Chinese Characters: the Minimal Units of Meaning in Chinese Grammar

This paper attempts to expound and prove the fact that Chinese characters are the minimal units of meaning in Chinese grammar in the following two aspects: in the first place, Chinese characters are basically equivalent to Chinese morphemes; in the second place, a clear understanding of the structural relationship among words in Chinese phrases will ensure a clear comprehension of the entire grammatical relationship in Chinese. In addition, this paper further testifies to the importance of Chinese characters in Chinese grammar based on examples in terms of teaching Chinese to foreigners.