Outlier Pleco Add-on is helping to give deep insights

[Sreeni]

Started learning the outlier way and is giving etymology, deeper in sights.
 

Learned 及, 向, 奉, 相 . Thanks @OneEye for Outlier Way and @mungouk to remind where to find answers for my forum questions.

This looks will resolve the issue of forgetting the meaning. Although we need to keep using these words in sentences and listening more, but this method is promising 

[OneEye]

Thanks for the kind words! Glad you like it!

[Sreeni]

I am going thru the word 其 qí his, her, it’s, their, that;

 

in outlier explanation it is given the scoop made of bamboo or wicker..Fine. But how it is translated to “his, her, it’s, their, that; “ is missing. Can you explain and add ?

 

I was searching for this word: 

莫名其妙 = in explicable or baffling 
 

 

the following wikitionary entry gave further details how the below stand  wwas added.

Historical forms of the character 其
Shang	Western Zhou	Shuowen Jiezi(compiled in Han)	Liushutong(compiled in Ming)
Oracle bone script	Bronze inscriptions	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

 

[OneEye]

"His, her, it’s, their, that" is a sound loan meaning for 其. That is, it isn't related to the original meaning; they borrowed 其 for its pronunciation to write "his, her, it’s, their, that." This is similar to writing "I'm going 2 the store," and it's a very common phenomenon in Chinese characters. 437 of the 2766 characters currently in our dictionary (about 16%) have sound loan meanings.

 

1 hour ago, Sreeni said:

Can you explain and add ?

 

It's already there.

 

In our dictionary, sound loan meanings are marked with a circle, thus:

1. (orig.) a scoop made of bamboo or wicker (now written 箕)
2. 〇 its, his, her

1 hour ago, Sreeni said:

the following wikitionary entry gave further details how the below stand  wwas added.

 

I wouldn't recommend relying on wiktionary. It contains a lot of errors. I don't know of any paleographer who says that the bottom portion of 其 was a stand, and wiktionary doesn't cite a source for that claim, so I'm not sure where it comes from. The bottom portion of 其 was just a decorative mark that became part of the character over time.

 

Edit: Now I see that they cited this website. But that site, while it's decent, also contains a lot of really questionable character analyses. They do list the sources they consult, but not on an individual character basis—only a general list of books they consult. So still, I'm not sure where they got the idea that it's a stand, but I haven't seen that explanation from any paleographer.

[Sreeni]

1 hour ago, OneEye said:

In our dictionary, sound loan meanings are marked with a circle,

The meanings with circle are sound loan meanings, thanks for clarification. 

 

For e.g 被 bèi by it’s sound = by in English. 
qi = his, her in any language?

 

1 hour ago, OneEye said:

其

[Sreeni]

Empty Component :

Outlier dictionary had explained clearly that 田 in 果 is empty component. Earlier I was confused why field on top of tree is fruit. Thanks for clearing confusion. Earlier I was sceptical on empty components. I completely agree with Outliar on empty components now. Thanks again @OneEye

[Sreeni]

@OneEye the following is the outlier entry.

How to interpret  → , ⇒ ?

For 因, the explanation as per outlier 

1 (orig.) clothed person;
2 → to rely on

3 ⇒ cause

4 ? because, therefore

5 ⇒ to inherit

 

although cause is derived meaning , how the transformation occurred from clothed person to -> cause?

[OneEye]

On 2/13/2021 at 6:50 PM, Sreeni said:

For e.g 被 bèi by it’s sound = by in English. 
qi = his, her in any language?

 

No, I mean there were two words in Chinese: one which meant "a bamboo scoop" and one which meant "its, his, her." They were pronounced similarly, so the character for "a bamboo scoop" was borrowed for its pronunciation to write "its, his, her." Other languages don't enter into the equation here.

 

On 2/14/2021 at 6:49 PM, Sreeni said:

How to interpret  → , ⇒ ?

 

These are meant to show logical relationships. A single arrow means it's directly related to the original meaning, a double arrow means it's related to the single arrow meaning above it, and so on. We also use indentation to make the relationships more clear.

