亚利桑那 (Yà lì sāng nà) — Arizona (US state)

Definition

noun

Arizona (US state)

亚利桑那。
Yà lì sāng nà Shì měi guó xī nán bù de yí gè zhōu.
Arizona is a state in the southwestern United States.
亚利桑那。
Yà lì sāng nà De shā mò jǐng sè fēi cháng zhuàng guān.
The desert scenery of Arizona is very spectacular.
亚利桑那。
Wǒ qù nián xià tiān qù Yà lì sāng nà lǚ yóu le.
I traveled to Arizona last summer.

Single-morpheme word

构词法gòucífǎ

音译yīnyìTransliteration

The characters spell the sound of a foreign word; their individual meanings play no part.

The characters 亚利桑那 simply spell the US state Arizona and carry no meaning of their own here.

Sound-only characters

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 亞; 亚 is its simplified writing.

The traditional form 亞 likely shows an overhead view of a construction, perhaps a 亞-shaped tomb. Its later simplified form 亚 is just a shorthand.

Two or more meaningful parts placed together so that their meanings combine into a new one.

利 combines 禾 (grain) and 刀 (knife), showing a knife used to cut grain.

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

桑 is a picture of a mulberry tree, with its upper part drawn as the tree's foliage.

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

邑邑yìcity

Sound part声符shēngfú

冄

冉rǎn那nà

The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

The right part 邑 shows a city, and the left part 冄 (written 冉) gives the sound. The character first named a state and was later used to mean 'that'.