Diagram Explanation of the Great Learning (大學圖, 대학도), one of the Ten Diagrams on Sage Learning (聖學十圖, 성학십도). Composed by Yi Hwang (李滉, 이황, 1501-1570), the Diagrams were presented to King Seonjo (宣祖, 선조, 1552-1608, r. 1567-1608) in 1568.
Introduction to Monomorphemic Words
Monomorphemic words are words composed of usually two characters, wherein the characters themselves cannot be separately understood. In Korean, these words are called Yeonseongboksa (衍聲複詞, 연성복사), or Yeon’geumsa (聯錦詞/連綿詞, 연금사), which is the older term. These types of words occur more frequently in later Classical Chinese texts. It is perhaps best to explain monomorphemic words by example, contrasting them with compound words. For instance, take the words: 鐵道(철도, Cheoldo), meaning “railway” or literally “iron road”; 葡萄(포도, Podo), meaning “grape”; and 參差(참치, Chamchi), meaning “jagged.” The first is a compound word; the second and last words are monomorphemic words.
The first word is a compound of the two respective different meanings of each character. The character 鐵(철), meaning “iron,” modifies the character 道(도), “road.” Each character in this word can be understood, when broken down into its constituent characters. One is a descriptor of the other. Together, they refer to a railway.
In contrast, the characters in the word 葡萄(포도) cannot be understood separately, because it is not a combination of two different meanings of each character. The word as a whole cannot be understood by interpreting each character separately. Note that although the dictionary definitions of these two characters are both “grape,” in a Classical Chinese text each character will never appear without the other and will always appear in that order.
Moreover, other characters in other monomorphemic words may appear outside of the context of a monomorphemic word, but take on completely different meanings. The characters in the word 參差(참치) together mean “jagged.” Individually, however, these characters take on different meanings, when outside the context of this word: 參(참) means “to attend”; and 差(치) means “to be different.” They appear often in Classical Chinese texts without the other. Individually, they cannot be read to mean “jagged.”
There are five types of monomorphemic words:
- Alliterated (雙聲, 쌍성);
- Riming (雙韻, 쌍운);
- Repeated (疊語, 첩어 or 重言, 중언);
- Postfixed (接尾詞, 접미사); and
- Miscellaneous (其他, 기타).
These will be covered in the next series of posts. The examples in these posts will hopefully further clarify what a monomorphemic word is.
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