Chinese Language Forums - Chinese Etymology Institute

Now, we have learned one way to distinguish the type of the words. If,
1. the word meaning arises from the phonetic value of its sound tag, it should be a 形 聲 (phonetic loan) word,
2. the word meaning arises from the semantic value of its sound tag via an inferring process, it should be a 會 意 (sense determinators) word in general.

That is, the word type is determined by the way of how its meaning arises instead of its word form, as many 會 意 words do have an explicit sound tag. And, there is a very special sub-group of the 會 意 words which do have the word form identical to a 形 聲 word, such as, 傢, 俱.


In fact, the word 形 in 形 聲 means a concrete object, not a concept. So, 魚 (fish), 鳥 (bird), 犬 (dog), 木 (word or tree) and 玉 (jade) are all concrete objects. And, the following words are all 形 聲 words.
犬 (dog), 狗 (dog), 猈 (dog with short shinbone), 獀 (hunting dog), 狐 (fox), 獅 (lion), etc..
木 (word or tree), 樹 (tree in general), 幹 (tree trunk), 葉 (tree leaves), 樁 (tree stump), etc..
玉 (jade), 玟 (文 jade), 珂 (可 jade), 瑱 (真 jade), 碧 (bluish green jade), etc..


On the contrary, although the 人 (person) word do represent a concrete subject, it, often, points out a conceptual space. Thus, the 人 radical in the words 傢, 俱 does not point to a concrete subject but to something about 人 (human).
傢 (about home) is 人 (human) + 家 (home).

俱 (furniture) is 人 (human) + 具 (tool, gadget, device, equipment, instrument , utensil, etc.)
So, 傢 俱 is the gadget in the home. These two words have the word forms identical to the 形 聲 words, but their word meanings arise from the semantic value of their sound tag. Furthermore, their meanings arise from a very special inferring process, pointing (指 事). In fact, they are 指 事 字 (pointed word), not 指 事 文 (pointed ideograph).


指 事 文 is a single pictograph symbol, which is an ideograph. 指 事 字 is a composed word. Is there any 象 形 字(pictographic word)? The answer is No. All 字 are composed symbols and are not ideographs anymore. There are only 象 形 文.