Chinese Lexicography: A History from 1046 BC to AD 1911

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CHI NESE LEXI C O G R A P H Y

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CHINESE LEXICOGRAPHY A History from 1046 bc to ad 1911

Heming Yong Jing Peng

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3

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford ox2 6dp Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With oYces in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York ß 2008 Heming Yong and Jing Peng The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2008 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire ISBN 978-0-19-953982-6 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Preface

xi xii xiii PA R T I

INTRODUCTION

1 Introduction PA R T I I

3

THE GENESIS AND EMERGENCE OF LEXICOGRAPHICAL C U LT U R E A N D WO R K S I N A N C I E N T C H I N A

(from the Zhou Dynasty, 1046 bc–256 bc to the Han Dynasty, 206 bc–ad 220) 2 The emergence of lexicographical culture in China 2.1 The origin of Chinese characters and their formation 2.2 Ancient Chinese literature and exegetic interpretation of characters 2.3 Theories on the origin of lexicography 3 The progress of exegetic practice and the advent of lexicographical works in China 3.1 Language studies during the Pre-Qin Dynasties 3.2 Teaching and explaining ancient characters and the emergence of lexicography 3.3 Literature in ancient times 3.4 The beginnings of Chinese lexicography

15 16 21 25

29 30 34 37 41

4 Historian Zhou’s Primer – the source of lexicographical culture in China 4.1 The historical background to HZP’s birth 4.2 The background and motivation for HZP’s compilation 4.3 The format and style of HZP 4.4 The cultural and academic implications of HZP

44 45 46 48 55

5 The Ready Guide – the initiator of thesaurus dictionaries in China 5.1 The historical background to RG’s birth 5.2 The background and motivation for RG’s compilation

59 59 63

vi

contents 5.3 The format and style of RG 5.4 The cultural and academic implications of RG

67 73

6 The Dictionary of Dialectal Words – the beginnings of dialect dictionaries in China 6.1 The historical background to DDW’s birth 6.2 The background and motivation for DDW’s compilation 6.3 The format and style of DDW 6.4 The academic value and cultural inXuence of DDW

76 76 80 84 90

7 An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters – the origin of character dictionaries in China 7.1 The historical background to EDCC’s birth 7.2 The background and motivation for EDCC’s compilation 7.3 The format and style of EDCC 7.4 The academic value and cultural inXuence of EDCC

95 96 100 102 109

8 The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms – the inception of etymological dictionaries in China 8.1 The historical background to DCCT’s birth 8.2 The background and motivation for DCCT’s compilation 8.3 The format and style of DCCT 8.4 The academic value and cultural inXuence of DCCT

114 115 118 120 128

9 Theoretical inquiries into lexicographical issues in ancient China: a survey 9.1 The origin of lexicography 9.2 The advent of lexicography 9.3 The formation of macro-level styles for dictionary making 9.4 The formation of micro-level format for dictionary making

134 135 136 141 146

PA R T I I I

T H E E X P L O R AT I O N A N D C U LT I VAT I O N OF LEXICOGRAPHY IN CHINA

(from the Wei Dynasty, 220–265 to the Yuan Dynasty, 1206–1368) 10 An overview of Chinese lexicographical culture during the period of exploration and cultivation 10.1 The historical background 10.2 The academic background 10.3 An overall view between the Wei and Yuan Dynasties

155 155 159 165

contents 11 The development of Chinese character dictionaries 11.1 The historical background 11.2 The evolution of lexicographical theories 11.3 The development of format and style 11.4 A brief introduction to some representative character dictionaries 11.5 The academic value and cultural implications 12 The development of Chinese word dictionaries 12.1 The historical background 12.2 The evolution of lexicographical theories 12.3 The development of format and style 12.4 A brief introduction to some representative word dictionaries 12.5 The academic value and inXuence

vii 176 176 179 185 192 202 205 205 208 210 213 221

13 ClassiWed dictionaries – the encyclopedic dictionary in ancient China 13.1 The historical background to the birth of classiWed dictionaries 13.2 The emergence of classiWed dictionaries 13.3 A brief analysis of some important classiWed dictionaries 13.4 The social and academic inXuence

223 225 228 235

14 Rhyme dictionaries – a special dictionary type in ancient China 14.1 The historical background to the birth of rhyme dictionaries 14.2 The burgeoning growth of rhyme dictionaries 14.3 A brief analysis of some important rhyme dictionaries 14.4 The social and academic inXuence of rhyme dictionaries

237 238 243 245 252

PA R T I V

223

THE REFORM AND SHAPING

OF LEXICOGRAPHY IN CHINA

(from the Ming Dynasty, 1368–1644 to the Qing Dynasty, 1616–1911) 15 An insight into lexicographical culture in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 15.1 The historical background to the reform and shaping of Chinese lexicography 15.2 The academic background to the reform and shaping of Chinese lexicography

259 259 264

v iii

contents 15.3 A survey of dictionaries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 15.4 The characteristics of dictionary making in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

16 The formation of Chinese character dictionaries 16.1 The social and cultural background in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 16.2 The development of character dictionary compilation in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 16.3 The development of format and style in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 16.4 A brief introduction to the masterpieces of character dictionaries 16.5 The academic value and inXuence of character dictionaries of the Ming and Qing Dynasties 17 The formation of Chinese word dictionaries 17.1 The historical background 17.2 The evolution of lexicographical theories in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 17.3 The development of format and style in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 17.4 A brief introduction to the masterpieces of word dictionaries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 17.5 The academic value and inXuence of word dictionaries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 18 The evolution and reformation of special and encyclopedic dictionaries in China 18.1 The historical background in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 18.2 Lexicographical paradigm in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 18.3 The analysis of format and style in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 18.4 A short analysis of some representative dictionaries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 18.5 The academic value and inXuence of special and encyclopedic dictionaries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 19 The evolution and formation of rhyme dictionaries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 19.1 The historical background in the Ming and Qing Dynasties

268 275 280 280 282 286 290 293 298 298 300 301 304 313

319 320 321 324 328 342

347 347

contents 19.2 The development of lexicographical theories in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 19.3 The evolution of format and style in the Ming and Qing Dynasties 19.4 The representative dictionaries in the Ming and Qing Dynasties and their academic inXuence PA R T V

ix

348 352 357

C H I N E S E B I L I N G UA L L E X I C O G R A P H Y : A BRIEF OVERVIEW

(from the Tang Dynasty, 618–907 to the Qing Dynasty, 1616–1911) 20 The origin and emergence of Chinese bilingual lexicography 20.1 Buddhist preaching and the advent of bilingual lexicography 20.2 Buddhist sutras and the compilation of dictionaries of sounds and meanings 20.3 Dictionaries of sounds and meanings and the dawn of bilingual dictionaries 21 The archetype and evolution of Chinese bilingual dictionaries 21.1 Buddhist culture and the emergence of bilingual glossaries 21.2 Chinese socio-cultural life and the evolution of bilingual dictionaries 21.3 The writing of history books and bilingual glossary compilation 22 Ethnic minority languages and their bilingual dictionaries 22.1 Western Xia culture and Tangut bilingual dictionaries 22.2 Mongolian culture and Mongolian bilingual dictionaries 22.3 Turkish culture and Turkish bilingual dictionaries 22.4 Tibetan culture and Tibetan bilingual dictionaries 22.5 History studies and bilingual dictionaries for history books 23 Religious preaching from the West and Chinese bilingual dictionary compilation 23.1 Matteo Ricci’s contributions to Chinese bilingual lexicography 23.2 Robert Morrison and the Wrst Chinese–English dictionary 23.3 Dialect studies and Chinese bilingual dialect dictionaries 23.4 The end of missionary compilation of Chinese bilingual dictionaries

367 369 370 371 372 372 373 375 376 377 378 379 381 382

384 384 386 388 389

x

contents 24 Chinese government establishments and Chinese bilingual dictionary compilation 24.1 Government establishments and bilingual glossary compilation 24.2 Chinese–foreign language dictionaries and their three versions 24.3 The spread of Western learning and the compilation of specialized bilingual dictionaries 24.4 The compilation of Manchurian–Chinese bilingual and multilingual dictionaries in the Qing Dynasty

396

25 The characteristics and inXuence of early Chinese bilingual dictionaries 25.1 Early bilingual dictionaries and their characteristics 25.2 The socio-cultural inXuence of early bilingual dictionaries

399 399 401

Appendix I List of book titles from English to Chinese with English titles arranged in alphabetical order Appendix II List of book titles from Chinese to English with Chinese titles arranged in Pinyin order Appendix III 中国历代纪元表/ The chronology of Chinese history Bibliography Websites Index of Chinese names

391 392 393 395

403 422 445 447 452 453

illustrations Plate 1 First Emperor of Qin Dynasty Plate 2 Stone Drum Characters Plate 3 The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms Plate 4 Xu Shen Plate 5 The Dictionary of Rhymes Plate 6 The Dictionary of Rhymes Plate 7 The Dictionary of Initial Consonants Plate 8 The Beitang Collections of Copied Books Plate 9 The Compendium of Ancient and Contemporary Books Plate 10 Li Shizhen Plate 11 The Imperial Collection of Four Branches of Literature Plate 12 The Compendium of Materia Medica Plate 13 The Yongle Compendium

acknowledgements Many people have kindly helped us, inspired us, and spurred us on to the completion of this arduous and intricate undertaking and contributed in various ways to making our long-cherished wish come true. We would particularly like to thank the following people. Our gratitude and sincerest thanks go to J. H. Prynne of Cambridge University, who read the manuscript with keen observation, raised a series of thoughtprovoking questions, discussed various academic issues in relation to the book both in China and at Cambridge, and kindly accepted our invitation to write the preface. We would like to thank Huang Jianhua of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, who suggested the idea of writing a history of Chinese lexicography in English and making it accessible to a wider readership and also discussed with us a great number of issues concerning the project. We would like to thank R. R. K. Hartmann of Exeter and Birmingham Universities for his continuing interest in and kind attention to the book. His helpful comments and warm encouragement have been a great inspiration to us. Our thanks are also due to two anonymous reviewers for their favourable comments and kind suggestions concerning the publishing proposal and the manuscript, to Tian Bing, who helped in data collection in the initial stage, to Huang Hua, who read through the manuscript and made many interesting suggestions, to Luo Zhenyue and Xue Xue, who helped us with the index of Chinese names, and to Ma Chijie, Zhang Xiangming, and Rong Yueting, who helped in the search for and preparation of pictorial illustrations. Finally, we are deeply indebted to John Davey of Oxford University Press, who was always available to help and ready to make comments and oVer suggestions. These have been extremely insightful and a valuable guide to us throughout the preparation of the book. Naturally, we, as authors, are responsible for any errors of fact, deWciencies in coverage or content, and oversights that still remain in the presentation. We would greatly appreciate our readers’ thoughts and recommendations regarding the book. Your comments and suggestions will be most welcome. Please email us at [email protected] or write to us at Guangdong University of Business Studies, 21 Chisha Road, Guangzhou 510320, Guangdong Province, People’s Republic of China.

preface It is widely understood throughout the Western world that the culture of China has had an exceedingly rich and varied history, and is in fact one of the most remarkable empires that ever existed: not merely an empire in the political and territorial sense but as a coherent life-ordering structure for social continuity and, as is also well recognized, the connecting basis for this intricate continuity is the Chinese language. What is less well known, however, is that this near-unique system of written and spoken practice generated over the span of successive dynasties its own scholarly and descriptive self-consciousness, with well-developed theories of language structure and usage, including analysis of a reWned literary tradition as well as the idioms of administrative, philosophical, and mercantile activity. Language in this historical context is an important philosophical concept but is also a functioning system of expressive and communicative action. And knowledge of this latter aspect is especially concentrated in the production and use of dictionaries. It can be said that a linguistic culture understands itself by means of its native lexicography, both by analysis of current practice at the time of study and in retrospect by historical investigation to deWne a tradition or indeed many partseparate traditions linked to this common linguistic base. It is not so well known that China has been extraordinarily rich in lexicographical activity, with layer after layer of specialized compilation within a variously sophisticated philological framework. In short the present synoptic history has the great ambition of making a history of a history by bringing into orderly review the successive stages within scholarly and practical enterprise of the making and using of dictionaries of all kinds, at all levels, and from the earliest beginnings to a point just short of the present day. We are dealing with a specialist historiography that is also foundational; or a cultural philology in the Germanic sense but with this diVerence that the perspectives of inquiry are also themselves from within the Chinese language and its culture, even if deeply retrospective, rather than from the outside. Despite its apparent compactness this synoptic history is an extremely ambitious project, with little precedent on anything like this scale or with this degree of concise scholarly detail. To my knowledge there is nothing like it in a Western language, and only scattered segments of this work have yet been attempted in Chinese. The nearest comparable existing enterprise would be the relevant

xiv

preface

sections in Science and Civilisation in China by the late Joseph Needham and his collaborators. The idea is to construe widely the category of reference works codifying linguistic knowledge concerned with Chinese, including, for example, word dictionaries, encyclopedias, teaching primers, manuals of calligraphy and writing practice, rhyming dictionaries, text commentaries and indexes, dialect dictionaries and phrasebooks, specialist subject glossaries and vocabularies, works concerned with pronunciation and tone usage, dictionaries of synonyms, medical, engineering, and technological handbooks, manuals of religious interpretation (sacred texts), proper name lists and biographical records, bilingual wordbooks (e.g. early Sanskrit–Chinese, Tibetan–Chinese, etc.), and many hybrid works whose status may be described in diVerent ways. The arrangement of the material is chieXy historical and descriptive; but there are also well-controlled and highly signiWcant parallel reasons for introducing new critical and comparative methodologies, and for interpreting the function of such reference compendia as part of an overall culture, ordering knowledge and promoting structures of interpretation and understanding and practical use as integral to the fabric of an educated community. These forms of analysis and larger inquiry very much amplify the value of this work and its scope of usefulness. This synoptic history is also extremely and valuably self-conscious concerning matters of coherent and up-to-date critical methodology, and adopts many criteria which may be thought to be more at home in Western academic research than in the earlier styles of subject review practised in China. There is, for example, a comparative review discussion of historical period segmentation which brings to the fore the question of sequence ordering, rather than simply assuming a traditional framework which would be a very usual Chinese practice. This means that reading this synoptic history could be very instructive for a Western-trained scholar because it is presented according to procedures which will be in outline largely familiar, even though the material may be quite exotic and challenging. Within the adopted period framework there are section formats based on particular types of reference work, reviewing specialist compendia in groupings of materials with similar functions or kinds of data – all well signposted. The terminology for describing linguistic features and functions is a pragmatic blend of traditional Chinese categories and Western linguistic analysis; a Western reader unfamiliar with the Chinese material will need to adjust, but the general framework is quite recognizable and unfamiliar methods (e.g. descriptions of character evolution and contemporary explanations) are demonstrated with clear discussion of examples. It is well known that China has a very long cultural and linguistic history, and that its vigorous intellectual life has included many scholarly functions and

preface

xv

institutions of learning devoted to codifying the knowledge base of that culture. The history of knowledge of the language is thus a baseline history of the entire fabric of the Chinese experience; and this pioneering study measures itself against this recognition. I would, on this ground alone, judge it a landmark work, likely to be a pivotal reference in Western and Chinese scholarship alike. The functional approach considers the apparently inert reference manual as a decisive node in a pattern of communication practice: the intentions of a knowledge book can be gauged by reconstruction of its user community, and the changes in presentation can proWle changing patterns of use. Prefatory editorial statements and arguments at the start of works of reference can prove highly informative concerning context and function and assumed backgrounds of existing knowledge. All this is for China a new kind of social history, and here too this work could initiate several new trends. The historical scope of the synoptic history runs from The Ready Guide (Erya) of c.200 bc to almost modern times, just up to the threshold of computer-based lexicography and international bilingual works responding to the new policy of an open China. A vast number of individual works are listed and described: some brieXy, but the major landmark works in much greater depth, with cited examples and discussion of purposes and use-patterns, as well as review of retrospective appraisals of earlier treatments made in successive waves of developing practice. The ordering of presentational sequence, with interspersed reviews of current method and with the subject-based sections incorporated within the larger period units, is quite complex but very clearly managed. There is good internal balance and proportion, and evidently a considerable economy of treatment is required in order to accommodate this inclusive and synoptic range within one reasonably-sized volume. A much more elaborate and extensive treatment could have been mounted in many volumes, probably with specialist authorship for various component parts; however, that would be a totally diVerent project, and would lack the distinct virtues of the succinct, wellinformed, and well-proportioned overview which is oVered here. It is more than possible that the publication of this pioneering synopsis, placing the long rich tradition of Chinese traditional lexicography on a modern footing, will stimulate a new phase of lexical and philological studies, together with more informed comparisons across separate language systems, both in China itself and in Western sinology. The work could thus become an agenda for a whole host of specialist derivatives, and for collaborative reWnement of the methodologies appropriate to speciWc segments of the larger task. Not only is the structure clear and well laid out, with consistent nomenclature and a well-managed narrative progression, it is also written in an English style

xvi

preface

somewhat remarkable for native Chinese scholars. To have assembled and conducted this analysis of a complex language tradition in a foreign language is a striking achievement, valuable for this reason over and above the content because, being written in a clear, readable English, it opens up all the material to non-Chinese readers and scholars; most of this material has never before been available (if not all of it) outside the Chinese-language domain. I have not been able to ascertain how the authors have divided up responsibility for this collaborative study. Polishing this work to bring it to its present high level of Wnish must have demanded exceptional eVorts. It is worth saying, also, that the argumentation of this book is subtle and vigorous; the thought processes are active, and the material is handled with intelligence rather than merely with proWciency. Within the Oxford University Press list it will indeed be a highly specialized monograph with a well-focused though largely professional core appeal. But because of its accessible discussion it should be read by many more than the ranks of trained sinologists, comparative linguists, and historians of language; the general style is lively and interesting and illustrated with many examples, and obscure technical terminology is kept to a minimum; moreover, this work is not likely to be superseded or overtaken in any great hurry. Most Western scholars and general readers will have little idea of the richness and diversity of this reXexive self-knowledge and analytic practice within the Chinese language system and its long history; the book will display a previously almost unknown aspect of Chinese cultural theory and practice. It will also bring some authoritative and well-informed material into an area which for the West has been beset with much folklore and half-ignorant conjecture about the nature of the Chinese language. I contend that its landmark signiWcance will quickly be recognized and I believe that it will attract positive reviews even though there will of course be some critical points of view from specialists; indeed, to initiate diVerent lines of discussion and divergent points of view will be one of the book’s distinctly valuable functions. I believe that this study will aVord the opportunity to grasp the full scope of such diverse linguistic history running like a thread through the larger historical record, and to recognize how the Chinese thought about their own language, and what eVects these thought traditions had on their understanding and use of language in every sphere of social life. It will massively extend our overall knowledge and insight on a far more inclusive scale than ‘mere’ lexicography might seem at Wrst to suggest. Dr Yong Heming and his collaborator have established a landmark presentation that is both ambitious and judicious in its balance of close descriptive scholarship with investigative analysis and at the

preface

xvii

same time radically extending and testing the contentious tasks of productive methodology. When Dr Yong Heming was my student (ever-industrious and talented) at Suzhou University in 1991, I little imagined that such a culminating and important achievement as this new publication was in prospect for the future that then lay ahead. The important work presented here is without doubt deWnitive: large-scale and organized with careful alternating contrast between descriptive detail and wider evaluations of method and practice. It is indeed a landmark publication, and it deserves to be closely and widely read. J. H. Prynne Gonville and Caius College University of Cambridge


part i

INTRODUCTION


1

INTRODUCTION

T

HE history of Chinese civilization traces back to Yandi (also known as Shen Nong, Divine Peasant) and Huangdi (also known as Xuan Yuan, Emperor Huang), legendary rulers of China in remote antiquity and the commonly recognized ancestors of the Chinese nation. The earliest dictionary in the Chinese language, The Ready Guide (, also known as Erya), boasts a history of around 2,200 years. However, a systematic and coherent probe into the history of Chinese lexicography is something of a novelty, having started in the last quarter of the twentieth century. A Narrative History of Lexicography in China (, 1979) by Fang Houshu (方厚枢) is the Wrst serious monologue concerned with that part of dictionary research and with a wide time span, initiating a whole series of articles and works. Their pioneering endeavours, especially those studies on the classic wordbooks, have provided illuminating insights into later research. However, there is still a great deal of new ground to be covered and problems solved, some of which are fundamental in nature. This introduction will give an overview of various aspects of diachronic studies of lexicography in China, covering the status quo, the approaches to adopt, the methodology to employ, the segmentation of historical periods, and the practical implications, paving the way for discussions that run throughout this presentation.

The status quo Chinese lexicography originated in quite remote times, when there appeared what resembled a dictionary in the present-day deWnition, or further back with the primers, for example character-learning books, compiled for children around 800 bc. The Ready Guide, written around 200 bc, is universally acknowledged as

4

introduction

the earliest dictionary in a real sense in the Chinese academic world. The lexicographical culture in China has evolved and developed for more than two millennia, and its broadness, uniqueness, profundity and analytical precision have remained the admiration of the world academic arena. A general review of diachronic studies on dictionary compilation and theorization in China, however, manifests some obvious drawbacks. First, prior to the 1970s, relevant research, mainly introductory monologues, reXective thoughts, and critical comments and reviews, was limited to various wordbooks as front matter items, such as preface, introduction, and guide to use, which summed up previous experiences, reviewed previous lexicographical works, criticized citations of the literature, and provided additional information concerning their motivation, initiation, organization, and compilation. The systematic investigation of the history of Chinese lexicography has continued for only three decades and signiWcant Wndings and achievements are still not substantial. By the end of the twentieth century, there were only a few books dealing exclusively with this subject, notably A Brief History of Chinese Character Dictionaries (, 1983) by Liu Yeqiu (刘叶秋), An Introduction to Ancient Dictionaries in China (, 1986) by Qian Jianfu (钱剑夫), Talks on the History of Ancient Word Books and Dictionaries (, 1986) by Zhao Zhenduo (赵振铎), Lectures on Ancient Wordbooks (, 1990) by Cao Xianzhuo (曹先擢) and Yang Runlu (杨润陆), A Brief History of Dictionary Compilation in China (, 1992) by Lin Yushan (林玉山), and Talks on the History of Chinese Dictionaries (, 1998) by Zhang Minghua (张明华). Other research is found in the academic periodicals of social sciences published by Chinese institutions of higher learning and in the journals of lexicography in China, particularly Lexicographical Studies (), conference proceedings, and collections of lexicographical articles. All the works listed above are limited to ancient wordbooks, neglecting dictionary compilation and theoretical generalization in modern and contemporary times. The most recent publication Talks on the History of Chinese Dictionaries covers the broadest time span, extending from ancient times up to the present day, but unfortunately it provides only a meager sketch of Chinese lexicography, overlooking some of the major works and even some important periods. Geographically, none of the above works has taken into consideration dictionary compilation and research in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. Thus, there remains much work to be done in order to give a panorama of the development of lexicography in China. Second, those studies are, to some extent, defective in methodology. They focus on individual wordbooks and fail to make analyses from societal, cultural,

introduction

5

and interdisciplinary dimensions. Dictionaries are the product of the evolution of human civilization and the development of human society. The needs from society and culture are the catalyst for the inception and development of lexicography. Owing to the strong and persistent inXuence of ontological language studies, previous research is mainly limited to dictionaries proper, and dictionary compilation is viewed as a purely linguistic activity. Consequently, diachronic studies of Chinese lexicography have not been approached from a socio-cultural perspective and lack an interdisciplinary basis, resulting in both its separation from what counts as the environments without which lexicography could not evolve and develop, and its separation from dictionary use and other sociocultural needs. Lexicographical studies could go no further without some substantial modiWcation in methodology and an adoption of multiple perspectives. Third, those studies are generally not comprehensive or systematic. It is frequently apparent in their research that more emphasis is laid on the parts than on the whole, that more attention is paid to the isolated analysis of cases than to theoretical generalizations, and that more consideration is given to accumulation of practical experiences than to formulation of lexicographical theories. The works mentioned above are, to some extent, based on historical context, overlook theoretical conWguration, and follow a well-beaten path: subsequent to a brief survey of the development of ancient wordbooks, the whole text is mostly devoted to the evaluation of several speciWc and representative wordbooks and dictionaries, and no attempt is made to establish a theoretically comprehensive and coherent framework incorporating all the Wndings and various aspects concerning the history of lexicography in China. For instance, the major parts of Liu Yeqiu (1983) and Zhao Zhenduo (1986) are evaluations of such speciWc works as The Ready Guide, An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (, also known as The Origin of Chinese Characters) by Xu Shen (许慎), The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms () by Liu Xi (刘熙), and The Dictionary of Rhymes () by Chen Pengnian (陈彭年). Evaluations of these works are necessary but, if they are carried out separately, the continuity of history, the systematicity of theory, and the integrity of research will be greatly reduced and impaired. Fourth, the majority of research focuses on Chinese monolingual dictionaries, making little or no mention of bilingual dictionaries, special-purpose dictionaries, or encyclopedic dictionaries. These dictionary types, however, also play an indispensable role in the development of Chinese lexicography in modern and contemporary times. Their number is several times greater than Chinese monolingual dictionaries. Any work on the history of lexicography in China without covering those dictionary types is doomed to be incomplete and should be discounted.

6

in t r o d u c t i o n

Lastly, the lexicographical terms employed in the above works are inconsistent and potentially misleading, which frustrates those interested, especially beginners in lexicography. Lexicographical knowledge cannot be popularized and the education of lexicography cannot be promoted if this situation remains unchanged. It hinders the introduction of Chinese scholars’ achievements to the rest of the world, in particular their western counterparts. There is still no work on the history of lexicography in China written in English or other languages, which renders Chinese lexicographical achievements over the past two millennia inaccessible to scholars outside China.

Approaches Lexicography has evolved and developed in China for more than two millennia, and it is impossible to cover such a long span of lexicographical activity within a limited scope of presentation without a scientiWcally sound framework. A theoretically coherent framework must be established into which that long span of lexicographic activity can be incorporated, reXecting the trajectory of lexicographical development in China. The study of the history of lexicography in China should start from and be based on what has been achieved and focus on Wlling in the blanks. Diachronically, we cannot deal only with the ancient period and leave modern and contemporary periods untouched. The ancient, modern, and contemporary periods should all be treated in appropriate measure. Geographically, relevant discussions should not be conWned only to mainland China. They should cover lexicographical studies and activities in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan as well. As to the typology of dictionaries, the studies should not be conWned only to Chinese monolingual dictionaries. Chinese bilingual dictionaries, special-purpose dictionaries (particularly specialized dictionaries) and encyclopedic dictionaries should all be covered, and special types, such as dictionaries for speciWc purposes (special-interest dictionaries) and dialect dictionaries, should be taken into the lexicographical scene as well. Only when all the relevant Wndings and achievements are collated, evaluated, analysed, and incorporated can we embrace China’s over two millennia of dictionary making and research and put them under one umbrella. Only then can we further portray the trajectory and patterns of the evolution of Chinese lexicography against the background of China’s social development. There should be a balance between the ancient heritage and the reform and innovation in modern and contemporary times. Emphasis should be laid not only on the evaluation and analysis of representative dictionaries but also on historical continuity and the heritage of lexicographical evolution. The systematicity of theoretical investigation and the

introduction

7

comprehensiveness and unity of diachronic explorations should all be emphasized. Only then can we provide a relatively comprehensive holograph of the history of lexicography in China, covering its development from ancient to contemporary times and the status quo both in the mainland and in Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan. As our review of the literature shows, the existing works of the history of lexicography in mainland China are mostly case studies of individual dictionaries and wordbooks of ancient times. These studies are very signiWcant in their historical and academic value, as these ancient dictionaries and wordbooks are the roots of Chinese lexicographical culture and are priceless treasures for further in-depth explorations. Nevertheless, the development of Chinese lexicography in ancient times was slow and uneven over diVerent periods. It began to accelerate only from the Ming Dynasty and reached its climax in modern and contemporary times, particularly in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Therefore, the study of the history of lexicography in China should incorporate both ancient times and modern and contemporary times. A comprehensive and coherent historical framework should be established to incorporate and faithfully reXect the evolutional characteristics and patterns of Chinese lexicography over the past two millennia. A new policy should be adopted in writing the history of lexicography in China. While emphasizing the scientiWc and academic nature of the undertaking, adequate attention should be paid to its readability and popular appeal, avoiding obscurity, lack of intelligibility or inconsistency in employing lexicographical terms. The English version should adopt a style more appealing to western readers and should manifest what is essential to the lexicographical culture in China – the cornerstone dictionaries, the advanced experiences in dictionary compilation, and the leading achievements in theoretical inquiry. In addition, there should be indexes and appendixes to list and explain diYcult and obscure terms. All this will make the work more enticing and friendly to its readers and will greatly help popularize lexicographical knowledge and promote education in this Weld.

Methodology The basic methodology in the study of the history of lexicography should be a combination of sequence, evaluation, and generalization, following the diachronic sequence as the main thread of inquiry and exploration, making objective assessment of major lexicographical works, formulating theoretical generalizations, and eventually establishing a coherent framework to incorporate

8

introduction

all the Wndings of such research. This is also applicable to the study of the history of Chinese lexicography. In addition, some substantial breakthroughs will have to be made in methodology in order to achieve the intended goal. First, the investigations should not be conWned within the limits of the dictionary-ontology paradigm. Socio-cultural dimensions will have to be taken into account. In other words, two interwoven themes should run in parallel throughout the whole study: socio-cultural evolution and lexicographical development in China. The study of the history of lexicography in China should be carried out against the background of China’s socio-cultural development. There is undeniable evidence that the development of Chinese wordbooks and dictionaries is contingent upon the prosperity or adversity of the nation, the development of the society, the transmission of religion and culture, and the progress of science and technology. Prominence must be given to the interactive relationships between socio-cultural advancement and dictionary production and development, and between socio-cultural demands and dictionary compilation and use. Similar interactive relations and mechanisms exist between language and dictionary, between society and dictionary, and between dictionary and culture. Lexicographical culture is an essential part of the culture of a nation. The historical trajectory of the evolution of a nation, whether it rises or falls, will accordingly leave an imprint upon the development of lexicography of that nation. In a sense, a history of lexicography is a history of the culture of a nation and a history of the evolution of its civilization. Thus, it can be safely assumed that the study of the history of lexicography should be societal, cultural, and interdisciplinary. The mainstream patterns and characteristics of the development of lexicography in China cannot be adequately described if inquiries into Chinese lexicography are taken out of their socio-cultural context. Second, the practice of separate case study and the unsystematic theoretical generalization should be viewed, reWned, and elevated in the general context of over 2,200 years of Chinese lexicographical experiences so that lexicographical products and culture can be approached and evaluated under a more consistent, coherent, integrated, and interrelated framework. The practical implication and historical value of speciWc dictionaries will be better appreciated when they are taken into the picture of the whole historical process in which they have evolved and developed. A dictionary should be regarded as an outcome of the evolution of a nation’s civilization, as a marked product of a nation’s culture, and as an indispensable member of a nation’s dictionary family. Dictionary study should not follow the ontological pattern for language study and be conducted for its own sake. It should relate itself to the course of the development of a nation’s culture and to the historical growth of its lexicographical culture. In so doing, the

introduction

9

diachronic inheritance in history, the systematic formulation in theory, and the integration of sequence, evaluation, and generalization will become conspicuous throughout this presentation. Moreover, the development of lexicography in China should be studied and analysed against the wider background of world lexicography and civilization so as to pinpoint the role that it plays in world civilization and lexicographical culture and highlight the national features of China’s lexicographical culture. Third, the single-perspective mode in the diachronic study of dictionary compilation should be re-evaluated and improved. Traditionally, Chinese lexicography and its development have been examined mainly from a single perspective, i.e. the compiler’s perspective. The general truth is that the history of lexicography in China cannot be fully investigated without taking into consideration the sociocultural evolution of the Chinese nation. Thus, a communicative approach should be introduced to establish a theoretical model for the study of the history of lexicography: integrating the compiler, the dictionary, and the user into a trinity so that the dictionaries and their development can be examined from a threefold perspective–the dictionary, its compilation, and its use. Such an approach can help free us from the conWnements of the conventional practice of looking at dictionaries only from the perspective of dictionary itself. Thus, the ‘trinitarian’ approach will incorporate sociocultural and psycho-cognitive perspectives into the study of dictionary use, dictionary users, and their language needs. User needs and dictionary development, user research and dictionary use, and dictionary use and language teaching can all be investigated under and integrated into a uniWed framework. Dictionaries are the product of the evolution of human civilization and the product of the development of human society. The need from society and culture is a catalyst for their birth and development and user need is a direct driving force for their production and expansion. Naturally, manifold perspectives should be adopted, and dictionary evolution should be examined and analysed from the perspective of the dictionary, the compiler, and the user, taking linguistic, socio-cultural, psycho-cognitive, and other dimensions into account. The theory of the dictionary as communication (see 雍和明, Yong Heming, 2003; Yong Heming and Peng Jing, 2007) takes the process school in communication studies as its basic theoretical framework and proposes a theoretical model for lexicographical communication. The communicative model for lexicography should be introduced into this study so that the analysis of speciWc works can be conducted under a general framework and can be eventually incorporated into it. It helps to examine the development of lexicography in China, work out methodologies and principles to reveal the regularities and patterns of dictionary development, discover the mechanisms of dictionary compilation and use, and inquire into the cognitive principles regulating dictionary use.

10

introduction

Historical Segmentation The segmentation of historical periods is considered one of the most fundamental theoretical issues in the study of the history of lexicography in any language and it is essential that the division of the history of the development of lexicography into periods is made upon a scientiWc, distinctive, and objective basis. A scientiWc and feasible way to divide history into periods will help the reader to see how Chinese dictionaries have evolved from one phase to another in the Chinese cultural setting, how they distinguish themselves via distinctive features, and how various phases are interrelated to show the trajectory of their progress, thus forming a clear panorama of the development of Chinese lexicography in the mind of the reader. There are diVerent viewpoints on the segmentation of the lexicographic history in China among the scholars in the mainland. Liu Yeqiu (1983), representing one school of scholars, divides the history of Chinese lexicography into Wve periods: (1) the Emerging and Foundation-laying Period: 475 bc–ad 220 (Warring States Period, Qin Dynasty, and Han Dynasty); (2) the Inheriting and Evolving Period: 220–581 (Three Kingdoms, Jin Dynasty, and Southern and Northern Dynasties); (3) the Constructing and Developing Period: 618–1368 (Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, and Yuan Dynasty); (4) the Progressing and Booming Period: 1368–1911 (Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty); and (5) the Changing and Reforming Period: 1911–present. This historical segmentation is strongly motivated by the evolutionary characteristics of dictionaries, emphasizing some periods and their characteristics but overlooking others. Its drawbacks are obvious. Lin Yushan (1992), representing another school of scholars, proposes a sixperiod division: (1) the Emerging Period: c.2070 bc–221 bc (Xia Dynasty, Shang Dynasty, Western Zhou Dynasty, and Pre-Qin Period); (2) the Foundation-laying Period: 206 bc–ad 581 (Han Dynasty, Three Kingdoms, Jin Dynasty, and Southern and Northern Dynasties); (3) the Preliminary Developing Period: 581–1368 (Sui Dynasty, Tang Dynasty, Song Dynasty, and Yuan Dynasty); (4) the Further Developing Period: 1368–1911 (Ming Dynasty and Qing Dynasty);

introduction

11

(5) the Maturing Period: 1911–1978 (modern times); and (6) the Booming Period: 1978–present (contemporary times). This division is speciWc and wide-ranging, and under this division the general picture of the history of lexicography in China can be better delineated, although there is still much room for improvement in terms of criteria for division and characterization of each period. For instance, what are the distinctive features between ‘the preliminary developing period’ and ‘the further developing period’? What are the criteria for identifying ‘the maturing period’? And what are the indexes for maturing? Should the development of lexicographical theories be taken into consideration in the historical segmentation of lexicography? These questions are all fundamental and need further serious study. For a scientiWcally feasible, objective, and systematic segmentation of lexicographic history, both a diachronic and a synchronic perspective should be adopted in observing and describing the origin and progression of lexicography over a relatively long period of time, and at a certain point of time as well. SuYcient attention should be paid to both the general trends in the development of dictionaries and the marked characteristics of dictionaries in the synchronic state, especially the radical changes and reforms in dictionary compilation and the breakthroughs in inquiries into fundamental issues and theoretical generalization. Considering synchronically distinctive features of each of the divisions above, the actual evolutionary patterns of Chinese lexicography, and the merits of the propositions by both scholars, a four-period division is put forth as follows: (1) the Pioneering and Emergence Period: 1046 bc–ad 220 (Western Zhou Dynasty to Eastern Han Dynasty); (2) the Exploration and Cultivation Period: 220–1368 (Three Kingdoms to Yuan Dynasty); (3) the Reform and Shaping Period: 1368–1911 (Ming Dynasty to Qing Dynasty); and (4) the Depression and Booming Period: 1911–present (the twentieth century). The present study will adopt this division of historical periods as the framework for discussion and analysis and will be mainly devoted to the development of Chinese lexicography from the Zhou Dynasty (1046 bc–256 bc) to the Qing Dynasty (1616–1911). Twentieth-century Chinese lexicography, which is extremely diYcult to encompass within this limited scope of presentation, is well worth a separate study.

12

introduction

Practical Implications For various reasons, historical, political, and linguistic, no in-depth, comprehensive, and consistent studies have ever been made of the history of lexicography in China. It is no wonder that the achievements in dictionary making and lexicographical cultivation in China are little known to the West, and, surprisingly, not many Chinese are aware of their own lexicographical accomplishments over the past two millennia. Therefore, such an undertaking is of great value in philology, sinology, sociology, and cultural and historical studies, in addition to its farreaching signiWcance to lexicographical practice and theorization. The history of lexicography in China is closely related to the study of the Chinese language, its characters and history, to the socio-cultural history of the Chinese nation, and to the progression of Chinese civilization. It is an essential part of theoretical lexicography. Studies on the history of lexicography will greatly contribute to theoretical explorations in lexicography, help formulate principles guiding dictionary making, facilitate dictionary compilation and research, and eventually enhance the development of lexicography as a whole. Such studies will play a signiWcant role in pushing forward Chinese historical lexicography, in promoting the association of dictionary compilation and dictionary use with language teaching, and in reforming modes and patterns of Chinese and foreign language teaching. Robert Collison (1982:20) states: ‘Dictionary-making in China, for example, was already well advanced some two thousand years ago, but the extent of this achievement was not appreciated by the West for more than a thousand years.’ It is high time that a work on the history of Chinese lexicography be written and published in English, presenting a panorama of its historical development, and the status quo. It is hoped that this work will promote the development and exploitation of lexicographical culture in China and facilitate the worldwide awareness of the magniWcence of Chinese civilization and lexicographical culture. It is also hoped that this work, written in English, will help to remove barriers between Chinese and western lexicography, initiate new forms of comparative research in the global context, and converge the history of Chinese lexicography into the general Xux of the history of world lexicography.

part ii

THE GENESIS AND EMERGENCE OF LEXICOGRAPHICAL C U LT U R E A N D WO R K S I N ANCIENT CHINA (from the Zhou Dynasty, 1046 bc–256 bc to the Han Dynasty, 206 bc–ad 220)


2

THE EMERGENCE OF LEXICOGRAPHICAL CULTURE IN CHINA

T

HERE are numerous myths and legends about the origin of human beings. In the West, it was popularly circulated that men were created by God. A man was Wrst created and named Adam, and a woman was made from one of his ribs and named Eve. They were pronounced man and wife and gave birth to children that were the ancestors of human beings today. In China, there was a diVerent story – human beings were created by Nu¨wa, a Goddess in the Chinese legend, out of clay. She moulded clay Wgurines by mixing water with clay. After making a number of them she stopped to blow breath and life into each of them and they became the Wrst human beings on Earth. The development of the means of production and the progress of science and technology provide a better understanding of the origin of human beings and a scientiWc theory of its evolution: human beings evolved from ancient apes and labour played a decisive role in this process of evolution. Over the last century quite a few fossils and relics of ancient human beings have been discovered. These discoveries have justiWed Darwin and Engels’ theory of the origin of human species. Judging from the discovery of Australopithecus africanus, the earliest humanoid fossils, and stone tools, human beings must have emerged two or three million years ago. In China, the unearthing of the Muddy River Bay (Nihewan) Relics shows how human beings dined about two million years ago: the ancestors of human beings could have walked out from the Muddy River Bay, in the same way as they might have come out of Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge, known as the cradle of mankind and the birthplace of our human

16

genesis and emergence of lexicographical culture

ancestors. It had taken our ancestors hundreds of thousands of years to transform themselves from apes into erect walking beings and primitive languages had gradually evolved to meet their primitive labour needs.

2.1 the origin of chinese characters and their formation Language emerges, develops and changes as human society develops and changes. The writing system, however, does not evolve simultaneously. Human beings have a long history of communicating with each other in speech without a writing system. The earliest writing system, conWrmed by archeological discoveries, has a history of only 6,000 years, which is a mere drop in the ocean relative to the evolution of human species. There are still a large number of languages in the world that have only spoken forms, without having evolved to the stage of creating a writing system. Chinese characters are signs used to record the speech form of the Chinese language. The Chinese writing system is among those that have had the longest history and profoundest inXuence in the world. There is still a great deal of controversy concerning when it originated and who created it. Scholars in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220) proposed that Chinese characters had their origins in knot tying – the earliest means by which people kept records of signiWcant events in their primitive life, in the light of accounts from The Book of Changes (, also ) that ‘in ancient times tribes were ruled by means of tying knots, which was later replaced by using characters introduced by Man of God’. Greater numbers of scholars tend to accept that Chinese characters were created by Cang Jie (or Ti’ang Chieh, 仓颉). In classic Chinese works, Cang Jie’s creation of characters has been frequently noted: When Cang Jie creates characters, self-conWnement is dubbed 厶(私) [private], and turning one’s back to selWshness was being 公 [public], which manifests that Cang Jie is already well aware of the contradiction between being private and being public.

It was also mentioned in The Lu¨’s Spring and Autumn Annals () that the Chinese writing system is ascribable to Cang Jie. In the Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, which was compiled by Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty, this was once again noted and further indication was given as to ‘how’ – the inspiration for creating Chinese characters came from hunting: when

genesis of lexicographical culture

17

Cang Jie examined the trails and marks left behind by animals and birds he came to recognize which was which and could diVerentiate through careful inspection. Thus, Chinese characters were created as a result of such reasoning and keen observation. There are also legends and myths about Cang Jie’s creating Chinese characters. One legend has it that Cang Jie saw a god from Heaven with a very odd face, which looked very much like a painting consisting of characters. Cang Jie copied the picture of the face and created characters. In another legend, Cang Jie’s character creation was thought to be the leakage of secrets from Heaven, which induced the millet to fall and the ghost to cry every night. In the eyes of scholars today, legends are just legends. The creation of Chinese characters should be a product of collective endeavour and gradual accumulation over a broad time span. Cang Jie, as the historiographer of Emperor Huang, must have made indispensable contributions to the creation of Chinese characters, especially in sorting and codifying, though he could not be credited as the only creator. The evolution of Chinese characters has a history of more than 6,000 years. These characters evolved from the symbols and graphs for keeping memories of signiWcant events in primitive life. The rudiments of characters are generally thought to be those curves and sketches on the coloured earthenware of the late Neolithic Age. The earliest mature Chinese characters discovered in archaeology are those inscriptions carved on tortoise shells and animal bones of the Shang Dynasty (c.16th–11th century bc), from which the current Chinese language has evolved. These characters are called Jiaguwen (甲骨文). There are approximately 4,600 Jiaguwen characters discovered, a considerable proportion of which are phonograms, fairly sophisticated words even by today’s standards. Since the appearance of Jiaguwen, the form and structure of Chinese characters have undergone three main phases of evolution: from ancient writing called dazhuan (大篆), which is a style of calligraphy with complicated strokes current in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties (c.1600 bc–256 bc), to xiaozhuan (小篆), which stands for ‘fewer-stroke seal characters’ simpliWed from dazhuan by Prime Minister Li Si (李斯) of the Qin Dynasty (221 bc–206 bc); from xiaozhuan to oYcial script in the Han Dynasty (206 bc–ad 220); and from oYcial script to regular script in the Tang Dynasty (618–907) and onwards. Since Jiaguwen characters are symbols carved with sharp instruments, the strokes are mainly in square forms and their structures look very delicate. The characters in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties are inscriptions mainly found on bronze and copper wares. These inscription characters were principally used to record important activities at that time: oVering sacriWces to gods or ancestors, waging wars against enemies, conferring awards on heroes for their accomplishments, or making treaties and agreements.

