We are very difficult to comment on Xu Shen’s analysis yet. This is not only because that the text has been revised several times in history, but also because that the rule of Xu Shen's analysis for character pattern is not always systemic from beginning to end. However, this article can make us understand Xu Shen’s analysis system of character pattern better. In Xu Shen’s opinion, it is very important to understand effect of sound symbol adequately. A basic format adopted by Xu Shen in Shuowen is “obeying X, Y sound”. Since Xu Shen has to do that clarify the semantic structure of Chinese characters, sometimes he may ignore the effect of sound symbol. Although Xu Shen cannot understand the sound symbol clearly, but in order to clarify the semantic structure of Chinese characters, he uses some fixed analysis mode. Sometimes he even shows some grammatical structures which can be interpreted. According to Xu Shen, the most important is to understand the analysis for character pattern which can contribute to clarify the definition. In the author’s opinion, as for Xu Shen, the ideal analysis mode is the dismantling method of Chinese characters in ZuoZhuan, or the interpretation of a complete sentence on the basis of semantic structure. In other words, there is not a original creation in Xu Shen’s analysis for character pattern. Xu Shen's contribution to us is that he mentions previous scattered method into a real system. He contributes to highlight the readability further, and give the importance of this method in the history of the development on Chinese characters.

• Françoise Bottéro