480531170

862
L3
権
15
KEN, GON
right, authority,
balance
strokes
KENRI(a) right
KENKŌbalance
GONGEembodiment
Seal ; late graph (Shuowen); traditional .
Has 73 ‘tree’, and 468 (‘crested bird’) as
phonetic with associated sense either as ‘yellow’,
giving ‘tree with yellow blossoms’ (Yamada), or
with associated sense unknown, giving ‘a type
of tree’ (Katō); either way, the precise type of
tree is not known. Meanings such as ‘authority,
right, balance’ represent a loan usage of
863
L1
憲
KEN
law, constitution
16 strokes
KENPŌconstitution
KENSHŌcharter
KENPEImilitary police
Bronze ; seal . The bronze equivalent,
which lacks 164 ‘heart, feeling’, is taken
by commentators in a provisional analysis as
depicting a cap or other type of headgear;
Katō considers the inclusion of 76 ‘eye’ to
indicate that the headgear covered the eyes
also, though seems to be alone in this view.
The seal form has ‘mind’, with as phonetic
864
L1
源
GEN, minamoto
source, origin
13 strokes
SHIGENresources
GENSENsource
GENJIMinamoto Clan
Bronze ; seal . Has 42 ‘water’, and 119
‘origin; plain’ (which originally depicted a spring
gushing out from the foot of a cliff) as semantic
and phonetic, giving ‘water source, spring’. Note
that although these two graphs are differentiated
in Japanese usage, just the one graph
appears to have served originally in early Chinese
to represent in writing two separate words
(homophones or near-homophones) meaning
instead of , a CO graph of 34 ‘hand’ with
as phonetic with associated sense ‘fist-sized
weights’ for scales, giving ‘scales with weights
for balancing by hand’ (Katō); Ogawa, alternatively,
takes the weights as hanging, and supports
this with an illustration of a weight in a
bell shape which was made for hanging. At first
weights were made of stone, but later metal.
The operator of the scales had some discretion
when weighing items, thus giving extended
senses such as ‘balance’ and ‘power, authority’.
In Japanese, ‘balance’ is now a very minor
meaning for . KJ1970:341-2; YK1976:160;
OT1968:522.
Mnemonic: CRESTED BIRD HAS RIGHT TO
BALANCE IN TREE
with associated sense taken either as i] ‘wise’
(Ogawa, Yamada) (early sense; Mizukami says
‘agile, nimble’), or ii] ‘fasten, secure’ (Ogawa);
Mizukami notes both interpretations. Sense
i] gives the overall meaning ‘wise mind, wise’,
making the later sense ‘law, rule’ a loan usage,
while sense ii] gives ‘firmly fasten’, and ‘law,
rule’ as an extended meaning (i.e. that which
restrains people). YK1976:161; OT1968:387;
MS1995:v1:524-5; KJ1970:155. Awkward mnemonically,
but we suggest taking as ‘cover’
30, as variant of ‘life’ 44, as ‘eye’ 76, and
as ‘feelings’ 164.
Mnemonic: CONSTITUTIONAL LAW COVERS
ALL ONE SEES AND FEELS IN LIFE
‘spring, water source’ and ‘plain, highland’
respectively, the latter being a loan usage of the
graph. The water element was subsequently
added to , giving , to enable the word
for ‘spring’ to be unambiguously represented
when needed. ‘Source, origin’ would appear to
be a generalised sense based on ‘spring, water
source’, though Schuessler suggests a possible
connection with another word which in
early Chinese was homophonous to , i.e.
the word written (GEN) 117, with a meaning
‘origin/source’. YK1976:164; AS2007:593;
MS1995:v1:188; KJ1970:631-2; QX2000:193,226.
Mnemonic: WATER SOURCE HAS ITS ORIGINS
ON THE PLAIN
The 181 Sixth Grade Characters 269