 

In this case though, it looks like we're missing a few steps, so we'll have to fix that in the next update. Also, you've omitted "underwear" somehow, which is key. So it should be:

 

1 (orig.) clothed person; underwear

 

2 → close, near

3  ⇒ to rely on

4   ⇛ cause

5    ⭆ because, therefore

6   ⇛ to inherit

[Sreeni]

谁 shéi (also shuí) Who.. I read this word today, even I read earlier but forgot the meaning. 
 

@OneEye as spoken language is first developed shei might be used to refer the “Who” as spoken language at that time. 
 

Then to write shei they might have thought to use [speech radical with some other word might be Ren? As 认 is already used to write for recognise they might have thought] the nearest character Zhui, which is also nearer to the spoken word shei/shut ?

 

is this type of guessing okay?

One problem I noticed in OSC is “讠“spoken language,” which hints at the original meaning “who.” As 讠= spoken language can connect to thousands of meanings why only who? Outliar is hinting at but not connecting?

[OneEye]

54 minutes ago, Sreeni said:

Then to write shei they might have thought to use [speech radical with some other word might be Ren? As 认 is already used to write for recognise they might have thought] the nearest character Zhui, which is also nearer to the spoken word shei/shut ?

 

You're in the ballpark, yes. Just keep in mind that the sounds have changed a lot since the characters were created, so the sound connections can sometimes seem a bit far apart in modern Mandarin.

 

56 minutes ago, Sreeni said:

One problem I noticed in OSC is “讠“spoken language,” which hints at the original meaning “who.” As 讠= spoken language can connect to thousands of meanings why only who? Outliar is hinting at but not connecting?

We're not hinting at anything, the component is. We're just reporting the news.

Semantic components can be very closely related to the character meaning, or they can just sort of hint at a general category of meaning. For closer connections, our dictionary says "indicating". A bit further apart, and it says "pointing to". For looser connections, it says "hinting at".

[Sreeni]

Learnt few words and Outlier Dictionary helped in understanding etymology and gave more expert details, which will allow me remember in a better way and stroke order of characters in one/two lines is very easy to use.?

[Sreeni]

@OneEyeIn 鲜 xiān, 羊 yáng is a sound component” from OSC. 
 

xiān sounds like yán rather yáng. But when my kid pronounces, some times I could not hear g sound at the end. 
 

could you pls elaborate on g sound pronunciation at end of word Like in ..ng etc..

 

[Sreeni]

“丰 depicts a vigorous, flourishing plant with abundant leaves”

 

@OneEye thanks for the ancient form. It reminds me of grass where the shape of the root is round and found everywhere in olden days. It is not abundant leaves, but found every where abundantly. Plenty of them.I think. As leaves were shown as 2 in ancient form, I think so.

[OneEye]

1 hour ago, Sreeni said:

In 鲜 xiān, 羊 yáng is a sound component” from OSC. 
 

xiān sounds like yán rather yáng. But when my kid pronounces, some times I could not hear g sound at the end. 
 

could you pls elaborate on g sound pronunciation at end of word Like in ..ng etc..

Well, you've found a tough one.

 

For one thing, you have to remember that the pronunciation has changed tremendously since these characters were formed. You can't necessarily look at the modern pronunciation and suss out a relationship.

 

In this particular case though, 羊 (Old Chinese *ɢaŋ) isn't exactly a great sound component for 鮮 (OC *s[a]r). They have the same main vowel in Old Chinese, but otherwise 羊 isn't a great match for 鮮. The problem is that, as far as we can tell, the original meaning of 鮮 was "a type of fish." 羊 doesn't have any clear semantic relationship to "a type of fish," and there's no evidence of corruption, so the only option left is that it's a sound component.

 

Note that I said "as far as we can well." It may well be that the original meaning was something other than "a type of fish." That's the meaning given by the Shuowen Jiezi, and we (by "we" I mean the field of paleography) don't have any evidence to refute it yet. If such evidence is discovered, it may also shed more light on 羊's role in the character. But for now, we have to go with "sound component" because it's the least bad option we have.

