Sinographs 101 · Chapter 04

Roots, tips, and borrowed sounds

A crowd of mouths, one tree with three marks — then the move that changes everything:

Sign	Key	Says	Means	How to see it
品	kinds	pǐn	kinds, grades; things in their sorts	your mouth three times over — many voices, many sorts
本	root	běn	root, trunk; the fundamental	your 木 with a mark at the base: this part, the root
末	tip	mò	tip, branch-end; the incidental	the same tree, the mark at the top
未	not-yet	wèi	not yet — the classical "still un-"	the tree with young top growth — what has not yet come to be
沐	washing	mù	to wash the hair; to bathe in	water for the meaning, tree for the sound: 木 is mù, and so is 沐
味	flavor	wèi	flavor, taste	mouth for the meaning, not-yet for the sound: 未 is wèi, and so is 味

品 is the combining move from last chapter, played as a tripling: three of your 口 make many kinds — the world sorted. The next three are the pointing move, played on a taught part: mark the bottom of 木 and you have named the root; mark the top, the tip; let the top sprout young growth and you have not yet.¹ Classical argument runs on the marked pair — 本末, root and branch-tip, the essential versus the incidental — and runs on 未 constantly, because “not yet” is how the classics say still un-.

The fourth move

Now look hard at the last two rows, because they are the engine of the entire script. 沐 means to wash the hair. Its left half is your 水 — squeezed into three quick strokes to fit the side, the one shape-change this chapter teaches. Water is the meaning half: washing is water-business. But the tree on the right has nothing to do with washing. 木 is there because it says mù — and so does 沐. The tree lends its sound and falls silent.

味 plays the same trick with your newest character: mouth for the meaning — flavor is mouth-business — and 未, wèi, for nothing but the sound of wèi, flavor. A character you learned as “not yet” turns out to moonlight as a pure syllable.

The sound-borrowing move, built entirely from characters you own. Nine of every ten characters in the dictionary are made exactly like this[^phono] — which is why "every character is a little painting" is a myth, and why the script never ran out of words.

Root and tip, dawn and not-yet

The Great Learning opens its whole argument on today’s pair — both marks on your tree — and the Songs hand 未 straight to a character you learned one chapter ago:

▢▢本末。wù yǒu běn mò"things have their root and their tip" — the Great Learning's first premise, and its whole method: tell the fundamental from the incidental, tend the root first, and the tip follows

▢▢未明。dōng fāng wèi míng"the east is not yet bright" — and the poem goes on: "I pull my clothes on upside down," a courtier summoned before dawn. 未明, "not-yet-bright," is your newest character leaning on chapter 03's 明

Line 1: The Great Learning (Daxue), in a Song commentary edition · urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0059:001:2b. Line 2: Classic of Songs (Shijing), "East Not Yet Bright" · urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1c0001:008:26a. Both license: attribution.

品 counts a province’s tribute, the Rites command the washing, and the Laozi tastes the flavorless — the new characters close the chapter in taught company:

▢三品。jīn sān pǐn"metal of three grades" — the Tribute of Yu counting a province's bronze, copper, and iron, with your 三 doing the sorting

三日▢沐。sān rì jù mù"every third day, prepare a hair-washing" — the Rites' rule for serving one's parents; 三日, "every three days," reads straight through

味▢味。wèi wú wèi"taste the flavorless" — the Laozi's recipe for contentment: learn to find relish in the plain, and nothing can disappoint you; two of the three characters are yours, the third comes soon

Line 1: Book of Documents (Shangshu), Tribute of Yu, in a Song commentary edition · urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1b0018:010:19a. Line 2: Book of Rites (Liji), "Nei ze" · urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1d0052:012:11a. Line 3: Laozi 63 · urn:nabu:kanripo:KR5c0057:063:1a. All license: attribution.

Where this leaves you

Twenty-nine characters, and all four of the script’s moves — drawing, pointing, combining, sound-borrowing — each learned on characters whose every part you own. From here the course rides the fourth move: most of what remains is a meaning-hint plus a sound you already know, which is how a few hundred characters will open into thousands. The road is real text all the way — the sayings, the Songs, the Changes — and the boxes get rarer every chapter.

The young-growth reading of 未 is the received account (Shuowen); its classical workload as the negative “not yet” is borrowed sound, senses per Kroll. ↩