(a porch, balcony or pavilion), kuan
(a residence or hostelry), fang
(a room or house), chü
(a dwelling). The word t´ang as explained in Giles's Dictionary is "a hall: especially a hall of justice or court; the ancestral hall; an official title." T´ang ming is "the family hall name—a fancy name usually consisting of two characters followed by t´ang (e.g. wu tê t´ang chin = Chin of the military valour hall), and referring to some event in family history. It is generally inscribed in one of the principal rooms of the house, and is used in deeds, on graves, boundary stones, etc."
The hall mark, then, may contain the studio name of the maker or of the recipient of the ware, or it may have reference literally to the building for which the ware was intended. The last interpretation can be generally applied to the marks referring to halls or pavilions in the precincts of the Imperial palace. Again, the hall may be the shop of a dealer who ordered the goods. But in the absence of prepositions, it is not always—not often, I should perhaps say—possible to determine which of these alternatives is implied in any particular hallmark; e.g.
Lin yü t´ang chih may mean "made in the Abundant–Jade Hall," or "for" the same, or by a man whose studio name was Lin–yü t´ang.