Pictographs are based on the external form of material objects, but the abstract concepts in language are formless, which renders it impossible to depict them. This impossibility inevitably hinders the growth of pictographs, and that is why their number is limited. However, pictography remains the most important method of composing Chinese characters. The others are only developments on this method and variations. Indicatives Indicatives refer to the way of forming abstract characters with indicating signs.
Indicatives account for the smallest percentage of Chinese characters.
Ideographs Ideographs are compounds, composed of two or more existing characters. In terms of structure, an ideograph is a composition of two or more characters side by side or one on top of another. In terms of meaning, an ideograph is also a composition of the meanings of its component characters. For example, the single character stands for a tree, two trees together L refers to a group of trees-grove, and the character made up of three trees means a place full of trees, a forest. A phonetic compound consists of a semantic radical and a phonetic radical.