480531170

still acting as phonetic and still with the same
associated sense (pile up, accumulate); Ogawa
prefers to regard in its semantic function of
‘person’, in which case ‘sincerity’ and ‘believe’
are perhaps to be treated as extended senses,
but this is not clear. YK1976:286; KJ1970:515-6;
545
L3
成
SEI, JŌ, naru/su
become, make, consist
6 strokes
SEIBUNcomponent
SEIJINadult (in Japan 20)
naritatsuform, consist of
OBI ; seal . The seal form has ‘halberd’
(see for example 476, sometimes also occurring
as or in multiples ), and 367 (nail,
now meaning ‘exact’ and ‘town block’) as a
phonetic with associated sense ‘pile up, repeat’,
to give ‘cutting tool for repeatedly shaving or
planing wood’. Some of the OBI and bronze
occurrences point not so much to a weapon
as to a woodworking tool which needed to
546
L3
省
SEI, SHŌ, habuku,
kaerimiru
ministry, omit,
examine
9 strokes
HANSEI(self-) reflection
SHŌRYAKUomission
KŌSEISHŌWelfare Ministry
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen); treated by Mizukami
as having OBI and bronze equivalents (see below).
Consists of 76 ‘eye’, with a second element
160 (‘few’) which is taken either as phonetic
in function or as semantic, depending on the
scholar. The phonetic view (Katō, Yamada) takes
as having the associated sense ‘cover, conceal’,
and links to what in seal script is the similarlyshaped
眚 , which means ‘cannot see clearly’ (a CO;
in modern Chinese usage has meanings ‘cataract’
and ‘disaster’). Katō and Yamada feel that confusion
arose between 眚 and due partly to the
similarity of shape, but also because of similarity
in pronunciation between and 889 ‘see’,
which led to ‘see’ being taken (misunderstood)
as the main sense of (is noted as ‘see’ in
Shuowen). Ogawa also considers that came to
be used sometimes in place of 44 (‘life’) in this
MS1995:v1:66-7; OT1968:64. As a mnemonic we
suggest taking the meanings of the characters as
they stand – on trust, one might say.
Mnemonic: TRUST THE WORDS A PERSON
SAYS – THAT’S MY BELIEF
be held with both hands; also, the phonetic in
those same early forms is sometimes close in
shape to , and on that basis is taken by Katō
and Yamada as the earliest form of 35 (‘ten’),
though still acting as a phonetic here with the
same associated sense (‘pile up’, ‘repeat’) as
Mizukami and Yamada treat the meanings
‘achieve’, ‘complete’ as extended, deriving from
working with wood and finishing or completing
an object. MS1995:v1:536-7; YK1976:298;
KJ1970:593-95. A difficult graph in terms of
mnemonics, but we suggest taking the full
form of halberd, , and the additional (from
) as a bent nail.
Mnemonic: HALBERD CONSISTS OF BLADE,
HANDLE, AND BENT NAIL!
graph through error arising from the similarity in
shape of these elements (there is limited similarity
in shape between the two in some bronze forms).
Tōdō treats the of as having a semantic
function, and includes the graph and underlying
word in a word-family ‘divide up small’; on this
basis, he takes as ‘make the eyes narrow and
look’; ‘examine’ may then be seen as an extended
sense, along with ‘ministry’, for in ancient China
one had to pass examinations to work for the
government.. Both the semantic and the phonetic
interpretations are listed by Mizukami. 眚 (but
not ) is regarded by various commentators
as having OBI and bronze equivalents, though
Mizukami lists and treats both these graphs as
occurring at the OBI and bronze stages with the
same or ‘shared’ shapes, with divergence first
occurring at the seal stage. Yamada suggests this
divergence in shape between the two arose due
to an old or regional variant being adopted as
the basis for Whichever analysis is followed,
the sense ‘omit’ may be regarded as a loan usage.
KJ1970:598-9; YK1976:270-71; OT1968:697;
MS1995:v2:916-18,920-21; TA1965:481-2.
Mnemonic: FEW EYES EXAMINE MINISTRY – AN
OMISSION
The 200 Fourth Grade Characters 183