ch‘ien, “to emit breath” from
“the mouth,” the whole character being a suggestive compound rather than an illustration of radical and phonetic combined. In general, however, it may be said that the “final” or rhyme is pretty accurately indicated, while in not a few cases the phonetic does give the exact sound for all its derivatives. Thus, the characters in which the element
enters are pronounced chien, ch‘ien, hsien and lien; but
and its derivatives are all i. A considerable number of phonetics are nearly or entirely obsolete as separate characters, although their family of derivatives may be a very large one.
, for instance, is never seen by itself, yet