Rimes
The pronunciation of a Chinese character can be broken into two parts: (1) the initial consonant, referred to as Seongmo (聲母, 성모) or Seong (聲, 성); and (2) the rime, which consists of the medial vowel and the final consonant, referred to as Unmo (韻母, 운모) or Un (韻, 운). All rimes can be classified into one of 106 rimes, as seen in the Riming Table below. 30 of these rimes are of the plain tone (平聲, 평성); 29 are of the rising tone (上聲, 상성); 30 are of the departing tone (去聲, 거성); and 17 are of the entering tone (入聲, 입성). These last three tones are classified collectively as the oblique tone, or Cheukseong (仄聲, 측성). The plain tone is alternatively called “low” or Jeo (低, 저); and the oblique tones are alternatively called “high” or Go (高, 고).
As an example, take the character 天, pronounced 천 (Cheon) in Korean. The ㅊ (Ch) is the initial consonant; andㅓ + ㄴ (Eon), which is of the plain tone, is the rime. In the Chinese character dictionary, or Okpyeon (玉篇, 옥편), 天 is classified as riming with the character 先, pronounced 선 (Seon) in Korean. Note that the character it rimes with can have a different initial consonant.
It should be also noted that due to Korean phonology and morphing, Korean pronunciations do not match always well with the listed rimes. For instance, the character 思, pronounced 사 (Sa) in Korean is listed as being a rime with the character 支, pronounced 지 (Ji). Furthermore, some of the rimes listed above seem redundant. For instance, 東 (동) and 冬 (동) are both pronounced “Dong” in Korean. Again, this is probably due to Korean phonology and morphing.
