Implication and Presentation of Verbs in Character Component “Horse” from “Gallop”

Abstract

From ancient times to medieval ages, Chinese vocabulary has experienced a process from “conceptual implication” to “conceptual presentation”, behind which are many details of evolution worth exploring. “马” (Horse) is an important ideographic component of Chinese characters. Many verbs with “马” as their components are closely related to horses at the beginning of their use. However, with the expansion of their use, these verbs begin to combine with other names, which changes the existing state of “horse”. This paper selects “驰” (gallop), a verb of “马” with both intransitive and transitive usages to restore the process of “implication-presentation” more concretely. Through the diachronic description and analysis of the state for the specific semantic “马” of “驰” from ancient times to the medieval ages, this paper not only confirms the law of “implication-presentation”, but also discovers the transitional “implicit or explicit” stage in the evolution process. Moreover, a related detailed analysis is made, which holds that this stage is an important link to show the specificity of different words’ evolution.