Significant

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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)