18


This can be taken as a window on the society of that time. These inscription characters are very similar to Jiaguwen and it is evident that they have inherited and retained many of the characteristics of Jiaguwen. In the late Zhou Dynasty, these inscription characters changed to dazhuan. In 221 bc, Ying Zheng, the Wrst Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, uniWed China for the Wrst time in Chinese history. He promulgated the decree of ‘Writing Same Character’ (书同文) – promoting a new writing system. This new writing system was based on the system formerly used in Qin State and it also adopted some popularly used writing forms from other states. Compared with the previous writing systems, the new system is more convenient in that the new characters are greatly simpliWed and oYcially codiWed. The new characters come to be called xiaozhuan. In order to popularize the new writing system nationwide, the Emperor also ordered some of his oYcials to write standard textbooks, including The Cangjie Primer (), The Yuanli Primer (), and The Scholarly Primer (). Up to the stage of xiaozhuan, the irregular form and structure of characters have become relatively more regular and consistent straight or arched lines. The characteristics of inscriptions, such as pictographs, have become much less salient. Moreover, the basic structural parts of characters were becoming stabilized, which has paved the way for Chinese characters to transform into ‘square characters’. Although xiaozhuan signiWes a great leap forward in the transformation of Chinese characters, its structure is still rather complex and its writing not very practical. What is to follow naturally is an essential reform in the writing system of Chinese characters – the introduction of oYcial script in the late Han Dynasty. Xiping Stone Inscriptions () in the Eastern Han Dynasty is the most representative calligraphic work of the oYcial script. The basic structure has undergone a revolutionary transformation from xiaozhuan to the oYcial script: stroke lines have changed from arches and bends to squares and straight lines, abandoning the distinctive pictographic features. The oYcial script has, to a large extent, facilitated the process of turning ancient Chinese characters into signs symbolizing modern Chinese characters. The Chinese characters have gradually evolved into a more convenient writing system, and it was not until the Western HanDynastythattheoYcialscriptbecamegenuinelyoYcialandcameintowideuse. In the late Eastern Han Dynasty, the regular script was introduced, which was a further simpliWcation and adaptation of the oYcial script, and that quickly became the standard script. Between 220 and 420, it came to be used widely and became the general script in early engraved printing. Ever since, regular script has always remained the standard script for the Chinese language. Except


19

for some simpliWcation in strokes, the form and structure of Chinese characters has not undergone much radical change since then. The writing systems of the world generally fall into two categories: phonography (e.g. alphabetic writing) and ideography (e.g. logographic writing). The former consists of phonetic symbols such as phonemes or syllables. Usually, there exists a correlation between the pronunciation and the spelling, and the pronunciation of the word can be inferred easily from its formation, as in the case of English and French. For the latter, the form of the character is employed to designate a word or morpheme. The form and the meaning are to a certain extent relevant but the pronunciation of the word cannot be inferred from its form, as in the case of Chinese. The form and structure of the character are related to speciWc meanings but not to its pronunciation, unlike the phonograph in alphabetic writing systems. As far as the formation of Chinese characters is concerned, there are four main types in its constitution: pictographic (象形法), self-explanatory (指事法), ideographic (会意法), and pictophonetic (形声法). Of these four types, pictographic formation is the earliest. In pictographic formation, the physical form and property are depicted according to the things they designate. These earliest characters mainly denote things common in everyday life. Due to the dramatic changes in the form of characters, the original features of the pictographic characters cannot be ascertained from the form and structure of the regular script, but those characteristics of pictographic characters can be readily recognized in Jiaguwen and inscription characters. For instance, in the inscription characters 日 (the sun) was written as , 月(the moon) as , 水 (water) as , and 牛(cow) as . The pictographic characters evolved gradually, and they all changed their original form and Wnally Wxed as square characters. Self-explanatory formation uses symbols only or symbols coupled with some deictic labels to designate meaning. There are two subtypes in this formation: one using symbols only, the other using symbols plus some labels. 一 (one), 上 (above), and 下 (below) belong to the Wrst subtype, and 本 (root), 末 (branch), 刃 (blade), 甘 (sweet), 牟 (moo), and 血 (blood) belong to the second subtype. The Wrst subtype might have been employed in the same period as the pictographic method while the second subtype must have occurred some time thereafter. The pictographic method can only be used to designate some concrete entities whereas the self-explanatory method can be used to refer to more abstract meanings. It is apparent that the self-explanatory method is greatly restricted and used only in a limited way. As a result, the number of selfexplanatory characters is not great. This is especially true of the symbol-only ones – only several characters are identiWed as belonging to this subtype in the Chinese writing system.

20


The ideographic formation, as indicated by its name, integrates two or more extant character symbols to designate a new meaning. The ideographic characters are all composite characters. According to the ancient scholars, the Chinese characters can be classiWed into wen (文) and zi (字). Wen refers to single-element characters and zi to composite ones. The pictographic and the self-explanatory characters are mainly composed of single elements, thus falling into the wen category. The ideographic characters are composed of two or more characters, thus falling into the zi category. DiVerent symbols or pictographic characters plus some deictic labels are combined to designate a new abstract meaning in the ideographic formation. For instance, 明 (bright) was written as , whose meaning is a composition of 日 (the sun) and 月 (the moon). 旦 ( morning) was written as , whose meaning is a composition of 日 (the sun) and 一 (horizon) – the time when the sun rises from below the ground. The pictophonetic formation refers to those characters that consist of two elements, one indicating meaning and the other indicating sound. The meaning element, also called the form element, indicates the category to which the meaning (or the relevant concept) belongs while the sound element indicates the character’s pronunciation. Numerous new characters can be created by means of putting a sound element and a meaning element together to stand for a new relevant thing or idea. For instance, 爸 (dad) is a combination of 巴 indicating its pronunciation /ba/, and 父 (father), its meaning. Similarly, 芭 is a combination of 巴 and þþ, designating a kind of grass. Studies show that pictophonetic characters account for 20 per cent of the total in Jiaguwen. The percentage of pictophonetic characters increased dramatically in the Qin Dynasty and quickly took the dominant position. Xu Shen’s An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters brought together 9,353 characters, among which 7,697 are pictophonetic, accounting for more than 80 per cent of the total. In contemporary Chinese, pictophonetic characters account for approximately 90 per cent of its lexicon. As to the form and structure of Chinese characters, there was the so-called ‘Six Categories of Chinese Characters’ (六书, shortened to Six Categories) theory in ancient times. This theory put forward six basic methods of creating Chinese characters. In addition to the four methods discussed above, there are mutually explanatory formations (转注法) and phonetic loans (假借法). According to Dai Zhen (戴震) and Duan Yucai (段玉裁, 1735–1815), in the mutually explanatory formation, characters with the same or similar meaning can be mutually used to explain lexical meaning. For instance, in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, the explication of 老 (old) is 考 (long life, aged), and the explication of 考 is 老. Phonetic loaning refers to the method by which an irrelevant character with the same or similar pronunciation is borrowed to


21

indicate a new meaning. For instance, 来 originally refers to 麦 (wheat) but it is loaned to indicate 来 (come) as in 来往 (come and go) in contemporary Chinese. Similarly, 求 originally refers to 求 (fur), but it is loaned to mean 求 (request) as in 请求 (plead, request). The phonetic loaning acts as a typical example of phonograph, which indicates a substantial progress in the development of Chinese characters. However, in essence, mutually explanatory formation and phonetic loaning cannot be counted as methods of character creation. In actual practice, there are only four ways of creating Chinese characters, namely, pictographic, self-explanatory, ideographic, and pictophonetic. The creation and adoption of writing systems mark a signiWcant advancement in the history of human civilization. The Chinese writing system enjoys an indispensably unique position for its distinctive features and charming calligraphy. More and more scholars using phonographic languages have come to realize and appreciate the uniqueness of Chinese characters and started to examine and study Chinese characters from linguistic, historical, and artistic perspectives.

2.2 ancient chinese literature and exegetic interpretation of characters To have a language, i.e. language in its spoken form, is a prerequisite for characters and words in their written form to evolve. And characters and words form the basis for literature to be produced. The source of Chinese literature can be traced back to the Xia Dynasty (c.2070 bc–1600 bc), though there is still no material data unearthed of characters and literature produced at that time. The earliest literature presently available is the oracle inscriptions on tortoise shells or animal bones made by the kings and nobles in the late Shang Dynasty (c.1600 bc–1000 bc). In the sixth century bc, six classics (六经) were compiled by Confucius (孔子 551 bc–479 bc), namely The Book of Changes, The Book of Ancient Texts (, also ), The Book of Songs (, also ), The Book of Rites (, also ), The Book of Music (), and The Spring and Autumn (). These six classic works mark the real beginning of ancient Chinese literature. Since the late Spring and Autumn Period, private schools prevailed and a generation of scholars and theoreticians matured. There emerged a mix of numerous schools of thoughts and a great number of scholarly works were written. According to The Book of the Han Dynasty (), more

22


than 140 kinds of works survived the Burning Book Event launched by the Wrst Emperor of the Qin Dynasty and remained in the Western Han Dynasty (206 bc–ad 5). They were all written by the pre-Qin Dynasty scholars. The mushrooming of classical literature in this period contributed a great deal to Chinese culture. But, as time passed by, the characters themselves had undergone changes in both form and meaning. Many characters and their pronunciations were not generally intelligible. This is especially true of the more scholarly and remote classics. The Wve Confucius Classics, namely The Book of Changes, The Book of Ancient Texts, The Book of Songs, The Book of Rites, and The Spring and Autumn had been codiWed as textbooks. And the explanation and interpretation of characters in these classics seemed to be an important and urgent task. The explanation of characters and expressions in ancient books is deWned as exegesis (训诂). The earliest citation of this term, spelled as 诂训, may be traced back to Mao Heng’s Exegesis of the Book of Songs (, shortened as Mao’s Exegesis ), a work by Zheng Xuan (郑玄, 127–200) written in the Han Dynasty (206 bc–ad 220). Prior to that, 训诂 (exegesis) was split as 诂 or 训 in literature. According to The RectiWed Interpretation of Mao’s Book of Songs (), 训 means describing the appearance of something so as to make it known to others, that is, explicating some characters or sentences by means of explanation or description, whereas 诂 means expounding the diVerences of characters in ancient and contemporary language and making them intelligible, i.e. using contemporary language to explain ancient characters. Lu Deming (陆德明, 550–630) once stated: ‘诂 means the diVerent expressions between the classic and the contemporary; and 训 means that characters bear the signiWcance of their own.’ Huang Kan (黄侃), a prominent scholar in the late Qing Dynasty, adopting a modern linguistic approach, summarized 诂 as 故 (old, the original naming) and 训 as 顺 (sorting out, the extended meaning). 训诂, so to speak, means using language to explain the meaning of language. The practice of explaining the expressions in one region with the expressions in another, or of using today’s words to explain those of the past, is surely part of exegesis, but does not constitute fundamental principles. The purpose of exegesis not only resides in explaining language with language but also in revealing the patterns and laws for language use and exploring the principles of linguistic meaning and the process of language evolution. For every language in the world, if it is still in use, it will inevitably be in constant change. Language changes with time and space, resulting in diYculties for the new generation in understanding the language of the old. The fundamental reason for the birth of exegesis lies in the diVerences of language in time and space. There has been a long tradition of Chinese scholars adding notes to


23

the classic works of ancient times. These explanatory notes centre around the theme of the text, the understanding of sentence and character meaning. It is generally accepted that the Wrst book with systematic explanatory notes began with Zi Xia’s (子夏, also卜商, Bu Shang) adding notes for Confucius’ works. During the pre-Qin Dynasty period, the addition of notes to works other than Confucius’ classics also took place. The actual practice of exegesis emerged in the late Spring and Autumn Period but was not called thus until the Han Dynasty. Originally, exegesis concentrated on adding explanatory notes to diYcult characters and words in ancient classic literature. It was during the Han Dynasty that these explanatory notes evolved into systematic exegetic works. It is evident that exegesis originated from the practice of adding notes, but with the development of culture and the change in academic paradigms both exegesis and note-adding involved into independent branches of learning in Chinese philology. In the early Han Dynasty, the booming study of Confucius’ classics provided impetus for the practice of adding notes, which turned into more systematic and organized academic activity. Rigorous styles and terms came into being and were gradually adopted consistently for note addition in one and the same work, thus 训, its style and particular methods for adding notes. From the late Western Han Dynasty to the early Eastern Han Dynasty, textual research on characters in the pre-Qin Dynasty classics prevailed as part of explanatory studies of Confucius’ works. Consequently, the practice of exegesis established itself as a formal branch of learning. From The Book of the Han Dynasty, written in the early Eastern Han Dynasty, we can see a diVerence between 故 and 训: the explanatory books entitled 故 or 训故 are mainly those identifying and discriminating ancient and current character forms, and pronunciation in diVerent dialects and of diVerent regions; whereas those entitled 训 or 训纂, though fewer in number, concentrate on exploring and explaining the principles for meaning change. The so-called ‘collective compilations (纂集)’, are actually accumulated collections of exegetic material. These exegetic books had already displayed some of the features of character books or wordbooks and dictionaries. This is the source of lexicographical culture in China. In the Western Han Dynasty, the achievements of exegesis, especially of the collective compilations, are best embodied in The Ready Guide. There sprang up, in the late Han Dynasty (206 bc–ad 220), numerous exegetic works of this type, notably An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms, The Dictionary of Popular Words (), and The Pocket Ready Guide (). Interestingly, these specialized exegetic works became the focus of exegetic works which were to come in later times. It is the work of adding notes to and making explanations and interpretations of these specialized exegetic works that laid the foundation for the development of

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exegetic studies on lexical semantics of early historical literature and continued throughout as the theme of research in traditional exegesis. The exegetic study in the Western Han Dynasty was completely dependent on the study of the Confucius’ classics. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, the horizon of exegetic studies was greatly widened, embracing historical works and literary works other than the Confucius’ classics or pre-Qin Dynasty scholars’ works. From the late Western Han to the early Eastern Han Dynasty, exegetic studies witnessed unprecedented growth, marking the establishment of exegesis as a formal academic discipline – having its principles and styles in investigating and explaining the Chinese characters, the Chinese language and its dialects in historical literature. The exegetes in this period paid more attention to bringing into full play collective endeavours, following rigorously established work styles, and sticking persistently to prescriptions handed down by their predecessors. Consequently, exegetic works Xourished, especially the explanatory-note type and collective-compilation type; the methodologies in exegetic studies became more systematic, and phono-exegesis in Neoclassic studies and form-exegesis in Paleoclassic studies became more naturally integrated, leading to the new pictophonetic perspective. Moreover, the scholars in exegetic studies began to devote more attention to standardizing and codifying the terms employed, which paved the way for the scientiWc development of exegetic studies as an independent discipline. From the Three Kingdoms (220–280) to the Tang Dynasty (618–907), the ‘dual noting’ developed quickly. Representative works include The Exegesis of the Book of Rites () and The Exegesis of the Analects of Confucius () by Huang Kan (皇侃) in the Liang Dynasty (502–557), and The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics () by Kong Yingda (孔颖达) in the early Tang Dynasty. The essence of ‘dual noting’ resides in semantic empiricism, i.e. reexamining the meaning-exegesis of characters (or words) in the explanatory-note books. The purpose of conducting reexamination is to explain the texts of certain historical literature and the characters, words, or language in general historical literature as well. Meanwhile, the emphasis of exegetic work shifted to noting and explaining the specialized exegetic works and the exegetic material gradually became the focus of the Erya Studies and the Shuowen Studies. The representative works in this period include The Annotated Ready Guide () and The Annotated Dictionary of Dialectal Words (). The scholars in the Song Dynasty explicitly pointed out that xiaoxue (小学, literally ‘little learning’, in ancient times, primary schools started education from the Six Categories, hence its name) was extended to refer to such branches of learning as the studies of characters, glossaries, prosodies, and exegesis, suggesting that xiaoxue be renamed philology or philological studies. This notion basically followed from The Book of the Sui Dynasty () but


25

further speciWed the contents of the study of xiaoxue. Thus, exegesis became a relatively independent branch of learning in xiaoxue as from the Song Dynasty. As indicated above, xiaoxue originally referred to the elementary schools established for the royal children in the Zhou Dynasty. For the educational system in the Zhou Dynasty, six kinds of art (六艺) and six types of rituals (六仪) would be taught. Later, the contents of teaching shifted to the theory of ‘Six Categories of Chinese Characters’ – knowledge about the Chinese language and its characters. To meet these new needs in ‘xiaoxue’, character glossaries were compiled, notably Historian Zhou’s Primer () compiled in the Zhou Dynasty, and followed by The Cangjie Primer, The Yuanli Primer and The Scholarly Primer at later times. In the early Western Han Dynasty, great changes in politics, economy, ideology, and culture spurred on semantic studies in the Chinese language and the number of the Chinese characters increased dramatically. For instance, the basic vocabulary of The Cangjie Primer, The Yuanli Primer, and The Scholarly Primer in the Qin Dynasty amounted approximately to 3,300, whereas in the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the characters used in classical literature and collected in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters rose to 9,353. In the Western Han Dynasty, the teaching of characters was emphasized, and this gave rise again to the compilation of character glossaries and vocabularies, among which are The General Primer () by Sima Xiangru (司马相如), The Instant Primer () by Shi You (史游), and The Yuanshang Primer () by Li Chang (李长). The appearance of these character glossaries and vocabularies in turn facilitated the development of Chinese philology, especially the study of Six Categories. This laid the literature and academic foundation for the compilation of character books or wordbooks, vocabularies and dictionaries.

2.3 theories on the origin of lexicography There exist various theories regarding the origin of lexicography in China. Some scholars hold that The Book of Changes should be regarded as the earliest dictionary in China. Other scholars believe that the earliest textbooks for character learning should be considered as the fountainhead of Chinese lexicographical practice. Both theories will be clariWed and analysed in this section. Liu Changyun (刘长允, 1985) proposes that The Book of Changes is ‘an ancient dictionary’, i.e. a philological dictionary. His idea is that The Book of Changes is compiled in the dictionary style, bearing the features of a dictionary – ‘a reference book for explaining words in language and a textbook for guiding people to behave

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in society’; it does not give abstract explanations but lists the senses of the characters to be explained by means of giving corresponding citations, and ‘the arrangement of head characters and entries is not in a Wxed fashion’. Zhou Demei (周德美, 1999), however, approaches The Book of Changes from a diVerent perspective, treating it in the form of literature. He holds that The Book of Changes ‘is a dictionary. It is a dictionary for a special Weld, i.e. divination, not a dictionary for philology’. Other scholars hold a conXicting point of view – The Book of Changes is not a dictionary. For the Jing (经) part in The Book of Changes, there are eight trigrams (八卦), which can be multiplied to form sixty-four trigrams. For each trigram, there are six types of line, called yao (爻). Words and sentences are employed to explain each of the trigrams or yaos. These words or sentences are called trigram commentary (卦辞) or yao commentary (爻辞). Although the trigram and yao commentaries are regularly arranged, bearing some features of the style of the dictionary, as pointed out by Liu Changyun, these commentaries are all designed to elaborate the truth (理) shown in the trigram symbols (卦象) and yao symbols (爻象). Moreover, these signs of truth are all manifested in a symbolic way. This is totally diVerent from the way a dictionary explains and interprets characters and words in more readily intelligible expressions. In the commentaries of trigrams and yaos, metaphors and inferences are more frequently used for the trigram and yao symbols. These commentaries, which would not be understood without further explanation and interpretation, are extremely rich and profound in implication and may be interpreted in highly Xexible ways. So, what about the Zhuan (传) part? Can that part be considered as a dictionary? This part of the book mainly concentrates on explaining the general meaning of the Jing part. In addition, the texts, ten altogether, are written and revised by many hands and over a wide time span. The styles in these texts manifest great discrepancies, which make it quite alien to the dictionary format. Thus, it can be safely assumed from the perspective of dictionary compilation that The Book of Changes is in all major aspects dissimilar to a dictionary. Nevertheless, did it have any role to play in initiating lexicographical practice in China? For instance, did it enlighten and incite those early pioneers to compile a wordbook, a vocabulary, or indeed a dictionary? Or did it function as something of a model for dictionary makers to follow? So far no solid connection can be forged between The Book of Changes and ancient dictionary compilation. Further research needs to be carried out to answer these questions. Another group of scholars hold the view that character glossaries and vocabulary books in ancient times could be regarded as the archetype of the Chinese dictionary. It was recorded in The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty () that:


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Bao Zhang criticized the evilness of the king and wanted to foster and train the children in the kingdom with morals and virtues. Therefore, the children were taught six kinds of classic art: Wrstly, Wve kinds of proprieties; secondly, six kinds of musical instruments; thirdly, Wve kinds of archery; fourthly, Wve kinds of riding; Wfthly, Six Categories; and sixthly, nine kinds of arithmetic. (Ruan Yuan, 1980:731)

Xu Shen, in the Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, reiterates that ‘according to the rites in the Zhou Dynasty, children enter school at eight. Master Bao Zhang teaches them, beginning with the Six Categories’. It is evident that the teaching of characters was formally introduced in education as early as the Zhou Dynasty. To meet such a demand, more and more characters were collected, sorted, and compiled into books to teach children from royal families. The best-known is the textbook, Historian Zhou’s Primer, which was compiled by Zhou (籀), the historian of Emperor Xuan (827 bc–782 bc). This leads some scholars today to think that ‘word books can be traced back to as early as the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. As recorded in The Book of the Han Dynasty, Historian Zhou’s Primer was a wordbook’ (Fang Houshu, 1979; Liu Yeqiu, 1983). The original book was comprised of Wfteen texts but they are no longer in existence now. According to the citations indicated in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, 223 characters can be attributed to Historian Zhou’s Primer. During the Warring States period, the seven states each had their own writing systems, with peculiar variants for the same character. After State Qin defeated the other six states and uniWed ancient China, the Wrst Emperor adopted the proposal made by Li Si and enacted the character reform policy – ‘Writing Same Character’. Mandates were issued to cease using those characters not suitable to the writing system of State Qin. In order to promote a new type of character writing system, i.e. xiaozhuan, in the Empire, Li Si compiled The Cangjie Primer (seven chapters). Other books of this kind include The Yuanli Primer (six chapters) by Zhao Gao (赵高), and The Scholarly Primer (seven chapters) by Hu Wujing (胡毋敬). In the early Han Dynasty, some scholars combined these three books into one and rearranged them into Wfty-Wve chapters, each dealing with sixty characters. This combined book retained The Cangjie Primer as its title. It is a pity that the book got lost as a result of war at the end of the Tang Dynasty. Much work was done by scholars in the Qing Dynasty to restore the book. More than two volumes had been restored for The Cangjie Primer, which shed a great deal of light on how the book formulated its format and how it dealt with word explanations. Some scholars thus conclude that The Cangjie Primer involved the interpretation and explanation of single characters and compound ones and demonstrated the prototype of a modern Chinese dictionary, though its style

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and format were not particularly standardized and consistent to the eye of a modern lexicographer. The Cangjie Primer was originally compiled as a textbook for teaching children to learn Chinese characters. After the uniWcation by the Wrst Emperor, it became a model textbook for popularizing the newly codiWed writing system – xiaozhuan. In The Cangjie Primer, each sentence is made up of four characters and the sentences are rhymed. This ensures that it is easy for children to recite. In The Yuanli Primer, the sentences are also made up of four characters. For the original textbook, there were no explanatory notes added to the diYcult characters and words. The restored book, however, contained many interpretations and explanations added to characters, words, or dialectal expressions, and obviously these explanatory notes were added by scholars of later periods. In The Book of the Han Dynasty, it was recorded that The Cangjie Primer is Wlled with obsolete characters that are diYcult for ordinary teachers to read. Emperor Xuan called for scholars that could pronounce them correctly. Zhang Chang came and accepted the task. His work was passed on to his grandsonin-law, named Du Lin (杜林), who completed the exegetic work. Thus both of them are equally well-known to later generations.

It is probable that the great masters in the Qing Dynasty failed to make such discriminations and considered the notes added by later scholars part of the original texts. Neither Historian Zhou’s Primer nor The Cangjie Primer can be claimed to bear the distinctive features of a modern dictionary. They should be only taken as textbooks aiming to teach children to learn Chinese characters. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that they laid a solid foundation and initiated an enlightening start in character standardization, corpus construction, and source material accumulation for dictionaries to emerge in the foreseeable future.

3

T HE PROG R ESS OF E X E G E T I C P R AC T I C E A N D T H E A DV E N T O F LEXICOGRAPHICAL WORKS I N C H I NA

W

HEN did man begin to inquire into language? There may be no deWnite answers to this question despite serious research having been conducted. It is generally believed that the history of man’s study of language goes back about two or three thousand years. It is undeniable, however, that man’s reXection on language must have evolved alongside the development of language itself. The emergence of characters is undoubtedly the result of man’s long-term thinking over language. When the development of human thought and language reached a certain stage, a writing system would appear inevitable. The continuous evolution of human civilization and the in-depth and comprehensive study of language itself are the prerequisites for the creation and development of characters. Without such prerequisites, the characters could not have been shaped into such a perfect cultural vehicle, to say nothing of designing and compiling diVerent types of dictionaries to meet extremely varied user needs.

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3.1 language studies during the pre-qin dynasties The Spring and Autumn and the Warring States periods (770 bc–221 bc) witnessed upheavals in political and social life, prosperity in academia and culture, and prevalence of theory construction and metaphysical argumentation. There emerged numerous schools of thought and they argued on various topics among which the relationship between ‘name’ and ‘content’ is the most essential and most closely relevant to language studies. The great masters at that time, such as Confucius, Mo Zi (墨子, also known as Mo-tse), and Xun Zi (荀子, ?335 bc– 255 bc), were all involved in the debate and aired their view on language and characters. The majority of their discussions were philosophical reXections, focusing on the relationship between ‘form’ (name) and ‘essence’ (physical objects or contents), the origin of language and characters, and the relationship between language and thought, etc. The argumentation on ‘form’ and ‘essence’ is essentially one of a philosophical nature and one of great theoretical signiWcance in lexicography as well. Lao Zi (老子) was the pioneering advocate who initiated the debate on ‘form’ and ‘essence’. In DaoDe Jing (, also known as TaoTe Ching), he put forward this proposition: ‘The way that can be told of is not an unvarying way; the names that can be named are not unvarying names. It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang; The named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind.’ It is evident that things had been without a name for a long time before they were given a name individually. He also emphasized that the essence or form instantiates as physical things in that it appears and disappears or it moves and stops. If it stops and appears, its image can be perceived; if it moves and then disappears, its physics can be identiWed. Its nature and spirit exists further and deeper behind the image. What is much truer is not the image but the nature and spirit, which makes it more believable. Since ancient times, its name has permanently adhered to it. As to viewing the countless things in the world, how could we diVerentiate and identify them in terms of their physical appearance? By their names. That is what we can rely on.

As can be seen, Lao Zi holds that there exist in essence the image, the physics, and the spirit. The spirit is the most basic nature and therefore it is completely believable, and the name originates from there. The fundamentals of the things in the world can be perceived through their names.

exegetic practice and lexicographical works

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Confucius, following Lao Zi, advocates that ‘monarch be monarch; subject be subject; father be father; and son be son’. This is what has been known as ‘clarifying its name and broadening its meaning’. Yang Zhu (杨朱) argues that ‘the real content of something has no name while the names have no real content. The so-called names are actually the untrue . . . The real content is not what names originate from’. And this is ‘non-nominalism’. The debate also involved some other well-known scholars, such as Mo Zi, Gongsun Longzi (公孙龙子, ?325 bc–250 bc), and Xun Zi. Mo Zi, representing the world of science, pays more attention to the actuality and he criticizes the notion that gentlemen ‘should praise justice in name and not inquire into the real situation’. He also formulates deWnitions for ‘name’ and ‘content’. Gongsun Longzi is an eminent philosopher and thinker in the ideological history of China. Of all his writings only six texts are still available today, mainly dealing with philosophical issues like relativity, absoluteness, individuality, commonality, and theory of knowledge. Of the six texts, only two are devoted to the debate of ‘name’ and ‘content’, namely On Substance () and On Name and Content (). He points out in On Substance that ‘there is no object that cannot be denoted and referred to . . . If there were no denotation and reference, there would have been no object in the world that could be dubbed an object. If there were no objects, then how could ‘‘referring’’ be referred to?’ Everything in the world has its unique characteristic. An object that has no characteristics cannot be referred to as an object. In addition, it is not possible to talk about characteristics without referring to some actual objects. All the names have derived from these characteristics and the names are just the symbols representing them. Since names were originally in correspondence with the contents, then ‘contents cannot be corrected’ without ‘correcting the names Wrst’. All names were created for contents but the relationship between ‘name’ and ‘content’ was purely arbitrary before a name was given to an object. ‘Thus, that that is that stops at that and this that is this stops at this are acceptable; whereas, that that is this stops at that and at this and that this that is that stops at this and at that are unacceptable. Therefore, the name is what is used to refer to the content. Knowing that this is not this and knowing that this is not at this, we would not be able to refer to it.’ Xun Zi was one of the greatest thinkers who recognized the relationships between language and thought. His ideas on language and thought and on ‘name’ and ‘content’ were more fully elaborated in On Name RectiWcation (). In this text, after looking into the relationship between language and thought, he came to grips with the demerits of ‘having no name’, stating that the diVerence in form, shape, colour and texture depends on the eyes that perceive them; the quality of the sound of human voices and that of the musical instruments depend

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on the ears that hear them; the taste of sweet, bitter, salt, hotness, or sourness depends on the tongues that taste them; the smell of fragrance, stink, stench, or odour depends on the noses that smell them; the feeling of illness, itch, cold, hot, light, or heavy depends on the physics of the body that feel them; the emotion of joy, anger, sadness, happiness, love, hatred, or longing depends on the minds that construe them. In the mind, there are some marks or cues that are perceived and construed. Once these marks or cues are recognized, the sounds can be perceived and identiWed through the ears and the forms and shapes can be recognized and diVerentiated through the eyes. Nevertheless, the marks and cues can be construed only when the inherent faculties have fully developed.

To conclude, the experience of human emotions is realized through sense organs of the human body. Our understanding of the world can only be realized through the functioning of the mind, i.e. to form concepts through abstraction and generalization about various complicated things and phenomena in the world and to express them via words. How does man work out diVerent names to designate diVerent contents? Xun Zi holds that ‘there exist diVerences in the means by which men perceive’. For men of the same type and with the same feelings, the images they form in perceiving the things in the outside world by employing their faculties are generally the same. The common features of the things can be captured by comparison and based on these common features a name can be given following the conventions of the community. Nevertheless, in addition to the commonalities, the ‘innate faculties’ also perceive the peculiarities of the things in the world. The form and shape, the colour and texture, the taste and feeling will all be perceived through sense organs and justiWed by the mind. ‘The mind has cues to perceive’ refers to the cognitive process by which concepts form, and then names come into existence, hence the same name for the same thing and a diVerent name for a diVerent thing. If a single name suYces, then use this single name only; if it does not suYce, use it in combination with another one on condition that they are not in conXict and result in no chaos. Since diVerent names indicate diVerent contents, ensure that things having diVerent contents bear diVerent names. This is what should not be confused. It is also true that things of the same content should bear the same name. As to the numerous things in the world, we sometimes want to refer to them all, and we call them the same name ‘object’. By ‘object’ is meant a very general name for the commonness of many things. The same name is extended to cover those things that share common properties. Common names will cover things where common features end. Sometimes we use ‘birds and beasts’ as general names to diVerentiate things. ‘Birds’ and ‘beasts’ are diVerent names and they should be applied to things where the diVerences are apparent. Thus,


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names bear no inherent appropriateness and they are regulated by order. If a name complies with the conventions of a community then it is appropriate. If it violates the conventions then it is inappropriate. A name has no inherent content but it is employed to name the content. If it has been conventionalized then it is a real name. A name does not have inherent goodness. Ways have changed but no violations result, then it is a good name . . . This is the key to giving names. The physical world is varied and complicated. People perceive the things in the world and extract what they perceive to form abstract ideas. When people convert these concepts into names they treat them diVerently: things of diVerent types will form diVerent concepts which will be given diVerent names. If a single name suYces, then this single name will be employed. If it does not, a complex one will be employed. When language is employed to conduct abstract thinking, human beings can employ concepts, judgements, and inferences to reveal the patterns and laws of nature and society. Due to the diVerences in the range and extent of abstraction and generalization, we have ‘big common names’, such as ‘object’, and ‘big diVerent names’, such as ‘birds and beasts’. Xun Zi’s comments on the relationship between ‘name’ and ‘content’ are profound and concise, highlighting the conventionality of name and the sociological nature of language. There exist no natural or causal relationships between names and objects. Names are merely the symbols human beings presumably use to label the things designated. This presumption, however, is not totally arbitrary, for which ‘name’ to be chosen for which ‘object’ is completely determined by the conventions of the community. It is remarkable that these basic principles of modern linguistics were fully recognized, appreciated, and expounded by Xun Zi two millennia ago. From this very instance it is not diYcult to see the uniqueness and profundity of ancient Chinese philosophy and philology. Nor is it diYcult to see why Chinese classics, like Dao De Jing, passing down from generation to generation, have become so popular in the Western world and why the study of the culture and academia of ancient China has become such an urgent issue. The language studies by Pre-Qin Dynasty scholars greatly enriched the culture of ancient China, promoted the development of diVerent branches of learning, i.e. the study of language and character, and formulated basic theories guiding and leading academic research, school teaching, and the exegesis of Chinese classics. Alongside Chinese philological studies, there came the Xourishing of textbook compilation for teaching children to learn Chinese characters and exegetic explanation for characters and words in ancient Chinese classics, which laid a good foundation for later work of revision and compilation of glossaries, vocabularies, and dictionaries.

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3.2 teaching and explaining ancient characters and the emergence of lexicography In ancient China, there did not exist such disciplines as ‘philology’ or ‘grammar’. Throughout the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, a lot of work was done to explain ancient classics and ‘explicate the great import from the minute words’, which was later called exegetic work or exegesis. For instance, The Spring and Autumn, written by Confucius, described the history of Lu State. Exegetic work on that book was carried out by Zuo Qiuming (左丘明), Gongyang Gao (公羊高), Gu Liangchi (榖梁赤), and others. Zuo Qiuming, following the doctrine of ‘explicating the Script with events’, made use of historical events to add notes to that book, which eventually turned into a reference book of historical studies. Gongyang Gao and Gu Liangchi, pursuing a diVerent doctrine, i.e. ‘establishing the meaning from the Script’, added explanatory notes to that book and produced a reference book of exegesis. In An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (), 训 and 诂 were explained and deWned respectively: 训 means explaining characters and words in order to cultivate and educate, while 诂 means interpreting the ancient language. In other words, exegesis means explaining diYcult characters and words by means of more readily intelligible words and simpler wording, or explaining ancient characters and words in contemporary language. Lexicography in China originated from such exegetic works on ancient classics. Of the Wve millennia of Chinese civilization, the period from the Spring and Autumn through the Warring States is remarkable for its Xourishing in academic thought and schools. Thanks to the rapid development of socio-cultural and academic thought, researching language and characters was widespread, giving birth to textbooks for teaching children to learn characters. In the time of Emperor Xuan, Historian Zhou’s Primer was compiled by Historian Zhou. In the Qin Dynasty, three well-known textbooks were compiled, i.e. The Cangjie Primer, The Yuanli Primer, and The Scholarly Primer. These three books were later revised and combined under one cover, keeping The Cangjie Primer as its title, simpliWed as Three Cang Primer (), with a coverage of 3,300 characters. In the Western Han Dynasty, further textbooks were compiled, such as The General Primer, The Instant Primer, The Yuanshang Primer, and Yang Xiong’s (扬雄) The Exegetic Primer 《训纂篇>). ( During the reign of Emperor He (89–105), Jia Fang brought the compilation of The Pangxi Primer () to completion. From then on, these textbooks were incorporated into one book, though not physically, with The


35

Cangjie Primer (the former Three Cang) as the Wrst volume, The Exegetic Primer as the second volume, and The Pangxi Primer as the third. These three volumes were once again entitled the Three Cang Primer, which later came to be called the Latter Three Cang. All these textbooks were lost, except for The Instant Primer and some parts of The Cangjie Primer. In these textbooks, a lot of common characters were collected and arranged in the light of the categories to which they belonged, which actually acted as the catalyst for the birth of ancient Chinese dictionaries. The rapid progress of exegetic studies hinged upon the popularization of learning language and characters, the continuing of relevant research, and the evolution of language. The Cangjie Primer, a textbook for teaching children to learn characters in the late Qin and early Han Dynasties, could be read only with the help of specialized annotations. As a character-learning textbook needed special explanations to be understandable, it is not hard to imagine what obstacles might lie in the way of reading ancient Chinese literature. To interpret the characters and words in the classics, scholars began to add pronunciations and explanatory notes in the margins, in between lines and below the text. As time passed, explanations and annotations began to accumulate. For the convenience of reading and consultation, these explanatory notes were collected and put at the front or the end of the text. Later on, independent books were compiled, specialized in interpreting and explaining ancient classics. Mao Heng’s Exegesis, was presumably among the Wrst of this kind and was also the earliest one presently extant. The Book of Songs, the earliest of its kind, was a collection of folk songs and poems extending over Wve hundred years, dating from the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty (1046 bc–771 bc) to the middle of the Spring and Autumn Period. In the Zhou Dynasty, scholars had already begun to interpret the words and phrases in The Book of Songs from diVerent perspectives. As time passed, this book became more and more diYcult to read and interpretation became a must. In the Qin Dynasty, Mao’s Exegesis was compiled; this was a synthesis of previous works on the exposition of the contents of the poems and the meanings of diYcult words, and its coverage of words was considerably expanded. According to The Book of the Han Dynasty (), it originally had thirty volumes, with 4,800 entries, among which 3,900 were explanations of lexical meanings, approximately 80 per cent of the total (Fan Congjun, 1996), but got lost later. At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Zheng Xuan wrote an epilogue (笺) for Mao’s Exegesis, which greatly elevated its status in exegetic work. In the Tang Dynasty, Kong Yingda wrote The RectiWed Interpretation of Mao’s Book of Songs to further comment on Mao’s Exegesis and on Zheng’s Epilogue (郑笺). In the Qing Dynasty (1616–1911), The RectiWcation of Mao’s

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Book of Songs () by Chen Huan (陈奂) and An Epilogue to The Standardized Version of Mao Heng’s Exegesis of Book of Songs () (thirty volumes) by Duan Yucai were produced to make more exact and comprehensive comments on it. These successive commentaries and subcommentaries on Mao’s Exegesis greatly strengthened its academically dominant position in exegetic work and in Chinese philology. Mao’s Exegesis is one of the most important sources of literature for interpreting and studying The Book of Songs. The exegetic studies in Mao’s Exegesis are extremely wide-ranging and fall into several categories, such as text and sentence parsing, interpreting words, phrases, and clauses, and explicating the semantics of characters, but those that focus on the explication of character meanings account for the major part. The great part of the contents of Mao’s Exegesis is ascribable to pre-Qin Dynasty scholars. For instance, the interpretations of 既醉 and 昊天有成命 are from The National Language (); the interpretations of 葛覃 and 草虫 are from The Book of Rites; and the interpretation of 淄帛五两 in 行露 was taken from The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty. In addition, there are quite a few sayings from The Analects of Confucius () and Meng Zi (). As far as the exegetic style is concerned, Mao’s Exegesis involves interpretation of the whole text placed as the Wrst chapter or appended as the last chapter, interpretation of function words, identiWcation of phonetic loans, the employment of contemporary words to explain ancient words, or the use of contemporary senses of a word to explain those of an ancient word. Among the text genres of fu (赋, a literary genre very much in vogue through the six dynasties from the Han to the Wei Dynasty, combining verse and prose, often for narration and scenic description), bi (比), and xing (兴), only xing was labelled to indicate the distinctive features of wording so as to help appreciate implied meanings of the poem. Mao Heng’s analysis of poems usually started from the ethics and morals of feudal systems and, as a result, the tenor of the poems was occasionally distorted, which can be considered a demerit of Mao’s Exegesis. Zheng’s Epilogue was largely based on Mao’s Exegesis, aiming at complementing and explicating what was obscure or oversimpliWed or putting forward diVerent opinions from those in Mao’s Exegesis. The interpretations and explanatory notes for ancient classics laid a good foundation for later lexicographers to trace etymology, analyse words, diVerentiate senses of polysemous words, and classify deWnitions of senses in compiling philological dictionaries. The exegetic predecessors in Mao’s Exegesis can be traced back to Zi Xia, a disciple of Confucius. He initiated the exegetic work The Book of Songs, which was considered the earliest and the most comprehensive, focusing on the whole book rather than on just several texts or on a few characters or words.


37

In interpreting and explaining the words and characters, he made it a rule to Wnd a synonym which could be further employed to explain other words or phrases. As a result, multiple words were explained in terms of one single word. The interpretation and explanation of characters and words in Mao’s Exegesis could be regarded as the source of lexicographical deWnition in China. Its pioneering and paradigmatic work in interpreting and explicating lexical semantics of characters still provides useful insights and thoughts for modern lexicography. Mao’s Exegesis marks the emergence of lexicography in China. The Ready Guide, the Wrst dictionary in a proper sense, stemming evidently from the exegesis on The Book of Songs, owes its inheritance to Mao’s Exegesis.

3.3 literature in ancient times The change and development of language and characters makes it necessary to teach and explain characters and words, which is especially true when the ancient classics are read. Exegesis, as a branch of learning, centres around lexical meaning interpretation, especially for diYcult words and characters in the ancient classics. This turns out to be a common traditional practice of lexicographical cultures of all languages and the very fountainhead from which such cultures Xow. As pointed out earlier, the earliest exegetic work only added comments and notes between lines but when this practice gathered pace to a certain extent, there emerged the necessity of sorting them and incorporating them into glossaries and wordbooks. For lack of evidence, it is uncertain when the practice of interpreting and explaining characters and words Wrst took place in Chinese lexicographical culture. But it becomes evident from the literature available at present that the practice of adding interpretation and explanatory notes started as early as the pre-Qin Dynasty. It can be safely assumed that ancient glossaries, workbooks, and the earliest dictionary, The Ready Guide, were all the product of the practice of interpreting and explaining characters and words of the ancient classics. Ancient glossaries and wordbooks are valuable linguistic data for studying Chinese characters in remote times, providing a window through which to examine and apprehend the evolution of the Chinese language and its characters over time and to track down the changes in ancient Chinese cultures. As early as the pre-Qin Dynasty, there came into existence a considerable number of wordbooks. They more or less all bore some of the features of dictionaries to be compiled later, and could be considered as the precursors of Chinese dictionaries.

