Chinese character forms studies the external structure of Chinese characters, i.e. strokes, components, and whole characters, and their structural relations to the pure dimension of forms or appearances. The internal structure of Chinese characters (Pinyin: hànzì nèibù jiégòu; Traditional Chinese: 漢字的內部結構; Simplified Chinese: 汉字内部结构) studies the relationship between the forms, sounds, and meanings of the characters, thereby explaining the rationale for character formation.
In the analysis of internal structures, Chinese characters are decomposed into internal structural components in relation to the sound and meaning of the character.
Internal structural components
The character-building units obtained by analyzing the external structure of Chinese characters are external structural components. In internal structures, Chinese characters are analyzed according to the rationale of character formation, and the basic unit of character formation is internal structural components, or internal components in short, also called pianpang (偏旁) or characters (字符).
In most cases, the components of the internal structure of a Chinese character are similar to the first-level components in the external structure, for example, the character 江 is decomposed into 氵 and 工 in both analyses. However, they are not always the same. For example, the character "腾" is decomposed according to the internal structure as "semantically related to '马' and phonetically related to '朕'", in a semi-surrounding structure; while the external analysis then simply split it according to the left-right structure. The external structure splitting method is used only when the internal structure analysis cannot be decomposed according to the character formation rationale.
According to their sound-meaning relationship with the whole character, internal components can be classified into three categories: semantic component (義符, 义符, 意符, 意旁 or 形旁, phonetic component (音符, 音旁, or 聲旁) and pure (form) component (記號, 符號).
Any component related to the meaning of the character is a semantic component. For example: the component "扌" (hand) in characters "推" (push) and "拉" (pull), and "心" (heart) in "思" (think) and "想" (think). A component related to the pronunciation of the character is a phonetic component. For example, "包" (bāo) in "抱" (bào) and "苞" (bāo). A pure (form) component is neither related to the meaning nor to the pronunciation of the character. For example: "多" (duō) in "移" (yí, move), and "立" (lì, stand) in 拉 (lā, pull)".
Traditional internal structural classification
In Shuowen Jiezi, Xu Shen proposed the six categories (六書; liùshū; 'Six Writings') for the formation of Chinese characters, including Pictograms (象形; xiàngxíng; 'form imitation') – A pictographic character consists of one semantic component which is a drawing of the object it represents, such as: 日 (sun) and 月 (moon). When created, character 日 was a simplified picture of the sun and 月 was like the moon. Simple ideograms (指事; zhǐshì; 'indication') express an abstract idea with an iconic form, such as: 一 (one), 二 (two), 三 (three), 上 (up) and 下 (down). The whole character is a semantic component. Compound ideographs (會意; huìyì; 'joined meaning'), are compounds of two or more semantic components to suggest the meaning of the character, for example: 武 ('military', formed from 戈 (dagger-axe) and 止 (foot)) and 信 ('truthful', formed from 人 (person, later reduced to 亻) and 言 (speech)). Phono-semantic compound characters (形声; 形聲; xíngshēng; 'form and sound'); A phono-semantic character consists of a phonetic component and a semantic component, for example, 江 (river, semantic 氵, phonetic 工), 河 (river, semantic 氵， phonetic: 可). Derivative cognates (轉注/转注; zhuǎnzhù; 'reciprocal meaning') are the smallest category and also the least understood. In the postface to the Shuowen Jiezi, Xu Shen gave as an example the characters 考 (kǎo, verify) and 老 (lǎo, old), which had similar Old Chinese pronunciations and may have had the same etymological root, meaning "elderly person", but became lexicalized into two separate words. Rebus (phonetic loan) characters (假借; jiǎjiè; borrowing, making use of) are characters that are "borrowed" to write another morpheme which is pronounced the same or nearly the same. For example, the characters 令 (order) and 長 (long), These two characters originally were official titles. The whole loan character is a phonetic component.
Modern internal structural classification
The traditional Six Writings classification presupposed that each component in a Chinese character can either represent the sound or meaning of the character. But, after the long evolution of the Chinese writing system, quite a few components can no longer effectively play the roles. For example, component 又 in the characters 邓 and 鸡 can neither represent sound nor meaning and has become a pure-form component.
From the internal structure point of view, modern Chinese characters are composed of semantic components, phonetic components, and pure-form components. These three types of components are used in combination to form the seven structures of modern Chinese characters: semantic component characters, phonetic component characters, pure form component characters, semantic-phonetic characters, semantic-form characters, phonetic-form characters, and semantic-phonetic-form characters.
Semantic component characters Semantic component characters, or simply semantic characters, are composed of semantic components.
Single semantic component characters Single semantic component characters are composed of one semantic component, and most of them correspond to pictograms and simple ideograms in the traditional six writings. For example: 田 (field), 井 (well), 門 (door), 网 (net) are ancient pictograms, and 门 (door), 伞(umbrella) are modern pictograms. 一 (one), 二 (two), 三 (three), 刃 (blade) are ancient simple ideograms, and 丫 (branch, fork), 凹 (concave), 凸 (convex), and 串 (string) are later simple ideograms.
