Comment by 4cao

In spoken Mandarin Chinese you can normally derive the meaning from context but in Classical Chinese (or in fact anything written more formally) it's not necessarily so straightforward.

There is a poem that illustrates it, where each syllable is pronounced exactly the same, /shi/ just with different tones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion-Eating_Poet_in_the_Stone_... (施氏食獅史). It goes like that:

    « Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »
    Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
    Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
    Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
    [...]

Good luck trying to figure out the meaning without the "written adornments."