Response to "The Reality of Compound Ideographs"

Keywords: Compound ideographs, Chinese characters, Lawrence J. Howell,

Geoffrey Sampson, Chen Zhiqun

Letter to the Editor of the Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Re: The Reality of Compound

Ideographs (Geoffrey Sampson and Chen Zhiqun; Volume 41 Number 2; June 2013)

Shortly before the issue went to press, I uploaded to the WWW an article on this

topic, one entitled The Phantom Category of Chinese Characters. The all-but

simultaneous appearance of two articles on the same recondite subject is curious

enough, rendered even more so by the dueling titles.

The articles have one thing in common: They agree that the phonetic evidence

William Boltz offers in support of the thesis that all compound characters are of the

形聲 xing sheng (phonetic-semantic), not of the 會意 hui yi (compound ideographs)

type, is unpersuasive.

However, Reality errs by equating the undermining of Boltz' phonetic speculations

with success in having (re-)established the fundamental accuracy of the traditional

Chinese 六書 liù shū. As I argue in Phantom, it happens that Boltz' thesis is basically

correct, but for reasons having precious little to do with hypothetical alternate

readings in ancient times. A quick list of the prosaic reasons certain xing sheng

characters traditionally have been misunderstood as hui yi includes:

Disappearance and replacement of elements; Abbreviation of elements; Pronunciation Shifts;

Rarity/unfamiliarity of a phonetic indicator; Simplification of elements; Replacement by

phonetically unrelated elements; Creation of characters via abridgment

As the authors of Reality acknowledge, The number of clear hui yi cases is not huge,

and has often been exaggerated. Appearing as their article has nearly two decades

after the work with which it takes issue, the authors had more than ample time to pore

over the available oracle-bone and bronze-inscription forms and weigh the phonetic

evidence surrounding the limited corpus of what they regard as clear hui yi

characters. Had they done so, I believe they would have succeeded in identifying

some or all of the tendencies in compound character formation that I indicate in

Phantom. Having in consequence reassigned many of these purportedly hui yi

characters to the xing sheng group where they belong, they would have realized that

the number of compound characters the xing sheng formation process cannot at

present explain in a way satisfactory to objective observers is remarkably small.

Then let's suppose, just for the sake of the argument, that fresh evidence emerges to

reveal how every one among this handful of ambiguous compound characters was in

fact devised in Old Chinese according to the hui yi principle. Some might seize upon

this as validating the fundamental accuracy of the liù shū; after all, it would only

require a single hui yi example. Others might construe the paucity of numbers to

suggest that the hui yi formation process represents an early instance of a failed

experiment in script creation. The viewpoints are not mutually exclusive.

Be that as it may, what the authors of Reality have demonstrated is that Boltz rested

his case on an untenable foundation. This is a point that could have been

demonstrated (and would have been timely) back in 1995. That a respected journal

has decided to run this article in 2013 is a testament to something, I'm not sure what.

In the interests of facilitating a scholarly debate that advances our understanding of

character formation in Old Chinese, let us hope that the next time the authors

collaborate they will begin by telling us precisely which of the characters they

consider to number among the clear hui yi cases. And, for the sake of all of us

grappling desperately with Father Time, let us hope we hear from them before

another nineteen years have passed.

Lawrence J. Howell, 2 August 2013

CC: Geoffrey Sampson; Chen Zhiqun