38


According to The Book of the Jin Dynasty (), in the year ad 281, a large number of bamboo slips were unearthed in Ji County from a tomb of the Warring States period. Among those slips there were three texts under the title of 名 (term), which was very similar to The Book of Rites and The Ready Guide. This clearly indicates that at that time there were classiWed glossaries similar to The Ready Guide. Another well-known book was Shi Zi (), in which synonyms or near synonyms were gathered together and explained in groups. This arrangement of entries was very similar to that of The Ready Guide, suggesting that there might exist an inherent relationship between the two. Shi Zi was compiled by quite a notable rhetorician named Shi Jiao (尸佼, c.390 bc–330 bc) in the mid-Warring States period. The Ready Guide adopted a fair number of exegetic explanations of object names from Shi Zi. For instance, the category of domestic animals in 释畜 (Explaining Beasts) and the category of auspiciousness in 释天 (Explaining the Sky) were the same as those in Shi Zi. What is diVerent between them is greater precision in its explanation in the former. In addition to Shi Zi, there were many other literary works that became the data source of The Ready Guide. For instance, 比肩民 in 释地 (Explaining the Earth) and 河山昆仑墟 in 释水 (Explaining Water) were taken from The Shanhai Scriptures (); 西王母 in 释地 and 小领盗骊 in 释畜 came from The Mutianzi Biography (); 扶摇谓之猋 in 释天 and 蒺藜 (puncture vine, Tribulus terrestris) in 释虫 (Explaining Insects) came from Zhuang Zi (). The Lu¨’s Spring and Autumn Annals, which came out at the end of the Warring States period, also provided lots of material for The Ready Guide. 星名 in 释天, the 五方 and 九练州 categories in 释地 apparently bear the inheritance marks of The Lu¨’s Spring and Autumn Annals (see Hu Qiguang and Fang Huanhai, 2001). Ancient Chinese literature, especially exegetic literature, laid solid foundations for the birth of lexicography. The contribution of exegetic works to lexicography chieXy resides in the teaching and explaining of characters and words in classics. Explicating the meanings of characters and words is also a key part of dictionary making, i.e. sense deWnition in lexicography. In the history of world lexicography, no dictionary has been compiled without recourse to previous works. The beneWts that Chinese dictionaries derive from these exegetic works come not only from the material for explicating word meaning but also the patterns for deWning words and the implications generated from usage. In the exegetic works, what is used to explain word meaning and to transcribe the pronunciation is Chinese characters. There are two modes of speech sound transcription: direct notation (直音) and fanqie (反切). Direct notation means using one character to indicate the pronunciation of the other that shares the same pronunciation. The one used


39

as the indicator is usually the one more frequently encountered and much easier to recognize, for instance 古 is used as an indicator for 蛊. In classic Chinese, unfortunately, there was not always such a one-to-one pattern for all words. Very many words did not match entirely in pronunciation, and it often happened that words with similar but not identical pronunciation or with relatively low frequency were employed to indicate pronunciations of other words. This mode of notation was frequently questioned for its validity and precision. Towards the end of the Han Dynasty, the second mode, i.e. fanqie, was invented; it was quickly adopted and became the dominant means of pronunciation notation. Fanqie indicates the pronunciation of a character by using two other characters, the Wrst having the same consonant as the given character and the second having the same vowel and tone. For instance, the pronunciation of 塑 (su`) is indicated as 桑故切, that is, 桑 s(a¯ng) þ 故 (g)u`, taking the initial consonant of the Wrst character and the Wnal vowel of the second which shares the same tone – the fourth tone. This mode of notation Wrst came into general use in Sounds and Meanings of the Ready Guide () by Sun Yan (孙炎) in the Three Kingdom period (220–280) and has been in use up until modern times, as can be seen in Ci Yuan () and in Ci Hai (). It is apparent from extant Chinese classic literature that three modes were adopted to interpret and explain characters and words, i.e. form interpretation (形训), phonetic interpretation (音训), and semantic interpretation (义训). Form interpretation means explaining the meaning of a character by analysing and interpreting its formation – the shape and structure of the character. This method relates the meaning of a character to its form so as to understand the meaning from its form. The formal analysis of the structure of Chinese characters began in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. For instance, Zuo’s Spring and Autumn Annals () made a record of 止戈为武, which implies ‘military power means cease-Wre’. The formal analysis of the word 武 (military power), i.e. 止戈 (stop þ arms), reveals that a powerful state in its real sense should know when to stop using arms rather than waging wars all the time. This notion of military power unambiguously reXected the prevalent political ideology of the warring states at that time – respecting the king, repelling foreign invasion, and observing rites and morals. Phonetic interpretation means explaining the meaning of a character by analysing and interpreting its pronunciation–the meaning of a word can be explained by using another word with the same or similar pronunciation, for instance, 物生必蒙, 故受难之以蒙。蒙者, 蒙也 in The Book of Changes (), 政者, 正也 in The Analects of Confucius (), and 仁者, 人也 in The Book of Rites (). This practice had its origin in the pre-Qin Dynasty classics. Semantic interpretation, without

40


recourse to the pronunciation or the form of the character, makes use of the context and expounds the meaning of a character or a word by means of more common and readily intelligible synonymous words or a short discourse. For instance, 勤 (toil) means ‘to labour’ (劳); 肇 (commence) means ‘to start’ (始); 康 (healthy) means ‘to be secure’ (安); 怙 (depend) means ‘to rely on’ (恃); and 享 (oVer) means ‘to oVer sacriWce’ (祀). In the pre-Qin Dynasty literature, the practice of semantic interpretation mainly involved discriminating synonyms and generalizing the interpretations and explanations of words and phrases. In contemporary Chinese dictionaries no specialized terms can be found that are exclusively used in writing deWnitions. But in ancient exegetic literature the use of this kind of term had developed into a convention to be observed. These terms include 也 (as well), 者 (as), 曰 (stated as), 谓之 (called), 为 (regarded as), 之 (being), 言 (said as), 读为 (read as), 读如 (read like), 当作 (treated as), and 古曰 (said in ancient terms as). These terms could be regarded as markers for exegetic interpretations of the meanings of characters and words. The study of these terms might help to reveal the relationship of heritage between exegetic interpretations in ancient literature, in early wordbooks and glossaries, and in lexicographical deWnition. Here is a passage quoted from Shi Zi (): 墨子贵兼, 孔子贵公, 皇子贵衷, 田子贵均, 列子贵虚, 料子贵别囿。其学之相非也数世矣, 而已皆弇于私也。天、帝、皇、后、辟、公、弘、廓、宏、溥、介、纯 . . . . . . , 皆大也。十有馀名, 而实一也。若使兼、公、虚、均、衷、平易、别囿一实也, 则无相非也。 (Mo Zi values mutuality (兼); Confucius values justice (公); Huang Zi values loyalty (衷); Tian Zi values equality (均); Lie Zi values modesty (虚); Liao Zi values solitude (别囿). The diVerences between them have existed for several generations and reside deeply in themselves. 天 (heaven), 帝 (God), 皇 (Emperor), 后 (Queen), 辟 (inception), 公 (public), 弘 (grandeur), 廓 (extensiveness), 宏 (magniWcence), 溥 (broadness), 介 (uprightness), 纯 (purity) . . . all denote ‘greatness’. There are more than a dozen names but only one meaning in essence. If 兼, 公, 虚, 均, 衷, 平易, and 别囿 are to be identiWed with one essential meaning, then there would be no diVerence to be identiWed in the world.)

The interpretations of words in this passage are basically the same as those in The Ready Guide (). In Shi Zi (), there was another passage: 春为青阳, 夏为朱明, 秋为白藏, 冬为玄冥。四时和, 正光照, 此之谓玉烛。甘雨时降, 万物以嘉, 高者不少, 下者不多, 此之谓醴泉。其风春为发生, 夏为长赢, 秋为方盛, 冬为安静, 四时和为通正, 此之谓永风。


41

(In spring, the plants become green and the sun warmer; in summer, the Xowers become red and the sun bright; in autumn, the leaves turn white and the sun is hiding; in winter, things die out and the sun is dark. When the seasons are in harmony, the sunlight comes at the right time. This can be compared to a perfect candle. Good rain falls at the right time and all things grow prosperously. Not insuYcient in high places and not Xooded in lower places. This could be compared to a good spring. As to the wind, it begins in spring, grows stronger in summer, prevails in autumn, and becomes mild in winter. In all the four seasons, it behaves itself and can be dubbed ever present wind.)

As stated, this interpretation was roughly the same as that in The Ready Guide (). It is evident that deWnition styles in later Chinese dictionaries originated from the exegetic interpretation of characters and words in ancient literature, and this mode of deWnition has been evolving side by side with the development of Chinese lexicography for approximately two millennia.

3.4 the beginnings of chinese lexicography The Chinese people have a long tradition of respecting ceremony and propriety and attaching great importance to education. In the Xia Dynasty (2070 bc–1600 bc), the heavenly order was revered; in the Shang Dynasty (1600 bc–1046 bc), the gods and ghosts were revered; and in the Zhou Dynasty, the ritual systems were revered. It is the prevalence of the practice of revering ritual systems in the Zhou Dynasty that marks China out as the land of ceremony and propriety throughout the world. In the Zhou Dynasty a wholesome education system was established and teaching was consistent and systematic, which ranks China as the earliest country to have introduced a programme of culture and education by the government. The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty () recorded Bao Zhang’s teaching royal children six kinds of art and the Wfth kind was Six Categories. In one of his notes to ‘Mr. Bao’s teaching royal children Six Categories’ in the Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (), Duan Yucai comments that ‘the six categories are actually a synthesis of characters, speech sounds, and argumentations’. It can be inferred that the pre-Qin Dynasty scholars had conducted rather systematic studies on and investigation into the Chinese language and its vocabulary from three perspectives, namely form, pronunciation, and meaning. With the passage of time and the development of language itself, ancient Chinese classics had become almost unintelligible. Teaching and interpreting the characters and words became indispensable. Exegetic studies had become a distinctive feature

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of language study in the Han Dynasty, which was well represented by large quantities of both exegetic interpretations of and notes to the ancient classics and the compilation of a series of monographs on language and characters. These works can be divided into three categories (Liu Yeqiu, 1983:2–3): Wrst, dealing with the form and meaning of characters, as represented by An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters; second, exegetic dictionaries, as represented by The Ready Guide; and third, dealing with the pronunciation and interpretation of ancient characters, as represented by The Dictionary of Rhymes. Wordbooks and dictionaries compiled later can all be classiWed as variations and derivations of them. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters initiated the character dictionary in the Chinese language and marked the establishment of Chinese philology. The Ready Guide marked the actual appearance of Chinese lexicography, and The Dictionary of Rhymes, the earliest extant rhyming dictionary, was completed as late as the Song Dynasty (960–1279) though the predecessors of such rhyming dictionaries appeared as early as the Three Kingdoms and Jin Dynasties, such as The Dictionary of Initial Consonants () by Li Deng (李登) and The Collection of Rhymes () by Lu¨ Jing (吕静). From Historian Zhou’s Primer of Emperor Xuan in the Zhou Dynasty, to The Ready Guide of the Qin Dynasty, to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters of the Eastern Han Dynasty, and to The Jade Chapters (), which was compiled by Gu Yewang (顾野王) in the Southern and Northern Dynasties (420–589), what can be easily perceived is not only a panorama of the evolution of lexicography in China – from the textbooks for teaching children to learn characters, to wordbooks, and to character dictionaries – but also its interaction with language evolution, character education, and character reform. Character education brought into being the textbooks for children for learning characters in Historian Zhou’s Primer and The Cangjie Primer. The exegetic studies became the cradle for the birth of The Ready Guide. The popularization of xiao zhuan in the Qin Dynasty promoted the codiWcation of Chinese characters, which resulted in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. During the Jin Dynasty, xiaozhuan was replaced by regular script and The Jade Chapters emerged as the times required. This interaction runs through the whole evolutional process of Chinese lexicography and functions as the generator for its development and Xourishing. When Chinese history entered the Han Dynasty, China achieved unprecedented uniWcation and social stability. There came tremendous prosperity in social, economic, and cultural life. Language studies and literacy education were elevated to a new level, which stimulated the demand for glossaries, wordbooks, and dictionaries. Glossaries, wordbooks, and dictionaries in the true sense sprang up


43

in great numbers and in many forms. The forerunners representing each type of dictionary are The Ready Guide – the Wrst word dictionary; An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters – the Wrst character dictionary; The Dictionary of Dialectal Words () – the Wrst dialect dictionary; The Dictionary of Popular Words – the Wrst folk dictionary; and The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms – the Wrst phonetic-exegetic dictionary. All these dictionaries, to a greater or lesser extent, bear an inherent relationship with Historian Zhou’s Primer, the Wrst reading primer for teaching children characters in ancient times.

4

HISTORIAN ZHOU ’S P R I M E R – THE SOU RC E OF LEXICOGRAPHICAL CULTURE IN CHINA

T

HE role reading primers play in the advancement of world civilization and their signiWcance to the study of the history of world civilization have not attracted due attention or received serious study, but it is undeniable that the evolution of any civilization is intimately related to reading primers, which facilitate human progression, social development, and literacy education. As pointed out by the American anthropologist Leslie Alvin White (1900–1975) in The Science of Culture (1949), all human civilization relies on symbols. It is the ability to produce and use symbols that makes it possible for culture to be created and passed on. And it is the use of symbols that makes culture eternal. There would be no culture without symbols and human beings would be identiWed with animals without symbols. Only when human beings have had a Xuent command of the language system can culture and civilization progress from one generation to another. The children’s reading primers are the most primitive and direct tools for the inception and initiation of human civilization and the activation of language symbols. It is these textbooks that help make the language and culture of a nation expand, extend, and prosper. No lexicographical culture of any civilization in the world has developed overnight but evolved and extended over a rather long period. The Middle East is assumed to enjoy the longest history of lexicographical culture, roughly four or

h i s t o r i a n z h o u ’s p r i me r

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Wve thousand years. The lexicographical culture of China, dating from The Ready Guide, has a history of no less than two thousand years. Dictionaries, whether in the East or the West, and whether with a long or short history, all seem to have taken the same path in evolution: from inscribed clay plates (or bamboo slips) to word and character reading primers, from word and character reading primers to wordlists, glossaries, wordbooks, and vocabularies, and from glossaries and wordbooks to character dictionaries and word dictionaries. This is a universal pattern for the natural development of lexicographical culture throughout the world. Presumably, dictionaries in any language of the world originate from ancient character or word learning textbooks compiled in that language, and there should be a direct or an indirect heritage relationship between textbooks and dictionaries. The fountainhead of the lexicographical culture of China is generally presumed to be Historian Zhou’s Primer (abbreviated to HZP hereinafter within this chapter) – the Wrst character learning textbook in the Zhou Dynasty.

4.1 the historical background to hzp’s birth As noted in the previous chapter, HZP was written at the time of Emperor Xuan of the Zhou Dynasty. Emperor Xuan’s reign began after an upheaval during the time of Emperor Li. He had ‘two premiers to assist in his administration, following the examples of the great emperors such as Emperor Wen, Emperor Wu, Emperor Cheng, and Emperor Kang, and as a result all the small kingdoms came over and pledged allegiance. The reign of Emperor Xuan lasted for forty-six years and is known as ‘Emperor Xuan’s Prosperity Period’. Times of prosperity and peace are usually marked by more prominence and attention given to the construction of civilization and culture. HZP was compiled at such a time. At the time of Emperor Xuan of the Zhou Dynasty there was an oYcial historian, named Zhou (籀). He was commissioned to take charge of surveying and ‘tidying up’ the characters and words circulating in the country. He wrote a reading primer, altogether Wfteen volumes, later known as Historian Zhou’s Primer, aiming at ‘helping royal teachers to instruct royal children in learning characters’. This is the direct background against which HZP was compiled. To Wnd an eVective way to facilitate children’s learning and memorizing Chinese characters, the educationists theorized the ‘Six Categories’ to account for the formation and structure of Chinese characters before HZP had come into

46


use. The theory of Six Categories was actually a course for children in the Zhou Dynasty. What does ‘Six Categories’ really mean? Ban Gu (班固), a scholar in the Eastern Han Dynasty, held that it is ‘the essence of character creation’. SpeciWcally, it refers to the Six Categories – pictographic, self-explanatory, ideographic, pictophonetic, mutually explanatory, and phonetic loaning (Ban Gu, 1962:1720). The theory of Six Categories has provided a solid theoretical basis for studying Chinese characters, for analysing their formation and structure, and for compiling dictionaries of the Chinese language.

4.2 the background and motivation for hzp’s compilation Character primers in the general sense do not fall into the same category as wordbooks and dictionaries, but HZP, the Wrst character primer in the history of Chinese civilization shares quite a number of the features of a wordbook or indeed a dictionary: it is a collection of characters, and it includes many implicit explanations of the meanings of characters. In other words, it could be regarded as the real source of lexicographical culture in China. 史籀 is a combination of a name and an oYcial title: 史 is the title of an oYcial in charge of historical aVairs, and 籀 is the name of the oYcial of Emperor Xuan, who actually compiled HZP. During the Zhou Dynasty, a wise king would knight those of high morality and bestow valuable property on those who achieve great feats. The rites would take place in the Big Temple. At that grand ceremony, the Wrst thing was to oVer a sacriWce to Heaven. At this moment, the king would usually stand next to the steps south of the altar, facing the south. The one to be given the title or award would stand opposite the king, facing the north. The oYcial historian stands on the right side of the king. He holds the bamboo slips and makes the announcement on behalf of the king. The second thing is for the receiver to kneel down, accept the slips, return home, and have another formal rite at his own temple. It is easy to conclude from this ritual ceremony what an important role an oYcial historian played in the Zhou Dynasty. It needs to be pointed out that in the unearthed inscriptions 史籀 was sometimes written as 史留. These inscriptions give further evidence of what Xu Shen says in his Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters: ‘Till the time of Emperor Xuan, the Supreme Historian Zhou wrote Wfteen texts in dazhuan, which was diVerent from the ancient characters in some aspects.’

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In the Zhou Dynasty, an oYcial historian’s duty was to record historical events. However, from the mid-West Zhou Dynasty (1046 bc–256 bc), the oYcial historian had gained the power to announce orders on behalf of the king. The role that an oYcial historian played was of a dual nature: on the one hand, he enjoyed the right to prescribe and codify the characters, which required him to have great accomplishments in literature, and on the other hand, the performance of his duties got him very much involved in the political life of the ruling class of the state, which endowed them with very high political prestige among the oYcials. Thus, HZP’s compilation by Historian Zhou at the time of Emperor Xuan should be considered part of his oYcial responsibility, and an authoritative textbook compiled on behalf of the government. HZP is no longer in existence and what are left to us are those character forms retained in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. There are 223 characters explicitly noted as Zhou characters (王国维, Wang Guowei, 1983:四, 256). In the early years of the West Han Dynasty, ‘the students are not allowed to take an oYcial examination until seventeen. Only those capable of reciting more than nine thousand characters from HZP get the opportunity to be selected as candidates for government positions’ (see the Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters). There is solid evidence that the number of headword characters originally collected in HZP is probably well over 9,000. The time span between the Wrst year of the West Han Dynasty (206 bc) and the time of Emperor Xuan in the West Zhou Dynasty is about 600 years, during which period new characters would have been frequently created and added to HZP. The Cangjie Primer, which was compiled at the beginning of the West Han Dynasty after the model of HZP, contained 3,300 characters. Yang Xiong’s The Exegetic Primer had 5,340 characters according to The Book of the Han Dynasty () and An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters collected 9,353 characters as headwords. There are altogether 4,972 inscription characters collected in A Collection of Inscription Characters of the Yin and Zhou Dynasties (, eighteen volumes)(张亚初, Zhang Yachu, 2001:1478). The number of Jiaguwen characters unearthed at present is 4,672 (The Archaeology Institute of China Academy of Social Sciences, 1965: Preface). Taking all the above factors into consideration, the characters collected in HZP suitable for children to learn should have amounted to roughly 3,500. Even as a standard to be measured against what a student has to learn today, the number of characters in HZP was of a very considerable size. There is every reason to consider HZP as a standardized textbook for children to learn characters at that time. HZP was designed and compiled for royal children to learn dazhuan characters. When regular script became the standard writing system for the Chinese language, dazhuan soon became outdated. Moreover, characters will inevitably

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change, being modiWed and replaced by newly created ones. It is a natural process for new forms of character to emerge and old ones to die out. That is why HZP gradually went out of vogue and only some remnants were to be found in some of the academic writings of the time. It was a change of environment and culture that Wnally led to the demise of HZP.

4.3 the format and style of hzp Principles for lemmata selection and coverage As HZP was targeted at children learning characters, its scope of selection was basically limited to ‘those naming things and people’. The characters for objects and people that were frequently encountered in everyday life were candidates for inclusion as headwords in the book, which means that these characters were essential to and commonly used in everyday communication. These characters were of two kinds: common characters and newly created ones. Common characters refer to those already stabilized but still in contemporary use. These words usually enjoyed a rather high frequency in everyday communication. For instance, in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, there are the following characters: 1. 人, 天地之性最贵者也。此籀文。象臂胫之形。 (人, man, the most noble between the earth and the sky; a Zhou character in the shape of an arm and legs.) 2. 鸡, 知时畜也。从隹, 奚声。籀文鸡从鸟。 (鸡, chicken, a kind of poultry that knows the time; categorized into 隹 and pronounced as 奚; a Zhou character that falls into the category of 鸟.) 3. 车, 舆轮之总名。夏后时奚仲所造。象形。籀文车。 (车, vehicle, any vehicle with wheels; invented by Xi Zhong (奚仲) at the time of the post-Xia Dynasty; a pictographic character and the same as the Zhou character.) 4. 西, 鸟在巢上。象形。日在西方而鸟栖, 故因以为东西之西。西, 或从木、妻。古文西。籀文西。 (西, west, the direction in which birds are seen on the nest; a pictographic character; when the sun is in the west the birds perch on the branches; therefore, used to designate the direction of west; categorized into 木 (wood) or 妻 (wife); the same as the ancient character and the Zhou character.)

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Common characters signifying ‘objects and people frequently encountered’, such as 人, 鸡, 车, and 西, were already frequently used in everyday life in the Shang Dynasty when Jiaguwen was the dominant writing system. Certainly, these characters should be included in HZP. The inscriptions on the unearthed bronze wares of the time of Emperor Xuan can also conWrm the existence of those characters and their status, designating basic concepts to be conveyed in the inscriptions. The following are some of the sample sentences from the inscriptions (陈梦家, Chen Mengjia, 2004:318, 324, 328): 5. 唯九月初吉戊申。 (Only the Wrst of September is auspicious in the year of Wu Shen, which is the Wfth of heavenly stem and the ninth of earthly branches.). 6. 王令我羞追于西, 余来归献擒。 (The king disgraced me and I ran west to chase. I returned and oVered what I had captured.) 7. 子子孙孙其永宝用享。 (His sons and grandsons will enjoy all these treasures forever.) 8. 王赐兮甲马四匹, 驹车。 (The king bestowed four horses and some foals and carts.) 9. 敢不用令。 (Dare not obey order.) 10. 其唯我诸侯百姓。 (Only my monarch and people.) 11. 折首五百, 执讯五十。 (Five hundred were beheaded and Wfty were penalized and reproached.) Newly created characters refer to those that were created during the time of the West Zhou Dynasty (or Emperor Xuan’s time). These new characters should also have a high frequency of use. 12. 城以盛民也。从土从成, 成亦声。城, 籀文城从郭。 (城, city, town, a place created and used to hold its people; categorized into 土 ‘soil’ and 成 ‘completion’, with the latter also representing its pronunciation; categorized into 郭 ‘suburb’ in Zhou characters.) 13. 则等画物也。从刀从贝。贝, 古之物货也。则, 古文则。则, 亦古文则。籀文则从鼎。 (则, ruler, a tool used for equal division in drawing; categorized into 刀 ‘knife’ and 贝 ‘shell’, which, in ancient times, was used as currency for the exchange of goods; the same as its ancient form; categorized into 鼎 ‘pod’ in Zhou characters.)

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genesis and emergence of lexicographical culture 14. 道所行道也。从辵从首。一达谓之道。古文道从首寸。 (道, road, way, a long narrow place for people to walk from place to place; categorized into 辵 ‘walk intermittently’ and 首 ‘head’; directly leading to a place; its ancient form was categorized into 首 ‘head’ and 寸 ‘inch’.)

The above characters 城, 则, and 道 were not found until the time of Emperor Xuan and could be identiWed as newly created characters. One of the fundamental indicators of the civilization of human society is city construction and conceptualization. Of the divinatory symbols unearthed from the Ruins of the Yin Dynasty, the character 城 was not found but the character 京, which means ‘capital of a city’. It was during the West Zhou Dynasty and with the standardization of town construction that some towns were gradually dubbed as 城, which is clear from the citation: 15. 以乃族从父征, 出城卫父身。() (Under the leadership of the father, the clansmen fought in war. They went out of the city to act as bodyguards to the father.) (from Ban Gui) In the Zhou character form, 则 looks like a knife curved on the pod. Since the pod was a kind of vessel frequently taken as an indicator of one’s social status, it was naturally extended to refer to ‘system’, which was further grammaticalized as an adverb or conjunction. In the Jin (金) characters, the main uses of 则 are as follows: (a) to cut or draw, e.g. 用明则之于铭。(When in wide use, it will be inscribed.) (b) the soil, e.g. 王蔑段历, 念毕仲孙子, 命龏戒贻大则于段。(The king belittled Duan Li but, after thinking of his second grandson, he ordered Gong Jie to give a large piece of land to Duan.) (c) as an adverb to indicate a completed action, e.g. 牧牛则誓。(While herding sheep and cattle, he swore an oath.) According to the head character selection criterion of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (i.e. zhuan characters, which are to be contrasted with ancient Zhou characters, form the focus for character selection), when deWnitional explanations contain such glosses as 古文 ‘in the ancient form of . . .’, the character whose xiaozhuan character bears the same form as the Zhou character should be listed Wrst. Look at the following example in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters: 16. 奭盛也。从大, 从皕, 皕亦声。此燕召公名。读若郝。名丑。奭, 古文奭。 (奭 means Xourishing; categorized into 大 ‘bigness’ and 皕 ‘double hundred’, with the latter also indicating its pronunciation; Yan Zhaogong (燕召公) bears the same name; pronounced as 郝 /hao/; in the ancient form of 奭.)

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It can thus be deduced that the Wrst character form listed under the entry 道 in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters should also be the form of the Zhou character. 道 was written as 衜 on the Raccoon Vessel, a bronze smallmouthed and big-bellied wine vessel of the West Zhou Dynasty. More often than not, the Jinwen inscription of the character 衜 was accompanied by 止 (stop, stand still), symbolizing ‘foot in motion’. Taken as a whole, 衜 forms a picture of a person standing at the crossroads, trying to Wgure out which direction to take. Consequently, 衜 was used to designate ‘road’ or ‘way’. The usage of 道 in the West Zhou metal inscriptions could be illustrated in the following example: 17. 封于兽道, 封于原道, 封于周道。() (Sealed at the animal’s path, on the original road, and on Zhou’s way.) (from San Pan) After examining the speciWc usages of several newly created characters in the unearthed literature of the West Zhou Dynasty before Emperor Xuan, it can be tentatively inferred that HZP had already taken note of those newly emerged characters and that they were given as supplemented entries. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters encompasses 540 radical sections within its scope of headword coverage, which involves ‘heaven and earth, ghosts and gods, mountains and rivers, grass and trees, birds and animals, insects and worms, sundries, odd objects, the king’s ruling systems, and etiquette and rites. In a word, all the things under the sun are recorded exclusively’ (Epilogue to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters). The characters explicitly marked as Zhou characters are also put under these 540 radical sections. For instance: 上部: 旁 (the radical section of 上: 旁) 示部: 祺、斎、禋、祷、祟 (the radical section of 示: 祺, 斎, 禋, 祷, 祟) 玉部: 璿 (the radical section of 玉: 璿) 牛部: 牭 (the radical section of 牛: 牭) 口部: 嗌、啸 (the radical section of 口: 嗌, 啸) 食部: 饴、餔、饕 (the radical section of 食: 饴, 餔, 饕) 禾部: 秋、秦、稯 (the radical section of 禾: 秋, 秦, 稯) 米部: 糂、糟 (the radical section of 米: 糂, 糟) 女部: 姚、妘、婚、姻、妣、娲、娈、娄 (the radical section of 女: 姚, 妘, 婚, 姻, 妣, 娲, 娈, 娄) 酉部: 酸、酱、醢 (the radical section of 酉: 酸, 酱, 醢) If a comparison is made between HZP and An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters for their coverage, it is conspicuous that the latter has broadened its scope and reinforced its contents, though the former has also claimed to have ‘recorded all things under the sun’.

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Layout HZP is no longer in existence, but what can be done is to restore it from The Cangjie Primer. These two books took the shortest time to be compiled and shared basically the same style. Since the Qin Dynasty was rather short-lived, the textbook series for children to learn xiaozhuan characters, compiled by Li Si in the light of HZP, lasted for only several dozens of years. Early in the Western Han Dynasty, the textbooks handed down from the Qin Dynasty were under revision: the teachers and learned people in the towns and villages combined The Cangjie Primer, The Yuanli Primer, and The Scholarly Primer under one cover and segmented the book into Wfty-Wve chapters, each chapter containing sixty characters. This new textbook retained the original title The Cangjie Primer. (Ban Gu, 1962:1721)

As for The Cangjie Primer in the Han Dynasty, the character form was transformed from xiaozhuan into oYcial script. The total number of entry characters in it was 3,300, and it soon became popularized and widely recognized as the standard textbook for character learning. From the unearthed bamboo slips of The Cangjie Primer in the West Han period, we can see two outstanding features in layout:

1. Semantically grouped and radical-oriented In The Cangjie Primer, the characters that were synonymous or related in some meaning components were put together on the basis of radical classiWcation. For instance, 开 (open), 闭 (close), 门 (door), and 闾 (town) all fall under the heading of 门, for their meanings are all related to the concept of ‘door’. Likewise, 病 (illness), 狂 (madness), 疵 (blemish), 疕 (head sore), 灾 (burn), 疡 (sore) are all semantically related to 病 and come under 疒 (the radical characterizing characters denoting ‘illness’).

2. Four-character sentences that are rhymed and easy to recite The character textbook serves the purpose of character learning. Its headword characters should be arranged in such a way as to facilitate character acquisition and literacy education. Rhyming is conducive to recitation and memorization. The format is specially designed in each chapter of The Cangjie Primer so as to have four characters in one sentence and keep the sentences rhymed. Here are some of the sentence quotations from The Cangjie Primer: 18. 幼子承诏。( 引) (The younger son was the one to be summoned by the Emperor.) (from


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the Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters quoting from The Cangjie Primer) 19. 汉兼天下, 海内并厕, 豨黥韩覆, 畔讨灭歼。(颜之推, Yan Zhitui, 1980:438) (The Han Dynasty annexes the whole world and all the kingdoms observe its decrees. Its ruling will be like slaughtering the pigs and pulling down the fences. For those kingdoms that disobey, they will be denounced, suppressed, and destroyed.) (from Yan Zhitui of the Northern Qi Dynasty, 1980:438) 20. 苍颉作书, 以教后嗣。幼子承诏, 谨慎敬戒, 勉力风诵, 昼夜勿置。苟务成史, 计会辨治, 超等轶群, 出尤别异。(李振宏, Li Zhenhong, 2003:120) (Cangjie creates characters for educating the young. The youth are summoned and they should learn to be serious, cautious, respectful, and selfdisciplined. They should make up their mind and study hard and show perseverence in reading and reciting day and night. If selected to serve as oYcials in the government, they should be qualiWed in calculating, accounting, discriminating good from evil, and ruling. They should be trained to be the elites and the exceptional but not the deviants.) (from Li Zhenhong, 2003:120) These four-character sentences are just the right stuV for playful children to recite and memorize. In the time of HZP’s compilation four-character-style poems were prevalent, and it was probable for HZP and The Cangjie Primer to inherit the prevalent style from poetry writing and for HZP to adopt the format of four-character-style poems.

DeWnition and citation There is now extremely limited source data directly obtained from HZP, but there is strong evidence from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters that HZP did oVer word deWnitions, as in the case above of 奭. Here is another example: 21. 姚 – 虞舜居姚虚, 因以为姓。从女, 兆声。或为: 姚, 娆也。以为: 姚, 易也。 (姚 Yao, surname, Yu and Shun lived in Yaoxu, which they took for their family name; categorized into 女 ‘female’ and pronounced as yao ‘兆’; also possible that 姚 ‘yao’ means 娆 ‘enchanting’; HZP interprets 姚 as meaning 易 ‘pleasant’.) Some inferences can be made from the above citation. First, the chief means of deWnition in HZP is to use synonymous characters or expressions. Second,

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there are some explanatory notes about the general usage of some characters in HZP. For instance, 奭 could be used interchangeably with 丑 in HZP. HZP, as a glossary of common characters of its time, manifests its inXuence on lexicography of later generations chieXy in its arrangement of contents and layout. For the majority of characters, there are no deWnitions or illustrative examples. This is due to HZP’s function as a textbook. The responsibility of explaining the meaning of characters and providing illustrative examples falls on the teachers during the process of instructing pupils. It is no wonder that only a limited number of deWnitions and examples are discovered in HZP and that they usually take the form of annotations attached to their corresponding headword characters.

Pronunciation There are some characters in HZP, though very few in number, whose pronunciations are provided by means of indicative labels like 读若,与 . . . . . . 音同, and 音如, which mean ‘pronounced in a similar or the same way as . . .’. For instance: 22. 匋, 瓦器也。从缶, 包省声。古者昆吾作匋。案: 读与缶同。 () (匋, pottery, earthenware; categorized into 缶 ‘fou, earthen utensil with a large body and small opening’; pronounced as 包 /bao/, with a silent consonant; in ancient times, Kun Wu was well known for making earthenware. Note: in HZP, it is annotated as being pronounced in the same way as 缶.) (from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters) Similarly, this style of giving pronunciation was also employed in The Cangjie Primer. Let’s take 痏, for example: 23. 痏, 创也。音如鮪鱼之鮪。 (痏, trauma; wound from injury; pronounced like the character 鮪, as in 鮪鱼.) The inXuence of HZPon The Cangjie Primer and The Ready Guide is found chieXy in the arrangement of contents and the method of deWning characters. On the one hand, the arrangement of contents in both books is based on semantic relations and classiWcations. The contents of the Wrst version of The Cangjie Primer are classiWed, grouped, and arranged on a semantic basis, i.e. in the light of the concepts theydesignate, which is clearly a practice that originated in HZP. Characters with radicals sharing the same, similar, or opposite meanings are normally treated in one chapter or section, for


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instance, 寸 (inch), 薄 (thin), 厚 (thick), 广 (broad), 侠 (narrow), 好 (good), 丑 (ugly), 长 (long), 短 (short) (Wang Guowei, 1983: 4, 352). On the other hand, characters are deWned according to their semantic classiWcation. The case of 姚 above is typical, from whose analysis we can see that 姚 and 易 are synonyms. It is apparent that the method of deWnition in The Ready Guide was inspired by the practice of synonym deWnition in HZP. Here are some more examples from The Ready Guide: 24. 乔、嵩、崇: 高也。() (乔, 嵩, and 崇 mean 高 ‘tall, high’.) 25. 怀、惟、虑、愿、念、惄: 思也。() (怀, 惟, 虑, 愿, 念 and 惄 mean 思 ‘thinking’.) 26. 颠,顶也。() (颠 means 顶 ‘summit, top’.) To conclude, the deWning method in The Ready Guide, such as general explanation (通训) and mutual explanation (互训), is the result of being inXuenced by the semantic classiWcation style in HZP.

4.4 the cultural and academic implications of hzp HZP was intended to help children learning characters and to educate the illiterate during the Western Zhou Dynasty, which necessitated its bearing some characteristics of both an instructional textbook and a reference book such as a dictionary (Yong Heming, 2003:25). Prior to the time of Emperor Xuan, there had been no authoritative textbooks for teaching and learning characters. There might have been teaching materials of this kind in some oYcial schools and the materials were probably collected by the teaching oYcials. Things became quite diVerent when the oYcial primer HZP came into use, for it was authoritative and in wide circulation as a textbook in oYcial schools. Since it was a standardized textbook of high quality, it would in some way compensate for intellectual deWciency in the teaching staV and help the students to review and preview. Consequently, it would dramatically increase the eYciency and eVectiveness in teaching and learning characters. As shown from the study of the oracle inscriptions unearthed from the Ruins of the Shang Dynasty, the characters used in the Shang Dynasty were not very standardized, as evidenced by profuse use of variants for the same character.

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These variations could be roughly classiWed into the following categories (徐中舒, Xu Zhongshu, 1989:1499): (a) A character may have both its original complex form and simpliWed form. For instance, the simpliWed character 车 (cart, vehicle) was used alongside its original complex forms like 舆, 辕, 轭, and 衡. These complex forms still retain the shape of two wheels in their formation, while the simpliWed form 车 functioned only as a component of the original complex form (Xu Zhongshu, 1989:1499). (b) The position of certain radicals in a character may be arbitrary, i.e. either placed on the right side or on the left. For instance, in the character 令 (order), the part which looks like ‘a man kneeling down’ could be written either facing the right or the left (Xu Zhongshu, 1989:1000). (c) The radicals on the upper and lower parts of a character could mutually exchange their positions. For instance, in the character 侯, the component of ‘arrow head (矢)’ usually faces upwards, but it may also be written facing downwards (Xu Zhongshu, 1989:583). (d) The use of radicals was not conventionalized yet in cases where radicals had the same or similar meanings. They could be used interchangeably. For instance, in the character 莫, the uppermost radical could either be 艸 (grass) or 林 (wood). It can be deduced that one of the motivations for Emperor Xuan ordering his oYcial historian Zhou to compile a primer was to standardize the form and use of characters. These standardized forms and styles of character writing, as shown in HZP, would be naturally reXected in its contemporary literary works and other literature. The term ‘Zhou character’ is used to refer to the particular style of form and structure of character writing during the time of Emperor Xuan. In the period from Spring and Autumn to Warring States, people in the Qin State still used this type of character but the Oriental Six States were using ancient characters – the type of characters used in the ‘books found in the walls of Confucius’ home’ (Wang Guowei, 1983:319). As for the use of the Zhou character by the Qin people, the representative work is Stone Drum character (石鼓文) of Qin State. Stone Drum characters refer to the poems carved on the drums – each drum with one four-character poem depicting the grand scene of the king and monarchs hunting and entertaining. This type of poem usually consisted of four lines, each on one side of the stone drum. Its genre is very similar to that of the poems in The Book of Songs with similar subjects. As is shown in the following poem: 吾车既工, 吾马既同。吾车既好, 吾马既阜 (My carts are exquisitely

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constructed, and my horses are equally chosen; my carts are among the best, and my horses are among the loftiest). During the time of the Wrst Emperor of the Qin Dynasty, xiaozhuan was oYcially codiWed as the standard writing form. There came the need to rewrite and recompile textbooks for teaching and learning characters. Naturally, HZP was taken as an example for selecting the content materials and for making decisions on the formats of the new textbooks. The Prime Minister Li Si and two other Ministers, Zhao Gao and Hu Wujing, were authorized to compile the textbook. Li Si wrote The Cangjie Primer (seven chapters), Zhao Gao wrote The Yuanli Primer (six chapters), and Hu Wujing wrote The Scholarly Primer (seven chapters). All these texts were written in xiaozhuan and the textbooks were oYcially issued and circulated nationwide; and, as a result, HZP gradually went out of vogue. There are, however, some characters that have retained the form and structure of those Zhou characters but have been in continuous use up until now. HZP, as the Wrst textbook intended to teach children to learn characters in the history of Chinese civilization, played an unprecedented role in initiating the history of dictionary compilation. As pointed out earlier, a series of textbooks for character learning, taking HZP as an example, were compiled in the Qin Dynasty. In the early years of the Western Han Dynasty, the textbook for children to learn characters was The Instant Primer, whose name 急就 (instant success) suggested ‘fast learning’, and the opening remarks made it all the more clear: 27. 急就奇觚与众异: 罗列诸物名姓字, 分别部居不杂厕, 用日约少诚快意, 勉力务之必有喜。请道其章。 (Quickly learn the rarely seen drinking vessels and many diVerent things: listing the names of objects, people, and family names; classify them into diVerent sections so that they will not be easily mixed up. Occasional consultation will deWnitely be a great delight – for it is quick to retrieve, and, if hard eVort is put into it, there will surely be surprising rewards. Please follow the guidelines in each chapter.) It is certain that there were predecessors for The Instant Primer to model on. For its stylistic features, it collected the characters with the same radicals together and then divided them into diVerent chapters. For each chapter, the number of characters in each line is Wxed: three characters, four characters, or seven characters. The sentences are all in rhyme, which makes it easy to read and recite. From the Northern and Southern Dynasty, there appeared some other popular textbooks, such as One Thousand Characters Text (), The Book of Family Names (), and The Three-Character Primer (). All

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these textbooks have displayed some noticeable trace of HZP in their compilation styles and formats. As HZP is no longer available today, all that can be ascertained about it comes from relevant data sources serving as citations found in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and certain other dictionaries. The pioneering studies of HZP are mainly the by-products of the studies on An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. Among studies on HZP, Wang Guowei’s The RectiWcation of Historian Zhou’s Primer () ranks among the most comprehensive and systematic works. Wang Guowei conducted thorough textual research into each one of the 220 characters explicitly marked as Zhou characters in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and went on further to verify them against the unearthed materials. It is his opinion that the character 籀 as in 史籀 should be interpreted as ‘read’ and 史籀 should not be taken as a person’s name but an abbreviation of the Wrst four characters 太史籀书 (literally, the oYcial historian reads books), which is actually the Wrst sentence in HZP (Preface to The RectiWcation of Historian Zhou’s Primer). Wang Guowei’s study on HZP still remains one of the monumental works in this Weld. As far as the history of human civilization is concerned, all the textbooks, like HZP, which are oriented towards enlightenment, have played an indispensable role in cultivating the thoughts of a nation, especially those of the younger generation. In the meantime, these textbooks, bearing some of the features of a dictionary, have played an equally important role in sustaining a nation’s culture and handing down the accomplishments of human civilization from generation to generation. The concept of ‘big uniWcation’, as manifested in 汉兼天下, 海内并厕 (Han annexes the whole world and all the kingdoms observe its decree) in The Cangjie Primer, has been inherited by every generation since very remote times through textbooks in the course of teaching and learning Chinese characters.

5

THE READY GUIDE – T H E I N I T I ATOR O F T H E S AU RU S DICTIONARIES IN CHINA

T

HE Ready Guide (abbreviated to RG hereinafter within this chapter) enjoys a very remarkable position in the history of philological and linguistic studies in China. It is the Wrst work of exegetic studies conducted on a systematic basis and the Wrst thesaurus dictionary of an encyclopedic nature. It aims to explain the meaning of ancient words and a great variety of object names and serves as the starting point from which other classic works can be justiWably interpreted. That partly explains why RG has always been placed into the category of ancient Chinese classics rather than ancient Chinese dictionaries. This chapter will concentrate chieXy on the role it plays as the initiator of dictionary compilation in ancient China.

