Significant
A Significum (Pl. Signifika , Chinese 義 符 , Chinese 义 符 , Pinyin: yìfú) is the meaningful element of a Chinese character . The characters of the Chinese script consist either of just one radical , or they are phonograms , semantic-phonetic compositions with the radical as a meaning (bearer or giver of meaning) as well as additional signs for pronunciation (bearer or giver of sound: phonetic ).
Examples
- Examples with the character horse ( 馬 mǎ )
- 嗎ma: interrogative particle ma (Signifikum: radical 30 = mouth)
- 駡 mà: rant (meaning: two times radical 30, two mouths)
- 碼 mǎ: number (signifier: radical 112 = stone)
- 螞 mǎ: ant (signifier: radical 142 = insect)
- 瑪 mǎ: agate (meaning: radical 96 = jade)
- 獁 mǎ: mammoth (meaning: radical 94 = dog, animal)
- 媽 mā: mother (signifier: radical 38 = woman, female)