, ocean), 佯 (yáng, pretend), 烊 (yáng, melt), 牂(zāng, ewe), 痒(yǎng, itch) but a signific for 群(qún, crowd, group). Furthermore, there exist some single-element characters in CCC, which are independent one-semantic- unit characters per se, most of which can serve as radicals for compounds and thus are also known as primary significs. These single-element characters are mainly in the form of pictographs or ideographs. For example, 人 (rén, person, ), 〇 (líng , zero, 〇), 一 (yī, one), 丫(yā, bifurcation, fork, ), 乂(yì, stabilize, pacify, ). How to efficiently and effectively accumulate the common and basic radicals and single-element characters to the degree that learners can make full use of them in decomposing the compound Chinese characters deserves due attention. (4) Compound and Its Composition in CCC To satisfy the demands of ever-growing precise expression in communication and statement, a great number of compounds have been created with radicals. In nearly all of the CCC, compounds are formed by meaning-sound, or meaning-meaning (-meaning). Sometimes one part of a character gives a cue to the meaning of the newly formed character, another the sound, while sometimes two or three words are arranged together to integrate a new character, whose meaning can be worked out from the components. For example, 们 (men) is a meaning + meaning / sound compound created with 亻+ 门 (mén), and it can be understood as there are many 亻 people in the room, even there is a 亻 person leaning against the 门(mén) door, showing person in plural form. 移 (yí) is formed by 禾 (hé, growing grain) and 多(duō, many); its meaning can be figured out by an association of “多 multiplicity of 禾 grain plants requiring 移 removal or 移 transplanting”, meaning : “v. remove, transplant; n. removal, transplantation”. 够 (gòu) is formed by 勹 (restrain), 口(kǒu, mouth) and 多(too much), its meaning can also be worked out by “to 勹 restrain one’s 口 mouth from 多 too much talk and say just 够 enough”, meaning “enough”. 骑(qí) is made of 马 + 奇 (qí, 大 + 可), its meaning can be worked out as that the 马(mǎ) horse has grown 大 big enough for people 可(kě) to (be able to) 骑 ride on, implying “ride”. (5) Monosyllable and Tone It has been estimated that Chinese has around 3,000 potential syllables altogether, of which only about 1,000 are used daily (Peng Zerun, 2005). The vast majority of CCC is monosyllabic representing the single syllable of CCC in spoken form, which is a typical characteristic of CCC, though there are few disyllable CCC like 瓩“qiānwǎ” (there is no multi-syllable character in modern CCC). Without knowledge of this aspect, learners of CCC, especially those who are used to alphabetic languages like English which is rich in multi-syllable words, often miss a lot of characters while listening to Chinese, feeling considerably baffled in listening comprehension of CCC. On the other hand, learners can readily familiarize themselves with the pronunciation of CCC if they keep highly sensitive to this uniqueness of CCC. It may be because of the insufficient syllables (compared with English, which has about 40,000 potential syllables, with about 8,000 in common use; Peng Zerun, 2005) that CCC have been endowed with four tones as “-, /, v, \” (a high tone, a rising tone, a tone that combines a falling and a rising inflection, and a falling tone), which are marks put above pinyin, indicating the levels of pitch in pronouncing CCC for beginners. They decide the subtle and varying pronunciation, sometimes the meaning, even part of speech, of CCC along with pinyin. Gradually, they are superficially “omitted” with pinyin in the text but inherently rooted in CCC. For example, “fā, fá, fǎ, fà” are pronounced slightly different with the four tones but mean quite distinctive things, “fā” means “发, v. send out, distribute; generate; launch”, while “fá” means “乏, v. lack; a. tired”, “fǎ” “法, n. way, method; law”, “fà” “发, n. hair”. In addition, some tones modulate depending upon the following tone, for example, when a third tone follows another third tone in succession, the first sounds almost like a second tone and so it is usually pronounced with the second tone; when 一 (yī, one) and 不 (bù, no) precede fourth-tone characters or