5.1 the historical background to rg’s birth When Historian Zhou’s Primer and The Cangjie Primer were used for teaching and learning characters, there also emerged the need to explain the meanings of the characters collected in them that changed over time as language evolved. RG was compiled to meet this need. So, what does the title 尔雅 mean? According to Confucius’ interpretation, ‘RG assists in understanding and analysing ancient classic works and suYces to diVerentiate between words and expressions’, which

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g e n e s i s a n d e m e r g e n c e o f le x i c o g r a p h i c a l c u l t u re

is further collaborated by the remark that ‘the so-called standard speech, as Confucius suggests, alludes to the classic works and the justice and courtesy advocated in them. Only these can be ranked as standards’ (from The Analects of Confucius, ). In a note to The Book of the Han Dynasty Zhang Yan (张晏) states that ‘尔 means 近 (close, approximate) and 雅 means 正 (justice, standard)’. In the light of this explanation, 尔雅 can be interpreted as attempting Wrst to understand the character’s meaning as accurately as possible and then to interpret it in actual use. Moreover, the character 雅 itself was a fashionable word in the Western Zhou Dynasty, as is shown in The Book of Songs, which contained characters like 风, 雅, and 颂. In RG, there is an illustrative citation of 张仲孝友, which contained the name of a Wgure in Emperor Xuan’s time – 张仲, strongly suggesting that RG was used as supplementary teaching material for Historian Zhou’s Primer. To conclude, it is very probable that RG was compiled as a ‘teaching material’ book. Between the Qin and the Han Dynasty, The Cangjie Primer was used for teaching and learning characters, and a reference book was needed to assist and facilitate not only the learning of characters but also the appreciation of the conceptual meanings and cultural connotations attached to the characters. And in the periods of the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States, private schooling was becoming popular and the mix of numerous schools of thought had created a favourable academic atmosphere for studying and analysing language and characters. RG was a natural outcome of such a time. It was compiled to broadly identify the actual references of words and expressions, to make a record of the songs and ideals of the poets, to collect and sort the archaic words of previous times, and to discriminate the words with diVerent labels but in essence with the same content. The Book of the Han Dynasty did not classify RG into the category of Chinese philology but into the category of works which promoted Wlial devotion. During the reign of Emperor Wen, people with the title of ‘doctor’, which roughly approximates to the title of professor, were assigned to teach The Analects of Confucius, The Book of Filial Virtues (), Meng Zi, and RG (钱穆, Qian Mu, 2001:193). These studies were already established courses in the school syllabus. For those pupils in school, they were compulsory courses. Only when they had passed these courses were they entitled to enrol for advanced courses, such as The Book of Songs, The Book of Changes, The Book of Rites, and The Spring and Autumn. It can be concluded that RG should have been Wnished no later than the time of Emperor Wen’s reign. Generally speaking, it takes time for an academic work to get initiated, circulated, established and codiWed, especially in ancient times. This was more than true of RG. The Wrst draft of RG should have been written at the turn of the dynasty (i.e. from the Zhou to the Qin Dynasty) but came to its completion early in the Western Han

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Dynasty. It can thus be safely assumed that RG was Wrst drafted in between the Zhou and the Qin Dynasty and was completely Wnalized in the Han Dynasty. ‘Nine states (九州)’ in RG refers to the administrative regions in China in early ancient times. A comparison will show that the actual names of the nine states in RG are diVerent from those in Yu Gong () but roughly approximate to those in The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty, but are most like those in The Lu¨’s Spring and Autumn Annals. In The Lu¨’s Spring and Autumn Annals, the state names are 冀, 衮, 青, 徐, 扬, 荆, 豫, 雍, and 幽 while in RG they are 冀, 衮, 营 (青), 徐, 扬, 荆, 豫, 雍, and 幽. The only diVerence lies in the change of the name of one state, i.e. from 青 to 营. RG states that ‘齐 (the state of Qi) was called 营 (the state of Ying)’. As is known to all, it was only twenty-two years between the birth of The Lu¨’s Spring and Autumn Annals and the Burning Book Event by the Wrst Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. Thus, the Wrst draft of RG should have been completed at the turn of the dynasty, subsequent to The Spring and Autumn. The Wrst draft of RG was just an embryo – there was much to develop, improve, and supplement, especially in content, wording, and format. The early part of the Western Han Dynasty was mainly a time for revision. From the time of Emperor Hui of the Han Dynasty, several new chapters of RG were in circulation, together with the original version of RG. A comparison of the two versions of RG displays great diVerence in wording. The following citations from Supplements to the RectiWed Broad Ready Guide (王念孙, Wang Niansun, ) will show some changes in diction in deWning 妻父: (1) 妻父曰外舅 (‘Wife’s father’ means ‘fatherin-law’) (from The Book of Rites); and (2) 妻之父为外舅 (‘The father of wife’ is called ‘father-in-law’) (The Standardized Ready Guide, 定本). The revision of RG consists of three types of editorial work: Wrst, notes or comments were added. For instance, in RG, a note was added to explain 五方 (the Wfth direction), i.e. 此四方中国之异气也 (the alienated from the four directions of China); second, special explanatory notes were written for some chapters and sections, and some chapters were reordered; and third, the number and names of classiWcation were revised and modiWed. For instance, in The Lu¨’s Spring and Autumn Annals (), there was said to be nine pools in the swampland, whereas in RG (), the number of pools was changed to ten. The Wnalization of RG should be subsequent to the revision of The Book of Rites but obviously prior to the appointment of the teaching doctor for RG by Emperor Wen in the Han Dynasty. For only when RG had attained perfection and exquisiteness in literary and editorial style and gained suYcient authoritativeness would it be possible for the Emperor to accept it oYcially and to award an oYcial doctoral title to carry out its teaching. RG was mainly devoted to explaining and interpreting linguistic and conceptual meanings of characters, words, and expressions. Linguistic problems, though

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intricately involved, could be reduced to one – how the sound and meaning are combined. The prerequisite for linguistic communication is the creation and universal acceptance of meaning by the speech community and the meaning of a word will be acceptable only after it has established itself in competition with other temporary meaning constructions of words and expressions in the same typical contextual situation. In Guo Pu’s opinion, RG is a book for ‘diVerentiating those words with the same essence but diVerent names’ and ‘by means of which a more broad range of things can be embraced without confusing them with each other’ (Preface to The Annotated Ready Guide). Thus, the theoretical core of giving explanatory notes in RG was ‘to diVerentiate so as to eliminate confusion about semantic categorization of words and expressions and to have a better understanding of the character meaning. For instance, the parameters for RG for diVerentiating between 虫 (insect) and 豸 (worm) and between 禽 (bird) and 兽 (beast) are ‘foot’ and ‘feather’: 有足谓之虫, 无足谓之豸 (If the creature has feet, then it is 虫; and if it does not, then it is 豸); 二足而羽谓之禽, 四足而毛谓之兽 (If the animal has two feet and feathers, then it is a bird; if it has four feet and fur, then it is a beast). Generally speaking, the diVerentiation of names and objects is based on those relationships, which are closely related to the names and objects or form contrasts between them, and properties referring to the attributes, physical shapes of disposition, status, capacity, inXuence, etc. In RG, ‘foot’, ‘feather’ and ‘fur’ are taken as the parameters to mark out the semantic categories in the animal world in that both of them are the means by which diVerent animals acclimatize themselves to their living conditions and the markers by which they can be easily recognized. The principle of ‘diVerentiation without confusion’ is best illustrated in the Wrst explanatory note of RG (): 初, 哉, 首, 基, 肇祖, 元, 胎, 俶, 落, 权舆, 始也。In this entry, all the deWned characters are explained with the same character 始 (beginning, inception), but each character focuses on one aspect or component in the meaning of 始. The following analysis will show how these characters can be diVerentiated: 1. 初, 裁衣之始。(初: starting to cut cloth in dressmaking.) 2. 哉, 即才, 草木之始。(哉: the same as 才, beginning of grass or tree’s growth.) 3. 首, 人体之始。(首: beginning of human body.) 4. 基, 筑墙之始。(基: beginning in building a wall.) 5. 肇, 开门之始。(肇: beginning in opening a door.) 6. 祖, 人类之始。(祖: Wrst ancestors of human beings.) 7. 元, 即人头, 也是人体之始。(元: the same as 人头 (human head), also the beginning of human body.)

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胎, 生命之始。(胎: beginning of a human life.) 俶, 动作之始。(俶: initiating of a motion or an action.) 落, 木叶陨坠之始。(落: (of leaves) beginning to fall from trees.) 权舆, 草木迂曲出土, 即植物生长之始。(权舆: (of grass or tree) coming out of soil, i.e. the beginning of the growth of plants.)

The derivation of the principle ‘diVerentiation without confusion’ in RG developed into a pattern of naming ‘large’ and ‘small’ objects. Generally speaking, ‘large’ objects could be pre-modiWed with such characters as 大 (big), 戎 (helmet), 王 (king), 牛 (cow), 马 (horse), 虎 (tiger), and 鹿 (deer). Look at the following examples: 12. 魾, 大鳠: bagarius; ‘big’ hemibagrus (from – Interpreting Fish) 13. 菺, 戎葵: sunXower in the Shu State: helmet sunXower (from – Interpreting Grass) 14. 蟒, 王蛇: boa; king snake (from – Interpreting Fish) 15. 终, 牛棘: cow thorn (from – Interpreting Wood) 16. 蝒, 马蜩: big black cicada; horse cicada (from – Interpreting Worm) 17. 欇, 虎櫐: maple; tiger vine (from – Interpreting Wood) 18. 蔨, 鹿藿。其实莥: hyssop; deer hyssop, i.e. wrinkled giant hyssop (from – Interpreting Grass) By contrast, for small objects, the following characters will be used: 小 (little), 叔 (uncle), 女 (woman), 羊 (sheep), 狗 (dog), 鼠 (mouse), 雀 (sparrow), etc. Look at the following examples: 19. 蘻, 狗毒: a kind of grass; dog poison ( – Interpreting Grass) 20. 蘥, 雀麦: a kind of cattle grass; sparrow wheat ( – Interpreting Grass) 21. 遵, 羊枣: date; sheep date ( – Interpreting Wood) 22. 楰, 鼠梓: catalpa; mouse catalpa ( – Interpreting Wood)

5.2 the background and motivation for rg’s compilation As early as the middle and late West Han Dynasty, that is, when Liu Xiang and Liu Xin compiled The Miscellaneous Collection () and Seven Strategies

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(), the author of RG was unknown to them. That is why when he discussed RG in The Book of the Han Dynasty, Ban Gu claimed that there were three volumes, twenty chapters altogether in RG, but he did not mention its author. Thus, the author of RG could only be deduced from its contents. A relevant work is Shi Zi, by Shi Zi, a well-known scholar in the Warring States Period. In Shi Zi (), a number of entries could be identiWed with those in RG (< 尔雅释诂>). Look at the following entries from Shi Zi: 23. 天、帝、皇、后、辟、公: 皆君也。() (天, 帝, 皇, 后, 辟, and 公 are all used to refer to the monarch.) (from Shi Zi) 24. 弘、廓、宏、溥、介、纯、夏、幠、冢、晊、昄: 皆大也。十有余名, 而实一也。() (弘, 廓, 宏, 溥, 介, 纯, 夏, 幠, 冢, 晊 and 昄 are all used to mean ‘big, large’.) (from Shi Zi) 25. 天神曰灵, 地神曰祗, 人神曰鬼。鬼者, 归也。故古者谓死人为归人。 () (The god in heaven is called 灵 ‘spirit’, the god on earth is called 祗 ‘reverence’, and the human god is called 鬼 ‘ghost’. The ghost is the returned soul. So the ancient people called the dead the returned soul.) (from Shi Zi) According to The Book of the Han Dynasty, ‘Shi Zi has twenty chapters. The real name of Shi Zi is Jiao. He was born in Lu State (now in Shandong Province) and was once taught by the Prime Minister, Shang Yang (商鞅), of Qin State. When Shang Yang died he Xed to Shu State (now in Sichuan Province).’ As a teacher of Shang Yang it was natural for Shi Zi to include exegetic interpretations of such characters as 君 (monarch) and 大 (big) in his book. Therefore, it could be inferred that the author of RG was possibly an educator. If the deWnitions of RG texts are scrutinized, some aspects of the author’s life and work would surface by themselves. RG is permeated with strong local colour, as is evidenced, Wrst of all, by the centrality of Qi State and Lu State in the Chinese nation. For instance, in RG, there is 中有岱岳 (泰山), 与其五谷鱼盐生焉 (In the centre there is Mount Tai, where corn, Wsh, and salt are all produced), and in RG, there is 齐, 中也 (Qi State, which is the centre of the nation). Second, the author harbours a feeling of great reverence for the Western Zhou Dynasty and preaches the ideals advocated in The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty. For instance, when The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty mentioned Da Ye (大野), a place in Lu State, it was placed in Wfth place, whereas RG ranked Da Ye in Lu State as the Wrst of the Ten Marshes. Third, the author had a hostile attitude towards Qin State and Chu State. In the tomb of Zeng Houyi (曾侯乙), which was unearthed in 1978 in Sui County, Hubei Province, a picture was

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found depicting a diagram of a black dragon and white tiger with twenty-eight constellations. After comparison, it was found that some obvious stars, like ‘With Ghost’ (与鬼) [of Qin State], and ‘Wing’ (翼) and ‘Vehicle’ (车) [of Chu State] were deliberately unrecorded in RG because they indicated the boundaries between Qin State and Chu State. Thus, a tentative conclusion was reached that the author of RG would be a Confucian scholar from Qi State or from Lu State, which conforms to the legend that he was a disciple of Confucius – a rather improbable coincidence. The author would not be something of an eclectic, like the author of The Lu¨’s Spring and Autumn Annals, but a specialist in Confucian and other classic works. It is a general practice for The Book of the Han Dynasty () to provide some background information about its author when recording the works handed down from ancient times. If only the title of a book is provided, without any comments or introduction about its author, then the book must have been written anonymously. It is also possible that Ban Gu himself could not identify its author. It is evident that the compiler of RG was intentionally not revealed to the public for some special reason right from the time when it was initially circulated so that it became well known for its contents rather than for its author. The question is, why did the compiler of RG deliberately have his name hidden from the public? The humanity background against which it was compiled has to be taken into account to oVer a feasible explanation. This dictionary was compiled during the time of great social reform – roughly between the Qin and the Han Dynasties. The situation could thus be reasonably assessed in the light of the following quotations from The Records of the Historian (): 非博士官所职, 天下敢有藏 , , 百家语者, 悉诣守, 尉杂烧之。有敢偶语 , 者弃市。以古非今者族。吏见知不举者与同罪。 (If someone is not an oYcial and keeps The Book of Songs, The Books of Ancient Texts, or the works of various other schools, he shall be arrested by the local government and have those works burned; if someone dares to occasionally comment about these books, he shall be thrown to the market for public condemnation; if someone dares to commend the ancient times and belittle the contemporary ruling, he shall be executed together with his family members and relatives; if an oYcial knows someone perpetrating such a crime without informing the authorities concerned he shall be charged with the same crime.)

Over that period in history, only the books on ‘medicine, divination, and forestry’ were excluded from the list of books that were oYcially ordered to be burned. RG certainly did not fall into those three categories. Its author was certainly concerned about being suspected of ‘commending the ancient times and belittling the contemporary ruling’, though its only purpose was actually to serve as teaching material for those learning to read and write, like The Cangjie Primer. When the author of RG taught pupils to learn characters he was probably

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not an oYcial appointed by the government. It would have been very dangerous for him to have written such a book falling into the category of ‘works of various other schools’. Understandably, he chose to keep his name a mystery. According to The Book of the Han Dynasty, RG comprises three volumes, twenty chapters, only nineteen of which are available today. RG would have contained a preface originally but it was later lost. The general principle for compiling RG is that ‘things are sorted by their classiWcation and grouped accordingly’ (from The Book of Changes). RG set a precedent for the arrangement of its lexicon according to the meanings they designate and classiWed its 2,000 or so entries into nineteen semantic categories: (Interpreting Exegesis) mainly focuses on the explanation of synonymous archaic words by means of contemporary words; (Interpreting Words) mainly focuses on explaining words; (Interpreting Rhetoric) mainly focuses on explaining alliteration and vowel rhyming words; (Interpreting Relatives) mainly focuses on kinship terms, which are further classiWed into four types: relating to father, mother, wife, and marriage; (Interpreting the Court) mainly focuses on the names of palaces and the relevant roads and bridges; (Interpreting Utensils) mainly focuses on explaining various implements and utensils, such as vessels used in sacriWcing ceremonies, implements used in farming and Wshing, writing utensils, metal tools, and weapons; (Interpreting Music) mainly focuses on explaining musical terms and musical instruments; (Interpreting the Heavens) mainly focuses on explaining astronomy, the calendar, and weather, further classiWed into twelve sections, involving four seasons, omen, calamity, the droughts and Xoods in a year, the diVerent names in a year, the weather in a month, the diVerent names in a month, rain and wind, star names, fetes, warfare, Xags; (Interpreting Earth) mainly focuses on geographical names, involving nine states, ten lakes, nine prefectures, Wve directions, Welds, and four poles; (Interpreting Mounds) mainly focuses on explaining the high lands naturally formed, which are subdivided into two types: hills and cliVs; (Interpreting Mountains) mainly focuses on explaining the names of mountains; (Interpreting Water) mainly focuses on explaining the names of springs and rivers, involving four types: sources of natural water, islets, meanders of rivers, and nine rivers;

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(Interpreting Grass) mainly focuses on explaining various grasses and their forms and properties; (Interpreting Woods) mainly focuses on explaining various woods and their forms and properties; (Interpreting Creatures) mainly focuses on explaining the names of various worms and insects and their dispositions; (Interpreting Fishes) mainly focuses on explaining the names of various Wshes, their physical features and dispositions; (Interpreting Birds) mainly focuses on explaining the names of various birds, their physical features and dispositions; (Interpreting Beasts) mainly focuses on explaining the names of beasts, further classiWed into four types: those residing in the house, rats, deer, and those with palpus; and (Interpreting Livestock) mainly focuses on explaining the names of livestock, covering six domestic animals: horses, cattle, sheep, dogs, chickens, and pigs. Of the nineteen chapters, the Wrst three are philological in essence and mainly concentrate on words and expressions in ancient classic works and the other sixteen are of an encyclopedic nature, covering a wide range of subjects in both social and natural sciences. It is a small-sized linguistic and encyclopedic dictionary.

5.3 the format and style of rg RG is the Wrst dictionary with a relatively consistent and systematic format in the lexicographical history of China. Its compilation style has had direct and farreaching inXuence on subsequent dictionaries.

Principles for entry selection and coverage RG shares the same principles as Historian Zhou’s Primer and The Cangjie Primer in selecting characters, i.e. focusing on characters in common use. The most prominent diVerence between them is that RG focuses to a greater extent on the more confusable characters in reading and writing. Previously, 3,300 characters were collected and treated in Historian Zhou’s Primer, and the great majority of them were in common use. Since RG served as teaching material, there would be no necessity to explain those characters whose meanings

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are apparent and easily understood, such as 人 (human), 男 (man), 日 (sun), 山 (mountain), 木 (woods), 马 (horse), 车 (vehicle), and 一 (one). Consequently, the number of entries in RG are far fewer than those in Historian Zhou’s Primer, totalling only 2,091 entries and covering 4,300 characters, among which 623 are common words and expressions. In the Wrst three chapters of RG, more than 2,000 words and expressions are dealt with, accounting for almost half of its total number. As to the sources of these words and expressions, the majority of them come from the preQin classics, except for a few taken from dialects and folklores. RG has three distinctive features in its entry coverage. First, it puts greater emphasis on comprehensiveness. For the nineteen chapters in RG, the Wrst three deal with general words and expressions in language, and the remaining sixteen chapters deal with terms of an encyclopedic nature. Second, more attention is paid to frequency in the use of diYcult words. Word frequency study, which started in the Wrst half of the twentieth century, became one of the focal points of modern lexicography. RG, however, had already made use of frequency counts in selecting entry words around 200 bc. As mentioned previously, the linguistic principle of interpretation adopted in RG was ‘to diVerentiate without confusion’. In other words, what were diVerentiated were those synonyms, near synonyms, or diYcult words that were likely to be confusing. In the Preface to RG (), there is such a remark: Interpreting Exegesis and Interpreting Words are to relate ancient characters to contemporary ones and see how they diVer; Interpreting Rhetoric deals with the form and structure of characters. Ancient characters had been diVerent from what they are in contemporary times. They were more likely to puzzle language learners. These three chapters aimed to help learners see more clearly the diVerences between these commonly encountered confusable words so as to get a good command of the Chinese language. According to relevant statistics, these Wrst three chapters diVerentiated 623 groups of words, involving more than 2,000 words and expressions, which should fall into the scope of core vocabulary. As the number of the most common words in a language usually stands at around 3,000, inference can be made that most of the words RG chose to explain were in common use at the time of its compilation. Third, more than half of the characters interpreted in RG are from The Book of Songs. Almost all the headword characters in the Wrst three chapters are from The Book of Songs and Interpreting Rhetoric is a direct interpretation of the four-character poems in The Book of Songs. Why did RG concentrate so much on The Book of Songs? This is possibly attributed to the strong instructive role that The Book of Songs played at that time – A´ word can revive a nation; if one fails to study one has no say in any matter, and all elegant language is in The Book of Songs (from The Analects of Confucius).

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Features of entry arrangement RG naturally follows the compilation style established in Historian Zhou’s Primer and The Cangjie Primer as they are the pioneers of similar endeavours. Entries in RG are arranged according to the meanings they designate: words that are synonymous, near synonymous, or related are collected and put in one chapter, or sometimes even in one semantic group. So the arrangement of words in RG, to a certain extent, reXects the structure of the knowledge and culture during the period of the Qin and Han Dynasties. For instance, people at that time thought that roads and bridges ‘all start from the court and they should be put under Interpreting Court’. In the present day, however, roads, bridges, and the court are all classiWed into the Weld of civil engineering. Unfortunately, the notion of civil engineering had not been conceptualized and lexicalized at that time. The practice of putting 祭名 (sacriWcing), 讲武 (warring aVairs), and 旌旂 (banners and Xags) under the title of Interpreting the Heavens is ascribable to the fact that they are the grand events related to the king’s activity though they do not belong to things in heaven. In sacriWcing, whole cattle are roasted like burning a Wre in heaven; warring aVairs are like the behaviour of God; and waving banners and Xags will aVect the normal movement of the sun and moon. All these things cannot be dealt with under other titles but can only be attached to Interpreting the Heavens. These features indicate that the arrangement of entries in RG is an epitome of the notion that ‘the heaven and the human are one’.

Mode of deWnition in RG Though used as an instructional aid, RG was actually an indispensable explanatory complement to Historian Zhou’s Primer, in which explanatory notes were regretfully missing. RG aimed at explaining fully the diVerences between ancient and contemporary words and expressions and diVerentiating adequately the physical properties and appearances of objects. All the diVerent modes of deWnitions in RG are built upon this principle. They include direct interpretation (直训), general interpretation (通训), separate interpretation (分训), mutual interpretation (互训), factorial interpretation (递训), antonymous interpretation (反训), phonetic interpretation (声训), delimiting interpretation (设立界说), and descriptive (描写) or analogical (比拟) interpretation. Hu Pu’an (胡朴安, Hu Pu’an, 1937, 1983) summarized RG’s deWnition modes as follows: (a) Identical characters with diVerent interpretations The same character in diVerent texts is interpreted diVerently but these interpretations are in essence the same. Interpreting Exegesis contains entries like 幠, 厖: 大也 and 幠, 厖, 有也, in which 幠 and 厖 are interpreted as either 大 (big)

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(b)

(c)

(d)

(e)

(f)

(g)

(h)

or 有 (possessive). The Book of Changes () has the statement of 大有, 众也, in which 大 and 有 are interpreted as 众 (many). Thus, 大 and 有 both have the meaning of ‘rich and abundant’. DiVerent words with identical interpretations Interpreting Exegesis contains entries like 皇、王: 君也, in which 皇 (emperor) and 王 (king) are interpreted as 君 (monarch). In other words, 皇 and 王 are just the same in meaning. In Hong Fan (), there is an expression 王极 (king’s extreme power) as in 建用王极, which is sometimes phrased also as 皇极 (royal power). Identical interpretations with diVerent meanings Interpreting Exegesis contains entries like 治、肆、古, 故也, in which 故 has two meanings. According to Wang Yinzhi (王引之, 1766–1834), 治 and 古 should be interpreted as 故 as it is used in 久故 (long-lasting and old) and 肆 should be interpreted as 故 when it is used for 语词 (words and expressions) (from The Interpretation of Classics and Scriptures, ). DiVerent interpretations with identical meanings Interpreting Exegesis contains entries like 俶, 始也 and 俶, 作也, in which 俶 is interpreted diVerently, either as 始 (commencing, beginning) or as 作 (original). In The Book of Songs (), there is 思马斯作, in which 作 is interpreted as 始, as in 作, 始也 (from Mao’s Exegesis). Thus, 始 and 作, used to interpret 俶, have the same meaning ‘original’. Antonymous interpretation Interpreting Exegesis contains entries like 愉, 乐也, and 愉, 劳也, in which 愉 is explained with two words opposite in meaning: 乐 (happy) and 劳 (laborious). Self-interpretation The contemporary character is employed to interpret its ancient counterpart. Interpreting Exegesis contains an entry like 于, 於也, in which 于 is interpreted as 於. According to Duan Yucai, whenever 于 is used in The Book of Songs and The Book of Ancient Texts, 於 is used correspondingly in The Analects of Confucius. Phonetic interpretation Words are interpreted with words of similar or identical pronunciation. Interpreting Exegesis contains entries like 序, 绪也, and 晋, 进也, in which 序 (order, sequence) is interpreted as 绪 (mood) and 晋 (promotion) as 进 (progression). 序 and 绪 are pronounced in the same way as /xu/, and 晋 and 进 as /jin/. The deWning character and the deWned character share the same pronunciation. Likewise, Interpreting Words contains an entry like 幕, 暮也, in which 幕 (screen) is interpreted as 暮 (dusk) and they are both pronounced as /mu/. Circular interpretation Interpreting Exegesis contains these two entries: 法、则、刑、范、矩、律, 常也 and 刑、范、律、矩、则, 法也. In the

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Wrst entry, 法, along with several other characters, is interpreted as 常 and, in the second entry, 法 is used as the deWning character to explain other synonymous characters: 刑、范、律、矩、则. In addition, there are two special cases in relation to RG’s modes of deWnition. One is the so-called ‘two deWnitions in one entry (二义同条)’, as in the case of 台、朕、赉、畀、卜、阳, 予也 in Interpreting Exegesis. According to Wang Yinzhi, 台、朕、阳 should be interpreted as 予 (for), like 予 in 予我 (for me), and 赉、畀、卜 as 予 (to), like 予 in 赐予 (grant to) (from The Interpretation of Classics and Scriptures). The other is to employ an adjacent character in an expression for interpretation. For instance, Interpreting Exegesis contains an entry like 惄, 饥也, which could be traced back to one line in The Book of Songs – 惄如调饥. 饥 is adjacent to 惄 and 饥 is used synonymously to interpret 惄.

Illustrative citations RG’s citations are chieXy quotations from those classic works. They serve as conWrmation and veriWcation of the interpretations of characters in the texts and supplement illustrative citations in textbooks, such as Historian Zhou’s Primer. One distinctive feature of the illustrative citations in RG is that they are implicitly embedded in the deWnitions. The practice was a direct consequence of the ‘Burning Book Event’. Most of the citations were taken from the classic works in the Pre-Qin Dynasty, which had been included in the list of books to be burned. The educationists who were familiar with these classic works had to resort to this covert means to cover up citation sources. The citations from The Book of Songs account for approximately one tenth of RG’s total citations. For instance, in Interpreting Exegesis, there are citations like: 26. 是刈是濩, 濩, 煮之也。 (In 是刈是濩, 濩 means 煮 ‘boil’.) 27. 有客宿宿, 言再宿也。 (If there is a guest coming, then there is a need to talk about asking him to stay for another night.) 28. 其虚其徐, 威仪容止也。 (其虚其徐 means ‘to behave elegantly in the extreme’.) In Interpreting the Heavens, there are citations like: 29. 是类是祃, 师祭也。 (是类是祃 means ‘to oVer sacriWces to one’s teacher’.)

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genesis and emergence of lexicographical culture 30. 既伯既祷, 马祭也。 (既伯既祷 means ‘to use horses as sacriWces’.) 31. 乃立冢土, 戎丑攸行: 起大事, 动大众, 必先有事乎社而后出, 谓之宜。 (‘乃立冢土, 戎丑攸行’ means ‘In order to initiate a big event or to mobilize the masses, the Wrst thing to do is to sacriWce before taking action. This is called ‘‘appropriateness’’ ’.) 32. 振旅阗阗: 出为治兵, 尚威武也; 入为振旅, 反尊卑也。 (振旅阗阗 means ‘when out, discipline the soldiers for a show of mightiness; when in, heighten the spirit of the army in order to challenge the social classiWcation’.)

And in Interpreting Livestock, there is a citation like: 33. 既差我马, 差, 择也。 (In 既差我马, 差 ‘to diVerentiate’ means 择 ‘to pick out’.) The other major citation sources in RG are Shi Zi, The Songs of Chu (), Zhuang Zi, Lie Zi (), The National Language, and Huai Nan Zi (). The major compiling practices in RG, such as arranging headwords on the basis of their semantic categorization, deWning words in multiple ways, and adopting illustrative citations from classic works, have come down all the way to the present day and have become established in modern dictionary compilation. In the history of lexicography in China, under the inXuence of RG, there have been a series of no less than one hundred dictionaries with the character 雅 in the title, e.g. (The Pocket Ready Guide, compiled in the name of Kong Fu (孔鲋) at the end of the Qin Dynasty), (The Broad Ready Guide, compiled by Zhang Yi (张揖) in the Three Kingdoms period), (The Augmented Ready Guide, compiled by Lu Dian (陆佃, 1042–1102) in the Song Dynasty), (The General Ready Guide, compiled by Fang Yizhi (方以智) in the Ming Dynasty) and (The Contrastive Ready Guide, compiled by Hong Liangji (洪亮吉) in the Qing Dynasty). These dictionaries have inherited and capitalized upon RG’s deWnition modes, and stylistic rules and layout. They have made a timely supplementary record of newly coined words and expressions and met the needs of their society and times. Speaking from the perspective of language learning and dictionary standardization, The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary () compiled by the Language Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, can be assumed to be a continuation of RG in terms of its format and compilation style, its function for standardization, and its role in instructing students to learn Chinese characters.

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5.4 the cultural and academic implications of rg As indicated above, RG was originally compiled as a teaching aid. But, in the time of Emperor Wen’s reign, RG itself was considered as a textbook and, in the Tang Dynasty, it was further elevated and ranked among the scriptures. From the perspective of lexicography, it is the Wrst comprehensive dictionary in Chinese civilization that is semantically oriented, that is, in order to diVerentiate the meanings of commonly used characters in literary language. From a functional perspective, it bears the distinctive features of a scholarly dictionary in the sense that ‘the linguistic data of a scholarly dictionary usually come from literary sources or documentary recordings in the development of a language’ (Yong Heming, 2003:62). Since RG was intended for teaching assistance, its chief function was Wrstly to help solve children’s puzzles in learning Chinese characters. After the compilation of RG, people formed a new habit – ‘in reading ancient books, keep an RG handy so as to understand the diVerences between ancient words and expressions and their contemporary counterparts’ (The Book of the Han Dynasty). RG was especially beneWcial in helping children to appreciate meaning classiWcation and categorization in the Chinese language, for instance, ‘to know more about the names of birds, beasts, grasses, and trees’ (from Guo Pu’s Preface to The Annotated Ready Guide). The second function of RG was to help to interpret ancient scriptures. In other words, it is ‘surely the ford to wade across the river and the keys to play musical instruments’ (from Guo Pu’s Preface to The Annotated Ready Guide). It is in this sense that Qian Daxin (钱大昕, 1728–1804) made the statement that ‘in order to fully appreciate the essence of the Six Classics one must begin with RG ’. From a linguistic perspective, RG should be regarded as the forerunner of exegetic works in the philological history of China. The name of 训诂学 (exegesis) simply came from the subtitles of the chapters in RG, namely, 释诂 (Interpreting Exegesis) and 释训 (Interpreting Interpretation). The exegetic values of RG lie in its interpretation of linguistic data from the classic works in the Pre-Qin Dynasties and its preservation of the semantics of ancient characters and their evolution. These linguistic data are priceless assets for scholars of later generations to conduct further textual researches. For instance, 宫 bears the meaning of ‘surround’ in the Pre-Qin times but this usage became extinct after the Han Dynasty. Without such knowledge, it is highly likely there would

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be a misunderstanding of the meaning of the character 霍 as in 大山宫小山, 霍 (霍: big mountains surrounded by small mountains, from Interpreting Mountains). For another instance, in Interpreting Relatives, there are entries like ‘妻之父为外舅, 妻之母为外姑’ (The father of wife is uncle-in-law, and the mother of wife is aunt-in-law) and ‘妇称夫之父曰舅, 称夫之母曰姑’ (The father of husband is called uncle, and the mother of husband is called aunt). How could we interpret these seeming misuses of the titles of ‘aunt- or uncle(-in-law)’? This stems from a special Chinese marriage custom in ancient times, during which period socialization was very limited and a young man could be permitted to marry the daughter of his uncle or his aunt and a young girl could also gain permission to marry the son of her uncle or her aunt. Considering such a marriage arrangement, one would not be surprised to have ‘mixed’ uses of titles for relatives. The study of RG started in the Han Dynasty. During the reign of Emperor Wen, the position of doctor was assigned to conduct RG studies and there were scholars interested in adding explanatory notes to it. Great achievements were made in the study of RG from the Jin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty. The most prominent accomplishment is Guo Pu’s The Annotated Ready Guide, whose inXuence is profound and far-reaching. This landmark work has several features: Wrstly, it contains a great number of citations; secondly, it serves as a bridge between the contemporary and the ancient and describes the origins of words and their evolutional changes; thirdly, it summarizes the modes of deWnition. Xing Bing’s (邢昺) The RectiWcation of the Annotated Ready Guide () is notable for its abundant citations and its good use of the phonetics of characters to interpret their meanings, which is a valuable addition to Guo Pu’s The Annotated Ready Guide. The study of RG reached an unprecedented peak in the Qing Dynasty. The research of scholars of this period involve collation, recollection of lost literature, addition, revision and correction, phonetic interpretation, semantic rectiWcation, textual research, and deWnitional citation. The most outstanding attainments are The RectiWed Exegesis of the Ready Guide (, compiled by Shao Jinhan (邵晋涵,1785) and The Exegesis of the Ready Guide (, compiled by Hao Yixing (郝懿行, 1825). An inXuential contemporary work on RG is The Contemporary Annotated Ready Guide () compiled by Xu Zhaohua (徐朝华, 1987), whose notes are written in contemporary Chinese. This work embraces the achievements of scholars both of the past and present. Its utilization of the newly unearthed Jiaguwen and Jin scriptures to seek the semantics of ancient characters is especially impressive and is an advantage never enjoyed before. In a sense, the philosophic ideas of conceptual categorization embedded

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in the classiWcation of names and objects in RG have exerted direct inXuence upon the politics and academic undertakings of ancient China. For instance, the hierarchy of monarchs and the teacher-apprentice system in academia have also been the dominant philosophic ideals prevailing in the Welds of politics and academic research. In deWning names and objects, RG adopted a policy of giving general portraits. This aim of diVerentiating things on a level of generality and integrity has inXuenced the development of art and medicine in the particular Chinese tradition. Western arts are good at description and traditional Chinese arts are good at capturing the image which lies between the likeness and the unlikeness. Concrete descriptions are likely to neglect the expressiveness of the image, which can only be appreciated by capturing the general eVects. Moreover, Chinese medicine pays more attention to dialectical balance (like yin and yang), the unity of the human system functioning as a whole, and diagnostic comprehensiveness, whereas Western medicine focuses on individual symptoms, the analytical diagnosis of separate parts, and diagnostic empiricism. Finally, the values embedded in RG have inXuenced the thinking and behaviour of the Chinese in later generations. For instance, Interpreting Exegesis contains the citation ‘张仲孝友, 善父母为孝, 善兄弟为友’. In this quotation, 孝 is interpreted as ‘being Wlial to parents’ and 友 interpreted as ‘being good to brothers’. These moral implications of Wlial piety and brotherliness have always been dominant in diVerent walks of social life in the history of China.

6

T HE DICTIO NA RY O F D I A L E C TA L WO R D S – T H E BEGINNINGS OF DIALECT DICTIONARIES IN CHINA

S

OCIOLINGUISTICS, as an interdisciplinary branch of learning, emerged in the 1960s in America. Its principles and research methodology have been gradually established over the past few decades. In terms of regional dialect studies, however, there is still much virgin territory to be cultivated. The Dictionary of Dialectal Words (hereinafter abbreviated to DDW) is the Wrst dialect dictionary in the history of Chinese lexicography and is thought to be the Wrst of its kind in the history of world lexicography. This dictionary will deWnitely provide new insights into dialect studies, the compilation of dialect dictionaries and other types of language dictionaries, and also the general study of sociolinguistics.

6.1 the historical background to ddw’s birth China is one of the countries that has the richest resources of dialects and the longest history in the study of dialects. In remote times, in the region of the central plains, the Chinese people lived divided into tribes. They would basically use the same language so that they could communicate without the help of a translator. A good account of this situation is provided in the following

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quotation from The Lu¨’s Spring and Autumn Annals: ‘In the nations where people wear hats and belts and where carts and boats can reach, there would be no need for interpreters. However, all around the central plains there lived people of various nationalities. A glimpse of their life and living conditions could be had from the following description: In the East lived the Yi (夷) people who had their hair unbound, their bodies painted, and their food uncooked; in the South lived the Man (蛮) people who had their foreheads inscribed, feet crossed in sleep, and their food uncooked; in the West lived the Rong (戎) people who had their hair unbound, body covered with hides, and no grains cooked as food; and in the North lived the Di (狄) people who wore feathers, lived in caves, and had no grains to eat’ (王文锦, Wang Wenjin, 2001:176). It would never be possible for the Chinese tribes to communicate with those ‘exotic’, ‘foreign’, or indeed ‘barbarian’ people without the help of interpreters. In the Zhou Dynasty, there were special departments and oYcials to take charge of foreign aVairs, including translation and training of interpreters. The head of the department was called 象胥 (interpreting oYcial), whose duty was succinctly described in the following quotation from The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty : ‘The interpreting oYcial is in charge of foreign aVairs in the small kingdoms of Man, Yi, Min (闽), Hao (貉), Rong, and Di. He is responsible for conveying the imperial edict issued by the Emperor to these small neighbouring kingdoms and announcing it to them so that peaceful relationships can be maintained. When messengers from these kingdoms arrive, he will cooperate and negotiate with them before they meet the Emperor at an appropriate ceremony; when they leave he will take charge of the gifts to be presented to them and hold ceremonies to see them oV in accordance with certain rites.’ The division of labour among the interpreters was speciWc and detailed. As to the function of translation, it has been pointed out in the following description: People from diVerent regions speak diVerent languages and have diVerent customs, likes and dislikes, and they cannot communicate with each other or understand one another. To make what they think and what they want understandable, the indispensable means is interpretation, which is called ji (寄) in the east, xiang (象) in the south, diti (狄鞮) in the west, and yi (译) in the north (Wang Wenjin, 2001:176). No later than the Zhou Dynasty, a common language, called Standard Language (雅言) was gradually taking shape in the Yellow River basin and formed something of a contrast to the dialects spoken at the time. The dialects of the Chinese language, according to The Book of Songs, were already classiWed into Wfteen regions. According to Ban Gu (1962:1640): All people have the endowed nature of Wve constant virtues. They may instantiate as rigid or gentle, quiet or tempered, which will further manifest as the diVerences in their

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accents. This aspect is closely related to the water they drink and the land they farm and live on. It is thus called feng (风, disposition). The other aspect is related to attitude: to like or dislike, to take or discard, to move or wait. These things are closely related to the mood of the Emperor or the nobles. It is thus called su (俗, customs, conventions).

One outstanding manifestation of language diVerences on the part of the people from diVerent regions is their pronunciation – a major part of dialect study. In 221, after the Wrst Emperor united China, ‘Writing Same Character’ was adopted as a national language policy for the standardization of Chinese characters. Language (inclusive of dialects) and characters were considered independent notions and linguistic facts in language studies. As a result, only one of the variants of a character was chosen as the standard form and allowed into oYcial use, while the other variations were to be eliminated. The situation of dialects, however, had not been visibly aVected until the Han Dynasty when the country became more powerful politically and economically. Material exchange between diVerent regions increased enormously and the communication between people in diVerent regions became more popular and frequent. In addition, migration also made its contribution to the trend in the formation and development of the Chinese nation. The diVerences among the diVerent dialects would hinder or even prevent eYcient and eVective communication. A new type of dictionary was called for in which the vocabulary of diVerent dialects would be collected under one cover and explained in the standard language. Every year in August throughout the Zhou and Qin Dynasties, the central government would send ‘post-cart oYcials’ to make a survey of the dialects in diVerent regions. ‘Post-cart’ refers to a kind of light cart especially designed for the oYcial surveyors of dialects. The reason the central government conducted such a dialect survey was that the (post-cart) oYcial had the duty to investigate popular folk songs and customs in diVerent regions and acquaint himself with the similarities and diVerences between them. He took charge of phonetic and musical inquiries nationwide so that the Emperor would be well aware of customs without having to leave the court (The Huayang National Annals, ). We can learn from this that dialect survey had been a traditional practice of the government. Its purposes were mainly to investigate language use in diVerent dialectal regions, to learn social customs and conventions, and to keep the central government in close touch with the local governments. The records of the Wndings of these surveys were ‘kept in the courts of the Zhou and Qin Dynasties’, but were abandoned with the vanishing of the Qin Dynasty (Duan Yucai et al., 2001:1434). There are records in the literature of the Han Dynasty about people who once had access to these surveys. For instance, as mentioned in one of Yang Xiong’s letters to Liu Xin, two scholars, namely Yan Junping (严君平) in Chengdu and Linlu¨ Wengru (林闾翁孺) in


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Linqiong, had seen some of ‘the memorials from post-cart oYcials’. Unfortunately, the materials they gained access to were limited. Yan Junping only had access to material of approximately 1,000 characters, and Linlu¨ Wengru only had the chance to examine the styles and outlines of these memorials. In The Book of the Han Dynasty, there are also records of oYcials being commissioned to travel around and examine customs, including dialect investigations. Such missions were intended to help the Emperor learn about the life of his subjects. Without doubt, language investigation was part of their mission. In the history of dialect studies in China, DDW was the Wrst to put forward the notion of dialectal region in a systematic way. To demarcate dialectal regions, what must be done Wrst is to draw isogloss lines, and then dialectal regions can be identiWed according to the distribution of these lines. DDW’s dialectal region demarcation was done on a lexical basis and the methodology employed was the so-called ‘central area induction’. As the central areas were normally capital cities or economically important cities of ancient kingdoms, the delimiting lines of dialectal regions would occasionally overlap. Generally speaking, the delimiting lines of dialectal regions fall into three categories in DDW: First, big dialectal regions are usually marked by 关 (pass) (e.g. Han Gu Pass), 山 (mountain) (e.g. Mountain Xiao, Mountain Hua), 河 and 江(river) (e.g. the Yellow River, the Yangtze River). DDW uses such expressions as 自关而东 (east to the Pass), 自山而西 (west to the Mountain), 自河而北 (north to the Yellow River), and 自江而北 (north to the Yangtze River) to designate big dialectal regions. Second, sub-dialectal regions are marked by the boundaries of small kingdoms in the Zhou Dynasty or the boundaries of provinces and counties in the Han Dynasty. The following is a list of the names of the kingdoms in the Zhou Dynasty (1) and the names of provinces and counties in the Han Dynasty (2): 1. 秦、晋、赵、魏、韩、燕、郑、宋、齐、鲁、陈、楚、吴、越 (古国名) (秦, 晋, 赵, 魏, 韩, 燕, 郑, 宋, 齐, 鲁, 陈, 楚, 吴, and 越 are all the names of ancient kingdoms.) 2. 冀、青、幽、徐、雍、梁、益、荆、扬、蜀 (州郡名) (冀, 青, 幽, 徐, 雍, 梁, 益, 荆, 扬, and 蜀 are the names of ancient provinces and counties.) Third, small dialectal regions are generally marked by river basin areas or ancient place names. Here are some river names (3) and ancient place names (4): 3. 淮、泗、沅、澧、湘、瀑、汝、洌水(河名) (淮, 泗, 沅, 澧, 湘, 瀑, 汝, and 洌水 are ancient river names.) 4. 周南、召南、郢、宛 (地名) (周南, 召南, 郢, and 宛 are ancient place names.)

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In the light of the above three dividing lines of regional dialects, DDW divides China’s Han Dynasty territories into fourteen dialectal regions (林语堂, Lin Yutang, 1933:35–44): Qin and Jin Dialectal Region; Dialectal Region west of Liang and Chu; Zhao and Wei Dialectal Region north of the Yellow River; Song, Wei, and Wei Dialectal Region; Zheng, Han, and Zhou Dialectal Region; Qi and Lu Dialectal Region; Yan and Dai Dialectal Region; North Bi and Korean Dialectal Region; East Qi and Xu Dialectal Region; Chen, Ruyin, Jianghuai, and Chu Dialectal Region; South Chu Dialectal Region; Wu, Yang, and Yue Dialectal Region; West Qin Dialectal Region; Qin, Jin, and North Bi Dialectal Region. All the dialectal words or expressions collected in DDW fall into the domains of these fourteen dialectal regions. The conceptualization of dialectal regions and their demarcation laid a sound theoretical foundation for the compilation of DDW.

