In the modern Chinese writing system, the vast majority of Chinese characters are logograms with ... more In the modern Chinese writing system, the vast majority of Chinese characters are logograms with semantic-phonetic compound structure. These characters consist in origin of a semantic element and a phonetic element, each of which bears a non-arbitrary relationship to the spoken morpheme that the character represents. These functional elements are closed sets of graphic elements and comprise meaningful structural subsystems within the writing system, with striking parallels to subsystems in other early logosyllabic writing systems, such as Egyptian and Sumerian.
In this paper I focus on an analysis of the closed set of elements which can fill the semantic slot in a semantic-phonetic compound. Even though many of these elements are formally identical to logograms that represent spoken morphemes, they play a functional role that is independent of speech units. They can therefore be considered a system of classificatory signs (“semantic classifiers”) that is embedded in and interfaces with the glottographic functions of the graphic units of which they form a part.
Because of the unbroken history of use of the Chinese script from its creation down to the present day, the cognitive and functional role of these elements can be investigated in ways that are not available to researchers interested in the similar systems that are embedded in ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, and Mayan writing. Recent psycholinguistic studies provide insights into the role that these classifiers play in learning, remembering, and recognizing graphs, as well as into how they interface with cognitive categories in the minds of script users. We can also examine the role that these classifiers play in the ongoing creation of new characters. By focusing on character creation in the last few centuries, we can ascertain with a reasonable degree of certainty which classifiers are cognitively “active” and how they relate to the mental categorization of modern words and morphemes.
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In this paper I focus on an analysis of the closed set of elements which can fill the semantic slot in a semantic-phonetic compound. Even though many of these elements are formally identical to logograms that represent spoken morphemes, they play a functional role that is independent of speech units. They can therefore be considered a system of classificatory signs (“semantic classifiers”) that is embedded in and interfaces with the glottographic functions of the graphic units of which they form a part.
Because of the unbroken history of use of the Chinese script from its creation down to the present day, the cognitive and functional role of these elements can be investigated in ways that are not available to researchers interested in the similar systems that are embedded in ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, and Mayan writing. Recent psycholinguistic studies provide insights into the role that these classifiers play in learning, remembering, and recognizing graphs, as well as into how they interface with cognitive categories in the minds of script users. We can also examine the role that these classifiers play in the ongoing creation of new characters. By focusing on character creation in the last few centuries, we can ascertain with a reasonable degree of certainty which classifiers are cognitively “active” and how they relate to the mental categorization of modern words and morphemes.