In Old Chinese, (e.g. Classical Chinese) most words were monosyllabic and there was a close correspondence between <answer>character</answer>s and words. In modern Chinese (esp. Mandarin Chinese), <answer>character</answer>s do not necessarily correspond to words; indeed the majority of Chinese words today consist of two or more <answer>character</answer>s due to the merging and loss of sounds in the Chinese language over time. Rather, a <answer>character</answer> almost always corresponds to a single syllable that is also a morpheme. However, there are a few exceptions to this general correspondence, including bisyllabic morphemes (written with two <answer>character</answer>s), bimorphemic syllables (written with two <answer>character</answer>s) and cases where a single <answer>character</answer> represents a polysyllabic word or phrase.
What almost always corresponds to a single syllable?
character