6.2 the background and motivation for ddw’s compilation Yang Xiong (53 bc–ad 18, with Zi Yun as his alias), the compiler of DDW, was born in Chengdu, Sichuan Province today. According to Yang Xiong’s biography in The Book of the Han Dynasty, he loved reading when he was still a child. He had no great interest in couplets or articles and his learning in exegetic studies was not very remarkable, but his extensive reading was especially distinguished, with almost nothing under the sun not being embraced by him. It was said that he was a stutterer and was not good at communication but that he was often seen lost in deep thought. He lived a quiet, easy, and simple life without any addiction to materialism. He would never claim to do something to gain renown. His property was no more than ten liang (equal to 0.5 kg) of gold and the grain in the barn was no more than a hundred jin (equal to 50 kg). He did, however, lead a pleasant and happy life. He was magnanimous to others. He was fastidious about reading and was fond only of masterpieces. He did not like to make friends with people of high social status if it was against his own inclination. In all his life, Yang Xiong remained an oYcial of low rank. He had not been promoted throughout the reigns of three Emperors until the rank of ‘senior oYcial (大夫)’ was conferred upon him, merely because he was senior in oYce. He seldom involved himself in aVairs of state. He was regarded as a man of letters, a philosopher, and a linguist in the Western Han Dynasty. His major literary works include The Sweet Spring (), East of the River (), and The Feather Hunting () in the form of a fu-poem


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(赋, a poetic style of essay). The Deepest Mystery (), Standard Words (), Collections of Cangjie Exegesis (), and DDW are among his best-known academic writings. Yang Xiong was a master of the standard national language. He was in a good position to diVerentiate the dialects in diVerent regions as he had convenient access to the Wrst-hand materials of dialectal surveys. In his early forties he moved from his hometown to the capital city of Chang’an. From then on, he held an oYce and lived there. This provided him with the opportunity to become familiarized with the standard language and make frequent contacts with oYcials, soldiers, and ordinary people from all over the country. He would keep a writing implement handy to note down the ‘foreign’ languages whenever he met people from other regions. He sorted these materials, put them into diVerent classes, and added necessary explanatory notes. As there had been no special symbols, he employed characters to notate pronunciation, which demanded a good command of a great many characters on the part of the investigator. Sometimes he was required to create new characters for those dialects without a writing system. Thus, he acquired a Xuent mastery of weird characters of ancient times, for instance, the variants of characters of the Six States during the Warring States Period. Moreover, he had the experience of writing a textbook for children to learn characters – Collections of Cangjie Exegesis. His accomplishments in exegetic studies and his experience in investigating dialects endowed him with almost all the necessary qualiWcations to write the monumental DDW. From the viewpoint of dialect investigation, DDW’s compilation is not accidental but a continuation of traditional practice in the investigation of dialects in the Zhou and Qin Dynasties. As far as Yang Xiong’s academic interest was concerned, it is not surprising to Wnd that his fondness for imitation was a part of his nature. As illustrated in The Book of the Han Dynasty, he was really interested in the ancient classics and scriptures. He was determined to make himself known to later generations by writing good articles. He regarded The Book of Changes as the greatest scripture and thus wrote The Deepest Mystery; he considered The Analects of Confucius as the greatest biography and wrote Standard Words; he took The Cangjie Primer to be the best history book and wrote Collections of Cangjie Exegesis; he took Yu Didactics () to be the best of its type and wrote State Didactics (); as for the fu-poem, he considered Li Sao () the most profound, though its profundity made it less popular, and he believed that the most beautiful wording of a fu-poem was to be found in Sima Xiangru’s writing, so he wrote prose in such a genre. He started by fully appreciating the essence of all these writings and wrote accordingly following his own inclination. He paid more attention to internal things, often neglected by his contemporaries,

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and less to external forms and superWcial features. When it came to dictionaries, he believed that there was no better dictionary than The Ready Guide and so he compiled DDW, which was only one of his series of imitational works. Let us compare two entries from these two dictionaries: 5. : 佥、咸、胥, 皆也。 (佥, 咸 and 胥 all mean 皆 ‘all, altogether’.) (from The Ready Guide) 6. : 佥、胥, 皆也。自山而东五国之郊曰佥, 东齐曰胥。(卷七) (佥 and 胥 mean 皆 ‘altogether’. The outskirts of the Wve states east of the mountain use 佥, and East Qi use 胥.) (Volume 7) From the above two entries, we can see that DDW does not completely follow the same pattern as The Ready Guide in deWning 皆. In The Ready Guide, 皆 is deWned by means of synonyms or near synonyms, which are put together and interpreted as a whole; whereas DDW provides not only synonyms or near-synonym explanations but also more detailed information concerning dialectal use and other language varieties: which words and expressions belong to which regional dialects, which is the standard expression in the common language, and which are archaic and which have undergone changes in the Western Han Dynasty. As early as the Wrst century, Yang Xiong conducted such comprehensive and in-depth linguistic analyses of complicated language phenomena, which is a clear indication of the sophistication of his linguistic observation, analysis, and reasoning. To conclude, DDW imitated and was modelled on The Ready Guide. It was, however, not merely a product of imitation but a creative work with features that made it distinct from The Ready Guide. Dialectal vocabulary occupies a prominent position in DDW. How did Yang Xiong obtain the necessary data of regional dialects? In 11 bc, when he was an oYcial in Chang’an, he implored Emperor Cheng for leave to concentrate on academic research with ‘no salary for three years’. The Emperor not only granted him permission but also gave an order to retain his normal salary, in addition to granting ‘an award of sixty thousand qian for purchasing pens and ink and a special passport to the stone houses to read books stored there.’ From that time on, Yang Xiong began purposefully to collect dialectal vocabulary nationwide. Carrying his writing brush and oil-soaked silk cloth with him, he inquired into diVerent regional dialects and kept the Wndings of his survey on record. The subjects of his investigation were people from diVerent dialectal regions, that is, the oYcials who would report to the central government, students taking oYcial tests, and soldiers relieving garrisons. A general picture of how he carried out his survey can be seen from a letter he wrote as a reply to Liu Xin, which states, that when the student candidates vying for oYcial positions came from various places to the capital to take the oYcial examination and the soldiers to relieve garrisons,


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he would call on them with his three-inch brush and a four-foot-long piece of oilsoaked silk cloth. He would ask them the ‘foreign’ words and expressions in their native tongues. When he returned he would write what he had learned on the wooden tablets. His investigation lasted for twenty-seven years. As is described above, Yang Xiong’s investigations were diVerent from those oYcial surveys carried out in the Zhou and Qin Dynasties. His investigations were mainly face-to-face interviews with the subjects speaking dialects as their native tongues and were all conducted by himself. His work procedures included collecting the data and checking them, then sorting them and classifying them into diVerent categories, and Wnally deWning them and Wnalizing the writing. In sociolinguistic investigations of modern times, great emphasis is laid upon collecting data from actual language use, followed by quantitative data analyses and systematic and rigorous argumentation. The methodology developed by William Labov, the American sociolinguist, has attracted a lot of attention and has gradually gained popularity in today’s sociolinguistic survey. If a comparison is made between Labov’s method and that of Yang Xiong’s, it is easy to see that they have adopted basically the same methodology, but the time gap is almost 2,000 years. Taking this time gap into account, one could not help marvelling at Yang Xiong’s ingenuity and creativity – in spending twenty-seven years carrying out a nationwide dialectal investigation by scientiWc and rigorous means entirely by himself. DDW was originally designed in Wfteen volumes, but unfortunately only thirteen were completed. A year or two before Yang Xiong died, Liu Xin was ordered by the Emperor to compile a catalogue called Seven Strategies. He wanted to include Yang Xiong’s DDW in his new book and asked Yang Xiong to show him his manuscript. Yang Xiong declined his request and said: ‘Its wording may still include contradictory expressions and needs to be reconsidered and revised. There are more data to be collected and sorted and more doubtful questions to be clariWed.’ Obviously, when Liu Xin asked for the manuscript of DDW, the book was not complete. So he asked Liu Xin to wait and promised to send the book to him when it was Wnalized. Unfortunately, he died shortly afterwards. Through careful examination of DDW’s contents, we would be inclined to accept Yang Xiong’s excuse for not lending his book to Liu Xin. In terms of DDW’s compilation style, it is easy to see that the contents of the last two volumes were rather poorly written and edited. Look at the following citations from the last two volumes of DDW: 7. 赵、肖, 小也。(十二卷) (赵 and 肖 mean 小 ‘small’.) (Volume 12) 8. 吹、扇, 助也。(十二卷) (吹 and 扇 mean 助 ‘assist’.) (Volume 12)

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9. 裔、歴、助也。裔、旅, 末也。(十三卷) (裔 and 歴 mean 助 ‘assist’, whereas 裔 and 旅 mean 末 ‘end’) (Volume 13) 10. 惧, 病, 惊也。(十三卷) (惧 and 病 mean 惊 ‘panic’) (Volume 13) Quite contrary to DDW’s style in previous parts, there were only brief deWnitional explanations in each entry, without provision of further detailed information, for example, which regional dialects those expressions belonged to. This oversimpliWed way of explanation was inconsistent with what had been given in the previous eleven volumes. In a sense, this conWrms what he said to Liu Xin. DDW was in fact an unWnished or at the very least unWnalized lexicographical work, though it had come very close to completion.

6.3 the format and style of ddw DDW originally comprised Wfteen volumes and had a selection of roughly 9,000 characters. The version available today consists of thirteen volumes and brings together over 11,900 characters, distributed in 658 entries. There seems to be no rigorous standards to go by in dividing the volumes, and the division is roughly based on semantic categorization. Like The Ready Guide, DDW’s Wrst three volumes are devoted to the explanation of words and expressions. Volume 4 explains garment terms; Volume 5 hardware, furniture, and farming implements; Volumes 6 and 7 words and expressions again; Volume 8 animal terms; Volume 9 terms for carts, boats, and weapons; Volume 10 words and expressions again; Volume 11 names of insects; and Volumes 12 and 13 words and expressions again. It is apparent that DDW took its semantic classiWcation from The Ready Guide.

Principles for character selection and coverage Speaking from the perspective of time and location, there are three guidelines for DDW’s selection of characters as headwords. First, the words and expressions of the Pre-Qin Dynasty are to be selected and are divided into two subcategories: those out of use and those still in use. Consider the following citations: 11. ‘追, 随也。 ’ ‘即, 就也。 ’ ‘冲, 动也。 ’ (卷十二) (追 ‘chase’ means 随 ‘follow’; 即 ‘right away’ means 就 ‘at once’; 冲 ‘charge’ means 动 ‘motion’.) (Volume 12)


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12. ‘爽, 过也。 ’ ‘惧, 惊也。 ’ ‘捞, 取也。 ’ (卷十三) (爽 ‘complete’ means 过 ‘Wnished’; 惧 ‘fright’ means 惊 ‘panic’; 捞 ‘grab’ means 取 ‘take’.) (Volume 13) Second, selection is made of the words and expressions in contemporary speech which are supposed to originate from diVerent regions, especially the dialects of the Chinese language. Words and expressions from the Qin and Jin dialects, which appear 109 and 107 times respectively, occupy a signiWcant position. Third, the words and expressions of some minority languages are also recorded, for instance, the words and expressions of Korean, Manchurian, Mongolian, Miao, Tujia, Zhuang, and Dong nationalities. The words and expressions treated in DDW are taken mainly from Wve sources. The Wrst is General Language (通语), also called Ordinary Language (凡语), or Ordinary General Language (凡通语). General language diVers from Standard Language in that the latter refers to the common language used mainly by the Six States to the east of Mountain Taihang during the periods of the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States. General Language, however, refers to the common language used in the Western Han Dynasty, which was based mainly on the regional dialects of Qin and Jin and had Chang’an dialect as its standard pronunciation. Look at the following citations: 13. ‘胶, 谲, 诈也。诈, 通语也。 ’ (卷三) (胶 and 谲 mean 诈 ‘deceit’. 诈 is General Language.) (Volume 3) 14. ‘箭: 自关而东谓之矢, 江淮之间谓之鍭, 关西曰箭。 ’ (卷九) (箭 ‘arrow’ is called 矢 in the regions east of the Pass, 鍭 between the Yangtze River and the Huai River, and 箭 in the regions west of the Pass.) (Volume 9) Second, some words and expressions are taken from General Language in wide use or from General Language used in a certain region. Look at the following citations: 15. ‘庸、恣、比、侹、更、佚, 代也。齐曰佚, 江淮陈楚之间曰侹馀, 四方之通语也。 ’ (卷三) (庸, 恣, 比, 侹, 更 and 佚 mean 代 ‘replace, change’, 佚 in Qi state, and 侹馀 in the Chen and Chu regions between the Yangtze River and the Huai River. They are General Language in all locations.) (Volume 3) 16. ‘昲, 晒, 干物也。杨楚通语也。 ’ (卷十) (昲 and 晒 mean 干物 ‘dry’. They are General Language in the Yang and Chu regions.) (Volume 10)

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Third, the great majority of words and expressions in DDW are taken from every single dialectal region. Consider the following citations: 17. ‘冯,齘、苛: 怒也。楚曰冯, 小怒曰齘, 陈谓之苛。 ’ (卷二) (冯, 齘 and 苛 mean 怒 ‘anger’, which is 冯 in Chu State, 齘 in the region of Xiaonu, and 苛 in Chen State.) (Volume 2) 18. ‘班, 彻, 列也。北燕曰班, 东齐曰彻。 ’ (卷三) (班 and 彻 mean 列, which is 班 in the northern part of Yan State and 彻 in the region of Eastern Qi.) (Volume 3) Fourth, DDW also lists ‘transferred words’ or ‘substitutive words’, that is, dialectal words that have undergone phonetic changes resulting from tribal migration and time change. For instance: 19. ‘庸谓之倯, 转语也。 ’ (卷三) (庸 means 倯, and they are interchangeable.) (Volume 3) In some places, 庸 is dubbed 倯 since they were vowel-rhyming and shared the same meaning – ‘laziness’. 嫞 and 庸 were generally interchangeable, which can be conWrmed by the following citation from The Jade Chapters: 20. : ‘嫞, 嬾女也。 ’ (嫞 is deWned as 嬾女 ‘sluggish or lazy girl’.) In contemporary Chinese, 倯 is written as 悚. The following conWrmative citation is found in The Dictionary of Rhymes: 21. : ‘倯, 倯恭, 怯貌。 ’ (倯 and 倯恭 mean 怯貌 ‘frightened appearance’.) The Wnal group of DDW’s selected words and expressions are ancient words or ancient dialectal words whose usage is highly restricted in contemporary Chinese language, which is a typical imitation of the compilation style of The Ready Guide. Look at the following citation: 22. ‘敦、丰、厖、幠、般、嘏、奕、戎、京、奘、将, 大也。凡物之大貌曰丰; 厖, 深之大也; 东齐海岱之间曰, 或曰幠; 宋鲁陈卫之间谓之嘏, 或曰戎; 秦晋之间凡物壮大谓之嘏, 或曰夏; 秦晋之间凡人之大谓之奘, 或谓之壮; 燕之北鄙, 齐楚之郊或曰京, 或曰将, 皆古今语也。初, 别国不相往来之言也, 今或同, 而旧书雅记故俗语, 不失其方, 而后人不知, 故为之作释也。 ’ (卷一) (敦, 丰, 厖, 幠, 般, 嘏, 奕, 戎, 京, 奘 and 将 are all deWned as 大 (big). The bigness of an object is called 丰 whereas 厖 means the bigness of being deep,


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which is also called 幠 in the area between Eastern Qi and Haidai. In the area of States like Song, Lu, Chen, and Wei, it is called 嘏 or 戎. In both Qin and Jin, the bigness of objects is called 嘏 or 夏, and the bigness of a man is called 奘 or 壮. On the northern boundary of Yan and the overlapping area between Qi and Chu, it is called 京 or 将. These words are all from ancient sources but still in current use. They resulted from lack of communication between states. They may be similar to current characters but were treated as being colloquial in old books. They had their own meanings, which were not known to later generations, hence the need to deWne and explain them.) (Volume 1) In ancient times, communication between diVerent regions was extremely diYcult. They each had their own dialects and later those dialects might become identical. The ancient books kept a record of those dialectal words and expressions, but they were unfortunately unknown to later generations, which made it necessary to add interpretative notes to them.

The deWnition style of DDW Generally speaking, regional dialects diVer in three aspects: pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar. What DDW aims to do is to ‘look into the diVerences between names and objects, without commenting on whether it is the right or wrong pronunciation’ (Yan Zhitui, 1980:473), a spirit of descriptivism coming into form only in the twentieth century. Evidently, it inherited the interpretative tradition from The Ready Guide. The basic mode of deWnition in DDW is to list a set of synonyms, then to use a common word to explain, and, Wnally, to explain the diVerent names in diVerent regional dialects. Three deWnition modes are used in DDW: First, a common word is given at the Wrst place and then the diVerent names in diVerent dialectal regions are explained accordingly. Look at the following citation: 23. ‘布谷, 自关东西梁楚之间谓之结诰, 周魏之间谓之击谷, 自关而西或谓之布谷。 ’ (卷八) (布谷 ‘cuckoo’ is called ‘结诰’ in the area from the west of Guandong to Liang and Chu, 击谷 in the area between Zhou and Wei, and occasionally 布谷 in the area to the west of the Pass.) (Volume 8) Second, a set of synonyms is listed at the Wrst place; then, a common word is used to explain; and, Wnally, the diVerent names in diVerent regional dialects are explained accordingly. This is the principal mode of deWnition in DDW and

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approximately nine out of ten entries are written in such a mode. Consider the following citation: 24. ‘咺、唏、灼、怛: 痛也。凡哀泣而不止曰咺, 哀而不泣曰唏。于方: 则楚言哀曰唏, 燕之外鄙, 朝鲜洌水之间少儿泣而不止曰咺。自关而西秦晋之间凡大人少儿泣而不止谓之唴, 器极音绝亦谓之唴, 平原谓啼极无声谓之唴哴, 楚谓之噭咷, 齐宋之间谓之喑, 或谓之惄。 ’ (卷一) (咺, 唏, 灼 and 怛 all mean ‘hurt’ (痛). For a sad person, if he is weeping and cannot help himself, it is called 咺. And if he is sad only and is not weeping, then it is called 唏. As for regional dialects, 哀 (sad) is called 唏 in Chu. And in the remote area of Yan and in the area between Korea and Lieshui, 咺 is used to refer to children’s non-stop crying. In the area from the west of the Pass and between Qin and Jin, 唴 refers to the non-stop weeping of adults and the non-stop crying of children. 唴 is also used for musical instruments when their sounds are so high-pitched that they produce no sounds. In the plain area, when someone cries in such a high-pitched voice as to produce no sound, it is called 唴哴, while in Chu it is called 噭咷; in the area between Qi and Song it is called 喑 or 惄.) (Volume 1) Third, common words are employed to explain uncommon words. This mode of deWnition evidently follows the example of The Ready Guide. Look at the following citations: 25. ‘箇, 枚也。 ’ (卷十二) (箇 means 枚 ‘a unit noun’.) (Volume 12) 26. ‘帍裱谓之被巾。 ’ (卷四) (帍裱 is called 被巾 ‘blanket, bedclothes’.) (Volume 4) In these two citations, the words to be deWned are at the front, but in some cases the deWning words are placed at the front. Although DDW copies from The Ready Guide in several ways, it bears some distinctive features of its own. While The Ready Guide aims to explicate the similarities and diVerences between the ancient and the contemporary words, DDW concentrates on those aspects of words displaying regional diVerences. Consider the following citations to illustrate the contrast: 27. : ‘逆, 迎也。 ’ (逆 means 迎 ‘against, towards’.) (from The Ready Guide) 28. : ‘逢、逆, 迎也。自关而东曰逆, 自关而西或曰迎, 或曰逢。 ’


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(逢 and 逆 mean 迎 (against, towards), which is 逆 in the region east of the Pass, and is also 迎 in the region west of the Pass; it may also be 逢.) (from The Dictionary of Dialectal Words, Volume 1) In The Ready Guide the synonyms listed in a deWnition all fall into the vocabulary of the same language source, while in DDW, the synonyms fall into the vocabularies of diVerent regional dialects. Look at the following citations: 29. : ‘如、适、之、嫁、徂、逝, 往也。 ’ (如, 适, 之, 嫁, 徂 and 逝 mean 往 ‘to, from’.) (from The Ready Guide) 30. : ‘嫁逝徂适, 往也。自家而出谓之嫁, 由女而出为嫁也。逝, 秦晋语也。徂, 齐语也。适, 宋鲁语也。往, 凡语也。 ’ (嫁, 逝, 徂 and 适 mean 往 ‘to, from’. If one leaves home or if a girl is married out of a family, it is called 嫁, 逝 in the Qin and Jin dialects, 徂 in the Qi dialect, and 适 in the Song and Lu dialects. 往 is used in Ordinary Language.) (from The Dictionary of Dialectal Words, Volume 1) In the Wrst citation from The Ready Guide, all the deWned words, like 如, 适, 之, 嫁, 徂, and 逝 are taken from the so-called Standard Language, while in the second citation, except for 嫁, which is from the Standard Language, all the other words are taken from various dialectal sources, like the Qin and Jin dialects, from which 逝 comes, the Qi dialect, from which 徂 comes, and the Song and Lu dialects, from which 适 comes. The deWning word 往 comes from the so-called Ordinary Language.

Pronunciation notation In DDW, some General Language characters were employed as phonetic symbols to denote dialectal characters. These characters were referred to by later generation scholars as ‘odd characters’. As early as 2,000 years ago, Yang Xiong employed General Language characters as phonetic symbols to denote the pronunciation of dialectal words in his dialect investigations, which was highly original and was a clear reXection of his creative thought in linguistic philosophy. Look at the following citations from DDW: 31. ‘凡大人少儿泣而不止谓之唴’ (卷一) (If adults weep and kids cry without stop, it is called 唴.) (Volume 1) 32. ‘釥、嫽, 好也。青徐海岱之间曰釥, 或曰嫽’ (卷二) (釥 and 嫽 mean 好 ‘Wne, lovely’. It is 釥 between Qingxu and Haidai, and it may also be 嫽.) (Volume 2)

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33. ‘劋、蹶, 狯也。秦晋之间曰狯。楚谓之劋, 或曰蹶。楚郑曰蒍, 或曰姡’ (卷二) (劋 and 蹶 mean 狯 (crafty, cunning). It is 狯 between Qin and Jin, 劋 in the state of Chu, and it may also be 蹶. It is 蒍 in the states of Chu and Zheng, and it may also be 姡.) (Volume 2) In contemporary Chinese, 唴 in the Wrst citation is now written and pronounced as 呛, 釥 in the second citation as 俏, and 姡 in the third citation as 猾.

Illustrative citations One of the principles for DDW’s scope of coverage is to encompass words and expressions popular in contemporary spoken Chinese in the Han Dynasty. However, since the dominant target language in academic research was classical Chinese, the colloquial and dialectal characters were not in keeping with the fashionable trend of academic studies at that time. Naturally, illustrative examples for DDW’s deWnitions were taken mainly from those well-written classic texts. No citations were collected and presented from dialectal speech. From the perspective of modern linguistics, the principles of DDW’s compilation are highly representative of descriptivism and the principles of illustrative citations would have to be viewed as being prescriptive.

6.4 the academic value and cultural influence of ddw The chief purpose of the compilation of DDW is ‘to investigate the words and expressions all over the Chinese territories and recover archaic words as far back as six dynasties’ (from Guo Pu’s Preface to The Annotated Dictionary of Dialectal Words). In other words, DDW lists words and expressions on both diachronic and synchronic bases. Viewed from a lexicographical perspective, DDW should be classiWed as a decoding dictionary (Yong Heming, 2003:25).

The linguistic value of DDW Synchronically, the linguistic value of DDW lies, Wrst of all, in the recording of General Language current in the Han Dynasty. According to the compilation style of DDW, General Language was employed to interpret and deWne the


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vocabulary of diVerent dialects. Occasionally, some vocabulary of General Language was also deWned or interpreted. Second, its value resides in its fairly precise description of the geographical distribution of the diVerent dialectal words in the Han Dynasty. The function of DDW as a lexicographical work for deWning diVerent dialectal words may be well illustrated by the deWnition of ‘cicada’ and its various names and interpretations in diVerent dialects: 蝉 (cicada) is referred to as 蜩 in Chu, as 螗蜩 in between Song and Wei, as 蜋蜩 in between Chen and Zheng, as 蝉 in between Qin and Jin, as 蛴 in Haidai; the big cicada is called 蟧 or 蝒马, the small one is called 麦蚻, the one with patterned stripes is called 蜻蜻, the female cicada is called 尐, the big black one is called 蛅, and the black and red one is called 蜺. Third, DDW implies in its description diVerences between dialectal regions or sub-regions of the same dialect and their mutual inXuence. In DDW, when Wei appeared ‘to the north of the Yellow River’ or ‘to the north of the basin area of the Yellow River’, there would be no mention of Chu. In other words, the inXuence of Chu on Wei went no further beyond the Yellow River. Owing to the obstacle of the Yellow River, the northern part of Wei, that is, to the north of the Yellow River, was never inXuenced by the Chu dialect, whereas the southern part was exposed to the Chu dialect. As far as the Chu dialect is concerned, Chu appears 133 times, among which it appears forty-Wve times individually; Southern Chu is mentioned sixty-two times, among which it appears thirty-six times individually. Chu and Southern Chu occur numerous times, and they occur individually, also numerous times, but they never co-occur in DDW, which indicates that they were separate dialectal regions. Diachronically, DDW’s linguistic value lies in its description of lexical variations in diVerent dialectal regions and over diVerent historical periods. Consider the following citation from DDW: 34. ‘剑、薄, 勉也。秦晋曰剑, 或曰薄。故其鄙语曰薄努, 犹勉努也。南楚之外曰薄努。自关而东周郑之间曰勔剑。齐鲁曰勖兹。 ’ ( 卷一 ) (剑 and 薄 mean 勉. It is 剑 in the Qin and Jin regions, and it may also be 薄. So it is 薄努 in substandard language, just like 勉努. It is 薄努 in regions other than the southern part of Chu. It is 勔剑 in the region east of the Pass between Zhou and Zheng. It is 勖兹 in the states of Qi and Lu.) (Volume 1) In this citation, 薄努, a word of Southern Chu, is identical with the slang word in Qin and Jin regions. This might be attributed to the migration from Qin and Jin to Southern Chu in previous times, which could be further supported by the account from The Book of the Han Dynasty: After the Qin Dynasty uniWed China, the South China region was also stabilized and Guilin, Nanhai, and Xiangjun

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were established in order for the migrating people to live harmoniously with the Cantonese people. Through comparison, the regional distribution of some dialect lexical items coming down from the Zhou Dynasty to the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties or even to the Jin Dynasty can be described. Let us Wrst compare the vocabulary in classic works with those in DDW. Here is a citation from Li Sao: 路曼曼其修远兮, 吾将上下而求索 (The road ahead is long and arduous, but I will explore far and wide). In DDW, a relevant deWnition can be found: 35. ‘修、骏、融、绎、寻、延, 长也。陈楚之间曰修。海岱大野之间曰寻。 ’ ( 卷一 ) (修, 骏, 融, 绎, 寻, and 延 mean 长 ‘long’, which is 修 between Chen and Chu, and is 寻 between Haidai and Daye.) (Volume 1) It can be seen from comparison that 修 is a dialectal word in Chu during the Warring States period, which started to permeate into the northern regions in the Western Han Dynasty. Second, let us compare DDW’s vocabulary with that used by Guo Pu in his notes to DDW. Some dialectal words in the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties developed into a part of the vocabulary of General Language in the Jin Dynasty. Look at the following citations: 36. ‘娥, 嬴, 好也。赵燕魏代之间曰姝。 ’ ( 卷一 ) (娥 and 嬴 mean 好 (good), which is 姝 in between Zhao, Yan Wei, and Dai.) (Volume 1) 37. 郭璞注: 姝‘亦四方通语。 ’ (姝 is common General Language.) (from Guo Pu’s Annotation) It is clearly stated in the Wrst instance that 姝 is a dialectal word in Zhao, Yan, and Wei, whereas Guo Pu’s note indicates that it is a common word in General Language. Even for some common words in Modern Chinese, their etymological information could be ascertained from DDW. Look at the following citation: 38. ‘党、晓、哲: 知也。楚谓之党, 或曰晓, 齐宋之间谓之哲。 ’ (卷一) (党, 晓 and 哲 mean 知 ‘know, beware’, which is 党 in the state of Chu, and it may also be 晓; and it is 哲 in between Qi and Song.) (Volume 1) In this example, there is 党, clearly stated as a dialectal word in Chu, which could be further identiWed as 懂 in Modern Chinese. Let us look at another example from DDW: ‘茫、矜、奄, 遽也。吴扬曰茫’, in which 茫 is a dialectal


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word in Wu (吴) and Yang (扬), which can be identiWed with 忙 in Modern Chinese.

The exegetic value of DDW DDW provides insights into the meanings and connotations of numerous words and expressions in Pre-Qin literary works. Consider the following citations: 39. : ‘母兮鞠我。 ’ (It is mother who brings me up.) (from The Book of Songs) 40. : ‘富禄艾之。 ’ (Prosperity and fortune foster it.) (from The Book of Songs) 41. : ‘台、胎、陶、鞠, 养也。陈楚韩郑之间曰鞠。汝颖梁宋之间曰胎, 或曰艾。 ’ (台, 胎, 陶 and 鞠 mean 养, which is 鞠 in between the states of Chen, Chu, Han, and Zheng, and is 胎 in between Ru, Ying, Liang, and Song. It may also be 艾.) (from The Dictionary of Dialectal Words) The 鞠 in (39) and 艾 in (41) could be reasonably interpreted as 养 (foster) in (41) from the deWnition in DDW. DDW also holds a unique position in the study of dialects worldwide. In Europe, the systematic and comprehensive investigation into language and dialects began at the end of the eighteenth century or early in the nineteenth century. Yang Xiong’s investigation into dialects predates that of modern linguists by almost 2,000 years, with speciWc procedures and sophisticated techniques of dialectal investigation formulated, except that no dialect maps were drawn. There is every reason to believe that Yang Xiong’s DDW can be regarded as the earliest dialectal work representing the highest academic level of dialectal studies and studies in geographical distribution of dialects of its time. It will be highly rewarding for a modern linguist to spend time probing into its methodology and philosophy of linguistic thought. DDW not only initiates the compilation of dialect dictionaries but also lays the foundation for dialect inquiries. Quite a few works on dialect modelled upon DDW were compiled. One category of such dialectal works is devoted to Wnding more dialectal words and expressions to compensate for and augment what is missing in DDW. Scholars of the Qing Dynasty are particularly outstanding in this respect. Their major works include The Augmented Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Hang Shijun (杭世骏), The Manuscripts of the Augmented Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Dai Zhen, The RectiWcation of the Augmented Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Shen

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Ling (沈龄), Supplements to the Augmented Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Cheng Jisheng (程际盛), The Miscellaneous Record of Dialectal Words () and New Supplements and RectiWcations to the Augmented Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Zhang Shenyi (张慎仪). The other category of dialectal works is devoted to recording dialectal or colloquial words and expressions restricted to a certain region. The major works include The RectiWcation and Standardization of Chinese Characters (, 4 volumes) by Yan Shigu (颜师古), a Tang Dynasty scholar, The Records of Hard Learning () by Wang Yinglin (王应麟), a Song Dynasty scholar, The Dictionary of the Shu Dialect () by Li Shi (李实), a Ming Dynasty scholar, The Dictionary of Textual Researches on the Wu-Xia Dialect () by Hu Wenying (胡文英), a Qing Dynasty scholar, The New Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Zhang Binlin (章炳麟), a scholar of modern times, and The Dictionary of Chao-shan Dialect () by Weng Donghui (翁东辉), again a scholar of modern times. There have also been scholars who are interested in adding notes and making amendments and augmentations to DDW since its publication. Guo Pu, a philologist of the Jin Dynasty, was the Wrst to add notes to DDW. The bestknown works include The RectiWcation of the Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Dai Zhen, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty, whose work has made a rare edition of DDW available to later scholars, Supplements to the RectiWcation of the Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Wang Niansun (1744–1832) of the Qing Dynasty, and The Annotated Interpretation of the Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Qian Yi (钱绎), also of the Qing Dynasty, and The RectiWed Interpretation of the Dictionary of Dialectal Words () by Zhou Zumo (周祖谟), a scholar of modern times, whose work is a rare collection of previous studies. To conclude this chapter, one more point must be emphasized, that is, Yang Xiong’s creation of research methodology, which attaches great importance to Weld work for recording original speech. His methodology and the ideas of his linguistic philosophy have enlightened and inspired his followers as well as modern scholars. His theories have been leading dialect studies in Chinese philology for almost 2,000 years. He is undoubtedly the pioneer of modern empiricism in dialect investigation and research.

7

A N E X P L A NATO RY D I C T I O NA RY OF CH I N E S E CHARACTERS – T H E OR IGIN OF CH A R AC T ER DICTIONARIES IN CHINA

C

HINESE characters rank among the oldest writing systems in the world. In modern times, people who are devoted to the study of Chinese characters will have to seek help from Xu Shen and his An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (hereinafter abbreviated to EDCC, also known as The Origins of Chinese Characters). Without this monumental work, it would be impossible to read and interpret the zhuan scripts in the Qin and Han Dynasties, to say nothing of the Jiaguwen in the Shang Dynasty, the Jin inscriptions in the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, or the ancient texts in the Warring States Period. EDCC is a precious collection of ancient classic texts, scriptures and exegetic studies, tracking the origin of Chinese characters, manifesting evolutional changes of diVerent scripts, and encompassing words and expressions from all walks of life. Subsequent generations hold its author in greatest esteem and commend him as ‘the father of Chinese characters’, ‘the sage of Chinese characters’, and ‘the great master of culture’. EDCC is simply an inexhaustible gold mine that has attracted numerous generations of explorers. The studies of EDCC have become a relatively independent discipline of academic inquiry under the bigger umbrella of ‘Shuowen Studies (说文学)’ or ‘Xu Studies (许学)’. EDCC is

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generally accepted as the earliest character dictionary in the history of Chinese lexicography.

7.1 the historical background to edcc’s birth During the Han Dynasty, there were two schools of thought that were very much dedicated to studying Confucian Classics, namely the Neo-classic School and the Classic School. The Classic School focused on those classic works written in the pre-Qin style characters, whereas the Neo-classic School focused on those written in the oYcial script popular in the Han Dynasty. It is the struggle between these two schools of classic studies that had promoted philological studies in the Han Dynasty. That is the general background against which EDCC was compiled. Throughout the Western Han Dynasty, the Neo-classic School dominated academic life in China. This school, which was represented by the studies in Gong Yang () written by Dong Zhongshu (董仲舒), advocated the pragmatics of studying classic works. Later, with more and more classic works unearthed, especially those recovered from Confucius’ Mansion, people gradually became aware of the great discrepancies between the Neo-classics and those newly discovered written in pre-Qin characters. The newly discovered classics, including The Book of Ancient Texts, The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty, The Analects of Confucius, The Book of Filial Virtues, were diVerent from the Neo-classics not only in character form but also in content. Since then, more and more scholars have been passionate about studying and interpreting these more original Confucian works and there gradually formed a new school of thought – the Classic School. Scholars of this new school made every eVort to probe into the form and structure, the phonetics, and the exegesis of Chinese characters; thus was laid the foundation for this school of Confucian studies. In the reign of Emperor Ai in the Western Han Dynasty, Liu Xin, a well-known scholar of the Classic School, attempted to have it ranked among the oYcial branches of learning. This attempt met Werce opposition from the Neo-classic School. Liu then fought back and wrote a famous article which ushered in the chronic struggle between these two schools of Confucian studies. The disputes between these two schools could be summed up as the Neo-classic School laying emphasis on rational argumentations and being more philosophy-oriented and the Classic School focusing rather on textual research and being more history-oriented.

an explanatory dictionary of chinese characters

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In the Eastern Han Dynasty, however, the Classic School gradually gained the dominant position and there were many well-known scholars identifying themselves as belonging to this group, such as Du Lin, Ban Gu, Jia Kui (贾逵), Xu Shen, Ma Rong (马融), and Zheng Xuan. The Classic School followed the tradition of The Ready Guide and Mao Heng’s Exegesis of the Book of Songs, interpreting the classic works according to how the language was actually used in everyday life and in the particular texts when they were created. It was in this sense that An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters was said to be an integral part of the academic research of its time. Xu Shen’s Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters oVers a clear picture of his wisdom in linguistic philosophy, his reXections on and inquiries into the form and structure of Chinese characters, their evolution, and their classiWcation – the theory of Six Categories. Xu Shen believed that human cognition comes from people’s perception of the world and their interaction with the environment around them. They observe the phenomena in the sky and seek the laws on earth. They observe the activities of living things, such as animals and birds, and study their appropriateness to their surroundings. They ponder upon themselves and make analogies with things far away. To cope with social activities they invent the method of tying knots to keep a record of important daily events. Characters are created to construe experience through meaning. The question of how Chinese characters came into being has been the object of serious discussion and study since remote times. Xu Shen provided his answer. He proposed that the creation of characters came from the need for social and cultural development. In primitive society, the tribal chiefs needed rules as a means to exercise control over the tribes. In the early history of Chinese civilization, Paoxi (庖牺) created the Eight Trigrams (八卦) to help explain and regulate the phenomena in the world. Shennong began the custom of tying knots to help keep a record and manage his governing aVairs. When all this seemed insuYcient, other means were to be found. It was not until the reign of Huangdi that a man called Cang Jie was designated the responsibility of creating characters. The revelation for creating characters came from the profession of hunting. When he caught sight of the trails and marks left behind by animals and birds he knew which was which and could discriminate between them by carefully examining, sorting, and diVerentiating. When initially creating characters, Cang Jie made use of pictographs to stand for various types of things and called these pictographs wen (文), which depicted the essence of things designated and thus were not further analysable. Later, new ways of creating characters were invented, for example, by combining two existing characters to form a new character – one as the form element standing for the meaning, and one as the sound form (element) standing for the pronunciation. This composite form of

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character was called zi (字), and was analysable. Zi was therefore productive and could proliferate, according to Xu Shen. In EDCC, every character is semantically analysable and given in a rather standardized fashion. However, EDCC is designed to analyse the form and structure of the Chinese characters and reveal their meanings through such analysis rather than explaining the semantics of characters. Xu Shen endeavoured to answer why a character should be spelled in such a way and what its original meaning was. He intended to answer these questions within the theoretical framework of the Six Categories. Before Xu Shen, some scholars such as Liu Xin, Zheng Zhong (郑众), and Ban Gu had speciWed what ‘Six Categories’ meant. Xu Shen, however, was the Wrst scholar to apply the theory to the systematic analysis of the form and structure of the 9,353 Chinese characters and had identiWed most of the original meanings of these characters in a more consistent and scientiWc fashion. Of the six categories of characters, the Wrst is the self-explanatory category, in which characters are easily recognizable only after examination, for instance, 上 (above) and 下 (below); the second is the pictographic category, in which characters resemble what the things look like in the physical world, for instance, 日 (the sun) and 月 (the moon); the third category is the pictophonetic category, in which characters depict the things or events by analogy, for instance 江 (river) and 河 (river); the fourth is the ideographic category, which is appropriately a combination of two characters, and what the combination refers to can be readily comprehensible. 武 (power) and 信 (faith) are two example characters; the Wfth is the mutually explanatory category, which refers to things of the same type and can be regarded as synonyms, such as 老 (old age) and 考 (long life, aged); and the sixth is the category of phonetic loans, in which characters are originally nonexistent but the pronunciations of other characters are borrowed to refer to diVerent things, such as 令 (order) and 长 (older, elderly). This was the Wrst time in the history of classic philology in China for the theory of Six Categories to be expounded – having its name, deWnition, and illustrative characters put together in one model, in one theoretical framework. According to Zhu Junsheng (朱骏声), a Qing Dynasty scholar, Xu Shen classiWes the characters in EDCC into four types: 364 characters are pictographic; 125 are self-explanatory; 1,167 are ideographic; and 7,697 are pictophonetic. One of the most important contributions Xu Shen made to the theory of Six Categories is its application to the practice of analysing the meanings of characters in the formation of a more coherently incorporated theory. Xu Shen approached the evolutional motivation of the form and structure of characters from a diachronic perspective, that is, analysing evolutional causes against the historical humanity background. That could be thought of as a rather


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advanced and scientiWc method considering the period this method was proposed and applied. As shown in archaeological research, regional variants of characters had been in circulation among the feudal states since the mid Spring and Autumn Period. The Qin State in the West was still using the standard style characters established in the Zhou Dynasty, while six other states in the East were using a diVerent variant type of Zhou characters – the style of character employed to write the Six Scriptures by Confucius and The Spring and Autumn Exegesis () by Zuo Qiuming. During the Warring States Period, the princes and powerful dukes all established their own kingdoms. They disliked the decrees and rituals of the tradition and custom, and consequently wanted to abandon the classic works. There gradually formed seven powerful States: they had diVerent measurement systems for dividing farm lands, diVerent traYc systems, and diVerent stipulations for making vehicles, diVerent laws and decrees for administration, diVerent dressing styles, diVerent ways of articulating and spelling characters. As to Qin’s uniWcation of the character-writing system, its main work was the simpliWcation of the writing style of Zhou characters – Wnally standardized as xiaozhuan. The adoption of the writing style of the oYcial script was to meet the need both for recording more things and for recording them more eYciently. In the Qin Dynasty, the Scriptures were burned and the Codes destroyed. A great number of slave soldiers were enrolled and sent to defend the frontiers. The oYcials thus had countless documents and Wles to write and to deal with. It was under such circumstances that the writing style of OYcial Script was created – simply for ease of use. And consequently, the writing style of ancient characters became extinct. The Qin Dynasty and the early period of the Eastern Han Dynasty were two important periods for the transformation of character writing from the ancient to the contemporary style. The ancient writing style was characterized by its complicated appearance and intricacy in internal structure. Xu Shen classiWed the ancient writing fashions into ‘eight styles of Qin writing’, which are dazhuan, xiaozhuan, seal script (刻符), worm script (虫书), imperial seal script (摹印), inscribed board script (暑书), inscriptions on weapons (殳书), and the oYcial script, and ‘six styles of Eastern Han writing’, which are ‘ancient character (古文) script found in Confucius’ Mansion, odd character script (奇字, variation of ancient characters), zhuan script (篆书, xiaozhuan, created by Cheng Miao (程邈) under orders of the Wrst Emperor of the Qin Dynasty), zuo script (佐书, the oYcial script in the Qin Dynasty), miuzhuan (缪篆, used for imperial copying and imitating), and Wnally bird-worm script (鸟虫书, used for writing on Xags and for letter writing). In fact, they stood for diVerent writing styles developed from xiaozhuan and the oYcial script to meet practical purposes.

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To sum up, it is the notions of Xu Shen’s linguistic philosophy that constitute the theoretical basis for the formal analysis of Chinese characters and the macrostructural design of EDCC.

7.2 the background and motivation for edcc’s compilation In the Western Han Dynasty, the Neo-classic School Xourished greatly. Most of the scholars in this school went to such extremes as to believe in whatever was said in the Confucian classics. Some even held that ‘every word of the Saint bears some truth in it’. As everyone knows, however, language and its constituents have their own laws and regulations governing their behaviour, which cannot be interpreted arbitrarily. Unfortunately, this was just what some of the scholars in the early Eastern Han Dynasty did. They interpreted the original meanings of characters according to the form and structure of the prevailing style of writing (i.e. the oYcial script) of that time. The judicial sentences of some legislative cases were even inXuenced by this trend of character meaning interpretation. Xu Shen showed strong dislike for this fashion for philological studies and was motivated to write a book to change it. The motivations for compiling EDCC are fairly well reXected in the remark that ‘it will help to clarify the classiWcation, to correct the mistakes, to inform the scholars, and to reach the spiritual world of the ancient Saints’. EDCC was compiled to serve this need. All the explanations in EDCC focused on exploring the original meaning of characters and on reasoning about the relationships between the structural form, the phonetics, and the semantics of characters. In other words, ‘to relate characters according to the radicals they share, to seek how new senses extend and proliferate, and to trace back to the origins’ (Xu Shen, 1963:319). The ultimate goal for Xu Shen in compiling EDCC is to help interpret the scriptures, which Wts well with his linguistic philosophy concerning the function of character standardization – ‘as far as character is concerned, it is the essence of the Scriptures and Arts and the source of wise emperors’ administration. It is the means by which the predecessor can pass on ideas and the successor can appreciate what happened in the past.’ Xu Shen lived in the Eastern Han Dynasty. According to scholars in the Qing Dynasty, he was born in 58 and died in 148. He was a disciple of Jia Kui, who was not only a well-known master of the Classic School of Confucian studies but also


1 01

an expert in Neo-classic studies. Xu Shen’s scholarship was also highly praised by Ma Rong, another well-known master of the Classic School. According to The Book of Late Han Dynasty (), Xu Shen, also known as Shuzhong, was born in Runan, Henan Province. He was a serious scholar and was highly knowledgeable as a young man. There was a saying popular among the scholars of his time that ‘no one has a better comprehension of the Confucian works than Xu Shuzhong’. In his early academic years, he came to realize that there were enormous discrepancies between various commentaries on Confucian works, which led him to write the monologue The Interpretative Dictionary of the Five Classics () and later to compile EDCC. Both works were handed down to later generations. It is evident that Xu Shen’s scholarly learning in language and in Confucian studies was essential to his writing of EDCC. According to the statistics of The Book of the Han Dynasty, prior to Xu Shen’s compilation of EDCC, there were already ten scholars’ compilations of philological studies, namely Historian Zhou’s Primer, The Cangjie Primer, The Yuanli Primer, The Scholarly Primer, The General Primer, The Instant Primer, The Yuanshang Primer, The Exegetic Primer, The Character RectiWcation (), The Biography of Cang Jie, Collections of Cangjie Exegesis, Du Lin’s Collections of Cangjie Exegesis, and The Exegesis of the Cang Jie Primer () (Ban Gu, 1962:1719–20). The character books and literatary sources provided essential materials for Xu Shen to write his monumental EDCC. In 114, Xu Shen was ordered by Emperor An to join in a group of over Wfty scholars led by Ma Rong and Liu Zhen (刘珍) to check and annotate the scriptures and the other great works written in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods. This assignment gave him the opportunity to systematically read and study the classic works and to have access to the newly unearthed literature. This experience in checking and annotating the classic works enabled him to write The Interpretative Dictionary of the Five Classics and The Annotated Huai Nan Zi (), both of which were lost later, and the experience of writing these two works and of rectifying and annotating classics prepared Xu Shen well for his compilation of EDCC: he had acquainted himself with the linguistic materials of the classic works, which paved the way for him to apply the theory of Six Categories to analysing the form and structures of characters, to deWne characters, and to select illustrative examples to match and supplement deWnitions. EDCC comprises Wfteen volumes, each of which consists of two parts. Volumes I to XIV form its main part. Part I in Volume XV is the Preface and the list of radicals, and Part II is the Epilogue. According to the Epilogue, EDCC includes 9,353 headwords of zhuan characters (in addition to 1,163 variants). These head

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characters are arranged according to what radical sections the components of a character belong to. There are 540 radical sections, the division of which is based on semantic classiWcation. These sections are ‘semantically related on the basis of the form and structure of the characters’ and are arranged from the simplest to the most complex, that is, starting with 一 and ending with 亥. As far as the form of the character is concerned, the dominant form for the entry character is xiaozhuan, collocated with variants of ancient characters, like zhou characters, xiaozhuan, or other styles of writing. It is known from a memorial concerning EDCC to the Emperor by Xu Chong (许冲, son of Xu Shen) that in 100 Xu Shen began ‘to write EDCC. He sought consultation from various scholars and checked with his teacher, Jia Kui’. In 121, shortly before leaving this world, he entrusted the EDCC manuscript with his son and asked him to present it to the royal court. It took him twenty-two years to complete this monumental work.

