Sinographs 102 · Chapter 04

Counting the world

Foundations gave you one, two, three, ten, and the myriad. This chapter fills the gap — and shows what numbers DO in a sentence: they sit before a noun with no “of” and no plural (八牛, “eight oxen”), and they stand alone as predicates, which is how a whole life gets told in decades below.

Sign	Key	Says	Means	How to see it
四	four	sì	four	four strokes once; the mouth-with-lines shape is a loan that stuck
五	five	wǔ	five	a crossing-tally between heaven-and-earth lines
六	six	liù	six	by the received account a hut — sound borrowed, roof kept
七	seven	qī	seven	a stroke cut by another — the old "cut," lent to the number
八	eight	bā	eight	two strokes leaning apart — the old "divide," lent likewise
丁	nail	dīng	nail; the fourth stem	a nail-head seen from above — also day four of the old ten-day week

Numbers at work

民有八牛。mín yǒu bā niú"the people have eight oxen" — number before noun, no plural, no "of"

丁日，父出。dīng rì, fù chū"on the ding-day, father goes out" — the ten stems named the days of the old ten-day week; 丁 is day four

一生二，二生三，三生萬物。yī shēng èr, èr shēng sān, sān shēng wàn wù"one begets two, two begets three, three begets the ten thousand things" — the Laozi's whole cosmology counted on one hand; the line's first word arrives next chapter

The first two lines assembled from taught characters; the third is Laozi 42's chain, opening word withheld. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR5c0057:042:1a · license: attribution.

A life in decades

The most famous counting in Chinese literature is Confucius telling his own life story — one number per decade, each a bare predicate:

▢十有五而▢于▢，wú shí yǒu wǔ ér zhì yú xué,"at fifteen, I set my heart on learning" — 十有五, "ten and five," is the classical fifteen. The boxes are "I", "set-heart-on", and "learning" — the last four chapters away

三十而▢，sān shí ér lì,"at thirty, I stood on my own feet" — the box is "stand"

四十而不▢，sì shí ér bù huò,"at forty, nothing could confuse me"

五十而知天▢，wǔ shí ér zhī tiān mìng,"at fifty, I knew what heaven had given me to do" — the box is "charge, mandate"

六十而▢▢。liù shí ér ěr shùn."at sixty, nothing I heard could throw me" — the boxes are "ear" and "flowed-smooth"

Analects 2.4 — five rungs of six. The seventieth, the ladder's crown, waits for this course's final chapter, when its last word is yours. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:002:2a · license: attribution.

Look at the grammar doing the storytelling: each line is just number 十而 verb — “at N-ty, and-then X.” No “when I was,” no “years old.” The count itself is the clock.

Where this leaves you

The number row runs whole from 一 to 十, with the hundred and the myriad already yours by name. Next chapter, the single most frequent character in the language gets its own lesson — the little thread 之 that ties one thing to another.