Multi-semantic component characters Multi-semantic-component characters are composed of two or more semantic components. They include compound ideographs in the traditional Six writings. For example,
Most multi-semantic component characters contain two semantic components, for example, 信 (trust): semantic components 人 (people) and 言 (words), trust what people say. 尖 (pointed, sharp, tip): 小 (small) at the top and 大 (large) at the bottom. 拿 (take): 合 (close) your 手 (hands) together to take.
Some characters are composed of three semantic components, for example,
掰 (break apart): Separate (分) something with both hands (手). 晶 (brilliant, crystal): three 日 (suns) are very bright.
Some characters repeat the same semantic components, for example,
从 (follow): Indicates that one 人 (person) follows another person. 炎 (flame): Two 火 (fire) represents rising flames. 森 (large forest): Three 木 (trees) means there are many trees.
Some are simplified characters:
尘 (dust): 小 (small) 土 (soil) particles, representing dust. 灭 (extinguish): Use 一 (like a cover) to suppress 火 (fire). 泪 (tears): 氵(water) from 目 (eyes).
There are some special cases
叵 (can not): turn 可 (can) to the opposite (right) side. (Shuowen) 乌 /烏 (crow, a pure black bird), 鳥/鸟 cannot see its eyes. (Note by Duan Yucai) 冇 (none, not have): 有 (have) taken away "二" (content).
Phonetic component characters
A phonetic component character, or shortly phonetic character, is composed of one or more phonetic components.
A single phonetic component character may be used to express a phonetic-loan meaning while its original or basic meaning is still understood by people. For example: The pronunciation of the character "花" meaning "spending" is the same as that of the "花" which means "flower" in its original meaning. The latter can be regarded as the phonetic component of the former. A single phonetic component character can also represent a syllable in a transliterated foreign word, for example, the characters in words "打" (dá, dozen) and "馬達" (mǎdá, motor).
Multi-phonetic component characters were produced during the development of writing systems. For example:
"新" (xīn) was originally a semantic-phonetic character, but its modern meaning of "new" has nothing to do with the original semantic component of "斤" (jīn, 0.5 kg), but the sounds are similar. In this way, "新" (xīn) then has two phonetic components: "亲" (qīn) and "斤" (jīn).
"耻” (chǐ, shame) used to be written as 恥 which is a semantic-phonetic character. The semantic component 心 (heart) has become 止 (zhǐ, stop), "耻” (chǐ) then has two phonetic components, "耳" (ěr) and 止 (zhǐ).
乒乓 (pīngpāng, ping pong), both forms and sounds of the two characters are derived from 兵 (bīng, soldier) with similar sounds.
Pure form component characters A pure-form character is composed of one or more form components, which neither represent the sound nor the meaning of the characters.
Single-component characters These characters are composed of single pure form components. Many of them were originally ancient pictographic characters, but due to the evolution of the glyphs, they no longer look like the object represented. For example: 日: The 日 character in the modern regular script is no longer of round shape. 月: It has become a ladder shape. 魚: Not quite like a fish now. After tracing the origin of these kinds of characters, it is easy to associate them with the things they represent and obtain the correct meanings.
Some characters with single-form components are borrowed characters from ancient times. For example: 我: In oracle, it is like a weapon with a blade shaped like a saw, and was later used as a first-person pronoun. In modern Chinese, the original meaning is lost. 方: "Shuowen Jiezi" believes that the original meaning is a kind of boat, which has been borrowed to express the shape of a "square". 而: The ancient character was like a beard, now has been borrowed to be a conjunction in modern Chinese.
Some combined characters have been simplified and become single-form component characters. 广: The traditional Chinese character is "廣". 农: The traditional Chinese character is "農". 书: The traditional Chinese character is "書". 专: The traditional Chinese character is "專". 门: The traditional Chinese character is "門".
Multi-component characters These characters consist of two or more pure-form components. Some of these characters came from ancient pictographic characters, but later became non-pictographic. For example, 角 (horn): This character in the oracle bone script looks like an ox horn. 鼎 (tripod): The oracle bone inscriptions are in the shape of a tripod. 鹿 (deer): In oracle bones, it resembles a deer.
Some came from ancient semantic-phonetic characters, and the semantic and phonetic components of these characters have lost their functions. For example: 騙 (piàn)： It originally meant to jump on the horse. It now means deception, and the semantic component 馬 (horse) and phonetic 扁 (biǎn) have become pure forms. 特: semantic 牛 and sound 寺, it originally referred to a bull, but now it means "special" and "unusual", and both components are pure forms. 穌：semantic 禾 (crop) and sound 魚 (yu2, fish), Duan Yucai's note in Shuowen says: "If the grain is scattered, pick it up with a loaf." The character now expresses the meaning of awakening or is used in a person's name.
Some are simplified characters. For example: 头 (head): The traditional Chinese character is “頭”, semantic component 頁 and phonetic component 豆. The simplified character component 大 and the two dots are pure-form components.
Some are from ancient ideographic characters. For example: 射 (shooting): The word "射" in oracle bone and bronze inscriptions is like pulling a bow and shooting, now neither 身 nor 寸 can express the sound or meaning of 射.