7.3 the format and style of edcc Radical arrangement Prior to EDCC, the organization of a glossary or a word book was to a great extent random and even chaotic, little better than putting characters together to form sentences and make them rhythmic, thus making character arrangement rather disorderly and unsystematic. Xu Shen, however, worked his way out of this diYcult situation by organizing headword characters according to the radicals they share: the characters are classiWed into 540 radical types, commanding 9,353 characters. In the Epilogue to EDCC, the principles for identifying radicals and establishing the sequence of the radicals in the dictionary are clariWed as follows: From which to start? To start from 一 (one). Things are sorted and grouped together. Vertically, to arrange them according to the families they belong to and the inherent properties they share. Horizontally, the various properties will not be violated and the semantic relationships will be explicated according to their structural forms and radical components. The patterns for sense extension and proliferation will be sought out and traced back to their origins. Where to end? To end at 亥, which is the last of the twelve Earthly Branches. This will help to understand the change and the profound relationships behind it.

Thus, Xu Shen became the Wrst scholar to Wnd a reasonable way to arrange the 540 radicals, which also reXects the ideal ‘the grown child gives birth to another

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child, which will start a new cycle of giving birth from one’. Since the majority of Chinese characters are pictographic and their meanings are closely related to their radical components, the principle of ‘relating characters according to their radical components’ is of fundamental signiWcance to the compilation of the Chinese character dictionary. In each radical section of EDCC, the characters are sub-arranged on the basis of the following principles. First, the characters used in the names of the emperors in the Eastern Han Dynasty are always put at the beginning of each radical section. For instance, characters like 秀, 荘, 祜, and 肈 are used in the names of Emperor Guangwu, Emperor Ming, Emperor An, and Emperor He respectively, and are, therefore, put at the beginning of each corresponding section. Second, characters expressing something good are put in the Wrst place and characters for something bad next; characters for something physical Wrst and characters for something spiritual or abstract next. For instance, in the radical section for 示, characters like 礼, 禧, 禄, 祥, 祉, and 福, which share the semantic features of ‘lucky’ and ‘happy’, are put in the front and characters like 祲, 祸, and 祟, which share the semantic features of ‘disastrous’, are put at the end. In the radical section for 水, characters designating proper names are put in the front and characters indicating the status or physical properties of water are put at the end. Third, the characters which are a repetition of the radical itself or in contrast to the radical itself are put at the end of the section; for instance, characters like 磊, 聶, 祘, and 亍. Fourth, for characters denoting plants, natural kinds are put in the front, followed by artiWcial ones, the bigger things Wrst and the smaller ones next. For instance, the radical section for 木 puts the names for the species of plants in the Wrst place, like 木, 桔, 橙柚, 梨, 梅; the names for the structures of trees and wood next, like 枝, 条, 枚, 果; and then come the names for wooden products, like 柱, 楹, 椽, 床, 椟. The arrangement of radical sections and the characters in each section of EDCC reXect the traditional culture and customs of the Chinese people at the time of its compilation.

Principles for character selection and coverage In terms of the formal structure and style of writing, the general principle for EDCC for selecting headword characters is that, while zhuan characters are described, they will be matched and conWrmed with ancient zhou characters. In other words, the standard style for the headword is the xiaozhuan of the Qin Dynasty and other character forms, such as ancient characters, zhou characters, are all taken as variants. The sources for identifying writing styles, such as xiaozhuan, ancient characters, and zhou characters, are listed as follows: the main sources for xiaozhuan are

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The Cangjie Primer, The General Primer, The Exegetic Primer, and inscriptions from the carved stones of the Qin Dynasty; the main source of ancient characters is ‘the books found in Confucius’ Mansion’ and the number of characters noted as belonging to this type is 479 in EDCC; zhou characters are mainly those taken from Historian Zhou’s Primer and its number is 213. If temporary style variants (或体字) and odd and folk style characters are taken into account, there are 1,163 variants altogether in EDCC. These variant characters are a treasure for later generations of scholars for studying the patterns of evolution and change of character form and structure as well as the phonology of characters in ancient times. Second, in terms of frequency of use, the characters included in EDCC are mainly those in everyday circulation (黄侃, Huang Kan, 1980:50), in addition to some rare and uncommon ones. Third, in terms of the context of character use, the majority of the characters in EDCC are taken from the classic works with a long period of circulation. Occasionally, some dialect characters and folk characters are also included.

DeWnition theory in EDCC The theory of Six Categories forms the basis for Xu Shen’s analysis of the form and structure of Chinese characters. In the Preface to EDCC, examples are provided for its users to illustrate how the theory of Six Categories is adopted to analyse the formal structure of characters, like 上, 下, 日, 月, 江, 河, 武, 信, 考, 老, 令, and 长. If sub-classiWed, that theory can also include such deWning devices as 亦声 (same pronunciation), 省声 (pronunciation omission), and 省形 (form omission). Look at the following citations from EDCC: 1. 坪, 地平也。从土, 从平, 平亦声。 (坪 means 地平 ‘Xat land’; categorized into 土 ‘soil’ and 平 ‘Xat’ which also indicates its pronunciation.) 2. 融, 炊气上出也。从鬲, 蟲省声。籀文融不省。 (融 means ‘ascending cooking steam’; categorized into 鬲 and pronounced in the same way as 蟲 ‘with pronunciation omission’; in the form of zhou character, pronounced in the same way as 融 without pronunciation omission.) 3. 曐, 万物之精, 上为列星。从晶, 生声。一曰: 象形。从口, 古口復注中, 故与日同。曐, 古文星。星, 曐或省。 (曐 means ‘the essence of the things in the world’ and the upper part of the character means ‘a group of stars’; categorized into 晶 and pronounced in the same way as 生. According to another interpretation it is a pictographic character, categorized into 口 ‘mouth’ and in the ancient period it was a double mouth (日) and so the same as 日 ‘the sun’. In ancient texts, 曐 was

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星, which was possibly simpliWed from 曐, that is, with two components (日日) omitted.)

DeWnition pattern in EDCC For each character entry in EDCC, xiaozhuan is always put at the very beginning as the head character, followed by its corresponding style of oYcial script, and then comes the explanation of its meaning, its classiWcation into one of the six categories of characters, and its variations if there are any. Generally speaking, in analysing and explaining its formal structure, examples are always taken from characters in the same radical section and then from other relevant sections. Consider the following example from EDCC: 4. 旦, 明也。从日见一上。一, 地也。 (旦 means ‘brightness’; categorized into 日 ‘the sun’ rising above ‘the horizon (一)’. Note: 一 means 地 ‘the horizon’. ) There are, however, exceptions. For instance, when the expression 从某某 is used, it usually indicates that the meaning should be interpreted from the context in which the character is used in collocation with other characters. In this situation, the character taken as an example to illustrate is not conWned to the characters in the same radical section, which usually fall into the ‘ideographic’ category. There have evolved from EDCC’s deWnition pattern two types of dictionaries: the ordinary type which focuses on explicating the meaning of characters, such as The Jade Chapters and The Imperial Dictionary of Kangxi (), and the ancient character dictionary which focuses on collecting diVerent writing styles of characters rather than explaining the meaning of characters, such as Collections of Jiaguwen Characters () and Collections of Jin Inscriptions ().

The deWnition style in EDCC In EDCC’s entry arrangement, the explanation of the meaning of the character comes Wrst, followed by the analysis of its form and the indication of its pronunciation, next its variants if there are any, and Wnally illustrative citations, if necessary, from the literature or from the works of the contemporary scholars. In deWning the meaning of the character, more emphasis is laid on explicating its basic meaning. The explication of meaning is well grounded on the diachronic analysis of the form and structure of the character so as to make clear how the meaning of a character evolves. The major methods employed in EDCC for deWnition are:

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(a) direct interpretation, e.g. ‘干, 犯也’ (干 means 犯 ‘commit’); (b) mutual interpretation, e.g. ‘走, 趋也。 ’ ‘趋, 走也’ (走 means 趋 ‘move towards’; 趋 means 走 ‘go towards’); (c) factorial interpretation, e.g. ‘论, 议也。 ’ ‘议, 语也。 ’ ‘语, 论也’ (论 means 议 ‘discuss’; 议 means 语 ‘remark’, and 语 means 论 ‘comment’); (d) identical interpretation, which means using the same word to explain the meanings of several words which are synonyms or near synonyms, e.g. ‘把, 握也。 ’ ‘持, 握也’ (把 means 握 ‘grasp’; 持 means 握 ‘grasp’); (e) phonetic interpretation, e.g. ‘户, 护也’ (户 means 护 ‘care’); (f) delimiting interpretation, e.g. ‘枕, 卧所荐首者’ (枕 means ‘pillow’, something used to rest one’s head on when sleeping); (g) etymological explication, e.g. ‘婚, 妇家也。礼: 娶妇以昏时, 妇人阴也, 故曰婚’ (婚 means ‘a woman is married to a man’; 礼 means the rites and formalities one needs to go through when marrying a woman. As a woman is female, so it is 婚, a combination of the radical 女 and the character 昏); (h) descriptive or analogical means, e.g. ‘狼, 似犬, 锐头, 白颊, 高前, 广后’ (狼 means ‘wolf ’, like a dog with a sharp head, a white neck, a protruding forehead and a broad rear). Among these eight methods of interpretation, the Wrst four are used to deWne (near-)synonymous words. Phonetic interpretation and etymological explication are employed to demonstrate how the senses of a character originate and evolve. EDCC also employs two unique means of deWning characters. One makes use of 从某 ‘following the category of’ to label the properties of words and expressions and to indicate the coordination of two characters. The other makes use of ‘direct explanation’ or ‘analogical explanation’ to explicate the meaning of the character. In addition, in the deWnitions of EDCC, there also appear expressions like 一曰 ‘one explanation being’, 或曰 ‘or explained as’ or 又曰 ‘also explained as’ which are used to co-record diVerent interpretations, actually the primitive indications of sense demarcation. Look at the following examples from EDCC: ‘祝, 祭主赞词者。从示, 从人、口。一曰: 从兑省。曰: ‘‘兑为口为巫’’ ’, which is an example of co-recording the two diVerent interpretations of the writing style of 祝; and ‘昌: 美言也。从日, 从曰。一曰: 日光也。曰: ‘‘东方昌矣’’ ’, which is an example of corecording the two diVerent interpretations of the meaning of 昌. The deWnitions in EDCC can be traced to two other sources: one is ‘to widely collect data from the works of those generally-learned scholars. The validity of the data collected is to be conWrmed or veriWed with more evidence. Only after veriWcation and justiWcation can the data be used in writing EDCC’. By ‘generally-learned scholars’, Xu Shen meant ‘those scholars who are learned in


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both ancient and modern knowledge’, including those great masters of the past and great scholars of the contemporary period as well. The former includes Confucius, King Zhuang of Chu State (楚庄王), Han Fei (韩非), Sima Xiangru, Dong Zhongshu, Liu Xin, and Yang Xiong, among others. The latter includes scholars of the Eastern Han Dynasty, such as Du Lin, Ban Gu, Fu Yi (傅毅), Wei Hong (卫宏), Zhang Lin (张林), Wang Yu (王育), Tan Zhang (谭长), Guan Pu (官溥), Jing Fang (京房), and so on. The second source of deWnitions for EDCC is the explanations of character meanings in other classic works, which involve The Book of Changes, The Book of Ancient Texts, The Book of Rites, The Book of Songs, The Spring and Autumn, and The Analects of Confucius, etc.

Illustrative citations The classic literature from which EDCC extracts its illustrative citations is mainly the Five Confucian Scriptures, in addition to other classic works, such as The Analects of Confucius, Meng Zi, Lao Zi, Mo Zi, The Book of Filial Virtues, The Book of Rites, The Shanhai Scriptures, and Huai Nan Zi. So, EDCC’s illustrative citations are either taken from the Pre-Qin Dynasty classic works or from over forty kinds of dialectal materials as supplementary evidence.

Pronunciation notation The pronunciation annotation in EDCC falls into two categories: one is to use the ‘sound’ radical in the pictophonetic characters to show the pronunciation; the other is to make use of markers such as 读若 ‘pronounced as’ – to use a more familiar character bearing the same or similar pronunciation as the indicator. For more than 7,000 pictophonetic characters in EDCC, Xu Shen uses the markers like 某声, 亦声, and 省声 to label their pronunciations in the course of analysing their forms and structures. Note that the pronunciations annotated by Xu Shen should be the original ones when they were initially created. In other words, Xu Shen has preserved the original pronunciations by this unique method of annotating the phonetics of Chinese characters in EDCC. Certainly, due to the inevitable changes in the phonetics of language, there must exist diVerences between the original pronunciations and those during the period of the Western and Eastern Han Dynasty. EDCC uses 读若 to show the pronunciation of a rare or easy-to-mispronounce character with a commonly used character sharing the same or similar pronunciation, chieXy for the purpose of constructing the phonetic system of the

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Chinese language during the Han Dynasty, which makes it diVerent from the phonetic marker of 某声 ‘sound like’. 读若 has manifested itself in several forms: (a) 读若某, 读若某同 or 读与某同 ‘read in the same way as’, which directly indicates the pronunciation of a certain character; (b) 读若某之某 ‘read as . . . as in . . .’, which is used to speciWcally indicate a certain pronunciation of a polyphonic character; (c) 读若经典中某字 ‘read as . . . in a certain classic work’, which indicates a speciWc character in a certain classic work; (d) 读若某方言俗语 ‘read as . . . in a certain dialect’, which indicates a speciWc character in a certain dialect and register. Three practices initiated in the compilation of EDCC have had a profound and far-reaching inXuence on lexicography in later times. First, Xu Shen has classiWed the 9,353 Chinese characters into 540 radical sections to further investigate their ‘formal and structural relationships’, which inspired him to establish a retrieval system for EDCC, especially applicable to the Chinese language. Second, he has standardized the Six Categories theory, applied it to the analysis of the form and structure of Chinese characters, and established a working procedure for deWning characters. Third, he has systematically cited examples from widely circulated classic works to illustrate the deWnitions in EDCC. EDCC has established itself as a paradigm for later lexicographers to copy. Its style was plain to see in and adequately inherited by such well-known dictionaries as The Character Forest () by Lu¨ Chen (吕忱) in the Jin Dynasty, The Jade Chapters in the Northern and Southern Dynasty, The ClassiWed Chapters () in the Song Dynasty, The Comprehensive Dictionary of Chinese Characters () by Mei Yingzuo (梅膺祚) in the Ming Dynasty, The RectiWed Dictionary of Chinese Characters () by Zhang Zilie (张自烈, 1564–1650) in the Ming Dynasty, and The Imperial Dictionary of Kangxi by Zhang Yushu (张玉书) and Chen Tingjing (陈廷敬) in the Qing Dynasty. These dictionaries have all modelled their styles on EDCC, although they might have made some changes in the number of radical sections and/or their order in arranging them. Even in modern times, there are still quite a few Chinese dictionaries that have borrowed the compilation style of EDCC: the Wrst information item in a deWnition is the original meaning and the illustrative citations are almost exclusively from written works, in spite of the reduction in the number of radical categories.


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7.4 the academic value and cultural influence of edcc The study of Chinese characters has established itself as an independent branch of learning in China since the Eastern Han Dynasty, when Xu Shen Wnished his compilation of EDCC. Xu Shen was among the Wrst in China to have fully realized the signiWcance of character studies and conducted theoretical explorations in this connection. His contributions lie especially in revealing the evolutional nature of Chinese characters and the role they play in social development and cultural life. Quite a few of the thought-provoking theories he advocated have turned out to be innovative and scientiWc. The methodology Xu Shen had established and applied to his investigation into Chinese characters was essential to his accomplishment of EDCC, characterized by his perspective of development, his coherent philological thinking on Chinese characters, his systematic application of the ‘Six Categories’ theory to EDCC’s compilation, the prominence given to data collection, and his unusual emphasis on reliable evidence for veriWcation and justiWcation. In compiling EDCC, Xu Shen made every eVort to integrate the knowledge of ‘generally-learned scholars’ from various branches of learning into his book. In this sense, EDCC can be viewed as an encyclopaedia, under whose umbrella are ‘heaven and earth, ghosts and gods, mountains and rivers, grass and trees, birds and animals, insects and worms, sundries, odd objects, king’s ruling systems, etiquettes and rites. In a word, all things under the sun are recorded exclusively’ (Epilogue to EDCC). EDCC lists xiaozhuan characters as its headwords, as many as 9,353, and it has always been the most comprehensive dictionary with the widest coverage of and the best preservation of xiaozhuan characters in the Qin Dynasty. This dictionary serves as a bridge to help explore the original meanings of the Jiaguwen characters and the Jin Inscription characters and to help track down the evolutionary path of oYcial and regular scripts that appeared after it. Let us look at the following citation from EDCC: 5. 育, 养子使作善也。从, 肉声。曰: ‘教育子’。育, 或从每。(育 means raising and cultivating a child; categorized into, and pronounced as 肉. The Yu Book () has the statement ‘to educate and foster the son’, and 育 was possibly categorized into 每.)

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EDCC keeps the temporary style of the character 育, which is 每. This is very helpful for interpreting the character 育 in Jiaguwen. The form of 育 in Jiaguwen looks like a woman giving birth to a baby. That is to say, its original meaning is ‘to bear or to produce’ rather than ‘to educate’, which is an extended meaning. EDCC diVers from the dictionaries of later times notably in that it gives only one deWnition for each character. What Xu Shen pursues in making deWnitions is to reveal the ‘essential purport’ of each character. In other words, he tries to Wnd out the basic or original meaning of each character through analysing its form and structure and its pronunciation so as to restore the situation under which it was created. In comparison with its contemporaries, EDCC achieved a lot in this regard, though there is still a great deal of room for improvement, or possibly even mistakes in the case of some characters. Look at the following citation from EDCC: 6. 自, 鼻也。象鼻形。 (自 means 鼻 ‘nose’, in the form similar to 鼻.) There has been no literature available except for EDCC that provides such a deWnition, which implies that the basic meaning of 自 must have been abandoned a long time ago. However, in the Ruins of the Yin Dynasty, there are such descriptions as 有疾自, 惟有它 (祸), which means ‘(asking a fortune-teller) whether there will be a misfortune in the event of an illness on the nose’. EDCC has provided two types of material sources for studying ancient phonetics, that is, data concerning the homophonic system of pictophonetic characters and materials concerning phonetic interpretations in deWnitions. A rhyming book of the remote period could be compiled if only a systematic study could be carried out of the homophonic system of pictophonetic characters in EDCC. Similarly, phonetic interpretations in EDCC’s deWnitions could provide valid evidence for conWrming what had been learned about the phonetics and rhymes in early ancient times. The birth of EDCC has brushed away some old ideas and practices in the analysis of Chinese characters and in philological studies, and new trends and thoughts have gradually surfaced in academic circles. EDCC has become an essential reference work for reading and studying classic works. EDCC has been frequently and enormously quoted by later works, such as The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics () by Lu Deming in the Tang Dynasty, The Annotations of Selected Works () by Li Shan (李善) in the Tang Dynasty, and Sounds and Meanings of all the Buddhist Scriptures (also Sounds and Meanings of the Whole Canon, ) by Xuan Ying (玄应) and Hui Lin (慧琳, 736–820) in the Tang Dynasty. The signiWcance of EDCC to later scholars lies in (a), (b), and (c):


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(a) The diVerent writing styles listed in EDCC could be employed to interpret the meanings of characters in other ancient books. Consider the following citation: 九月叔苴 (from The Book of Songs). What does 叔 mean in this quotation? In EDCC, we could Wnd the deWnition: 叔, 拾也, 从又术声。汝南名收芋为叔, from which we know that 叔 should be interpreted as 拾 (to pick up). (b) From EDCC, the semantic evolution of ancient characters could be more readily tracked down. For instance, in The Book of Secret Prescriptions () (unearthed from King Ma’s Tomb in Hunan Province in 1973) can be found the following citation: 7. 日一洒, 傅药。 (It is to be washed every day, before ointment is applied.) What does 洒 in the citation mean? EDCC provides the following deWnition: 8. 洒, 涤也。从水西声。古文为灑埽字。 (洒 means 涤 ‘wash, cleanse’; categorized into 水 and pronounced as 西; it was 灑埽 in ancient texts.) Thus, 洒 in the above citation should be interpreted as ‘to wash’. Further deWnitions could be found in EDCC for 灑 and 汛: 9. 灑, 汛也。从水麗声。 (灑 means 汛 ‘Xood, tide’; categorized into 水 and pronounced as 麗) In early ancient times, when people washed their hands or when they cleaned the Xoor, they ‘sprinkled water to remove dirt’. So, 洒, 灑, and 汛 all bear the notion of ‘sprinkling water’. Later, with a change of utensil for washing hands and the change in the mode of living, it is natural for the meanings of the characters to have undergone corresponding alterations. In contemporary dictionaries, 洒 [灑] is pronounced ‘/sa/’ and means ‘to sprinkle water’; 汛 means periodic Xooding; and 涤 means ‘to wash dirt oV ’. (c) From EDCC, data can be obtained for studying phonetic loaning. Look at the citation: 顾问其诊及其病能。() (Consultation is made to diagnose and inquire into his illness. From Simple Questioning). What does 能 mean in this citation? From EDCC, we get 能, 熊属. How could 病能 be related to 熊属? From EDCC, we can further Wnd 態, 意態也。从心从能, 態, 或从人. According to Duan Yucai (2001:519), 能 could be interpreted as 心所有能必见于外, which means that our state of mind will always be manifested externally, i.e. 態 (bearing). To sum up, 病能 is the same as 病态, which means ‘conditions of illness’ or ‘morbidity’.

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According to The Book of the Sui Dynasty, the earliest research on EDCC comes from The Studies in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (, one volume) by Yu Yanmo (庾俨默) in the Northern and Southern Dynasty) and The Phonetic Studies in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (, four volumes) by an anonymous author, but, unfortunately, both books were lost in later times. During the reign of Emperor Shu in the Tang Dynasty, Li Yangning (李阳冰) rectiWed and republished EDCC (thirty volumes). Unfortunately, this version is no longer in existence either. In the period of Southern Tang, Xu Kai (徐铠) wrote The Comprehensive Studies in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (, forty volumes), which has been known as Junior Xu’s version. That book corrected the mistakes in Li Yangning’s version. In the reign of Emperor Taizong in the Song Dynasty (986), Xu Xuan (徐铉), Xu Kai’s elder brother, received an imperial order to check and revise EDCC, which has been known as Senior Xu’s version. These two brothers have made an indispensable contribution to studies on EDCC: their versions have popularized the dictionary and ruled out the possibility of it being lost. The Qing Dynasty reached a peak in the study of EDCC. According to statistics, there are over three hundred pieces of research on EDCC. Such great masters as Duan Yucai, Gui Fu (桂馥), Wang Yun (王筠), and Zhu Junsheng were all involved in this Weld. Their studies on EDCC bear their own distinctive features. Duan Yucai’s The Annotated Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (, thirty-one volumes) focuses on revealing its style, correcting its errors, marking the ancient rhyme of each character, and further sorting and updating the explanations in EDCC based on new data from research in the Welds of phonetic rhyming and exegetic analysis. Gui Fu’s The RectiWed Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (, Wfty volumes) aims at verifying and justifying the deWnitions in EDCC and it is a very valuable reference book for studies on ancient characters. The two representative masters of modern times are Zhang Binglin and Huang Kan. In their studies, greater attention is paid to formal change and proliferation in relation to meaning and pronunciation. It is during this period of investigation that this branch of learning gained its independence from the study of Confucian classics. In addition, there is another very inXuential reference book compiled at this period – The Modern Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters () by Ding Fubao (丁福保), an exhaustive collection of the photocopies of the textual research and explanatory notes on EDCC from the Xu Brothers of the early Song Dynasty up to the 1930s. EDCC focuses on analysing the form and structure of Chinese characters, in investigating their original and basic meanings, and identifying and diVerentiating


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their pronunciation and phonetic features in ancient classic works. It holds a signiWcant position in studying academics and ideology in ancient China. First, it was considered a compulsory subject in the Royal Academy during the Tang Dynasty, which means that it was of the same importance as that of the Confucian classics. Second, it was the true forerunner of traditional philology in China. In EDCC, what is emphasized in linguistic investigation is the notion of character ontology – whose main ideas involve the origin of Chinese characters, their original radical components, and the analysis of their form and structure, that is, the Six Categories theory. Since EDCC, character ontology has enjoyed a dominant position in the history of the linguistic investigation into the Chinese language. Furthermore, owing to the academic position of EDCC, the philosophy of ‘character thinking’ has been inXuencing the speech and behaviour of Chinese scholars generation after generation.

8

T HE DICTIO NA RY O F C HINE SE CHA R AC T ER S AND TERMS – T H E INCEPTION OF E T Y M O LO G I C A L DICTIONARIES IN CHINA

I

N the Western world, the practice of providing etymological information in a dictionary started in the middle of the seventeenth century when Thomas Blount published Glossographia in 1656. Blount is one of the earliest lexicographers who attempted to provide etymological information in a systematic fashion. Bailey later observed the practice in making his dictionary – A Universal Etymological English Dictionary. Bailey’s dictionary paid enormous attention to etymology and treated it consistently, purposefully, and strictly (Landau 1989:45, 99), though in the eyes of modern etymologists much of it might be wild guesswork. Considering the fact that it was compiled a century before great strides had been made in the study of Germanic philology, the value of this dictionary should not be underestimated. The practice of providing etymology in a dictionary reached its peak with the compilation and publication of The Oxford English Dictionary. Western lexicographers have every reason to be surprised to Wnd that the Chinese compiled the Wrst etymological dictionary in China in 230 – The

the dictionary of chinese characters and terms

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Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms (hereinafter abbreviated as DCCT). Its contribution to etymological studies of the Chinese language and to lexicographical studies in China and worldwide is highly commendable.

8.1 the historical background to dcct’s birth Scripture studies held a dominant position in the academic research in the Western and Eastern Han Dynasties. The impact of Scripture studies on the feudal reign of the Han Dynasty was felt in almost every aspect of its administration: in managing state and judicial aVairs, in bringing rivers under control, in selecting, awarding and punishing oYcials, and in dealing with relationships between the emperor and oYcials, father and son, and the central and local governments. Since Emperor Wu’s adoption of the policy of ‘dismissing a hundred other schools but respecting the Confucian school only’, Confucian studies had been elevated to an unprecedented height, leading not only to its oYcial recognition but also to its wide circulation and popularity. Liu Xin’s memorial to the throne triggered oV the Werce Wght between the Neo-classic and the Classic studies on Confucian Scriptures, which lasted for about two centuries, extending into the Eastern Han Dynasty. In the fourth year (i.e. 79) of Emperor Zhang’s reign, some well-known scholars were summoned to the court. The Emperor discussed with them the Five Scriptures in the White Tiger Temple. ‘Li Yu (李育), representing the Neo-classic School, questioned Jia Kui about Gong Yang. They argued back and forth with reasoning, evidence, and justiWcation, showing their full understanding and appreciation of the Confucian classics’ (范晔, Fan Ye, 1965:2582). After these arguments, the two conXicting schools began to merge into one and this made it possible to foster an atmosphere for scholars to incorporate the achievements of both camps. Zheng Xuan was one of their representatives. He based his research mainly on the works of the Classic studies. He ‘collected exhaustively diVerent opinions; he deleted the wrong ones and corrected the mistakes; he added new Wndings and further edited the works systematically. Since that time, scholars have begun to understand the essential principles and methods of this study’ (Fan Ye, 1965:1213), and Confucian study, as a school, Wnally achieved unity and became one. The thorough and comprehensive interpretation of the Confucian Classic works by Zheng Xuan formally ended the Werce struggle between the Neo-classic and Classic studies of Confucian classic works. In the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the Neo-classic and Classic studies were still in the process of merging there came the representative accomplishment of

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the Classic study – An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. Its author, Xu Shen, was a disciple of Jia Kui, ‘from whom he learned ancient studies’. Then he ‘broadly consulted the generally learned scholars and wrote Presenting a Memorial for An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters’ (Xu Cong, 许冲 ). The Wnalized version of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters was published in 121. About one hundred years later, the representative achievement of the Neo-classic study appeared – DCCT. As far as the research approach was concerned, the Classic scholars were good at exegetic interpretation, focusing on character analysis and empirical evidence; whereas the Neo-classic scholars were good at sentential and textual research, focusing on meaning and reasoning. Li Yu, in contrast to Jia Kui, was especially expert at semantic analysis and reasoning. DCCT adopted this research path in carrying out its inquiry and investigation. What its author ‘intended to discuss and point out’ is ‘what the general public frequently refer to but have little idea of their inherent meanings.’ The ‘meanings’ are embedded in ‘what the names designate and what semantic categorizations are based on’ (Preface to DCCT). ‘Semantic categorization’ simply means meaning and reasoning. Thus, it can be concluded that DCCT was a representative work of Neo-classic study when the two conXicting groups of Confucian scholars were still in the process of merging into one united school in the middle of the Eastern Han Dynasty. DCCT is designed to make use of phonetic interpretation so as ‘to discuss and point out the reference’, ‘to answer diYcult questions and explain easily confusable words’, and ‘to explore the source and origin of expressions’. Phonetic interpretation originated in the Pre-Qin Dynasty. At that time scholars had already subconsciously made use of the means of phonetic interpretation, although its objective was to make truths explicit rather than to interpret their linguistic meanings. Look at the following examples: 1. : 政者, 正也。子帅以正, 孰敢不正? (政 means 正 ‘to be just’. If you play a leading role in doing justice, is there anyone who dares to commit injustice?) ’ 2. : ‘仁者, 人也, 亲亲为大; 义者, 宜也, 尊贤为大。 (仁 means 人 ‘humane’, and to love the family member is the most important thing; 义 ‘loyal’ means 宜 ‘appropriate’, and to respect virtuous people is the most important thing.) 3. : ‘庸也者, 用也; 用也者, 通也; 通也者, 得也。 ’ (庸 means 用 ‘useful’; and 用 means 通 (useful for general purpose); and 通 means 得 ‘suitable’.) Thus, phonetic interpretation during the Pre-Qin Dynasty bears the noticeable features of being spontaneous and subordinate.

t h e d i c t i o n a r y o f c h i n e s e c h a r a c t e r s a n d te r m s

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Dong Zhongshu, the initiator of Neo-classic study in the Western Han Dynasty, was the Wrst to examine phonetic interpretation and make theoretical inquiries from the perspective of the relationship between name and essence and between heaven and humankind. Most certainly, Dong Zhongshu’s theory was established to advocate his political ideals and feudal ideology. He stated: Names are born from truths. If it is untrue, then it cannot live up to its name. Names are what sages recognize as the true things. When names are used in speech, they become concrete. . . . For the saints in ancient times, if they tell and follow what the heaven and earth manifest to them, this is called ordering. If they have it announced and executed, this is called naming. To name it in words is to announce and execute; to order it in words is to tell and follow. To tell and follow the heaven and earth’s manifestation is to order. And to announce and command is to name. Name and order have diVerent pronunciations but the essence is the same. And they are all to advocate the will of heaven. The heaven cannot speak and it enables human beings to tell it; it cannot do by itself and it enables human beings to act in it. Names are the revelations of heaven through the mouths of the saints and they need to be observed profoundly and thought in depth. (苏舆, Su Yu, 1992:285)

By ‘names are born from truths’ is meant that ‘name’ is determined by ‘truth’. ‘Truth’ is what the saints ‘announce and execute’ in that the saints could ‘understand the will of heaven’ and the heaven makes the saints ‘express its will’. In essence, ‘name’ is the explicit expression of ‘heaven’s will’ and ‘heaven’ is the ‘ruler’. Under the inXuence of Dong Zhongshu’s theory, scholars were inclined to use phonetics to interpret semantics in the Han Dynasty. Consider the following citation: 4. 女者, 如也; 子者, 孳也。女子者, 言如男子之教, 而长其义理者也。故谓之妇人。妇人者, 伏于人也。() (女 ‘woman’ means 如 (obeying); and 子 (child) means 孳 (producing). By woman is meant following what is told to them by man and their faithfulness and reasoning would thus be increased. So they are called woman. Woman just refers to those yielding to man.) (from The Dadai Book of Etiquette) The use of ‘obeying’ to explain the naming of ‘woman’ is to base the exploration of etymology on the implication of the feudal political system, which easily led to indeWniteness of deWnition in using phonetics to interpret meanings of words or even worse to invoke the interpreter’s arbitrariness. In the Han Dynasty, the theory and practice of phonetic interpretation reached its peak and it embodied well the convergence of linguistic theory, political governing, public circulation, and the arbitrariness in application. By the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the data of phonetic interpretation, through several centuries’ accumulation, had become abundant enough for works of phonetic interpretation to appear. DCCT, an integration of the major

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achievements in this Weld, emerged as its time had come. The principal diVerence between the theory of phonetic interpretation in DCCT and the principles of its predecessors lies in its transformation from doctrines for political governance into the Weld of linguistic inquiry. It is held in DCCT that ‘meanings’ are embedded in ‘what the names designate and what semantic categorizations are based on’, and ‘even the implements and utensils that the peasants use bear their meanings’. DCCT makes use of linguistic investigations to explore the sources of the names of the objects. In other words, it aims ‘to discuss and point out the real reference of the names’ (Preface to DCCT). If DCCT’s interpretations are to be compared with those in the works of its contemporaries, the diVerence is discernable. Let us have a look at the citations of the diVerent interpretations of 天: 5. : ‘天之为言镇也。 ’ (What is meant by 天 is 镇 ‘suppression’.) 6. : ‘天, 颠也, 至高无上。从一大。 ’ (天 means 颠 ‘summit, supreme’; categorized into 大 ‘grand’.) 7. : ‘天, 豫、司、兖、冀以舌腹言之。天, 显也, 在上高显也; 青、徐以舌头言之。天, 坦也, 坦然高而远也。 ’ (The characters 天, 豫, 司, 兖, and 冀 are all pronounced with the back of the tongue. 天 means 显 ‘apparent, supreme, and lofty’ and is pronounced with the tip of the tongue in Qing and Xu. 天 means 坦 ‘Xat, high, and far away’.) In (5), 天 ‘heaven’ is interpreted as 镇, which means ‘suppression’. From this interpretation, we could see that it is interpreted from the viewpoint of the ruler. In (6), it is interpreted as 颠, meaning ‘summit’, that is, ‘extremely high, with nothing above it’, which clearly shows the interpreter’s adoration for the Emperor’s power. And in (7), it is interpreted as ‘(a) distinguished; noticeable because of its high position; (b) Xat and broad; Xat and broad because it is high and further away’. For the third interpretation, that is, the interpretation in DCCT, it clearly falls into the category of linguistic study, though you may not agree with how it is interpreted.

8.2 the background and motivation for dcct’s compilation The Book of the Sui Dynasty states that ‘DCCT has eight volumes and it is written by Liu Xi’. The identity of the author of DCCT is therefore Liu Xi, known as


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Chengguo. He was born in Beihai, today’s Shandong Province. He lived between the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Wei Kingdom. It was recorded that he once made lecture tours to Jiaozhou (in Guangdong and Guangxi provinces today). At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the struggles between diVerent political factions were Werce and warfare was frequent in the drainage areas of the Yellow River. Jiaozhou, however, enjoyed a relatively long period of peace and stability since it was far away from the vortex of political struggle geographically. In addition, the governor of Jiaozhou was Shi Xie (士燮), who had a very good reputation for being generous and showing respect to scholars. Many scholars swarmed to Jiaozhou to escape from warfare. Liu Xi Xed there probably at least partly for the same reason and he took this opportunity to popularize his academic ideas and exchange information with others. In the Kingdom of Wu, there were some well-known Confucian scholars, such as Cheng Bing (程秉) and Xue Zong (薛综). Liu Xi enjoyed a very high reputation among these scholars and Xue Zong was actually a disciple of his. His great academic accomplishments were the basic requirements for writing DCCT. Liu Xi not only had an admirable degree of learning himself but also cultivated very close relationships with high-ranking oYcials. For instance, Cheng Bing was the teacher of the prince, Xue Zong was a grade-four oYcial and later promoted to the position of governor of Hepu and Jiaozhi (交趾), and Wei Yao (韦曜) was an oYcial in the court, in charge of document management. Liu Xi, however, did not hold any oYcial positions in the Kingdom of Wu. It seemed that he was a hermit but he might actually have his own agenda, possibly getting ready for writing DCCT. According to The Annals of the Three Kingdoms (), Liu Xi was reportedly said to be writing DCCT. I [Wei Yao] believe that there are many good articles in it but owing to its broad scope there are still many things to be further looked into and much room for improvement and revision. He declined the invitation to hold oYce so as not to get involved in too many activities.

Judging from the cycle of academic research, his rejection of an oYcial position would give him suYcient time to collect data and maintain the continuity of planning and writing the voluminous DCCT. DCCT’s Preface provides clues to Liu Xi’s motivation for writing the dictionary. In the Preface, he writes: since the Creator made implements and established the laws, objects and artefacts have become numerous. Until the present time, things have been made either according to codes and rituals or by the hand of the general public and they are given either formal titles or folk names, resulting in enormous diVerences between diVerent regions.

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As for ‘the implements used by the general public’, ‘people use these names without much knowledge of what they actually designate, that is, their meanings’. Liu Xi wrote DCCT in twenty-seven chapters altogether with intent ‘to discuss reference and designate origin’ and ‘to provide answers to diYcult questions and diVerentiate between confusable words’, which is probably his principal motivation for writing DCCT. The time of writing DCCT is usually identiWed as around the establishment of the Wei Kingdom (220). According to The Annals of the Three Kingdoms, Xu Ci (许慈) is a disciple of Liu Xi. He has done scholarly research in The Book of Changes, The Book of Ancient Texts, The Book of Three Rites (), Mao Heng’s Exegesis of the Book of Songs, and The Analects of Confucius. During the period of Jian’an, he, together with Xu Jing (许靖), went to the Kingdom of Shu.

The time of Xu Ci’s coming to Shu, according to the historical record, was prior to the Wfteenth year of Jian’an (196) and, presumably, the time of Liu Xi’s teaching at Jiaozhou would be around the Wrst year of Jian’an. Considering the average time it takes for a scholar to accumulate knowledge in order to be well qualiWed in philology, Liu Xi would be around thirty when he began his teaching career. In 273, Wei Yao reported to Sun Hao (孙皓), the king of Wu, that he saw Liu Xi’s DCCT when he himself was ‘writing the chapter Interpreting OYcial Titles and the chapter On DiVerentiating Terms, and he intended to submit to the Emperor for royal examination’ (The Annals of the Three Kingdoms). In the light of the above three points, the time for Liu Xi’s writing of DCCT could be more reliably identiWed as around 210 (the Wfteenth year of Jian’an) and the book was Wnalized in 230 when Liu Xi was roughly in his sixties.

8.3 the format and style of dcct DCCT comprises eight volumes, twenty-seven chapters altogether, covering 1,502 entries. The volumes are arranged in the following sequence: Volume 1: Interpreting the Heavens (释天), Interpreting Earth (释地), Interpreting Mountains (释山), Interpreting Water (释水), Interpreting Mounds (释丘), and Interpreting Roads (释道); Volume 2: Interpreting States and Provinces (释州国), Interpreting Physical Shapes (释形体);


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Volume 3: Interpreting Postures and Appearances (释姿容), Interpreting Seniority (释长幼), Interpreting Kinship Terms (释亲属); Volume 4: Interpreting Language (释言语), Interpreting Food and Drink (释饮食), Interpreting Silk (释采帛), Interpreting Ornaments (释首饰); Volume 5: Interpreting Garments (释衣服), Interpreting Court and Palace (释宫室); Volume 6: Interpreting Beds and Curtains (释床帐), Interpreting Letters and Contracts (释书契), Interpreting Classics and Arts (释典艺); Volume 7: Interpreting Implements (释器用), Interpreting Weapons (释兵器), Interpreting Army (释兵), Interpreting Vehicle (释车), Interpreting Vessels (释船); Volume 8: Interpreting Diseases (释疾病), Interpreting Funeral Systems (释丧制). The mode of classiWcation adopted by DCCT is diVerent from that in previous dictionaries and is rarely encountered in the dictionaries subsequent to it. The chapter entitled ‘Interpreting Language’ in Volume 4 is equivalent to the language dictionary today and the remaining chapters are what are treated in encyclopedic dictionaries of our times. In fact, the original texts in DCCT would be more than twenty-seven chapters. According to The Annals of the Three Kingdoms, ‘the ranks of nobility’ was discussed in DCCT. Unfortunately, there is no such interpretation of the ranks of nobility in the book available today. There is, however, solid evidence that the original version of DCCT contained a chapter whose title was ‘interpreting the ranks of nobility’, which was quoted by the Tang and Song scholars.

Criteria for word coverage and range The target words of DCCT are the common words that ‘common people use for reference in everyday life’. This could be justiWed by what Liu Xi says in the preface to DCCT. Names and their referents in the physical world all fall into diVerent semantic categories. The common people, however, do not know what meanings the names convey when they are used in everyday life. DCCT is compiled to discuss the reference and origins of names, involving heaven and earth, lunar and solar, the four seasons, states and their regions, cities and counties, vessels, funeral ceremonies, and even the implements and utensils that the peasants use. While An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters lists single characters from the literary works in written form, DCCT, however, is oriented towards the language that common people use in everyday communication. The chief unit for an entry in DCCT is the word – bi-syllabic words and words of dialect and folk speech.

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The bi-syllabic characters in DCCT account for approximately 20% of the total. In terms of word structure, they fall into four main types: (a) coordinates, e.g. : 宗庙 (‘ancestor’þ‘temple’, ancestral temple); (b) subject–predicates, e.g. : 寿终 (‘life’ þ ‘end’); (c) subordinates, e.g. : 彗星 (‘broom’þ‘star’: comet); and (d) predicate–objects, e.g. : 弃市 (‘abandon (to)’ þ ‘market’). Among the four types, the subordinate type holds the dominant position. In addition, there are also quite a few alliterative and rhyming compounds, like 摩挲 ‘stroke’, 匍匐 ‘crawl’ () and 箜篌 ‘konghou, plucked stringed music instrument’, 枇杷 ‘loquat’ (). In terms of word meaning, the bi-character compound words also involve two types: synonyms and antonyms. Take Interpreting Language as an example. There are 172 entries in which synonyms and antonyms are deliberately put together to form contrasts. There are twenty-eight groups of synonymous two-character compounds, such as 言语 ‘language and speech’, 翱翔 ‘hover’, 委曲 ‘grievance’, 踪迹 ‘trace’, 扶将 ‘foster’, 覆盖 ‘cover’, 威严 ‘awe-inspiring’, 艰难 ‘diYcult’, 断绝 ‘sever’, 骂詈 ‘curse’, 佐助 ‘assist’, 祝诅 ‘pray’, 名号 ‘name and alias’, 盟誓 ‘oath’, 念思 ‘miss’; and forty-three groups of antonymous compounds, such as 是非 ‘right and wrong’, 善恶 ‘good vs. evil’, 好丑 ‘good vs. bad’, 缓急 ‘unhurried vs. urgent’, 巧拙 ‘deft vs. cumbersome’, 燥湿 ‘dry vs. humid’, 厚薄 ‘thick vs. thin’, 逆顺 ‘adversity vs. tranquility’, 贵贱 ‘noble vs. humble’, 进退 ‘forward vs. backward’, 出入 ‘entry vs. exit’, 贪廉 ‘corrupt vs. honest’, 往来 ‘back vs. forth’, 粗细 ‘thickness vs. thinness’, 吉凶 ‘auspicious vs. ominous’, 安危 ‘safe vs. dangerous’, 甘苦 ‘sweetness vs. bitterness’. Dialectal words and folk expressions are also included in DCCT. Look at the following citation: 8. : ‘齐人谓草屦曰屝, 屝, 皮也, 以皮作之。 ’ (草屦 is called 屝 by people in the state of Qi, which means leather and is made of leather.) To sum up, main entries in DCCT are taken from various sources and cover a wide range of word formations. What is particularly worth mentioning is that the majority of headwords belong to the everyday use of language.

