答 (dā): bound form meaning 'to answer /…

Meanings

1 bound form meaning 'to answer / respond' — used only in 答应 and 答理

Characters

答

dā

bound form meaning 'to answer / respond' — used only in 答…

Examples

他满口答应帮忙。

Tā mǎnkǒu dāying bāngmáng.

He readily agreed to help out.

我叫他，他都不答理我。

Wǒ jiào tā, tā dōu bù dāli wǒ.

I called out to him, but he didn't even acknowledge me.

Tips

usage

The dā reading is a bound form — it does not stand alone and only appears in a small set of fixed compounds. The two everyday ones are 答应 (to agree / to promise) and 答理 (to acknowledge / give someone the time of day). Everywhere else the reading is dá.

mistakes

Learners often say 答应 by mistake — both syllables wrong. Correct is 答应: first syllable dā (first tone), second syllable neutral. The compound is high-frequency in everyday speech ('I promised', 'he agreed'), so getting the tones right is worth the drill.

Components

radical

⺮ zhú

bamboo (top radical form)

Same bamboo radical as in the dá reading. The dā form is historically the same word; only the tone has frozen at first tone inside the two colloquial compounds. No separate semantic story — same character, same bamboo-strip-reply etymology.

phonetic

合 hé

join; combine; match

Same phonetic 合 as in the dá reading. The tone shift to dā is locked inside specific lexicalized compounds; phonologically the dā/dá pair is one word with two register-frozen pronunciations.