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人称 (rén chēng) — grammatical person (first, second, third person); appellation, name by which someone is known

Definition

In Chinese, 人称 covers two distinct senses: in grammar, it means 'grammatical person' (the person system, with pronouns like 我, 你, 他 as examples — that's also how it's used in the common compound 人称代词).

noun
grammatical person (first, second, third person)appellationname by which someone is known

Examples

  • 人称“”“”“”。
    Hàn yǔ zhōng de rén chēng dài cí yǒu "wǒ" "nǐ" "tā" děng.
    Personal pronouns in Chinese include 'I', 'you', and 'he' etc.
  • 人称——“”。
    Zhè wèi lǎo rén yǒu gè yǒu qù de rén chēng —— "lǎo wán tóng".
    This old man has an interesting nickname — 'old rascal'.
  • ，人称“you”。
    Zài yīng yǔ zhōng, dì èr rén chēng dài cí zhǐ yǒu "you" zhè yí gè xíng shì.
    In English, the second-person pronoun only has the form 'you'.

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.

人rénperson
称chēngappellation

人 refers to a person, and 称 is an appellation: how a person is called.

Characters in this word

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

The shape of 人 shows a side view of a standing person, with an arm and a leg.

Open 人 →

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 稱; 称 is its simplified writing.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
禾禾hérice
Sound part声符shēngfú
爯
爯chēng稱chēng
Same sound today

The traditional form 稱 pairs 禾 (rice) with 爯, a part giving the sound; it is explained as measuring rice. The simplified 称 is a later shorthand.

Open 称 →
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