Features of DCCT’s layout The inXuence of The Ready Guide on DCCT in layout is clearly discernable from its text arrangements. They both adopt the technique of semantic categorization and classiWcation, that is, grouping words on a semantic basis. Certainly, DCCT diVers from The Ready Guide in its layout in several ways. First, DCCT has further classiWed some categories in The Ready Guide into sub-categories. For


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instance, the section on Interpreting Hardware in The Ready Guide was subclassiWed into smaller groups, such as Interpreting Silk, Interpreting Ornaments, Interpreting Beds and Curtains, Interpreting Implements, Interpreting Army, Interpreting Vehicle, Interpreting Vessels. Second, new categories were added, such as Interpreting Physical Shape, Interpreting Postures and Appearances, Interpreting Language, Interpreting Food and Beverage, Interpreting Garments, Interpreting Letters and Contracts, Interpreting Classics and Arts, Interpreting Diseases, Interpreting Funeral Systems. Third, some categories in The Ready Guide were deleted, such as Interpreting Exegesis, Interpreting Words, Interpreting Rhetoric, Interpreting Grasses, Interpreting Woods, Interpreting Birds, Interpreting Creatures, Interpreting Fishes, Interpreting Beasts, and Interpreting Livestock. It is clear from the above that the range of coverage was greatly reduced in DCCT but that the classiWcation became Wner and more reasoned, though further alterations and adjustments could be made by the modern lexicographer. For instance, in Interpreting Physical Shape, in addition to the Wner classiWcation, more detailed information was provided in its explanations. The words in this category involved 人 ‘human’, 体 ‘body’, 躯 ‘stature’, 形 ‘form’, 身 ‘Wgure’, 毛 ‘feather’, 发 ‘hair’, 皮 ‘skin’, 肌 ‘muscle’, 肉 ‘Xesh’, 筋 ‘tendon’, 骨 ‘bone’, 血 ‘blood’, 汗 ‘sweat’, 头 ‘head’, 面 ‘face’, 额 ‘forehead’, 眼 ‘eye’, 鼻 ‘nose’, 口 ‘mouth’, 颊 ‘cheek’, 舌 ‘tongue’, 齿 ‘tooth’, 耳 ‘ear’, 唇 ‘lip’, 髭 ‘moustache’, 须 ‘beard’, 颈 ‘neck’, 胸 ‘chest’, 腹 ‘belly’, 心 ‘heart’, 肺 ‘lung’, 肾 ‘kidney’, 胃 ‘stomach’, 肠 ‘intestine’, 脐 ‘navel’, 肋 ‘rib’, 膈 ‘diaphragm’, 腋 ‘armpit’, 肩 ‘shoulder’, 背 ‘back’, 臂 ‘arm’, 肘 ‘elbow’, 腕 ‘wrist’, 掌 ‘palm’, 脊 ‘spine’, 臀 ‘buttock’, 股 ‘thigh’, 膝 ‘knee’, 脚 ‘foot’, etc. Names were basically matched to the anatomic terms of the human body and organs. Consistency could be found in other texts, characterized by a gradual transition from macro-level terms to micro-level ones and from more general terms to more subtle ones.

The theoretical underpinnings of deWnition in DCCT As to ‘naming things with words’, there are two diVerent schools of thought in the history of language study in China. One school holds that there exist no natural relationships between the names and the objects in the physical world and that it is through social convention that a word is used to designate an object. Xun Zi is the representative of this school of thought, as can be seen: A name is given to a thing by order rather than natural endowment; its appropriateness comes from how well it has been conventionalized. If it is well conventionalized then it is appropriate and if it deviates from the convention then it becomes inappropriate. A name has no constant essence but it is agreed upon to designate the essence of

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something. A name well established through conventionalization is a real name. (from Xun Zi, )

The other school holds that a word and the thing it designates have a certain natural relationship – ‘A name originates from truth’ in Dong Zhongshu’s words. And the representative of this school in the Eastern Han Dynasty is Liu Xi, who does not think that naming is arbitrary but that there exists a causal relationship between the name and its designator – ‘A name and the essence it designates fall into their own semantic categories’ (from Preface to DCCT). The ‘semantic categories’ of the ‘name’ and the ‘essence’ are what a name of an object is based on. He also points out that the inherent relationship of semantic category is substantiated by phonetics, which makes it possible for phonetic interpretation to be employed in the exploration of ‘the meaning on which a name is established’ (from Preface to DCCT). Look at the following citation from Interpreting Ornaments in DCCT: 9. 梳, 言其齿疏也, 数言比。比於梳, 其齿差数也。比,言细相比也。 (梳 ‘comb’ is pronounced in the same way as 疏, indicating its teeth are loose, in contrast to the number of teeth on 比, a Wne-toothed comb. 比 forms a contrast when it comes to the tight teeth on it.) In Liu Xi’s interpretation, 梳 (comb) has the same pronunciation of /shu:/ as 疏 (loose), which indicates that the teeth on the comb are loose, in contrast to the number of teeth on a 比[篦] (a Wne-toothed comb). 比 refers to the type of comb on which the teeth are ‘tightly collocated’. Thus, Liu Xi argues that there exists a common semantic category, that is, ‘being loose’, between 梳 and 疏. When 梳 was named, it was natural for people to associate it with 疏, thanks to the same pronunciation they share – /shu:/. Likewise, 比[篦] was so named because its teeth bore the semantic feature of ‘tight vs. loose’, and 比 and 篦 fell into the semantic category of ‘tight’, hence the same pronunciation. This well illustrates the guiding principle for phonetic interpretation adopted in DCCT. Liu Xi was the Wrst scholar to have applied phonetic interpretation systematically in deWning words in the ancient history of Chinese philology.

DeWning features in DCCT The Ready Guide adopted the semantic interpretation as its fundamental principle for deWning characters – explaining the meaning of ancient words in standard formal language. Its work of deWnition centres around ‘deWning names and objects’. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters adopted the formal and structural interpretation as its principal methodology to seek the source meaning of the original character. DCCT, however, deviated noticeably


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from these two dictionaries in adopting phonetic interpretation as the chief means to explore the etymology of words. The deWnitions in these three dictionaries do indeed share some common features, but their dissimilarities are important and noticeable in the sense that the authors are diVerently motivated and their methodologies fundamentally diVerent. Consider the following citations that illustrate how 跽 has been deWned diVerently in the three dictionaries: 10. : ‘启 (跽), 跪也。 ’ [晋]郭璞注云: ‘小跽。 ’ (启, also 跽 ‘kneeling’, means 跪 ‘kneel’. According to the annotation by Guo Pu, it means ‘short kneeling’.) (from The Ready Guide) 11. : ‘跽, 长跪也。从足, 忌声。 ’ (跽 means ‘long kneeling’, categorized into 足 ‘foot’ and pronounced as 忌 /ji/.) (from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters) 12. : ‘跽, 忌也。见所敬忌不敢自安也。 ’ (跽 is interpreted as 忌, meaning ‘feeling uneasy when seeing somebody or somebody respectful or awesome’.) (from DCCT) It can be seen from the interpretation in DCCT that Liu Xi takes it that the meaning of 跽 is from 忌, designating the psychology towards an elder – ‘feeling uneasy’. Let us see how Duan Yucai analysed the diVerent interpretations from the three dictionaries above: 13. ‘长跽乃古语。人安坐则形驰,敬则小跪耸体,若加长焉’故曰长跽。 ’ (Duan Yucai, 1981:81) (长跽 is an archaic expression. When someone sits quietly, he looks relaxed. To show respect, he would have to keep straight and kneel slightly, which looks as if he ‘grows taller’ and thus is 长跽 ‘long kneeling’. (from Duan Yucai, 1981:81) Thus, The Ready Guide and An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters both interpreted 跽 from the perspective of the conWguration of an action; DCCT, however, interpreted it from a psychological perspective. It is apparent that The Ready Guide laid more emphasis on ‘diVerentiating the essence of names’. Xu Shen based his interpretation mainly on the analysis of the character form and the external physical properties of objects. Liu Xi paid greater attention to pronunciation, through which the naming of an object could be explained etymologically. To conclude, the discrepancies between the three dictionaries were a result of the diVerent perspectives they adopted in observing things and the diVerent modes they established and employed in interpreting and explaining the meaning of words. The second feature of deWnition in DCCT is the simultaneous use of semantic interpretation and phonetic interpretation. A name is interpreted not only with a

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character sharing identical or similar pronunciations but also semantically or by means of explaining why it is phonetically interpreted. The interpretations in DCCT are usually arranged in either of the sequences of ‘phonetic interpretation before semantic interpretation’ (see 14) or of ‘semantic interpretation before phonetic interpretation’ (see 15). 14. ‘月, 阙也, 满则阙也。 ’ (月 ‘moon’ is pronounced in the same way as 阙 ‘lacking’ /que/; when the moon is full it begins to wane. ) 15. ‘山顶曰冢。冢, 肿也, 言肿起也。 ’ (The top or summit of the mountain is called 冢. 冢 is pronounced in the same way as 肿, meaning ‘swell up’.) The third feature of deWnitions in DCCT is to use semantic interpretation directly. This might be the last choice that the author had to resort to when no appropriate phonetic interpretation could be worked out, as in (16) and (17) in the following citations: 16. ‘日月亏曰食, 稍稍侵亏如虫食草木叶也。 ’ (The wane of the sun or the moon is called 食 ‘eclipse’, meaning the slow disappearance of the sun’s or the moon’s light when the earth passes between the sun and the moon, just like an insect eating up blades of grass or the leaves of the tree.) 17. ‘流星, 星转行如流水也。 ’ (流星 ‘meteor, shooting star’ means the stars travel through outer space like Xowing water.) The deWnitions of such a mode amount to approximately 15% of the total in DCCT.

Phonetic interpretation rules in DCCT There are three phonetic interpretation rules observed in DCCT. The Wrst rule is the identical character interpretation in which the interpreter and the interpreted are the same character. This rule applies to the cases where the character in question is polysemous. In other words, the diVerent senses of a single character could sometimes be used for mutual explanation. Look at the following two citations: 18. ‘布, 布也。布列众缕为经, 以维横成之也。 ’ (布 means 布 ‘cloth’, which is made of the vertical texture 经 ‘longitude’ and the horizontal texture 维 ‘latitude’.)

t h e d i c t i o n a r y o f c h i n e s e c h a r a c t e r s a n d te r m s

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19. ‘寝, 寝也。所寝息也。 ’ (寝 is 寝, which means ‘a place to sleep’.) In (18), the ‘cloth’ sense of 布 is used to interpret its ‘distribution’ sense, followed by a more detailed description of how a piece of cloth is made in weaving and what its texture looks like. In (19), the noun of 寝 (bedroom) is interpreted with its verb form ‘to sleep’. One obvious disadvantage of this mode of identical character interpretation lies in its ambiguous meaning description, which makes it impossible to become a major mode of interpretation. The second rule is the use of a homophone to interpret, applying to the cases where the interpreter and the interpreted share the same initial consonant and vowel. The tone could be the same or diVerent. Consider the following citations: 20. ‘水草交曰湄。湄, 眉也。临水如眉临目也, 水经、川归之处也。 ’ (湄 means the place where water and grass meet, ‘river bank’. 湄 has the same pronunciation as 眉, meaning the river bank overlooking water like the eyebrows overlooking the eyes. It is the place where water passes and rivers meet.) 21. ‘径, 经也, 人所经由也。 ’ (径 has the same pronunciation as 经, meaning the path man walks on.) In (20), 湄 and 眉 share the same initial consonant, vowel, and tone. In (21), 径 and 经 share the same initial consonant and vowel but the tone is diVerent. The third rule is to interpret with a character sharing a similar pronunciation, which applies to the cases where the interpreter and the interpreted do not necessarily share the same initial consonant and vowel. The initial consonants and vowels may be similar or very close.

Phonetic notation in DCCT The scholars before Liu Xi generally adopted the methods of 直音 (direct phonetic notation) and labels like 读若 (pronounced as). In DCCT, however, Liu Xi began to make tentative use of the position and the manner of pronunciation to describe the pronunciation of a character. His method is very close to the descriptive phonetics today. Look at the citations from DCCT: 22. ‘天, 豫、司、兖、冀以舌腹言之。天, 显也, 在上高显也。青、徐舌头言之。天, 坦也, 坦然高而远也。 ’ (天, 豫, 司, 兖, and 冀 are pronounced with the body of the tongue. 天 is deWned as 显 ‘apparent and high up’ and is pronounced with the tip of the tongue in the regions of Qing and Xu, where 天 means 坦 ‘Xat, high up, and distant’.)

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23. ‘风, 兖、豫、司、冀横口合唇言之。风, 汜也, 其气博汜而动物也。青、徐言风, 踧口开唇推气言之。风, 放也, 气放散也。 ’ (风, 兖, 豫, 司, and 冀 are pronounced by expanding the mouth and closing the lips. 风 is deWned as 汜, meaning the air Xows and disturbs things. 风 is pronounced by contracting the mouth, opening the lips, and blowing air out in the regions of Qing and Xu, where 风 means 放 ‘releasing the air’.) The terms used to describe the pronunciations in the above citations involve 舌腹 (the body of the tongue), 舌头 (tongue blade), 横口 (expansion of mouth), 合唇 (close lips), 踧口 (contraction of mouth), and 开唇 (open lips). All these terms are employed to describe the process of the articulation of a character from the perspective of position and manner of articulation. Owing to the substantial drawbacks of science and technology of his time, Liu Xi’s exploration in phonetic notation of Chinese characters was destined to be primitive and pre-scientiWc, as he failed to accurately portray the sound values of Chinese characters. His insights into phonetic description, however, are of great signiWcance to scholars of later generations, especially to those compiling character and word dictionaries.

8.4 the academic value and cultural influence of dcct DCCT has it as its guiding principle and major objective to cover common words and expressions that ordinary people use in everyday communication but whose meaning and reference they fail to appreciate. It aims to deWne them and ‘make explicit their essence and reference’, and to fulWl the function of ‘understanding diYcult words and dissipating confusion’ (Preface to DCCT). It follows that DCCT embodies an adequate exposition of the three features of an instructional dictionary. First, ‘a pedagogical dictionary usually adopts the synchronic principle, for it is oriented to teach how to use the language, to help solve the problems of speciWc words in use, and to facilitate linguistic competence and performance.’ Second, the language materials in a pedagogical dictionary are ‘mainly about the basic vocabulary of a language’. Third, the corpus used in a pedagogical dictionary is ‘mainly contemporary, keeping a good balance between the written and the spoken language’ (Yong Heming, 2003:63). Thus, DCCT falls into the category of a pedagogical dictionary.


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Academic Value of DCCT The value of DCCT may be considered from diVerent perspectives, that is, from the angle of its function as a dictionary, from a linguistic dimension, and from a sociological dimension. First, from a user’s perspective, it fulWls the function of making explicit the confusions surrounding the naming of many things and facilitating the analysis of the regularities in naming objects. Look at the following citation: 24. ‘简, 间也。编之篇篇有间也。 ’ (简 is deWned as 间 ‘space, interval’, that is, between chapters.) From Liu Xi’s description we can glean knowledge about how ‘books’ were made during his time, corroborated by the discovery of bamboo slips from the Han Dynasty. Here is another citation: 薜荔拍兮蕙绸 (from The Songs of Chu, ). According to the annotation by Wang Yi (王逸), ‘拍 means 搏壁, and 绸 means 束缚 ‘‘bind’’ ’. What does 搏壁 mean? This question puzzled scholars for centuries. Then DCCT provided the answer: 25. ‘搏壁, 以席搏著壁也。 ’ (搏壁 means ‘using matting to cover and decorate walls’.) From the interpretation of 搏壁 in DCCT, the citation from The Songs of Chu can be appropriately interpreted as ‘the bedroom is decorated with matting made of climbing Wgs, which is bound up with Faber cymbidium’. Secondly, scholars today can take advantage of the materials used in DCCT for phonetic interpretation to study the phonetics of Chinese characters in the Eastern Han Dynasty. A large number of illustrative examples represent how the phonetic system actually functioned during Liu Xi’s time. Moreover, these examples are also valuable data for the studies of ancient speech sounds. Look at the following citation: 26. ‘车, 古者曰车, 声如居, 言行所以居人也。今曰车, 声近舍。车, 舍也, 行者所处若居舍也。 ’ (In ancient times, 车 ‘cart’ was pronounced as 居 /ju/, indicating ‘a place to live in while travelling’. Today, it is pronounced as 舍 /she/, indicating ‘a place that seems to the traveller to be a house’.) Liu Xi was a resident in Qing Province and it could be inferred that at that time 车 and 舍 shared roughly the same pronunciation. Thanks to DCCT’s preservation of intact phonetic interpretation materials, several important Wndings have been achieved in the area of Chinese phonology:

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(a) There were no light labials in ancient times according to Qian Daxin. Look at the following citations: 27. ‘邦, 封也。 ’ (邦 is pronounced 封, meaning ‘seal’.) 28. ‘负, 背也。 ’ (负 is pronounced 背, meaning ‘back’.) 29. ‘法,逼也。 ’ (法 is pronounced 逼, meaning ‘force’.) In the above citations, the interpretative characters and the interpreted ones share the same or similar pronunciation, which justiWes the statement that there had been no diVerentiation of light and heavy labials by the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. (b) In ancient Chinese phonology, 娘, 泥, 二 and 纽 were classiWed into the category of 泥, according to Zhang Binglin. Consider the following citations: 30. ‘男, 任也。 ’ (男 is pronounced like 任 ‘appointment’.) 31. ‘入, 内也。 ’ (入 is pronounced like 内 ‘inside’.) In the above citations, 任 and 入 fell into the category of 泥 in ancient times, but falls into the category of 日 in modern times. (c) In ancient times, there was no diVerentiation between apical and dorsal, according to Qian Daxin. Have a look at the following citations: 32. ‘达, 彻也。 ’ (达 means 彻 ‘completely’.) 33. ‘幢, 童也。 ’ (幢 means 童 ‘childhood’.) In the above citations, 彻 and 幢 are ‘dorsal’ while 达 and 童 are ‘apical’. These two types had not been diVerentiated by that time. Third, DCCT can serve as a tool showing in eVect how civilization developed throughout the time it was compiled. The deWnitions of names and objects, in essence, are a summary of human knowledge and wisdom accumulated at a certain stage in the process of civilization. In the Eastern Han Dynasty, the most outstanding scientists are Zhang Heng (张衡), Cai Lun (蔡伦), Zhang Zhongjing (张仲景), and Hua Tuo (华佗), whose achievements are marked by scientiWc sophistication. DCCT contains a rich collection of human thought and knowledge of its time, which generally includes (a) historical knowledge about science and technology; (b) clothing, food, shelter, and means of transport; (c) implements; (d) social customs; and (e) values. Here are some citations from DCCT: 34. ‘脚, 却也。以其坐时却在后也。 ’ (脚 means 却 ‘foot’, indicating the posture of sitting on the shanks with feet remaining behind.) When DCCT interprets 脚 (foot), the posture of sitting is described, from which it can be inferred that the same way of sitting as previously, that is, kneeling down


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on the ground, had remained unchanged, but a fuller description of the posture is provided. 35. ‘法, 逼也。人莫不欲从其志, 逼正使有所限也。 ’ (法 ‘law’ is pronounced as 逼, meaning ‘force’. All people want to follow their own inclination, but laws set limits on their conduct.) 36. ‘律, 累也。累人心, 使不得放肆也。 ’ (律 ‘law, regulation’ is pronounced 累 ‘fatigue’. Laws and regulations make people feel fatigued at heart, eventually without becoming wanton and unbridled.) 37. ‘口上曰髭。髭, 姿也。为姿容之美也。 ’ (The hair on the upper part of the mouth is called 髭 ‘moustache’. 髭 means 姿 ‘looks, appearance’, indicating the beauty of one’s looks.) 38. ‘颐下曰须。须, 秀也。物成乃秀, 人成而须生也。 ’ (The hair on the lower part of the mouth, the jaw, is called 须 ‘beard’. 须 means 秀 ‘handsome’. When things grow bigger they look elegant. When men grow the beard will appear.) Examples (35) and (36) denote interpretations of ‘law’ and ‘regulations’, from which it is clearly seen that the core meanings lie in execution by force – ‘make someone not dare to be unbridled’. In the last two instances, the meanings of ‘beard’ and ‘moustache’ are explained and their aesthetic role for the people in the Eastern Han Dynasty can be well appreciated.

Cultural InXuence of DCCT The inXuences of DCCT can be seen mainly in annotative studies on DCCT, in its implications for the ‘right radical theory’ (右文说) and etymological studies, and in its indispensable role in the history of academic studies. First, as far as annotative studies on DCCT are concerned, the Qing Dynasty scholars have made the greatest contributions. The most inXuential work is Supplements to the RectiWed Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms () by Wang Xianqian (王先谦). This work bears two distinctive features: one is its exhaustive collection of generations of studies on DCCT. The main resources of Wang Xianqian’s work come from The RectiWed Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms () by Bi Yuan (毕沅). It also includes supplementary annotations by Cheng Rongjing (成蓉镜) and Sun Yirang (孙诒让) and materials from other works that were scrupulously selected. The other distinctive feature is the direct expression of the author’s analytical thoughts, which served as revision to those of other scholars.

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Second, from the linguistic perspective, DCCT initiated eVorts in etymological studies. The linguistic philosophy in DCCT is of great signiWcance to scholars of later generations, especially in the formation of the investigation mode – ‘to seek meaning from the sound’. Liu Xi interprets a character with its sound symbol that is a character by itself, as in ‘趾, 止也’, ‘颊, 夹也’, and ‘智, 知也’, interprets the character of sound symbol with one of its proliferations, as in ‘阴, 荫也’, ‘皮, 被也’, and ‘委, 萎也’, and interprets a character with a character having the same sound symbol, as in ‘帐, 张也’, ‘慢, 漫也’, and ‘根, 跟也’. All these modes of phonetic interpretation were original and exemplary and furnished the basis for the development of the ‘right radical theory’. Let us turn once again to the ‘right radical theory’. Yang Quan (杨泉), a scholar of the Jin Dynasty, says in his On Physics () that 坚 (hard) applies to metal; 紧 (tight) applies to grass and wood; and 贤 (virtuous) applies to human beings. The three characters share roughly the same pronunciation and the same essence – ‘rigid, solid, and tight’. Wang Zishao (王子韶), a scholar of the Song Dynasty, specialized in studying Chinese characters. His explanation of the ‘right radical theory’ goes as follows: The classiWcation of characters is represented by the left part of a character and the meaning by the right part, as in the case of the category of 木 (woods, trees). The left part of the characters in this category is always 木. The socalled ‘right character’ stands for its meaning, as in the case of 戋, which means ‘little, small’. ‘Little water’ is thus 浅 (shallow); ‘a small piece of money’ is 钱 (cent); ‘little badness (歹)’ is 残 (incomplete); and small shell (贝, used as money in ancient times) is 贱 (cheap). All such words share the meaning of 戋 (‘small’ or ‘little’) (from The Mengxi Collection of Written Dialogues, Volume 14, ). Etymological studies advanced by leaps and bounds in the mode established by Liu Xi in the Qing Dynasty. Duan Yucai, in his The Annotated Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, put forth the notion of ‘seeking semantics from phonetics’. In the evolution of language, as he views it, the phonetic form would come Wrst and the characters in written form, used to record the spoken form, would come later. Thus, he concludes that when An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters states that a pronunciation comes from a certain character, then the character that stands for the pronunciation should have the same meaning as the character that is denoted, which is illustrated by the following citation from Duan Yucai (1981:731): 39. ‘力者, 筋也。筋有脉络可寻, 故凡有理之字皆从力。阞者, 地理也; 朸者, 木理也; 泐者, 水理也。 ’ (力 means 筋 ‘veins’. Veins can be traced by their textures. Thus, all characters designating things with a texture will always have a component – 力


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(force). Likewise, 阞 designates the structure of landform; 朸 designates the texture of wood; and 泐 designates the structure of a river system.) Subsequent to DCCT emerged another signiWcant work exploring the etymology of Chinese characters – Interpreting Bigness () by Wang Niansun. His contribution to the theory of ‘seeking semantics from phonetics’ is well embodied in the following quotation from The RectiWed Broad Ready Guide (): ‘In seeking the ancient meaning from ancient pronunciation, attention should be given to how meaning is extended by analogy, not to be conWned by form and structure’. Etymology had not become a relatively serious and systematic branch of learning until Zhang Taiyan (章太炎) published The Beginnings of Chinese Characters () and Wang Li published The Cognate Dictionary of Characters (). All this progress in etymological study can be traced to the basic framework laid down by Liu Xi in his DCCTand can be thought of as extensions of his etymological endeavours. Finally, from the perspective of academic history, DCCT, as a pedagogical dictionary, embodies, to some extent, a summary of the scientiWc investigations of its time in its explanations, marking the knowledge level the people in the Eastern Han Dynasty had reached. At the same time, it also functions as a bridge to facilitate the passing on of civilization from one generation to another.

9

THEORETICAL INQUIRIES I N TO L E X I C O G R A P H I C A L ISSUES IN ANCIENT C H I NA : A SU RV EY

T

HE earliest dictionaries in the world originated about 4,000 years ago in the Middle East. They were mainly bilingual glossaries. About one thousand years later in ancient India dictionaries were also compiled in the form of bilingual glossaries for explaining the diYcult words in Veda. The earliest dictionary in China can be traced back to The Ready Guide, a monolingual dictionary compiled 2,200 years ago. Lexicography, a branch of learning with such a long history, has made brilliant and indispensable contributions to world civilization and at the same time has formed a culture of its own. Viewed from a diVerent perspective, lexicography can also be considered a newly emerging discipline whose theoretical generalization and methodological formulation are still in the process of being matured and perfected, with the deepening of lexicographical investigations and the constant interaction between dictionary compilation and language studies. The Chinese character dictionary is a unique product of lexicographical culture in China. The term 字典 (character dictionary) was coined before the Tang Dynasty, which can be justiWed by the fact that it occurred nine times in Sounds and Meanings of all the Buddhist Scriptures () by Hui Lin (see Qian Jianfu, 1989). After the publication of The Imperial Dictionary of Kangxi the term ‘character dictionary’ began to become popular. The term 辞典 (literally ‘diction dictionary’ or ‘word dictionary’) is said to have been introduced at the end of the Qing Dynasty into Chinese from English via Japanese, which also uses

theoretical inquiries in ancient china

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Chinese characters to translate Western words. Lexicography was rendered into Chinese as 词典 (or 辞典 or 辞书) 编纂法 before 1978, relying heavily on its deWnition in English and strongly suggesting an over-emphasis on the practical side of lexicography. As lexicography progresses in modern times, theoretical inquiries are beginning to gain more and more prominence. Since 1978 the term 词典学 has been established as the standard translation for its English equivalent ‘lexicography’, for it has attained gradual recognition as a relatively independent discipline, embracing whatever aspects are concerned with dictionary making and related theoretical research.

9.1 the origin of lexicography The lexicographical culture in China evolved from the compilation of characterlearning textbooks and wordbooks. In remote times, all the work relating to textbook or wordbook compilation would have to be started from scratch – specifying the purpose, establishing principles and methods, delimiting the coverage, choosing the most appropriate mode and procedure for deWning word senses, and designing the scientiWc and standard criteria for regulating compilation. As far as compilation is concerned, all the above aspects need to be considered systematically before a wordbook or dictionary project can be initiated. It must have taken a great deal of time and wisdom for the style of wordbooks and dictionaries in ancient times to be transformed into the scientiWc and standardized style of modern lexicography, during which process ancient lexicography in China started to take shape, gradually growing and maturing as these crucial questions were taken into consideration. Chinese characters started to emerge and evolve about 6,000 years ago and the literature of Chinese characters began to appear and develop from the Xia Dynasty. According to The Book of the Han Dynasty, even after the Burning Book Event in the Qin Dynasty, there were still over 140 categories of Pre-Qin works that survived to the Western Han Dynasty, including immortal works like Zuo’s Spring and Autumn Annals, The National Language, and The Spring and Autumn. These resources provided not only valuable data for compiling wordbooks and dictionaries but also an inspiration for creating new stylistic prototypes. Chinese lexicography can be traced back to the earliest textbooks compiled for children to learn characters. In the Zhou Dynasty, the oYcial historian was in charge of education and the earliest textbook of such a kind available today is

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Historian Zhou’s Primer. In the Qin Dynasty, Li Si, the Premier in the Wrst Emperor’s reign, wrote The Cangjie Primer, and there were two other textbooks, namely The Yuanli Primer and The Scholarly Primer. In the Han Dynasty, there appeared some other well-known textbooks, such as The General Primer, The Instant Primer, The Yuanshang Primer, The Exegetic Primer, and The Pangxi Primer. Based on these textbooks and the achievements in textual research and exegetic interpretations of ancient classics, dictionaries of various types came into being, the thematic dictionary such as The Ready Guide by scholars in the early Han Dynasty, the philological dictionary such as An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, the dialectal dictionary such as The Dictionary of Dialectal Words, and the phonetically interpretive dictionary such as The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms. The characters in these textbooks, wordbooks, and dictionaries underwent great changes in their forms and structures – from dazhuan to xiaozhuan, the standardized style of writing in the Qin Dynasty, and to the oYcial script, the standardized style of writing in the Han Dynasty. The coverage of those books was ever-increasing. There is a strong heritage link among these books, such as the style of compilation, the scope of coverage and entry selection, the style of deWning words, citation and phonetic notation, format setting, and so on. A successive and consistent inheritance is clearly detectable from one to the other among these textbooks, wordbooks, and dictionaries. The evolution from Historian Zhou’s Primer to The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms implies something more important than simply the passing on and development of compilation styles. The theoretical generalization and progression of lexicography gained from dictionary making in ancient China and the establishment of prototype dictionaries – the thesaurus dictionary, the dialectal dictionary, the etymological dictionary, and the Chinese character dictionary have laid a solid foundation and paved the way for the fundamental development of future dictionary research and compilation.

9.2 the advent of lexicography Lexicography is an endeavour in which practice usually precedes theory. Dictionary making can be traced back about 4,000 years from a worldwide perspective and over 2,000 years in China, but the systematic theoretical investigations of dictionary making did not start until the twentieth century, though fragmentary probes started almost simultaneously with the emergence of the Wrst stream of


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dictionaries in the history of Chinese lexicography. The relatively short history of modern lexicography does mean that the basic notions, principles, and methodologies of lexicography have been formed and developed in quite recent times, though some fundamental notions and concepts can be traced back to when dictionary or wordbook making started in ancient times. These important notions and concepts were mainly pre-theoretical ideas which had not undergone systematic generalization, due to time limitation or other conceivable factors. They were mainly embodied in the dictionaries or wordbooks themselves, in their organization and treatment of each entry word. Only when the compilers felt it necessary would they discuss these lexicographic issues collectively in the front or back matter, such as the preface, foreword, introduction, or epilogue. In the Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, a rather systematic and comprehensive discussion was conducted of the guidelines, nature, function, structure, and methodology of dictionary making. It could be viewed as the earliest literature on lexicography dealing with the theoretical questions concerning the macrostructure of a dictionary. In the Preface to The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms, the name-essence theories of the preQin scholars, especially the rectiWcation theory by Xun Zi, were employed in dictionary making for the Wrst time to seek the nature of naming object words and their origins. Certainly, it could be viewed as the Wrst literature on lexicography dealing with the exegetic interpretation of words from the perspective of etymology. These two important monologues mark the birth of lexicographic ideas, the inception of theoretical formulation in ancient Chinese lexicography. Dictionary function is a fundamental issue in lexicographical theorization, and it is also a practical question for the compilers before they start their dictionary projects. Lexicographers usually adopt a much broader vision than practical compilers do, for they have to take the dictionary as a whole to investigate its macro-level functions and to investigate its socio-cultural values against an even broader socio-cultural background. Dictionary compilers, on the other hand, will mainly concern themselves with practical issues concerning dictionary making and concrete values of individual dictionaries. The traditional research on dictionary function has long been under the inXuence of the ideology of language ontology. Thus, a dictionary is taken merely as a tool for people to retrieve and consult information. This view of the dictionary as a tool has dominated the research on dictionary function for many centuries. It is undeniable that retrieval and consultation should be the most primitive and practical function of a dictionary. However, the function of a dictionary cannot be limited to providing linguistic information only no matter how complicated the information is, especially for the well-educated (see Be´joint,

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1994:115). Many scholars (see Zgusta, 1971; Be´joint, 1994) have conducted a great deal of research into the practical use of the dictionary. In the light of their studies, dictionary functions can be summarized into three categories: descriptive, didactic, and ideological. A dictionary can aim at describing all or part of the words of a language, and, consequently, the lexicon of a dictionary may be the vocabulary of one speciWc language, the terms of one speciWc branch of learning, or the concordance of a speciWc writer or even a speciWc work of a writer. The dictionary can also have a pedagogical purpose, that is, to provide information concerning the semantics and usage of words so that the user can beneWt by improving their intra-cultural and intercultural communication. The dictionary can perform ideological functions as well, as ideological weapons for defending ‘social morals and values’ (Be´joint, 1994) so as to enhance the unity and integrity of a linguistic community. In a word, retrieval and consultation are the principal functions of the dictionary but this represents only part of the dictionary function. No description of dictionary function can be said to be complete without the incorporation of the three categories mentioned above. It is a long evolutionary process for the dictionary to formulate the three general functions above. For instance, the descriptive function of a dictionary has been realized in modern times. At an early stage, the function of wordbooks and dictionaries was mainly pedagogical, with a strong Xavour of standardization or prescriptivism. Later, with the development of the social function of a dictionary, the ideological function was strengthened. In the periods of the Spring Autumn and the Warring States, China possessed vast territories and was enjoying an ever-increasing economic prosperity. Consequently, social communication became more frequent and the drawback of having numerous dialects was acutely felt both by the general public and the educated. Wordbooks and glossaries, because of their own limitations, could no longer bear the burden of enlightenment, pedagogy, and standardization, hence The Ready Guide came into being. The didactic and standardization functions are still dominant in many dictionaries today. To realize such functions through dictionaries is by no means a novelty but an important contribution to Chinese lexicographic culture made by scholars of the pre-Qin and Han dynasties. The dictionaries of the Han Dynasty also played an ideological role in helping ‘to interpret the classic works, to advocate Confucian ideas, to maintain the sovereign, and to consolidate the foundation of the government’, in addition to ‘interpretative’ and ‘corrective’ functions of ‘rectifying misinterpretations and facilitating understanding of the Classics’. The ideological function has its roots in a naı¨ve and embryonic understanding of the roles and characters of language in the social community of ancient times. Characters are ‘the foundation of scripts and arts’ and ‘the source


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of His Majesty’s sovereign’. Only when the ‘source’ is inexhaustible can the ‘streams’ have enough water for navigation. Similarly, characters and writing are the prerequisites for ‘enlightenment, education, and civilization’. Speech ‘makes direct communication possible for people in the same linguistic community’ and ‘the invention of characters promotes the transmission of civilization in a more stable and accurate fashion’. Dictionaries record the characters and their behaviour and keep them as standards for later generations. Thus, they will, from a historical point of view, function as ‘a mirror to the past’ and as ‘a milestone for guiding later generations’. Dictionaries in the pre-Qin and Han dynasties were the product of scholars’ investigation into and reXection upon dictionary typology, functions, and their interactive relationships. Actually, dictionary making in the Han Dynasty manifested an apparent evolutionary process – from simple character lists to character lists with interpretative notes, and then to wordbooks and dictionaries. With regard to the pioneering primers and glossaries of the pre-Qin period, the progress was steady, the number of characters listed was constantly on the increase, and the expansion of interpretative notes was conspicuous. There was, however, no apparent diVerentiation in dictionary types. The purpose of those early primers was simple: to solve the problems of learning characters and reading classic works. The progression from The Ready Guide to The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms portrays a picture of the major dictionary prototypes of modern times. In terms of its arrangement of entries, The Ready Guide can be classiWed as a thesaurus because its entries are arranged according to the semantic relations of the characters rather than their spelling. But in terms of its scope of coverage, it can be considered an encyclopedic dictionary. This binary feature is a universal attribute of the dictionary in the early stage of dictionary making worldwide. The entry arrangement characterized by semantic categorization is the most convenient when there is no other more appropriate method available. As to its encyclopedic nature, this would be the simplest means of entry selection when the dictionary makers had not yet formulated a clear picture of what to cover, what function to perform, and what principles to follow. Purposes for which dictionaries are compiled to serve will inevitably change with the development of the society. Dictionary functions become more and more speciWc, and the types of dictionary become reasonably diversiWed. For instance, there appeared The Dictionary of Dialectal Words, a dialect dictionary for interpreting a great variety of characters used in diVerent regional dialects, The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms, an etymological dictionary for ‘discussing and pointing out’ the reference of expressions and for ‘exploring the source and origin of expressions’, and An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese

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Characters, designed to seek the meanings of characters, analyse their form and structure, and inquire into their origins. The diVerent purposes of dictionary making are to be instantiated as diVerent functions, which are bound to bring about a stream of new types of dictionary. Some important ideas on dictionary making in the Zhou, Qin, and Han dynasties were also embedded in the discussions on the theory of Six Categories. The Six Categories refers to the six ways of analysing the form and structure of Chinese characters. As early as in the Western Zhou Dynasty, it was oYcially recognized as one of the six subjects in formal education. In The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty, it was only a general term and was not speciWed. From the Zhou to the Eastern Han Dynasty, relevant discussions and explorations into the Six Categories had formed a sound basis for ancient studies of Chinese characters and philology. It was Zheng Zhong, a scholar of the Han Dynasty, who gave a speciWcation of the terms for Six Categories in his notes on The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty: ‘pictographic (象形), ideographic (会意), mutually explanatory (转注), eventdenoting (处事), loaning (假借), and sound-matching (谐声)’. In The Book of the Han Dynasty, Six Categories refers to pictographic (象形), event descriptive (象事), meaning descriptive (象意), sound descriptive (象声), mutually explanatory (转注), and loaning (假借), which are taken as ‘the fundamental ways of creating Chinese characters’. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters not only oVers a further explication of the theory of Six Categories but also takes it as the theoretical framework for investigating and interpreting ancient characters, exploring their origins, and analysing the changes in the form and structure of characters from ancient times to the investigator’s time, or analysing the patterns in the form and structure of those newly invented characters. This explains why its Wndings are more reliable, more consistent, and more coherent. In his Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, Xu Shen puts forward a systematic explication and discussion of the theory of Six Categories. His discussion of the Six Categories theory has some distinct features. For instance, the sequence of the Six Categories is diVerent: in Ban Gu and Zheng Xuan’s sequence, ‘pictographic’ goes before ‘event-denoting’, whereas, in Xu Shen’s sequence, ‘event-denoting’ is put at the front, which is not a simple theoretical dispute but represents their diVerent aesthetic notions about Chinese characters. It is also a manifestation of Xu Shen’s more thorough and profound thinking on Chinese characters and philology, and his theoretical probe into some basic lexicographical issues. Such a sequence has, at least in theory, paved the way for constructing a stylistic manual and for establishing the principles


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of deWnition. In other words, Xu Shen introduced the theory of Six Categories into the semantic interpretation of Chinese characters in dictionary making, and for the Wrst time turned the principles of character analysis into a speciWc compilation style, that is, interpreting the (basic) meaning of a character from analysing its form and structure, and, to a certain extent, having strengthened the methodology of character interpretation. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters attempted to analyse diachronically the form and structure of one type of Chinese character, i.e. xiaozhuan, and trace the origins of Chinese character creation. It is the Wrst successful attempt to design and establish the megastructure of a Chinese character dictionary on the basis of the theory of Six Categories. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters has become a monumental landmark for its comprehensive and complete classiWcation of Chinese characters from the time the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty united China. The Six Categories theory has become a theoretical foundation stone for making dictionaries of the Chinese language ever since.

9.3 the formation of macro-level styles for dictionary making The main body of the dictionary is where lexicographical information resides, thus the core of a dictionary. As for the general structure of modern dictionaries, two main interconnecting threads can be found linking entries together and weaving them into a coherent whole. These two threads are the vertical paradigmatic structure, i.e. the macrostructure, and the horizontal syntagmatic structure, i.e. the microstructure. The former forms the backbone of a dictionary and the latter constitutes the basic unit of a dictionary – the entry. In modern dictionary making, the backbone falls into two main types: the alphabetical or radical arrangement and the thematic arrangement. The alphabetical or radical arrangement emphasizes the formal features of the language or its writing system, while the thematic arrangement is based on the semantic relations between lexical items. It takes about 1,000 years for the alphabetical arrangement to evolve and mature, for example, in English lexicography, from The Leiden Glossary to Samuel Johnson’s A Dictionary of the English Language. For the radical arrangement to mature, it takes about 1,500 years, for example, in China, from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters to The Imperial Dictionary of Kangxi. For the thematic arrangement, it also takes about 1,000 years to mature in English

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lexicography, for example from The Leiden Glossary to Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases (1852) and in China about 2,300 years, for example from The Ready Guide to The Thesaurus of Chinese Words and Expressions (, 1983) compiled by Mei Jiaju (梅家驹) et al. and published by the Shanghai Lexicographical Publishing House.

Thematic arrangement Thematic or thesaurus arrangement, which appears earlier than alphabetical or radical arrangement, is very common for the macrostructure of a dictionary. The main feature of thematic layout is the classiWcation or grouping of words according to their semantic relations. The method of thematic layout is established on the theory of semantic Weld but is not derived from this theory. It had been practised for several hundred years before serious theoretical investigation was carried out. Based on the literature currently available, Chinese lexicographers are the pioneers who Wrst applied the thematic method of entry arrangement to dictionary making, preceding their Western counterparts by over 2,000 years in Romanic alphabetic arrangement and by at least several hundred years in radical arrangement. Thematic arrangement can be traced back to the glossaries compiled during the Qin and Han Dynasties but its actual beginning is in The Ready Guide. The Ready Guide is the initiator of the arrangement of entries on the basis of semantic categorization, though its categorization and thematic conceptualization are rudimentary. A look at the arrangement of entries in The Dictionary of Dialectal Words will reveal the same characteristics of semantic division and grouping. This dictionary has thirteen chapters. Apart from the Wrst three chapters and the last two, each of the remaining chapters deals with one class of words and characters. For instance, Chapter 4 deals mainly with garments and Chapter 5 with utensils for everyday use. Therefore, the style of layout in The Dictionary of Dialectal Words is a reXection of the idea of ‘seeking dialectal words according to their categories’, though the dialectal words and expressions are extensively drawn from diVerent dialectal regions. The practice of thematic ordering in both The Ready Guide and The Dictionary of Dialectal Words is the basis for the Wnal formation of the compilation style of ‘seeking dialectal words according to their categories’. This partly explains why The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms looks much more mature than The Ready Guide in entry arrangement. The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms comprises twenty-seven major categories in total, but there are still ‘things not included’. To compensate for this defect, Liu Xi proposes this principle for


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entry arrangement: ‘for those items not included, wisdom has to be resorted to in order to seek according to the classes they belong to’. The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms has set a very good example for later Chinese dictionaries to follow in semantic categorization and grouping. Its contribution to the theory and compilation of thematic dictionaries is unique and permanent. If The Ready Guide is taken as a pioneer in thematic dictionary making, The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms will be the landmark in the theoretical formation of thematic arrangement in the sense that its thematic arrangement is more systematic, the principle of ‘seeking according to the classes they belong to’ is adequately expressed and practised. The coherent and systematic summarization and reXections concerning the development of thematic ordering from The Ready Guide to The Dictionary of Dialectal Words is a good illustration of the emergence of the theoretical conceptualization of thematic arrangement in the history of Chinese lexicography. In the history of English lexicography, thematic arrangement was Wrst found in the earliest four bilingual glossaries, and The Leiden Glossary was among them. This practice was further developed in the Latin–Old English glossaries of around the tenth century. In the eleventh century, the practice gained yet further development and this could be seen in a Latin–Anglo-Saxon glossary. This glossary consists of eighteen parts and their titles are as follows: (1) God, heaven, angels, archangels, sun, moon, earth, sea; (2) man, woman, the parts of the body; (3) terms of consanguinity, professional and trades people, artisans; (4) diseases; (5) abstract terms, e.g. impious, just, prudent, etc.; (6) terms for parts of the year, days of the week, seasons, weather; (7) colours; (8) birds; (9) Wshes; (10) beasts; (11) herbs; (12) trees; (13) house furnishings; (14) kitchen and cooking utensils; (15) weapons; (16) parts of the city; (17) metals and precious stones; (18) general – both abstract and concrete terms (Starnes 1946). A comparison between The Ready Guide and the Latin-Anglo-Saxon glossary will display surprisingly similar items in semantic categorization. In both books some of the themes (or subtitles), such as trees, birds, beasts, Wshes, herbs, kitchen and cooking utensils, are exactly the same; some with a little variation; and the rest are completely diVerent due to diVerences in the authors’ socio-cultural background and in their preferences. The semantic categorization in this bilingual glossary, which appeared 1,300 years later than The Ready Guide, is generally not as comprehensive or well-focused as that of The Ready Guide, to say nothing of The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms. Thematic arrangement is based on semantic categorization and meaning grouping. Before adopting the methodology of thematic ordering, the compilers must carefully examine the data collected and classify them into diVerent categories. These classiWcations need to be further divided into sub-categories.

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Due to insuYcient theoretical and technological support at the time of compilation, there remains a great deal of room for improvement in semantic categorization and lexical grouping in The Ready Guide and The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms.

