是
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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是 (Kangxi radical 72, 日+5, 9 strokes, cangjie input 日一卜人 (AMYO), four-corner 60801, composition ⿱日𤴓 or ⿱旦龰)
Historical forms of the character 是 | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Western Zhou | Spring and Autumn | Warring States | Shuowen Jiezi (compiled in Han) | Liushutong (compiled in Ming) | |||
Bronze inscriptions | Bronze inscriptions | Bronze inscriptions | Chu slip and silk script | Qin slip script | Shizhoupian script | Small seal script | Transcribed ancient scripts |
Old Chinese | |
---|---|
鞮 | *teː |
隄 | *teː, *deː |
堤 | *teː, *teːʔ, *dje |
鍉 | *teː |
蝭 | *teːs, *deː |
醍 | *tʰeːʔ, *deː |
緹 | *tʰeːʔ, *deː |
提 | *deː, *dje |
瑅 | *deː |
題 | *deː, *deːs |
媞 | *deː, *deːʔ, *djeʔ |
褆 | *deː, *deʔ, *djeʔ |
禔 | *deː, *tje, *dje |
騠 | *deː |
趧 | *deː |
鯷 | *deː, *deːs, *djes |
踶 | *deːs, *deʔ |
徥 | *deʔ, *djeʔ |
匙 | *dje |
是 | *djeʔ |
諟 | *djeʔ |
翨 | *hljes, *kles |
睼 | *tʰeːns |
寔 | *djɯɡ |
湜 | *dɯɡ |
遈 | *djɯɡ |
Originally a phono-semantic compound (形聲/形声, OC *djeʔ) : semantic 早 + phonetic 止 (OC *kjɯʔ), but the original meaning is unclear. It has been suggested that 早 looks like a spoon, so 是 may have been the original character for 匙 (OC *dje, “spoon”). As early as in late bronze inscriptions, the lower part of 早 split off and combined with 止 to give 昰, which carried over to the small seal script, and Shuowen considers this a compound of 日 (“sun”) + 正 (“upright; right”) (i.e. as the upright sun).
“This [an independent pronoun] > this, it [object recapitulation], be right, correct, so > to be, indeed”. The modern copulative sense only emerged by the Eastern Han dynasty (Dobson, 1964; Norman, 1988; Zürcher, 2013), and gradually replaced the archaic 唯 (OC *ɢʷi, “to be”) and the classical copulative construction with 也 (OC *laːlʔ).
This was due to the lack of a left-branching copula as archaic 唯 shifted into a contrasting and restricting particle, as well as its frequent use in presentational copulative constructions, often in the form of "A, 是 B 也" ("A, this is B"), which led to it being gradually reinterpreted as the copula instead of 也. Also note the semantic opposition with literary negative copula 非 (OC *pɯl) as in "right" and "wrong", which emerged by the Warring States period from the frequent collocation of the expression "是 X 也, 非 Y 也" (This is X, not Y) (Pulleyblank, 1995) .
To understand this development, compare 之 (OC *tjɯ, “him, it, this > possessive”), 其 (OC *kɯ, “he, his, its > dialectal possessive”). Compare French c’est which in colloquial speech often replaces copula est, as well as Japanese は, the topic particle like Old Chinese 者 (OC *tjaːʔ), 也 (OC *laːlʔ, “topicalizer”) and left-branching 夫 (OC *ba), but frequently misinterpreted as the copula by learners.
From Proto-Sino-Tibetan *m-daj ~ m-di (“that; this”). In Chinese, cognate with 寔 (OC *djɯɡ, “this (subject contrastive)”), 實 (OC *ɦliɡ, “this (subject contrastive)”), 之 (OC *tjɯ, “this; him; her; it (oblique)”), 諟 (OC *djeʔ, “to examine, to consider”). In Tibeto-Burman, cognate with Tibetan དེ (de, “that”), Jingpho dai, ndai (“this”), and Burmese ဒီ (di, “this”).
是
When translated as "to be", 是 is used only to link two nouns or nominal expressions.
是 is not used to link a noun and an adjective. The following sentence would be incorrect:
The correct sentence is
Here, 很 (hěn) is used as a filler to link a noun and an adjective and is not interpreted as "very".
A way to use 是 with an adjective is to use 的 (de) after the adjective to turn it into a noun.
是
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