Stroke order

予 (Kangxi radical 6,亅+3, 4 strokes,cangjie input弓戈弓弓 (NINN),four-corner1720₂,composition⿱龴𠄐)

1. Shuowen Jiezi radical №127

• 伃,㘧,妤,㜿,忬,抒,汿,䦽,杼,沀,㶦,䂛,紓 (纾),野,舒,魣 (𮬛),㐨,預 (预),豫,芧,序,㮊

• Kangxi Dictionary:亅部/三畫 on the Chinese Wikisource.

• Kangxi Dictionary:page 85, character 16
• Dai Kanwa Jiten: character 231
• Dae Jaweon: page 174, character 6
• Hanyu Da Zidian (first edition): volume 1, page 52, character 2
• Unihan data for U+4E88

Historical forms of the character予
Shuowen Jiezi (compiled inHan)
Small seal script
Oracle bone script j10319 Small seal script s02873 Transcribed ancient scripts L34283 L34284 L14210 L14211 L14212 L14213 L14214 L14215 L14216 L14217 L14218 L14219 L14220
References: Mostly from Richard Sears'Chinese Etymology site (authorisation), which in turn draws data from various collections of ancient forms of Chinese characters, including: Shuowen Jiezi (small seal), Jinwen Bian (bronze inscriptions), Liushutong (Liushutong characters) and Yinxu Jiaguwen Bian (oracle bone script).

Jiajie (假借): originally written as呂 (OC*ɡ·raʔ), phonetically borrowed for the meanings "I; give". Later,亅 was added at the bottom as a distinguishing mark and the whole character was heavily stylized. See also幻.

FromProto-Sino-Tibetan*g-la(“to pay; to give for”).

予

1. (alt. form與／与) togive
2. topraise; toesteem

與 (OC*laʔ) is often considered to be the original character (Lin, 1998, 1999;Mei, 2007);Taiwan's Ministry of Education considers the cognate予 (OC*laʔ) to be the original character. In either case, this would be the same word as etymology 1.

Alternatively,Zhao (1991) argues that this is aKra-Dai substrate, suggesting a borrowing fromProto-Tai*haɰꟲ(“to give”), whenceZhuanghawj(“to give; to allow”) andBouyeihaec(“to give; to allow”). Note that theTai word has been connected toMiddle Chinese許 (MC xjoX, “to allow”) (Manomaivibool, 1975). On the other hand,Zheng (2008) considers both theHokkien word and theKra-Dai word to be derived from與.

Assuming與 to be the etymon, there are also various theories on the development of theh- initial:

• Old Chinese/*ɡl/ →/*ɡ/ →/*ɣ/ →/h/ (Mei, 2007);
• Fricativization of the/*l/ initial inOld Chinese, possibly originating in the Chu dialect (Zheng, 2008);
• /tʰ/ (Quanzhou) →/h/ (other varieties) (Lin, 1998;Zhou, 2006; Taiwan's Ministry of Education).

Sagart (2017c) considers與 /与 to be a problematic etymon but agrees with the third theory on the development ofh- above. He suggests that a possible trigger for the change from/tʰ/ to/h/ is that/tʰɔ/ is often used with乞/kʰit/, allowing/kʰit tʰɔ/ to be reanalysed as/kʰit hɔ/. This etymology was also independently proposed byLien (2002).

予

1. (Hokkien) togive

   伊予我五箍。[Hokkien,trad. andsimp.]

   Ihō͘ góa gō͘ kho͘.[Pe̍h-ōe-jī]

   Hegave me five dollars.

2. (Teochew) todeliver; to give
3. (Hokkien) toallow

   予伊去！[Hokkien]  ― Hō͘ i khì![Pe̍h-ōe-jī]  ―  Let it go!

4. (Hokkien) tocause; tomake
5. (Hokkien, Teochew)by (used in constructing the passive)

   伊予人拍。[Hokkien]  ― Ihō͘ lâng phah.[Pe̍h-ōe-jī]  ―  He was beaten up (by someone).

6. (Penang Hokkien) topay

Traditionally considered a variant of余 (OC*la), howeverShijing andChuci rhymes suggests that the expected tone reflex was rising tone, similar to Pronunciation 1 (Mattos, 1971;Pulleyblank, 1995), which corresponds to a glottal stop coda in Old Chinese. It could thus be reanalyzed an emphatic form of the *l- series of first-person pronouns, similar to我 (OC*ŋaːlʔ, “me, us”) compared to吾 (OC*ŋaː, “I, we”) in the *ŋ- series.

Cognate with余 (OC*la),台 (OC*lɯ, “I”),朕 (OC*l'ɯmʔ). Further etymology is obscure (Schuessler, 2007).Li F. (1976) reconstructs Old Chinese*rag, and compares it toProto-Tai*rawᴬ(“first person plural pronoun”) >Thaiเรา(rao,“we”). However, Schuessler considers this etymon belonging to兩 (OC*raŋʔ, *raŋs, “both”).

予

1. (obsolete)alternative form of余(“I, me”)

   • 予畏上帝，不敢不正。[Classical Chinese,trad. andsimp.]

     From: TheBook of Documents, circa 4^th – 3^rd centuryBCE

     Yú wèi shàngdì, bù gǎn bù zhèng.[Pinyin]

     AsI fear the Heaven, I dare not but punish him.

   • 夫子矢之曰：「予所否者，天厭之！天厭之！」[Classical Chinese,trad.]
     夫子矢之曰：「予所否者，天厌之！天厌之！」[Classical Chinese,simp.]

     From: TheAnalects of Confucius,c. 475 – 221BCE, translated based onJames Legge's version

     Fūzǐ shǐ zhī yuē: “Yú suǒ pǐ zhě, tiān yàn zhī! Tiān yàn zhī!”[Pinyin]

     On which the Master swore, saying, "WhereinI have done improperly, may Heaven reject me! May Heaven reject me!"

2. asurname