7 http://www.paper.edu.cn neutral-tone characters derived from fourth-tone characters, they shift to the second tone; when 一 (yī, one) appears before first, second and third-tone characters, it changes to the fourth tone. And some occasional loss of tones or toneless CCC (i.e. some syllables or pinyin of CCC, known as neutral tone or zeroth tone, do not need tone marks) can also be encountered here and there. This property often goes with auxiliary words, addresses, markers of noun and pronoun in plural form. For instance, 的地得 are all pronounced “” tonelessly when they are used as auxiliary words. 着 is pronounced tonelessly as “zhe”, 吗 and 嘛 as “ma”, and 么 as “me”, 巴, 吧 and 罢 as “ba”, 了 as “le” when they are used as auxiliary words. In addresses like “爷爷” ( yé ye, grandfather), “奶奶” (nǎi nai, grandmother) , “妈妈” (mā ma, mother), “爸 爸” (bà ba, father), “哥哥” (gē ge, elder), “姐姐” (jiě jie, elder sister) and “妹妹”(mèimei, younger sister), the second character usually loses its original tone when the same character is used together iteratively at the same time, which is very common in daily and family communication, for it can convey an intimate affection. Similarly “姐夫” (jiěfu, the husband of one’s elder sister), “妹夫” (mèifu, the husband of one’s younger sister), “丈夫” (zhàngfu, husband), the second character 夫 in such addresses also loses its original tone. 们 (men) is pronounced tonelessly when it is used as a plural marker to a noun or pronoun. Such a variety of tones (see the notation with annotation in the figure below) has made Chinese a melodic and tonal language, but also made accurately perceiving and speaking CCC challenging as well. So it is rather essential to get an acquaintance of Chinese tones and their regularities for learning CCC well. Figure 1 Tones of CCC

NB First tone: It is the highest tone we can pronounce in a simple and normal way. It is pronounced with a steady pitch. Second tone: Rising pitch from low to high. Third tone: First sinking pitch while the voice is being lowered, followed by a rising pitch and stronger voice. Forth tone: Fast sinking pitch with a sharp end. Neutral tone: Relax in the mouth and let the tone fall naturally.

(6) Homophone and Multi-Pronunciation Statistics show that The Kangxi Dictionary compiled in 1716 has collected 47,043 characters, “Xiandai ” compiled in 1986-1990 has collected about 56,000 characters, and that the latest dictionary “Zhonghua Zi Hai”, compiled by Leng Yulong, Wei Yixin et al. and published in 1994, has collected 85,568 characters. With the approximate 400 different syllables and five variant tones for so many Chinese characters, it is unavoidable to get a considerable number of homophones of many characters, and multiple pronunciations of one identical character, which is larger than many other languages and becomes another threatening obstacle for learners of CCC to overcome, even for native Chinese speakers. So it is advisable to generalize these homophones, work out their intrinsic interrelations and familiarize ourselves with them in learning and using CCC. Homophones are those characters that share the same pronunciation with other characters but mean differently, which is a typical philological characteristic of Chinese characters. Homophones are still so common that most pinyin with the identical tone have more than three characters even after the simplification of CCC in mainland China (e.g. under zhì 48 characters are listed in New , 《新华大字典》published by Commercial Press and International Co., Ltd. in 2004), which requires special attention from learners of CCC. For example, 生(shēng, give birth to; life; produce), 甥(shēng, nephew), 笙(shēng, a musical instrument of reed pipe wind) and 牲(shēng, domestic animal), are all pronounced “shēng”and sound identical and confusing. But if we have learned the base 生 and its meaning first, it is much easier to see why they all sound the same. As to their meanings, we can also make the best

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of “生” (give birth to; life; produce) and the other components within the corresponding character. “甥” = 生(shēng) +男(nán) = life + male (borne by one sister) → nephew. “笙” = ⺮(zhú) +生(shēng) = something made of materials like bamboo can produce music →a musical instrument of reed pipe wind. “牲” = 牛(niú) + 生(shēng) = animals like cattle living close to a family → domestic animals. In contrast to homophones, multi-pronunciation is another linguistic dimension. Chinese, like many other languages, has accumulated a remarkable number of characters that are pronounced and mean differently in different circumstances. If the character is pronounced incorrectly, misunderstanding may well spring up; even nonsense may come as a result. For example, 乐 can either be pronounced as “lè” or “yuè”, which can be readily imitated but is not so easy to apply appropriately in 乐趣(lè qù, delight, pleasure) and 乐曲(yuè qù, musical composition; a piece of music). Moreover, when 乐 is used as one’s surname as in 乐乐乐, the first of which is expected to be always pronounced as “yuè” rather than “lè”. If the first is pronounced as “lè”, calling the target person may bring about displeasure, or get no response. Some characters can have more than two pronunciations. For exam ple “着” can be pronounced as “zhāo”, “zháo”, “zhe”, and “zhuó” depending on the collocation in the corresponding cases. (7) Polysemy, Non-inflection and Multiple Parts of Speech With continuous application and constant improvement over thousands of years, many Chinese characters have been embedded with various meanings to meet the needs of daily communication and recording. And polysemy of CCC has been growing more and more prominent with its ever-increasing accumulation in that Chinese often use the ready-made CCC to transcribe the overwhelming new terms from other languages in addition to its own. For example, 分 (fēn) has 11 meanings in daily use (see Table 3). Table 3 Polysemies and Multiple Parts of Speech of 分 (fēn) Part of Speech Meaning 1 Meaning 2 Meaning 3 Meaning 4 Meaning 5 Meaning 6 Verb divide, distribute, assign, distinguish, separate, allot differentiate part Noun branch faction Measure Word portion, a unit of weight; a minute (a minute rate of point, mark part factional unit of measurement (measurement interest money in China of time) of angle) Note: The part of speech in the table is classified according to .

