他

Core sense: "Other," "another," or "different"; denotes something external to the subject or immediate context.

Extended sense: Third-person pronoun ("he," "she," "it"), functioning as a contraction of "the other one." In this role, it may retain a nuance of contrast or distance.

• Attributive: Modifying a noun to indicate another instance (e.g., 他人 "other people"; 他日 "another day").
• Substantive: Standing alone to mean "the other" or "another."
• Pronominal: Serving as the subject or object of a sentence.

• vs 其 (qí): In early texts, 其 is the dominant third-person reference (often anaphoric or possessive). When both appear in a passage, 他 likely emphasizes "some other person/thing" in contrast to the aforementioned 其.
• vs 異 (yì): While both can mean "different," 異 typically implies a qualitative difference, strangeness, or anomaly; 他 refers to a difference in identity (this one versus another).
• vs 別 (bié): 別 generally emphasizes separation or distinction.

Tang-period reading: *tɑ tɑ. The glyph evolved from an adjective/determiner of alterity into a third-person pronoun.

In all ancient contexts, 他 is gender-neutral. The glyphs 她 (she) and 牠 (it) are early 20th-century inventions influenced by Western languages and do not appear in ancient texts; any gender distinction must be inferred from context.