Phonetic complements

A phonetic complement is a phonetic symbol used to disambiguate word characters (logograms) that have multiple readings, in mixed logographic-phonetic scripts such as Egyptian hieroglyphs, Akkadian cuneiform, Japanese, and Mayan. Often they reenforce the communication of the ideogram by repeating the first or last syllable in the term.

Written English has few logograms, primarily numerals, and therefore few phonetic complements. An example is the ''nd'' of ''2nd'' 'second', which avoids ambiguity with 2 standing for the word 'two'. In addition to numerals, other examples include Xmas, Xianity, and Xing for Christmas, Christianity, and Crossing – note the separate readings ''Christ'' and ''Cross''.

In cuneiform

In Sumerian, the single word ''kur'' had two meanings: 'hill' and 'country'. Akkadian, however, had separate words for these two meanings: ''šadú'' 'hill' and ''mātu'' 'country'. When Sumerian cuneiform was adapted for writing Akkadian, this was ambiguous because both words were written with the same character (conventionally transcribed KUR, after its Sumerian pronunciation). To alert the reader as to which Akkadian word was intended, the phonetic complement ''-ú'' was written after KUR if hill was intended, so that the characters KUR-ú were pronounced ''šadú,'' whereas KUR without a phonetic complement was understood to mean ''mātu'' 'country'.

Phonetic complements also indicated the Akkadian nominative and genitive cases. Similarly, Hittite cuneiform occasionally uses phonetic complements to attach Hittite case endings to Sumerograms and Akkadograms.

Phonetic complements should not be confused with determinatives (which were also used to disambiguate) since determinatives were used specifically to indicate the category of the word they preceded or followed. For example, the sign DINGIR often precedes names of gods, as LUGAL does for kings. It is believed that determinatives were not pronounced.

In Japanese

As in Akkadian, Japanese borrowed a logographic script, Chinese, designed for a very different language. The Chinese phonetic components built into these ''kanji'' do not work when they are pronounced in Japanese, and there is not a one-to-one relationship between them and the Japanese words they represent.

For example, the kanji 生, pronounced ''shō'' or ''sei'' in borrowed Chinese vocabulary, stands for several native Japanese words as well. When these words have inflectional endings (verbs/adjectives and adverbs), the end of the stem is written phonetically:
*生 ''nama'' 'raw' or ''ki'' 'alive'
*生う ��u''o-u'' 'expand'
*生きる ��kiru''i-kiru'' 'live'
*生かす ��kasu''i-kasu'' 'arrange'
*生ける ��keru''i-keru'' 'live'
*生む　 ��mu''u-mu'' 'produce'
*生まれる or 生れる ��mareru or 生reru''u-mareru'' or ''uma-reru'' 'be born'
*生える ��eru''ha-eru'' 'grow' (intransitive)
*生やす ��yasu''ha-yasu'' 'grow' (transitive)
as well as the hybrid Chinese-Japanese word
*生じる ��jiru''shō-jiru'' 'occur'
Note that some of these verbs share a kanji reading (''i,'' ''u,'' and ''ha''), and okurigana are conventionally picked to maximize these sharings.

These phonetic characters are called ''okurigana.'' They are used even when the inflection of the stem can be determined by a following inflectional suffix, so the primary function of ''okurigana'' for many kanji is that of a phonetic complement.

Generally it is the final syllable containing the inflectional ending is written phonetically. However, in adjectival verbs ending in ''-shii,'' and in those verbs ending in ''-ru'' in which this syllable drops in derived nouns, the final two syllables are written phonetically. There are also irregularities. For example, the word ''umareru'' 'be born' is derived from ''umu'' 'to bear, to produce'. As such, it may be written 生まれる ��mareru reflecting its derivation, or 生れる ��reru as with other verbs ending in elidable ''ru.''

In Chinese

Chinese never developed a system of purely phonetic characters. Instead, about 90% of Chinese characters are compounds of a determinative (called a ' radical'), which may not exist independently, and a phonetic complement indicates the approximate pronunciation of the morpheme. However, the phonetic element is basic, and these might be better thought of as characters used for multiple near homonyms, the identity of which is constrained by the determiner. Due to sound changes over the last several millennia, the phonetic complements are not a reliable guide to pronunciation.

In the Maya Script

The Maya Script, the logosyllabic orthography of the Maya Civilization, used phonetic complements extensively and phonetic complements could be used synharmonically or disharmonically. The former is exemplified by the placement of the syllabogram for ''ma'' underneath the logogram for "Jaguar" (in Classic Maya, ''BALAM''): thus, though pronounced "''BALAM''", the word for "jaguar" was spelled "''BALAM-m(a)''". Disharmonic spellings also existed in the Maya Script.

See also

* Ruby characters
* Kana
* Pinyin

References

Phonetic complement

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Writing