Non-inflection is typically characteristic of CCC, which is of no morphological changes for different numbers in nouns, tenses in verbs or cases in pronouns. Nouns in CCC are of common case; even numerical changes for nouns mainly depend on the numbers concerned or vary from singular to plural with additional CCC like 许多, 好多 and 们 (e.g. 许多人: many people，好多书: a lot of books, 我们: we and us), the possessive case for nouns in CCC involves the application of auxiliary character 的 instead of changing the nouns (e.g. 小车的主人: the owner of the car). Predicate verbs keep the same in form for the varying subjects in sentences, no matter whether the subject is singular or plural (e.g. 你去, 他去, 我去, 我 们大家都去: You go, he goes, I go, so we all go.). As for the tenses in sentences, predicate verbs do not make any change but take the advantage of adverbs, such as 曾(经) for past tense, 已(经) and 了 for perfect tense, 正(在) for progressive tense, 将(要) and 就(要) for future tense, 在……之后(after), 在…… 之前(before), 正当……的时候(while). Pronouns do not change at all for nominative and accusative cases; for possessive case, they may make use of the auxiliary 的 (of) or just go without it (e.g. 你: you, 我: I and me, 她: she and her, 我的钢笔: my pen, 我父母 my parents). As a result, many Chinese characters have also been endowed with several parts of speech to make up for the lack of morphological inflection. This property is not strange for a human language but becomes a complicated problem for learners of CCC to face and solve. For example, the Chinese character 等 can be used as measure word, preposition, adjective, verb and auxiliary; that five parts of speech, especially preposition and verb, can be found in the same character in its syntactic function is an extremely rare phenomenon for many other languages but very common in Chinese (see Table 4).

Table 4 Polysemy and Multiple Parts of Speech of “等” (děng)

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Part of Measure word Preposition Adjective Verb Auxiliary Speech Meaning 1. class, grade, rank; 1. when, till. 1. equal. 1. wait (for), 1. and so on, and so 2. kind, sort, type. await. forth. Examples 1. 头等品: first-rate 1. 等我做完再走: 1. 等距离: 1. 等公共车 1. 中国、美国、英国 goods; 2. 此等人: Stay till I’m equal wait for a bus 等: China, USA, UK this kind or person through. distance and so on Note: The part of speech in the table is classified according to Chinese grammar.

4. Discussion Pictograph, ideograph, sound-meaning compound, square shape, stroke, radical, mono-syllable, tone, homophone, multiple pronunciation, polysemy and multiple part of speech, are all characteristics of Chinese characters. And they are the only major properties of CCC, let alone the various writing styles and fonts, accumulated with the development over thousands of years. Recent statistics have disclosed that Xiandai Hanyu da Zidian (Dictionary of Modern Chinese; compiled during 1986 – 1990 in PRC) collected about 56,000 Chinese characters, which is challenging for learners of CCC, even for native Chinese speakers. Fortunately it has been estimated that we only need to know about 2,000 characters to be able to read normal books or newspapers in simplified Chinese. Chinese students in mainland China are required to learn 3,500 up to senior high school, because only about 3,500 characters are commonly used in our daily life, according to “The List of Commonly Used Chinese Characters” firstly published by China’s Education Commission in 1988. It is generally acknowledged that a fairly well-educated native Chinese person usually masters about 7,000 characters. Moreover, academic studies showed that about 90% CCC (Karlgren, 1923; Tsien, 1962; Wang, 1981) and about 80% of all modern Chinese characters (Li, 1997) are semantic-phonetic compounds. With some knowledge of the intrinsic properties of CCC, we can manage to decompose novel characters. While we are decomposing the novel, we often review and reinforce many of the characters we have learned as well. Gradually we can recognize many new characters, feeling that we learn CCC much faster and learning CCC becomes meaningful and productive. Chinese characters, like English words as elements for English language to some extent, are fundamental components for Chinese language, of which the integration of orthography, pronunciation and semantics (initiated by Charles A. Perfetti in the Universal Grammar of Reading in 2003) is no exception. So it is advisable for learners of CCC to make full use of the innate properties of CCC to learn them efficiently. With the help of analytical illustrations in this paper, we may come up with our own effective strategies for learning CCC efficiently, such as the analysis approach, which puts the holistic tokens (orthography, pronunciation and semantics) of CCC into full play, and which is popularly practiced and has proved to be one of the effective strategies for learning CCC by a number of native Chinese teachers and students in their application (see “Analysis Approach to Learning Chinese Characters” for detail).

