在古文字資料中，甲骨、金文均無「葛」，「从艸从曷」的「葛」字直至漢簡始見，其字形演變是個耐人尋味的問題。《上博（四）‧采風曲目》簡1有一曲名為「埜（野）又（有）(特殊字元略)」，「(特殊字元略)」當隸定為何字，引起各家討論，本文從董珊、陳劍等學者的研究上再出發，透過字形的分析，認為「(特殊字元略)」乃「从艸从索」，可釋作「葛」，會「以植物纖維製作衣履」之義；並進一步探討「葛」的形體流變，提出其字形發展的兩種路線：一是承金文「索」字而來，保留形構的完整，如《采風曲目》之「(特殊字元略)」字和石經古文「(特殊字元略)」；另一路線則經過大幅度的簡省，包括省略部件「(符號略)」和「(符號略)」，如《上博三‧周易》簡43的「(特殊字元略)」形。戰國晚期之後，聲符「曷」取代了原有的形符，組成「从艸曷聲」的「葛」字。

According to the materials about ancient Chinese characters, the character "ge"(葛) did not exist in Oracle Bone Inscription or Inscriptions on Bronze, it came into being in the bamboo slips of the Han Dynasty for the first time. This paper develops Shan Dong and Jian Chen's research by morphology analysis, holds that the character "(The particular notation is abbreviated)", signifying making plants fiber into clothes, could be viewed as the prototype of the character "ge", and analyses the evolvement of its shape. It is held that there are two lines of development: it inherited the character "suo" (索) of Inscriptions on Bronze and kept its form intact in one line, and it was greatly abbreviated in the other. After the later phase of the Warring-States Period, the Phonogram "he" (曷) replaced the original ideogram and constituted the character "ge" (葛) with the character "cao" (艸).