This document discusses independent Chinese characters called "indicative characters" or "simple ideograms" that express abstract meanings through simple symbols. These characters either add indicators to pictographs to create new meanings or directly illustrate abstract concepts. The document provides examples of characters that use indicators like short strings or lines to represent concepts such as root, treetop, up, down, middle, big, small, and others. It notes that indicative characters are fewer in number than pictograms.

1. Lesson 03
Independent characters (2)
- Simple ideograms

2. zhǐ shì zì
• Simple ideograms (指 事 字 - indication ), which are also
called “Indicative characters”, express abstract meanings
by simple symbols.
• Characters of this sort either add indicators to pictographs
to make new meanings, or illustrate abstract concepts
directly.
• The indicative characters are much fewer in number than
the pictograms.

3. • In the examples below, low numerals are represented by the
appropriate number of strokes:

4. běn mò
In "本"(root) and "末"(treetop),a short string
underneath and a short string upside are
respectively used to indicate the positions of a
root and treetop.

5. běn
本 root

6. mò
末 top of tree - apex

7. shàng xià
In the characters "上 "and "下", an iconic indication above
and below a line is used to express the directions “up” and
“down”.
shàng
上 Up
xià
下 Down

8. shàng
上 up, on

9. xià
下 down, below

10. zhōng
中 middle, centre

11. dà
大 big

12. xiǎo
小 small

13. tài
太 too,excessively

14. tiān
天 sky,day

15. bái
白 white

16. cháng
长 long

17. lì
力 power

18. xuè
血 blood

19. yán
言 speech, word

20. huí
回 circle,return

21. Takk for i dag!