Comment by retrac
1 day ago
Ghost characters reveal something about the joint semantic and phonetic nature of most Chinese characters. I know 彁 isn't real: but it still insists on a pronunciation: ka in Japanese, (gē or gé Mandarin). And it hints at meaning: bowed weapon, sound, elder brother; but your guess is as good as mine!
It is true that most hanzi are phonosemantic compounds; however, Japanese-created kanji are mostly semantic compounds. You can still guess the meaning, but good luck trying to guess the pronunciation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokuji
> I know 彁 isn't real: but it still insists on a pronunciation: ka in Japanese, (gē or gé Mandarin).
Huh? How do you pronounce 切?
> And it hints at meaning: bowed weapon, sound, elder brother; but your guess is as good as mine!
Why is "elder brother" a meaning hint if you've already assumed that 哥 is the phonophore?
A component can contribute meaning as well as pronunciation. 沌 is pronounced like 屯 and they both have a kind of "gather" "clog" meaning
That is not a method of character construction. It could happen, but you would never expect it.
Also... there is no "gather" or "clog" sense of 沌? There's a "gather" sense of 屯...
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