汉字部首表义功能的弱化

汉字部首在初创时具有明显的表义功能。随着汉字字体的不断演变,汉字符号性增强,汉字部首也随之发生了分化、混同、变异等方面的变化。适应不同时代、不同社会、不同编纂目的的需要,《说文》后的字书部首多被用于检索,表义功能大大降低。事实表明,汉字部首表义功能弱化、检字功能增强是历史的必然。

The Weakening Role of Radicals in Signifying Meaning

The radicals were originally meaningful units of Chinese characters when they were first invented. With the evolution of the Chinese characters, especially changes in forms of written characters, they have become increasingly symbolic. In order to meet the needs of different ages, society and dictionary compilers, the radicals in Chinese characters have undergone changes like differentiation, fusion and variation. Radicals have been used mostly as index for dictionaries since the writing of Shuowen(The Analysis of Chinese Characters), and thus their role in signifying meaning has been greatly reduced. There is evidence to demonstrate that the weakening of their role in signifying meaning and the increase of that of indexing are an historical inevitability.