 

1 hour ago, Sreeni said:

It reminds me of grass where the shape of the root is round and found everywhere in olden days. It is not abundant leaves, but found every where abundantly. Plenty of them.I think. As leaves were shown as 2 in ancient form, I think so.

You can't really make judgements like that from looking at a single ancient form. Of course, you're free to believe what you like, but you're basing that on practically no evidence.

 

Most ancient forms of this character had more leaves. The source we cite (季旭昇《說文新證》) says 丰字从屮而繁其葉，正象艸葉丰盛形。 Literally "丰 is derived from 屮 with increased leaves; it looks exactly like a plant (or perhaps grass) with abundant leaves."

[Sreeni]

 

8 hours ago, OneEye said:

The source we cite (季旭昇《說文新證》) says 丰字从屮而繁其葉，正象艸葉丰盛形。 Literally "丰 is derived from 屮 with increased leaves; it looks exactly like a plant (or perhaps grass) with abundant leaves."

Thanks. Can you translate the source in English as well in dictionary? Very much useful those yet to understand Chinese well..

[Sreeni]

Learnt 以后, 校, 诞 etc.. outlier way of learning with oracle bone structure explanation is very good??? hope can not forget again. connections were made in ?. 
 

校 = a type of torture instrument made from wood?

[OneEye]

2 hours ago, Sreeni said:

Thanks. Can you translate the source in English as well in dictionary? Very much useful those yet to understand Chinese well..

 

Our dictionary says, as you quoted, "丰 depicts a vigorous, flourishing plant with abundant leaves." Why would we also include a translation of the source? That's redundant. We write our own entries and we cite the source they're based on.

[Sreeni]

10 hours ago, OneEye said:

Why would we also include a translation of the source? That's redundant

The reason was I could not understand what is there in reference.Fine

更 = more. Why 2 chariots with whip was used to mean more? At that period to represent More they selected chariots? May be at that time and place chariots are  more prevalent? [Can create connection as More Chariots based on oracle bone diagram for the memory recall purpose?]

 

 

[Sreeni]

@OneEye for 艮 ancient form given by Outliar is to look back. There was some reference in chines, could not understand. Can you provide more details on your research for this word.

 

however the below looks useful in remembering meaning: 

 

Phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *kɯːns? 目(“eye”) + 匕 (“spoon”).

 

Glyph origin

Historical forms of the character 艮
Western Zhou	Warring States	Shuowen Jiezi(compiled in Han)	Liushutong(compiled in Ming)
Bronze inscriptions	Chu Slip and silk script	Small seal script	Transcribed ancient scripts

[OneEye]

1 hour ago, Sreeni said:

however the below looks useful in remembering meaning: 

Phono-semantic compound (形聲, OC *kɯːns? 目(“eye”) + 匕 (“spoon”).

 

 

This explanation is absolute nonsense. It's based on the Shuowen's (erroneous) explanation (从匕目), but we've known that 艮 is a person looking backwards for decades.

 

The bottom of 艮 was originally a person 人, not 匕 "spoon." I could accept ? huà, which also derives from 人, but not "spoon."

 

But the idea that it's a 形聲字 is simply not defensible. I don't know where they got that idea, but it has absolutely no basis. None of the possible components, no matter how you break the character apart (their way or ours), makes a good phonetic component for 艮. Nor have I ever seen any scholar claim it's a 形聲字. They even give 鄭張尚芳's reconstruction for 艮, which is clearly in no way compatible with the pronunciation of the components they assign (目 and 匕):

 

艮: *kɯːns

目: *muɡ

匕: *pilʔ

 

艮 is a 象形字. It can't possibly be a 形聲字. It depicts a person with the eye emphasized, looking over their shoulder (behind them). It was derived from 見, which is also a person with the eye emphasized. The two spoken words are likely related, too.

 

I'm pretty sure I've told you this before, but Wiktionary is not reliable. This is a perfect case in point—their explanation is particularly bad here. I can't prevent you from trusting Wiktionary over our dictionary if that's you want to do. That's your prerogative. But I also don't have time to revisit our research every time you have a doubt about one of our dictionary entries. It takes hours to do that and explain it in post form, and I just don't have that kind of time.