Notes 1. Statistics, say, the time of a historical event, may vary from one resource to another, what is cited in this paper is drawn from encyclopedia or dictionaries after various comparisons and verifications. 2. Some controversial terms like Transformed Characters, Borrowed Characters and the Primitive are clarified with the authors’ own understanding after making numerous references to literature concerned. 3. This paper was written with the help of Prof. Charles A. Perfetti and Dr. Ying Liu, of Learning Research and Development Center in University of Pittsburgh during the author’s staying as a research associate and visiting scholar in USA. Bibliography Dictionaries and Books Cambridge International Dictionary of English (1995). England, UK: Cambridge University Press. Chu Peiru Jin Nailu (2002). Chinese Multi-reading Characters without Tears. Beijing, China: Beijing University Press. F. X. Keelan M. M. (1967). Chinese Characters Explained. Taichung, Taiwan: Kuangchi Press. Gelb, I. J. 1952. A Study of Writing. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Johannes C. Ziegler, Li Hai Tan, Conrad Perry, and Marie Montant (2000). Phonology Matters: The

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Phonological Frequency Effect in .USA: Psychological Science, American Psychological Society. R. R. K. Hartmann and F. C. Stork (1972). Dictionary of Language and Linguistics. London, UK: Applied Science Publishers Ltd. Sue-Mei Yueming Yu Yanhui Zhang Weizhong (2004). Elementary Chinese. Boston: Pearson Custom Publishing. Tzeng, Ovid. et al. 1992. Auto Activation of Linguistic Information in Chinese Character Recognition. Advances in Psychology. Vol.94, p.119-130. William McNaughton and Li Ying (1979). Reading and Writing Chinese : A Guide to the Chinese Writing System. Tokyo, Japan, the Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc. Wu Guanghua (2002). Chinese Characters Dictionary with English Annotations. Shanghai, China: Shanghai Jiaotong University Press. Wu Jingrong Cheng Zhenqiu (2000). New Age Chinese-English Dictionary. Beijing, China: The Commercial Press Papers John A. Spinks, Ying Liu, Charles A. Perfetti, Li Hai Tan (2000). Reading Chinese Characters for Meaning: the Role of Phonological Information. USA: Cognition 76 B1-B11. Li Hai Tan, Ho-Ling Liu, Charles A. Perfetti, John A. Spinks, Peter T. Fox, and Jia-Hong Gao (2001). The Neural System Underlying Chinese Logograph Reading. USA: NeuroImage. 13, 836-846. Li Hai Tan, Charles A. Perfetti (1999). Phonological Activation in Visual Identification of Chinese Two-Character Words. USA: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Vol. 25, No. 2, 382-393. Marcel Adam Just and Patricia A. Carpenter (1980). A Theory of Reading from Eye Fixations to Comprehension. Psychological Review, Vol. 87, No. 4, 329-354. Michael P. A. Page and Dennis Norris (1998). The Primacy Model: A New Model of Immediate Serial Recall. Psychological Review, Vol. 105, No. 4, 761-781. Perfetti, C. A. (2003). The Universal Grammar of reading. Scientific Studies of Reading, 7(1), 3-24, Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Seong-Whan Lee (1997). Editorial. Great Britain: Pattern Recognition, Vol. 30, No. 8, 1253-1254. Sulan Zhang, Charles A. Perfetti and Hui Ying (1999). Whole Word, Frequency-General Phonology in Semantic Processing of Chinese Characters. USA: Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, Vol. 25, No. 4, 858-875.

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