Antonio García Jiménez > 25-05-2018, 07:41 PM
ChenZheChina > 28-08-2018, 08:21 AM
(07-05-2016, 03:38 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Maybe it's easier to explain this with a visual example...
In Chinese, you take a character like this (two versions of a similar concept, top and bottom):
Okay, the main concept is on the right. The radical (modifier) is on the left.
These two character-combinations both mean sister but notice the chars on the right are different for each one, as they are different versions of the idea of a sister.
The radical on the left means woman/female. Combined with the character on the right indicates a familial (blood) relationship.
The character on the bottom right can mean a number of things, like lesser, or farther, and when you combine it with the radical for woman, then you get a younger (lesser, smaller) sister or it can also be used to mean a "friend-sister" (one who is not blood related).
-JKP- > 28-08-2018, 10:14 AM
ChenZheChina > 28-08-2018, 11:07 AM
(28-08-2018, 10:14 AM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.You're correct, Chen Zhe, it's not a perfect analogy. I was trying to think of a way to express VMS glyph combinations as "sense" units rather than as individual letters, and since this way of combining linguistic units (whether concepts or sounds) is unfamiliar in western languages, I was hoping to illustrate the idea with examples from Asian languages, where shapes can express ideas in addition to sounds.