词性 (cí xìng) — part of speech (grammatical category); the grammatical properties that define a word's syntactic behavior

Definition

noun
part of speech (grammatical category)the grammatical properties that define a word's syntactic behavior
Easily confused

Examples

  • ，词性。
    Xué xí hàn yǔ shí, liǎo jiě měi gè cí de cí xìng hěn zhòng yào.
    When learning Chinese, it's important to understand the part of speech of each word.
  • 词性。
    Zhè ge cí diǎn zài měi gè cí hòu miàn biāo zhù le cí xìng.
    This dictionary marks the part of speech after each word.
  • 词性。
    Yí gè cí de cí xìng kě néng bù zhǐ yì zhǒng.
    A word may have more than one part of speech.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

词cíword
性xìngnature

The nature of a word, with 词 meaning 'word' and 性 meaning 'nature'.

Characters in this word

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 詞; 词 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
言言yánspeech
Sound part声符shēngfú
司
司sī詞cí(r)
Close in sound todayThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The traditional form 詞 uses 言, meaning speech, and 司 to show how it was pronounced; the simplified 词 is a shorthand, and its right side is not the historical sound part.

Open 词 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
忄Written in full as心xīnheart
Sound part声符shēngfú
生
生shēng性xìng
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

性 is built from 忄 (the heart) and 生 (a sound clue). The heart part connects the word to a person's inner nature or quality.

Open 性 →

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