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吐 and 瀉

吐 and 瀉¹

The graph 吐 is a straightforward phonogram for the Chinese word tǔ “to cough up fluid from the lungs; to spit”, and the word tù “vomit” and “disgorge”. (The words have a lot of extended meanings and usages.)² The determinative is “mouth” 口 and the phonetic is 土.

Schuessler notes³ that in the Shījīng 詩經 吐 is used as “to spit out” and in a different tone (modern tù) it could also mean “to vomit” (this meaning was adopted in Japan as well), adding: “Not all dialects have both these words.”

His reconstructions for his Minimal Old Chinese for 吐 and 土 are identical.⁴ Nevertheless, he has different entries for 吐 and 土 (and even for tù, under 吐 as an extended meaning).

I don’t know how Schuessler determined that these homonyms are distinct lexical items, but it seems likely that he concluded that the meanings are not obviously related, and that their use as a noun versus a verb is too clearly differentiated.

Under the etymology of 土 Schuessler adds: “Prob. related to → shè₁ 社”.

‘Altar to the spirit of the soil’ ... ‘spirit of the soil’ ... is assumed to be cognate to ... 土 ‘land, soil’ ...⁵

The difference in the reconstructions of 土 and 社 is ＊thâʔ and ＊daʔ ?

The only reason I looked this up, is that a number of Japanese scholars came up with different associated senses for the phonetic 土.

For now I only follow up the references to Katō and Katō et al.

Katō et al. connect the pronunciation of 土 to 瀉.⁷

Schuessler found for the word 瀉 a meaning “to drain off” (or literally “make / let pour off”) in Zhōulǐ 周禮 (perhaps 3th century BCE). Kroll has the primary meanings “pour out, spill forth, drain; slip away” and derived from that “excrete, purge; diarrhea”.⁸ Schuessler makes no etymological connections between 瀉, 土 or 吐 and reconstructs the word 瀉 as ＊sah and 土 and 吐 as ＊thǎʔ.

Katō et al. posit a sound change from ＊sah to ＊thǎʔ.⁹

I want to try to imagine this in English.

Suppose 土 is land. But there is also a verb to land 瀉 that means “to push out (of the land)”. And finally, there is a word to land that means “to land something, to spit on the land”.

All three words sound the same. The determinative is “mouth” 口 and the phonetic is “land” 土. Reading the sign 吐 you see land 土 as the phonetic. This reminds you of land 瀉 “to push out of the land” and finally you realize, oh, look, the determinative is “mouth” 口, so the word 吐 is “push out of the mouth” which reminds me of land “to spit (on the land)”.¹⁰

I have trouble accepting this scenario. But in all likelihood the proposed scenario is worse. The words 吐 and 土 already sounded the same. But the word 瀉 probably sounded a bit different. The scenario wants to suggest that the associated sense is realized through a word that less obvious than the actual phonetic.

Schuessler and his collogues show no indication of a sound change ＊sah to ＊thǎʔ in 土, Katō et al. themselves seem to suggest it purely on the basis of a similar meaning that is convenient. There the trail ends.

There are two more observations I want to make.

Firstly, there is a word 吐瀉! But it’s simply an “and” medical term seemingly: to “have diarrhea and vomit”.¹¹

Secondly, Katō was initially unable or unwilling to link up 土 and 瀉. Instead he wrote in his earlier work that 土 on itself suggested: “... just as sprouts emerge from the earth, it means push out from the belly.”¹²

I found similar claims or citations in Tōdō et al. and Gǔ.¹³ Looking further, all of these seem to be based on an entry in the Shì Míng 釋名 (ca. 200 CE):

土，吐也，能吐生萬物也。¹⁴ “Earth (土) means ‘to expel’ (吐): it is able to expel and give birth to the myriad things.”

The Shì Míng is a “punning dictionary” that uses similarities in the pronunciation of two different words to illustrate a view on the relation of the “names of things” and “reality”. The “concept of historical etymology and the idea of linguistic relationships played no part”.¹⁵ While interesting for information on the world view of Chinese in that period, it says nothing definitive about the graphical etymology of graphs that were created a millennium earlier.

I’m starting to notice that scholars who hunt for an associated sense in phonetics that are not of the yìshēng 亦聲 type often end up appealing to the Shì Míng, or to glosses given by Xǔ Shèn, or to both.

Notes

1. This started out as a short exploration but kept growing and growing after I felt the need to check more sources. Oh, well.
2. ABCCECD has for tǔ: “expectorate; spit” but I rephrased that.
3. Schuessler, 2007, pp. 501-502.
4. He adds a slightly different reconstruction for “ONW Old Northwest Chinese ca. AD 400”.
5. Schuessler, 2007, p. 456.
6. Henshall, p. 522, perhaps referencing Yamada Katsumi, considering that the same meaning is proposed in Katō et al., which has Yamada as second author.
7. Xǔ Shèn gives as gloss for 吐 simply 寫. Schuessler gives meanings: “to pour off” (a liquid) in Lījī 禮記 and extended meanings “cast” (metal) in Guóyǔ 國語 and “disburden, relief” (heart, grief) in Shījīng 詩經. As for 瀉, Schuessler treats that as the exoactive of 寫. Another question is, gave Xǔ Shèn 寫 as gloss to 吐 because he wanted to show the meaning of 吐, or because he wanted to make a statement about its graphical etymology (see Bottéro & Harbsmeier 2008). It’s not clear. Also, why opted Katō et al. for 瀉 and not for 寫? Their meaning is not that different and clearly they took a hint from Xǔ Shèn.
8. Schuessler, 2007, p. 537.
9. Oké, truthfully, Yamada et al. reject reconstructions as unreliable. They stick to even more unreliable sino-japanese readings, in this case sha and to, because, you know, it’s all unreliable so it doesn’t really matter does it?
10. Seeley et al. have for the associated sense “push out”: “push out from the mouth”.
11. ABCCECD.
12. ...地中から草木の芽が発出するごとく、腹中から押し出る意味である。It’s still being mentioned in Katō et al., but only after they make the case for 瀉.
13. Tōdō et al. have: 土は万物をはき出す大地 (something like: “the primordial earth that brings forth the myriad beings”). However, they don’t bother to explain where that quote comes from, even though it cleary sounds like a quote from the classics. Gǔ has: 土也兼表土生之意 (probably: “the graph 土 also expresses the meaning of the earth giving birth / bringing forth sth”), no reference given.
15. “Shih ming 釋名” by Roy Andrew Miller, in Loewe, pp. 424-426.

References

30 December 2025

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