First, homophone replacement.
The most striking feature of loanwords is homophone substitution. When a word has no proper representation in the language, people will choose a homophone instead to achieve the purpose of writing or expressing. For example, in ancient Chinese, the word "Ling" was often used as the word "other".
Second, non-semantic relevance.
The choice of loanwords has nothing to do with the meaning, that is, the borrowed homophones have no connection with the original words in meaning. For example, the word "Jing" originally meant "finished", but in some documents, it was borrowed to mean "Jing", which was completely different from the original meaning.
Third, historical evolution.
Loanwords reflect the historical evolution of language. With the passage of time, the meanings and pronunciations of some words have changed, and loanwords are produced to adapt to this change. For example, the word "walk" originally meant "road" and was later borrowed to mean "walk". With the passage of time, this borrowed meaning has gradually become the main meaning of the word "line".
Fourth, the nature of written language.
Loanwords often appear in ancient literature or written language, especially in the period of insufficient literature records or major changes in language. In spoken language, people tend to use commonly used words with clear meanings, while in writing, in order to express a certain meaning, they may choose less commonly used homophones as loanwords.
Tong Jia Phenomenon and Polysemy of Chinese Characters
First, the nature and characteristics of foreign words
The nature of loanwords is mainly reflected in the substitution, non-semantic relevance, historical evolution and written nature of homophones. Homophonic substitution refers to the substitution of foreign words for homophones in order to achieve the purpose of writing or expression; Non-semantic relevance means that there is no direct correlation between loanwords and original words in meaning.
Second, the relationship between loanwords, loanwords and polysemy
In philology, "borrowing" and "overstaying" are often regarded as the same phenomenon, but they are slightly different. Loanwords are not only similar in pronunciation, but also related in meaning. Polysemy is an important feature of Chinese characters, and one of its meanings may be obtained by borrowing.