Classifying characters into diVerent sections The Han Dynasty experienced the transition of Chinese dictionary making from wordlists and glossaries to character dictionaries and word dictionaries. The macro-level stylistic format of the Chinese dictionary undoubtedly originated from and was inspired by the arrangement of entries in wordlists and glossaries. The earliest discussion of entry layout in Chinese literature is found in Shi You’s The Instant Primer: Quickly learn the rarely seen drinking vessels and many diVerent things: enumerate the names of objects, people, and families; classify them into diVerent sections and they will not be easily mixed up. Occasional consultation will deWnitely be a pleasure – for it is quick to retrieve, and if enormous time and energy is put into it, there will surely be surprising rewards.

The practice of classifying into diVerent sections without confusion can be traced back to The General Primer, compiled 500 years earlier than The Instant Primer, but the latter generalized the practice into a compilation principle that guided the making of early wordbooks and glossaries. Shi You claimed that it is a text for enlightenment and that the words collected are all-embracing; they are sensibly classiWed into diVerent sections; there is no redundancy or repetition; therefore, it will be time-saving and much beneWt will accrue if the heart and soul is put into it. Classifying into diVerent sections without confusion becomes a principle rigidly observed by later dictionary compilers whether they follow radical arrangement, thematic arrangement, or rhyming arrangement. This principle and the criteria and methods derived from it are still dominant in Chinese dictionary making today. (Qian Jianfu, 1989)

In The Ready Guide, the words are semantically classiWed into nineteen categories, such as Interpreting Exegesis, Interpreting Words, Interpreting Rhetoric, and Interpreting Relatives. These speciWc classiWcations are not found in the wordbooks or wordlists compiled earlier and should be regarded as a creation of The Ready Guide. The entry arrangement in The Ready Guide bears at its root the idea of ‘classifying into diVerent sections without confusion’, which becomes an important thread running through the evolution of the macro-level dictionary layout in Chinese lexicography.


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Relating characters by the radicals shared It took centuries for the entry layout to evolve from ‘classifying characters into diVerent sections’ to ‘relating characters by the radicals they share’. In the case of early character lists, glossaries, and even The Ready Guide, consultation was extremely cumbersome, though a good deal of work had been done in semantic categorization and lexical grouping. Lexicographers had to Wnd a new way. ‘Classifying characters into diVerent sections without confusion’ considerably helped to facilitate the process of looking up the target character but with low eYciency. Xu Shen invented a new system for retrieval and consultation through analysing the form and structure of Chinese characters, which started from 一 and ended end at 亥 and arranged characters according to the families they belonged to and the inherent properties they shared. That helped users to get to know the change and the profound underlying relationships. ‘Relating characters by the radicals they share’ was an innovation in entry arrangement. In essence, it was to arrange the entry characters according to the radical components they share, that is, to start from the simplest radical 一 to the last radical 亥. There are 540 radicals altogether, each governing a set of characters sharing the same radical component. About 10,000 Chinese characters could thus be ‘classiWed into diVerent sections without confusion’. The guiding principle of such a classiWcation is that ‘things are to be sorted and grouped together’ and the basis for classiWcation is ‘to relate characters by the radicals they share’. The radicals identiWed by Xu Shen have some deWciencies, or even defects, which have undergone constant improvement from The Jade Chapters to The Imperial Dictionary of Kang Xi. It is undeniable that the radical ordering, characterized by ‘relating characters according to the radicals they share’, marks an important breakthrough in the exploration of entry layout in the lexicographical history of China. It was an innovation that had, generally speaking, captured the characteristics and patterns of the form and structure of Chinese characters. Even today, it is still popular and remains an indispensable way for systematically arranging entry characters and eYciently retrieving character information in the Chinese dictionary. Note that ‘relating characters according to the radicals they share’ is a very general principle adopted by Xu Shen to guide his arrangement of entries. ‘Form’ is the dominant thread linking entries and at the same time the semantic relations are taken into consideration – the entries are arranged in a similar way to the structure of a tree: the trunk having branches and the branches having leaves. In such an arrangement, the relationships are clearly sorted and presented in a coherent mode. To sum up, the macrostructure of Xu Shen’s arrangement of

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character entries bears some distinctive features: the form is dominant and the meaning subordinate, characters are related according to the radicals they share, and the meanings are obtained by analysing the forms and structures of the corresponding characters. ‘Meaning-categorized arrangement’, ‘classifying characters into diVerent sections’, and ‘relating characters according to the radicals they share’ are the key notions of entry arrangement developed in the Han Dynasty, representing the important stages of serious theoretical research in this regard in the early period of Chinese lexicography. These notions indicate the advent of serious theoretical investigations into dictionaries and dictionary making in ancient China.

9.4 the formation of micro-level format for dictionary making The macrostructure of a dictionary represents how the entries are linked together vertically, while the microstructure of a dictionary represent the way individual entries are organized and diVerent information about the entry is arranged horizontally. Basically, microstructure consists of two parts: the ‘formal description’ (the left core structure) and the ‘semantic interpretation’ (the right core structure). These two parts can be regarded as the ‘comments’ on the ‘topic’ introduced by the headword. In the left core structure, the ‘formal description’ involves types of information, such as spelling, morphology, syntax, and phonetics. In the right core structure, the ‘semantic interpretation’ involves types of information, such as deWnition, usage, and etymology. So the head character represents the topic to be discussed and developed. Normally, an entry starts with the head character, followed by diVerent kinds of information arranged in such a sequence as spelling, phonetics, morphology, syntax, pragmatics, and semantics. The entry ends with etymological information, especially in large-size dictionaries. In the microstructure of a dictionary, semantic information is usually core information, thus the most essential part of an entry. In an entry, the semantic information is likely to be accompanied by illustrative citations; this aims to show the context for its appropriate or typical use or to help the user to understand the deWnition. This is a general summary of the structural features and informational contents of the modern dictionary, which is the result of evolution over twenty or thirty centuries. What follows is a survey of the evolution of the microstructure of ancient Chinese dictionaries, involving coverage, deWnition, citation, and phonetic notation.


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Coverage For wordbooks, glossaries, or dictionaries of ancient times, either monolingual or bilingual, either in Chinese or other languages, there exists an inevitable tradition, that is, the diYcult word tradition, which still exists today. One possible reason is that the grammar and vocabulary of a language are mainly imparted orally, through the teacher’s voice, from generation to generation (Murray, 1900). For the early dictionary makers, the words and expressions used in everyday life seldom posed any diYculties to people but it is the diYcult words of the classics, which are hard to remember and use that deserve special attention and treatment. For instance, what are recorded in The Ready Guide as headwords are mainly characters from ancient classics whose meanings are obsolete or ancient characters whose meanings are still in everyday use. As pointed out by Zheng Xuan, ‘The Ready Guide . . . is aimed at interpreting the Six Arts’ (The RectiWcation of the Interpretative Dictionary of the Five Classics, ). It is a common feature of early wordbooks and dictionaries to pay special attention to diYcult words and overlook the words and expressions used in everyday communication. As far as the unit of the entry is concerned, it is generally believed that what are included in ancient wordbooks and glossaries are monosyllabic words as all the words in ancient books are monosyllabic. It follows that dictionaries are all in fact character dictionaries. This is not what it was for dictionary making in ancient times in China. Judging from the character lists and workbooks compiled during the Zhou, Qin, and Han Dynasties, what are included as headwords involve not only monosyllabic words but also a certain number of bi- or multi-syllabic compound and complex words. The Cangjie Primer is a good case in point (see Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters). In The Ready Guide, The Dictionary of Dialectal Words, and An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, the majority of the entries are headed by monosyllabic words, but compound and complex words also occasionally appear in the macrostructure. Names of objects are mostly compound and complex words. In addition to monosyllabic words, The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms, by its nature, deals mainly with compound and complex words. To sum up, the headword unit of the entry in ancient dictionaries in China is in most cases the monosyllabic word, but the occurrence of bi- or even multi-syllabic words is by no means rare and is a necessary complementary part of the macrostructure. In terms of the attributes of the entry word, there has been a long-lasting tradition of embracing both general names (general linguistic words) and proper names (encyclopedic terms) in wordbooks and dictionaries in ancient China.

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This tradition had its roots in ancient character textbooks or reading primers. The Ready Guide and the dictionaries subsequent to it not only followed suit but also carried it further. In his Preface to The Annotated Dictionary of Dialectal Words, Guo Pu states: It is heard that in compiling The Dictionary of Dialectal Words, [its author] travelled to numerous states and made an extensive collection of dialectal words from diVerent speeches. Where the carts converge and where people ever set their feet on, [its author] would reach there and make a record of their speech and have them described in his book.

The Dictionary of Dialectal Words lists words and expressions in diVerent places, and naturally general terms and proper names should also be included in its coverage. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters must also ‘record all the names of the objects ever seen by human beings’ and its extensive coverage requires that both general and proper names be embraced. The inclusion of both ancient and contemporary words, standard, colloquial and/or slang words in dictionaries compiled in the Han Dynasty was an important feature of entry coverage. It is pointed out in the Preface to The Ready Guide that the objective of Interpreting Exegesis and Interpreting Words is ‘to bridge ancient characters with modern ones’, and naturally it records those ‘words that are diVerent in ancient and contemporary times’. The Dictionary of Dialectal Words regards it as one of its main aims to interpret dialectal words in the Qin and Han Dynasties that are unintelligible to later generations. To summarize, scholars in the Qin and Han Dynasties established a multidimensional and multilevel entry setting system characterized by ‘vertical and horizontal crosscutting, embracing ancient and contemporary, with spatial and temporal relationships also considered’. Based on this system, they also developed a model for entry layout and entry coverage. This model is highly functional and is followed by later dictionary makers.

Word/character meaning interpretation The theories of semantic interpretations of words and characters developed in the Han Dynasty are based mainly on philosophic epistemology – language is the expression of thought. As early as in the Pre-Qin period, it was acknowledged that ‘what should be treasured in speech is the meaning it entails’ and that ‘only when the meaning is conceived can the word be popularized’ (Zhuang Zi), a proposition successively discussed by many scholars, such as Yang Xiong, Xu Shen, and Liu Xi. They all believe that words with meaning are ‘the sound of


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thinking’, ‘the inner ideas beyond the word form’, and the result of ‘the outward expression of inner thought’. When this philosophical epistemology was applied to meaning interpretation in dictionary making by the Han Dynasty scholars, the principles for meaning interpretation in dictionary compilation were beginning to take shape in the minds of lexicographers: investigating the meaning of characters from a diachronic perspective, using citations to justify the meanings of characters interpreted, making a rational interpretation and diVerentiation of meanings of characters, with a view to matching the words (the name) and their contents (the essence). (邹酆, Zou Feng, 2001:231)

The establishment of the principles for interpretation of meaning in lexicography is an important achievement in theoretical inquiries into deWnitions in the Qin and Han Dynasties. Lexical semantics and word deWnition in the Chinese language did not originate from the practice of compiling wordbooks and dictionaries but, in more remote times, from textbook compilation for children to learn Chinese characters. The great majority of works classiWed as being of a philological nature in The Book of the Han Dynasty contain explanatory notes explicating the meaning of some characters and expressions. For instance, the notes in Historian Zhou’s Primer are frequently quoted by Xu Shen in writing An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. Supplement to Sounds and Meanings of all the Buddhist Scriptures () contains some restored materials of The Cangjie Primer, from which it can be inferred that there are not only interpretations on the content of words and expressions but also the extensive use of some methods, which come to be recognized as phonetic interpretation (声训), formal interpretation (形训), and semantic interpretation (义训) in traditional Chinese philology. Moreover, interpretations on extended meanings or multiple meanings of the same word or character are also found in The Cangjie Primer, for instance: 1. ‘剧: 病笃也, 又云增甚也。 ’ (剧 means 病笃 ‘serious illness’, also 增甚 ‘aggravate’.) 2. ‘措: 置也, 又安也, 亦施也。 ’ (措 means 置 ‘handle’, also 安 ‘arrange’, and also 施 ‘implement’.) ‘Phonetic interpretation’, ‘formal interpretation’ and ‘semantic interpretation’ are methods established in traditional exegetic studies in China. These methods have been in continuous use since the Qin and Han Dynasties and a notational system for ‘formal interpretation’ has come into existence. The Ready Guide and The Dictionary of Dialectal Words mainly employ ‘semantic interpretation’. The

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Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms makes extensive use of ‘phonetic interpretation’, but the inventor of this method is not ascribable to Liu Xi. Citations can be found in some works much earlier than The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms, for example: 3. ‘政者, 正也。 ’ () (政 means 正 ‘correct, rule’.) 4. ‘洚水者, 洪水也。 ’(). (洚水 means 洪水 ‘Xood’.) In addition to adopting the methods of ‘phonetic interpretation’ and ‘semantic interpretation’, An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters is more frequent in its use of semantic interpretation that ‘starts from analysing the form but ends with meaning interpretation’. The notational system of ‘formal interpretation’ is for the Wrst time established by Xu Shen for Chinese dictionaries. In this system, pictographic and self-explanatory characters are annotated as 象 . . . 之形 or 指事 directly; ideographic characters are annotated as 从 . . . 从 . . . ; and pictophonetic characters as 从 . . . , . . . 声. He also designed a common notational marker, i.e. 凡 . . . 之属皆从 . . . for pictographic, self-explanatory, and ideographic characters (Zou Feng, 2001:232). Notational markers of this kind can relate the form of the character to its meanings, refer the character to its antecedents, and clarify the hierarchical relationships. Moreover, these innovations serve as precedents and incentives for lexicographers, exercising a profound impact on notation marking and co-reference in compiling wordbooks and dictionaries. Xu Shen’s exploration in interpreting the form and meaning of Chinese characters is enlightening and shows great initiative, and his experience accumulated through long-time lexicographical practice is an extremely rich repertoire with highly theoretical and academic implications and signiWcance. Zou Feng (2001:233), on the basis of the number of characters employed in deWning characters in dictionaries compiled in the Han Dynasty, identiWed three deWning modes: Wrst, one character is used to deWne another character, in which case two synonyms are used to deWne each other. This is not an ‘exegetic interpretation’ in the strict sense and it is ‘frequently used to relate ancient characters to current ones or to relate standard characters to slang or colloquial ones’. Secondly, one character is employed to deWne a set of characters. This mode originated from the Pre-Qin period, as found in Shi Zi, and was Wrst established in The Ready Guide. It is ‘usually used to interpret the meaning of a set of synonyms, highlighting the common semantic components of these synonyms’. Thirdly, one character is deWned with several characters. This mode was


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Wrst employed in The Ready Guide to explain the meaning of object names and was extensively adopted by dictionary makers in later times. DeWnition is based on sense demarcation and identiWcation of word meanings. Sense diVerentiation of polysemous words is complicated. Dictionary makers of earlier periods usually relied on their intuition in deciding how many senses to divide. Their analysis of word meanings, in most cases, lacked a scientiWc basis, and, as a result, their sense division implied a great deal of arbitrariness. But the division of words into diVerent semantic segments marks an important breakthrough in both the practice and theory of dictionary making. In the history of lexicography in China, An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters made the Wrst attempt to demarcate word meanings and arrange the demarcated senses in a regular fashion – generally, the original or basic sense goes Wrst, followed by indications of its changed meaning and/or extended meaning, and thus listing all the senses demarcated. The notational marker for sense demarcation is usually 一曰 (interpreted as), 或曰 (or interpreted as), and 又曰 (and also interpreted as). In usual cases, two or three senses are listed, such as: 5. ‘场, 祭神道也。一曰: 田不耕。一曰: 治谷田[地]也。从土, 易声(土部)’. In some cases, four or Wve senses may be listed, such as: 6. ‘妍, 技也。一曰: 不省录事。一曰: 难侵也。一曰: 惠也。一曰: 安也。从女, 扦声。读若研 ()’. Before computer technology was applied to establish a large-scale language corpus, the data collected for dictionary making were usually obtained manually. Therefore, the manually compiled corpus was inevitably highly restricted. Sense demarcation built upon such a corpus was certainly more reliable and objective than that made according to mere subjective judgement, but its deWciencies were apparent and inevitable due to gaps in data collection, and a complete and scientiWc analysis of the semantic conWguration of polysemous words was almost beyond anticipation. These kinds of deWciencies can also be found in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. However, it is surprising that Xu Shen’s sense division two millennia ago could reach such a high standard of theoretical sophistication. Unfortunately, his pioneering work and his lexicographical accomplishments are not known to the Western world even today.

Phonetic notation In ancient Chinese dictionaries, such as The Ready Guide and The Dictionary of Dialectal Words, no phonetic notation is provided because direct phonetic

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notation is almost impossible without the creation of fanqie. Phonetic interpretation is employed throughout The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms, using concurrent phonetic notation, that is, alliteration or vowel rhyming, with the latter being most prevalent. The underlying assumption is that ‘similar pronunciation is likely to indicate identical or similar meaning’. The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms went to extremes in this aspect. In An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, phonetic notation became an important part of its stylistic format. There are four modes of phonetic notation used: (a) Using pictophonetic characters as the notational symbol to indicate how the headword was pronounced at the time of its creation. The pictophonetic characters take a lion’s share in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and they are all notated in this fashion; (b) Using 读若 (pronounced as) or 读与某同 (pronounced in the same way as) as notational symbols; (c) Using 亦声 (also pronounced as) or 省声 (omitting its pronunciation to) as notational symbols; (d) Using other special devices to indicate the pronunciation of the character. As for the position of phonetic notation, it usually appears at the end of the deWnition in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, but it is put between the headword and the deWnition in dictionaries subsequent to The Jade Chapters and has remained so ever since.

Citations Either no citations or very few are found in ancient wordbooks, glossaries, or dictionaries. There was no change until the appearance of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. There is no citation in The Dictionary of Dialectal Words and The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms. What is found in The Ready Guide can hardly be considered illustrative citations, and their number is very limited. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, however, goes against the tradition of using few or no citations by quoting extensively from classic works and their relevant interpretive notes, though its citations contain errors. These errors are ascribable to those people who copied the book rather than to the author himself. Considering that the work is of such an enormous size and that the whole work had to be done by hand, errors should be taken as inevitable, even though some could also be identiWed as its author’s.

part iii

T H E E X P L O R AT I O N A N D C U LT I VAT I O N OF LEXICOGRAPHY IN CHINA (from the Wei Dynasty, 220–265 to the Yuan Dynasty, 1206–1368)


10

AN OV ERVIEW OF CHINESE LEXICOGRAPHICAL CULTURE DUR I N G T H E PERIOD OF EXPLORATION AND CULTIVATION

T

HE period from the Wei Dynasty (220–265) to the Yuan Dynasty (1206–1368) is a period of exploration and construction for Chinese lexicography. Prior to the Western Han Dynasty, the prototype of lexicographical culture had already taken its form – major types of dictionary had appeared and the general styles and formats of dictionary compilation had begun to take shape and established. It is over the next span of about one millennium, that is, from the Wei to the Yuan Dynasty, that dictionary making in China came into its own in almost all its major respects, particularly in style and format, methodology, theorization and practice, and technological development; the preliminary foundations were laid for the formation and evolution of Chinese lexicographical culture with a strong Eastern Xavour.

10.1 the historical background From the Wei Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, China experienced dramatic changes in social, political, economical, and cultural life. There occurred many important

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exploration and cultivation of lexicography

events whose impacts upon the history of the Chinese nation were profound and far-reaching. In this section, we will mainly focus on those directly relevant to the evolution of Chinese lexicographical culture, hoping to pave the way for later discussion.

Invention of the engraving technology in printing and its preliminary application Buddhism is a widespread Asian religion founded in India in the Wfth century bc, and it was not until the beginning of the Tang Dynasty that the newly introduced Buddhism started to Xourish, attracting a great number of followers in China. In neighbouring countries, such as Korea and Japan, Buddhism was also popular and many adherents came to China to study Buddhist scriptures. The need for scriptures was enormous and manual copying could not suYce. After the revelation of seal cutting and inscription rubbing, some wiser monks engraved characters on wooden boards. Imitating the way of cutting seals and the procedure of rubbing inscriptions, they achieved what was necessary in a more eYcient way to meet the needs of the believers of Buddhism. This technology of printing was later dubbed ‘engraved printing’. Thanks to this invention, the pictures of Buddha and the scriptures became available more readily in great quantities. The pictures and scriptures could also be printed page by page and bound up into volumes. The earliest printings in China were almost all about matters of Buddhism, such as scriptures, prayer, and Wgures of Buddha. Subsequent to the reign of Changqing (821–824) in the Tang Dynasty, objects for popular use, such as calendars, had also been printed in addition to material for religious use. With the prosperity of the non-governmental printing industry, the number of objects printed grew tremendously, to include ‘essays on Yin and Yang, divine interpretation of dreams, physiognomy . . . , in addition to wordbooks and philology. There are numerous things printed since the invention of paper-making and the engraving technology’ (Liu Pin, 柳玭: Preface to The Teachings of the Liu Family ). With the passage of time, the Sichuan and regions south of the Yangtze River gradually became the main centres of the rising industry of printing.

Imperial examination system of the Sui and Tang Dynasties The imperial examination system in China started in the Sui Dynasty and fully developed in the Tang Dynasty. It is a system for training and selecting elite scholars and oYcials through strict examinations at diVerent levels carried out by the government. It is the longest and the most inXuential one of its kind in the history of China. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties, elite selection relied mainly on

lexicographical culture from wei to yuan

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the examination results rather than on a person’s morality as recommended by others in the Han Dynasty or on a person’s family rank as prevalent in the Wei and Jin Dynasties. Before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, elites were selected mainly through recommendation, assisted by testing, whereas the reverse was true afterwards, that is, testing took priority over recommendation. The subjects were examined at diVerent levels, by the county, province, state, and Wnally, the Emperor himself, and the contents of examinations would cover the scriptures, legislation, character, calculation, etc. The examination methods mainly included an oral test, scripture interpretation, policy questioning, and poetry composition. DiVerent examination methods were adopted to test diVerent kinds of abilities and qualities of the aspiring oYcials and how well they had mastered the knowledge required. Before the Sui and Tang Dynasties, the elite selection system and the school education system were mainly disjointed. With the introduction of the imperial examination system, both systems became integrated. As a result, teaching activities in school were oriented toward the examinations in the new elite selection system and school education naturally became a prerequisite for elite selection. In a sense, the new system greatly motivated people’s enthusiasm for the pursuit of knowledge and promoted the development of school education. Meanwhile, a favourable environment for academic research and exchange of thought was created and further guaranteed oYcially.

Copying books popular in the Tang Dynasty Although engraving technology was invented for printing, its signiWcance was not fully appreciated by those in power. The major means for passing on culture in the Tang Dynasty was still copying, which became a very popular practice. First, book copying was an oYcial activity. From the early to middle Tang Dynasty, there were Wve oYcially organized large-scale copying events, among which the fourth used the greatest amount of manpower and Wnancial resources – ‘when the books are Wnished, the oYcials from all the diVerent ministries are summoned to have a look, and they are all amazed at the broadness of their coverage.’ Second, copying books became a non-governmental activity. The Emperor’s zeal in book-copying enhanced its popularity among the general public. Even adolescents became experts in the subject. For instance, Zheng’s Annotated Analects of Confucius (), which was unearthed in Xinjiang Province in 1969, turned out to have been the work of a twelve-year-old boy named Bu Tianshou in the Tang Dynasty. At that time, there were also bookstores whose major business was to copy books for other people. Third, it became a fascinating activity in the world of Buddhism. When Buddhism became more

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popular in the Tang Dynasty, the number of its followers increased dramatically and more scriptures needed to be translated and copied for them. For instance, among the books discovered in Dunhuang (敦煌), except for a small proportion of printed books, the majority of the scriptures of the Tang and Five Dynasties (907–960) were copied by hand. The fascination with copying books was certainly the reason for the wide circulation of copied books in society. It was in the Tang Dynasty that the number of books, both in private and public collections, reached a new high. In the period of Kaiyuan (713–741) in the Tang Dynasty, the number of books in oYcial collections amounted to over 70,000 volumes.

Academies of classic learning in the Song and Yuan Dynasties The name 书院 (academies of classic learning) appeared in the Tang Dynasty. Academies of classic learning were established in various localities from the time of the Tang Dynasty for study and for lectures. They were initially used as a branch of governmental institution whose major function was to store, collate, and classify books or as places where people could get together to read, study, and exchange ideas. In the Song Dynasty, academies became important educational institutions, and some well-known academies were established, such as White Deer Cave Academy (白鹿洞书院), Yuelu Academy (岳麓书院), Yingtianfu Academy (应天府书院), Songyang Academy (嵩阳书院), Stone Drum Academy (石鼓书院), and Maoshan Academy (茅山书院). These academies had some remarkable features. First, they were established as educational institutions. For instance, White Deer Cave Academy had already established its own educational aims and principles of teaching. Second, they promoted the development of the Confucian school of idealist philosophy in the Southern Song Dynasty and fostered the growth of academic activities. For instance, well-known scholars, such as Zhu Xi (朱熹), Lu Jiuyuan (陆九渊), Zhang Shi (张栻), and Lu¨ Zuqian (吕祖谦), frequented these academies and advocated their thoughts through lecturing to their followers and the public. And, consequently, these academies became indispensable places for diVerent schools to meet, discuss, and debate. Third, they were beginning to be oYcially institutionalized. In the Yuan Dynasty, the governmental control over the academies was strengthened. Policies were formulated to protect them, promote their development, and regulate their ways. The government’s control over the academies involved nominating their staV, restricting recruitment, deciding examinations, guiding the assignment of graduate students, and demarcating the land that an academy could own and manage. Despite all this, these academies played an indispensable role in general education, talent training, and academic study and exchange of thought.


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Printing in the Song Dynasty Since the invention of engraving technology in printing, book printing had enjoyed prosperity in the Song Dynasty. Many places in the Song Dynasty established their own printing houses and formed book centres, such as Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, Jian’an in Fujian Province, and Chengdu in Sichuan Province. Book printing in the Song Dynasty fell into two categories: governmental and nongovernmental. The books printed by the central and local government were dubbed ‘oYcially printed’. For the central government, the Imperial Academy was in charge of the business of printing books, whose range included Classics, histories, philosophy, and anthology, in addition to the scriptures of Taoism and Buddhism. The books printed by the Imperial Academy had absolute authority. The Emperor ordained that for the books printed by the Imperial Academy the non-governmental printing houses may have the right to rectify the misspellings in them but have no right to duplicate them. Non-governmental books could be further classiWed into two subtypes: those printed by big bookstores or printing houses and those printed by individuals, such as Zhao Qi (赵淇), Han Chun (韩醇), Yue Ke (岳珂), Liao Yingzhong (廖莹中), and Wang Gang (王纲). Some printing houses in the Song Dynasty had already been aware of ‘copyright’ – for instance, in Brief Stories in Eastern Capital () there was a rectangular seal with the words ‘Printing by Cheng from Mountain Mei. OYcially permitted and reproduction prohibited.’ Thanks to the popularization of the engraved printing industry, a great number of books began to circulate in the community and scholars and general readers alike could have easier access to books. Book printing in the Song Dynasty played a key role in the transmission of culture and in creating a favourable environment for academic research and exchange of thought.

10.2 the academic background From the Wei Dynasty to the Yuan Dynasty, China experienced a frequent alternation between war and peace, and prosperity and depression in the economy. Academic studies, however, progressed at this time.

Academic studies from the Wei to the Northern and Southern Dynasties The time between the Wei Dynasty (220–265) and the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420–589) in Chinese history is a period of upheaval, full of misery,

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suVering, and distress. But it is also a period of academic progression, a period active in intellectual thought and in which theoretical exploration and inquiry Xourished. As is well known, literature and the classics preserved and created in a period are the most direct and reliable data by which to examine the state of academic inquiry. Apart from the works and literature of Taoism and Buddhism, The Book of the Sui Dynasty collected 36,708 volumes in 3,127 categories. The majority of these works were written by the scholars of the period. There are a number of special reasons for the prosperity of academics in this period of upheaval, which started with the collapse in a central imperialist government of absolutism, and the barrier built to defend Confucian ideals was also broken down. As a result, the political conditions and academic environments became relatively more credible, self-awareness more fully realized, and individuality could Wnd more outlets in society at large. During this period, it became more diYcult for intellectuals to take the normal route to becoming a ‘scholar oYcial’, and many scholars gave up their Confucian studies and turned to Buddhism and Taoism. Moreover, some big families with political inXuence and economic clout fostered academic research with their own ‘family’ styles. This turned out to be one of the important means of promoting and passing on the heritage of traditional academics. Another result of the political upheaval was the drift of intellectual brains from the capital city to other places, helping to establish new regional centres of academic research and exchange, which greatly facilitated the writings on the natural conditions and social customs of diVerent places, chorography, geography and geology, and other works of natural sciences. Every historical period has its own mainstream academics. In the period of the Wei (220–265) and Jin (265–420) Dynasties, academic circles focused on ‘metaphysics’ (玄学), a branch of learning based on the studies of Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi, and The Book of Changes. The basic feature of this philosophical study is its emphasis on and adoration of ‘profundity’. Its manifestation in speech is its ‘profound words’ and ‘profound talks’; in writings, its ‘profound argumentation’ and ‘profound notes’; and in thinking, its ‘clear consciousness’ and ‘essential interpretations’. In essence, the basic academic theme of this school is the diVerentiation of artiWcial naming from natural being, to provide an ultimate solution to theoretically reinterpreting and settling the controversy over the relationship between naming and objects in nature. In addition, the transmission of Buddhism, which started from the Han Dynasty, came naturally into conXict with Confucianism and Taoism. With the passage of time, Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucian came to absorb each other’s ideas and became partially integrated in some respects. This unique academic atmosphere exerted a far-reaching impact upon the formulation of new ideological concepts and academic achievements of that time and in subsequent periods.


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Lexicographical works are one of the signs of the academic achievements of an epoch in human civilization. Over the period from the Wei to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there came into being a new form of lexicographical work, i.e. the rhyming dictionary. Thanks to the great progress in translating Buddhist classics, the invention of fanqie, and the diVerentiation of the four tones in the Chinese language, the Wrst rhyming dictionary was compiled. According to the historical records available, the earliest rhyming dictionaries include The Dictionary of Initial Consonants by Li Deng of the Wei Kingdom and The Collection of Rhymes by Lu¨ Jing. Pan Hui (潘徽), a scholar of the Sui Dynasty, states: Previous works like Three Cang Primer and The Instant Primer have merely retained some texts and quotations; those like An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and The Character Forest only focus on diVerentiating the form and structure of characters. As for the study of speech sounds and rhymes, there is much doubt and confusion. Either through speculation on ancient characters or interpretation of contemporary ones, the investigations have mostly missed the target. It is in The Dictionary of Initial Consonants and The Collection of Rhymes that the voiceless is diVerentiated from the voiced and the tones are demarcated in Wve scales. (from The Book of the Sui Dynasty, )

It was on the basis of rhyme books produced between the Wei and Southern and Northern Dynasties that Lu Fayan (陆法言) was able to compile The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes (), an epoch-making dictionary of rhymes.

The academic conXuence of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism in the Sui and Tang Dynasties The reuniWcation in the Tang Dynasty put an end to the independent development of academic studies in the northern and southern regions of China and merged them into the study on Classics – how to understand and interpret the Classics. In the period of the Wei to the Northern and Southern Dynasties the ritual ceremonies were mostly abandoned. Metaphysics Xourished and the dominant position of Confucian studies was undermined. With the entry of Chinese history into the Tang Dynasty, the conXuence of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism in the Sui Dynasty was inherited and Confucianism regained its dominance, which became the foundation of China’s national policies. Under the elite selection system in the Tang Dynasty, the Confucian Classics were the textbooks in schools and what were tested in the imperial examinations. It was against such a background that Yan Shigu et al. were summoned and authorized by the Emperor to rectify and revise The Standard Five Classics () and Kong Yingda et al. to compile The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics, and Lu Deming compiled The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics at this time. Moreover, The

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RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics, symbolizing the reuniWcation of academic studies and the study of the classics, is regarded as a standard in both public and private schools in the Tang Dynasty. Unfortunately, it gradually degenerated and eventually became the shackles conWning the thinking of intellectuals. Speaking of the ancient academic history of China, it is customary to mention four schools of thought in the same breath – studies on Confucian Classics in the Han Dynasties, Metaphysics in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, Buddhism in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, and the Confucian school of idealist philosophy in the Song and Ming Dynasties. Thus, Buddhism was the gem of academic studies in the Tang Dynasty. With the introduction of Buddhism into China, the classic works of Buddhism needed to be translated, interpreted, and expounded. There gradually formed the enormous volumes of Buddhist Classics. DiVerent interpretations of the basic doctrines of Buddhism were responsible for the formation of diVerent Buddhist factions, such as the Tiantai or Tendai sect (天台宗), the Fahsiang (法相宗) sect, the Huayan (or Kegon) school (华严宗), Zen Buddhism (禅宗), and the Esoteric or ‘True Word’ sect (密宗). For each faction, there was an important team of dignitaries to advocate their academic ideas through adding notes to the Buddhist classics or by means of writing their own books. In the Tang Dynasty, it was very popular to compile classiWed dictionaries (类书), that is, reference books with entries arranged in the form of a dictionary according to classiWed or categorized subjects, with materials taken from various sources as the basis for compilation. Functionally speaking, classiWed dictionaries resemble encyclopaedic dictionaries because they combine to some extent the characteristics of encyclopaedias and concordances, embracing the whole Weld of literature and bearing an inherent relationship with encyclopaedic dictionaries of modern times. There are some important classiWed dictionaries passed on to the present time, such as The Beitang Collection of Copied Books (), The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works (), and The ClassiWed Dictionary for Beginners (). The compilation of books of classiWcation and the appearance of such valuable works well illustrate the academic environment and the level of academic research in the Tang Dynasty. Starting from the reign of Empress Wu Zetian (武则天) in the Tang Dynasty, Esotericism (密教) became popular and more and more people began to learn and practice Siddham (悉昙). Siddham is a textbook for learning Sanskrit. From the enlightenment of the spelling system of Sanskrit, Chinese scholars came to work out the initial consonant system of the Chinese language and invented the thirty-letter alphabet for the initial consonants. From The ClassiWcation of the Thirty-letter Alphabet (), unearthed in Dunhuang, the thirtyletter alphabet is known as follows:


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端透定泥、审穿禅日、心邪照、精清从喻、见溪群疑、晓匣影、知彻澄来、不芳并明。

Shou Wen (守温), a scholar monk in the late Tang Dynasty, further studied the thirty-letter alphabet and rearranged the letters according to their position of articulation into Wve categories: labial, lingual, front dental, back dental, and laryngeal. The invention of alphabets for notating speech sounds of the Chinese language laid the scientiWc foundation for phonetic notation, macro-structuring, and format-setting in future dictionary making.

The exploration of truth and meaning in the academics of the Song and Yuan Dynasties Strictly speaking, Song Studies (宋学) refers mainly to working out ways of interpreting the Classics. This school of learning was initiated by Hu Yuan (胡瑗) and Sun Fu (孙复), earnestly advocated and practised by Fan Zhongyan (范仲淹), Ouyang Xiu (欧阳修), Wang Anshi (王安石), and Sima Guang (司马光), and consequently Wrmly established as a serious branch of learning. The methodology of Song Studies is characterized in two ways. First, seeking the truth and meaning of the classics. Getting rid of the strictures of sentential and textual research in the Han Dynasties, the scholars of Song Studies began to interpret and expound the argumentation and meaning of the classics according to their own understanding and interpretation. This is the most outstanding feature of Song Studies. Second, enhancing the practicality of the classics. In other words, the objectives of Song Studies are essentially practical. Thus, the pursuit of truth and meaning as well as that of practical objectives are the two basic features of Song Studies and they form the essential spirit of academic research in the Song Dynasty. Song Studies is also considered by some scholars to be a Confucian school of idealist philosophy, inquiring into the origin of the universe and the laws regulating the development of human societies. This school of idealist philosophy owed its formation to the Song Dynasty and its progress in seeking ‘truth’ could be roughly divided into three phases. In the period of the Northern Song Dynasty, diVerent parties proposed the initial interpretations of what ‘truth’ is. Cheng Yi (程颐), for the Wrst time, proposed the argument that ‘The Heaven is the Law’, that is, the Heaven is the truth and the Supreme Entity. This is well illustrated by his own words: ‘I have been studying hard and I have learned something but the heavenly truth can only be approached through intuitively perceiving and reXecting by oneself ’. In the period of the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan had diVerent understandings of ‘truth’. They diVer in two respects. First, where does ‘truth’ reside? Zhu Xi believes that it is Heavenly

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truth and that it is in the Heavens; whereas Lu Jiuyuan believes that it is ‘Psychological truth’ and it resides in the ‘mind’ of each individual. Second, how can one seek and grasp ‘truth’? Zhu Xi holds that ‘truth must be inquired into through physical things’, that is, through studying physics; whereas, Lu Jiuyuan holds that it should be sought, Wrst by ‘simple means’, in order to get to know the essence and the mind, and second by reXection to grasp the profound meaning of ‘truth’. Scholars at the end of the Song Dynasty and in the period of the Yuan Dynasty had been making great eVorts to reconcile the theories proposed by Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan. The majority of the idealist philosophers in the Yuan Dynasty no longer focused on either of the two schools but tried to ‘concoct’ (i.e. produce something unusual by combining things in a new way). And consequently ‘concoction’ becomes a distinctive feature of the idealist philosophical study in the Yuan Dynasty, represented by Xu Heng (许衡), Wu Cheng (吴澄), and Zheng Yuwu (郑玉吴). It is noteworthy from the developmental stages of the idealist philosophy in the Song and Yuan Dynasties that the reason for disputes are mostly based on establishing ‘who is the orthodox school’. Actually, there is only one orthodox school – the school of Cheng and Zhu, though there were numerous schools of academic studies in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Scholars of the Song and Yuan Dynasties had to resort to the language itself and use it as a tool when they tried to explain and argue about the meanings and truths that had been interpreted and expounded from the classics, which, to a certain extent, motivated the study of language and its basic unit – characters, and further facilitated the compilation of dictionaries. Moreover, great emphasis had also been laid upon rectiWcation and diVerentiation, and their Wndings far surpassed those of their predecessors in attainment, advancement, and scope. As for the methodology adopted in the research, the pursuit of meaning and truth and the practice of rectiWcation and diVerentiation formed the ‘two wings’ of academic approaches in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. For instance, The Collection of Ancient Records () by Ouyang Xiu, representative of epigraphy in the Song Dynasty, is not only a product of rectiWcation and diVerentiation but also an indication of the advent of archaeological studies in modern times. Viewed from the diachronic perspective of lexicography, the four most prominent books of classiWcation in the Song Dynasty, namely The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign (, The Imperial Records of the Taiping Reign (), The Academic Elites (), and The Historical Records of Cefu (), along with local chronicles and clan pedigrees, are all the fruits of academic endeavours with respect to Song Studies.


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10.3 an overall view between the wei and yuan dynasties The period between the Wei and the Yuan Dynasty, characterized by exploration and cultivation in the history of Chinese lexicography, is noteworthy for the following four highlights. First, the invention of fanqie solved the problem of phonetic notation in dictionary making and enabled lexicographers to formulate and standardize dictionary formats and styles; second, on the basis of dictionaries of the Han Dynasty, dictionary families began to take shape and continued to Xourish, notably An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and its derivatives, and The Ready Guide and its derivatives; third, new dictionary types had come into being and were added to these dictionaries; and Wnally, new retrieval systems were created, that is, referring to dictionary information by means of phonetic sequence.

Basic features of lexicographical theories during this period As the practice of dictionary making went further, scholars between the Wei and Yuan Dynasties began to make serious eVorts to theoretically generalize about lexicographical issues. These theoretical generalizations were mostly given in the front matter, such as the preface, explanatory notes, pronunciation guide, etc., of various wordbooks and dictionaries. This research into dictionaries and dictionary making involved the nature and function of the dictionary, the principles of compilation, styles and formats, among many other things. Dictionary making was speciWcally targeted in some lexicographical theories. For instance, in the Northern Wei (386–534) period, Presenting a Memorial for Ancient and Contemporary Characters by Jiang Shi (江式) is one of the most important monologues dealing with lexicographical issues, subsequent to the Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, and remains one of the landmark theoretical generalizations of the history of Chinese lexicography. In the Tang Dynasty, the Preface to The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics by Lu Deming is the Wrst monologue discussing ways to deal with words and expressions gleaned from the classics in dictionary compilation. In the Song Dynasty, ‘Nine Cases’ in The ClassiWed Chapters by Sima Guang set a precedent for lexicographers to work out ways to establish and standardize dictionary formats and styles. No dictionaries prior to the Wei Dynasty included explanations concerning dictionary formats and styles in the front matter, but things started to change when the history of Chinese lexicography entered the period of exploration and cultivation.

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It became customary for dictionaries of this period to include discussions regarding formats and styles, though these discussions were still rather elementary, and no consistent and standardized systems had yet come into being. Almost all relevant discussions were hardly touched upon in the preface or constituted a small separate section of it. No independent sections concerning dictionary formats and styles were found in The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics, The Collection of Rhymes, or The ClassiWed Chapters, but their prefaces contained discussions or explanations concerning dictionary formats and/or styles and were more speciWc, comprehensive, and to the point than previous ones. The Preface to An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters included only a simpliWed exposition of its macro-structural arrangement: From which to start? To start from 一 (one). Things are sorted and grouped together. Vertically, to arrange them according to the families they belong to and the inherent properties they share. Horizontally, the various properties will not be violated and the semantic relationships will be explicated according to their structural forms and radical components. The patterns for sense extension and proliferation will be sought and traced back to their origins. At which to end? To end at 亥, which is the last of the twelve Earthly Branches. This will help to get to know the change and the profound underlying relationships.

In The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics, however, its preface included an independent section dealing with the principles and methodology of its compilation. The whole section is as long as 1,500 Chinese characters, much more detailed than its predecessors. The Preface to The ClassiWed Chapters also included a separate part explaining issues relating to its compilation. Dictionary compilation in the Song and Yuan period underwent a transition from form-meaning combination to phonetic-meaning combination. Consequently, the issue of how to relate speech sounds to word meaning became an important focus in dictionary research during this period. This issue also had a great deal to do with the studies in the Welds of phonology and phonetic semantics. The great achievements in phonological studies over this period mostly resulted from further in-depth explorations in how to scientiWcally add phonetic notations in dictionary compilation. The Wrst evidence of progress was embodied in the revision and augmentation of The Dictionary of Rhymes and the improvement of The Collection of Rhymes upon The Dictionary of Rhymes in phonetic notation. The second piece of evidence was embodied in the attempt to achieve breakthroughs in the paradigm set by The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes and to establish the phonology of Northern speech based on the dialects of Kaifeng and Luoyang, the then capitals of the Northern Song Dynasty, when


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Zhou Deqing (周德清) compiled The Central Plains Dictionary of Sounds and Rhymes () in the Yuan Dynasty. Moreover, there appeared for the Wrst time in the history of Chinese lexicography a number of academic articles that were attached as appendices to the dictionary, e.g. the seven appendices in Xi Zhuan () by Xu Kai and The General Interpretation of Six-category Chinese Characters () by Dai Tong (戴侗). They all aimed to intensify dictionary functions and promote the quality of the appendices and the academic values of the dictionary. Among these appendix essays, A Systematic Account in Xi Zhuan () is the Wrst academic article studying appendixes in the dictionary. The academic implications of appendix essays and their correspondence with the body of the dictionary gave rise to the practice of writing appendix essays to match the body of the dictionary, hence the megastructural conWguration of the dictionary representing the unity of the main part with its appendixes.

Major achievements in styles and formats of dictionary making Generally speaking, the megastructural conWguration of the dictionary consists of two aspects – macrostructure and microstructure. Macrostructure refers to the ways that the entries in a dictionary are arranged. It is vertical in the structure of a dictionary and the spine of its main body. Microstructure, however, refers to the ways that diVerent kinds of information are organized in an entry. It is horizontal in the structure of a dictionary and encompasses the contents of the entry text. Naturally, the major achievements in dictionary styles and formats from the Wei to Yuan Dynasty were displayed in both macrostructural and microstructural conWguration. During the period from the Wei through the Yuan Dynasties, the entries in a dictionary were usually arranged in alphabetical or thematic order. The macrostructure of the dictionary in this period was characterized by further improvements on ‘formal ordering’, represented by The ClassiWed Chapters, by the emergence of ‘phonetic ordering’, represented by The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes, and by ‘scientiWc standardization’, represented by The Broad Ready Guide. As was stated in the Preface to The ClassiWed Chapters, ‘the things in the world are numerous but, if well treated, each will be set in its proper place’. ‘To be set in its place’ is simply another way of indicating how the macrostructure of the dictionary should be designed. The Preface to The ClassiWed Chapters held that ‘if well treated, unity will be achieved’ according to the principles of dictionary making. Thus, presently, the characters that are popularly used in the world are numerous in number. But, thanks to their pronunciation, they can be treated according to The Rhyme Dictionary

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() and each of them can Wnd their proper place in a dictionary in terms of the phonetic features they share. As for the forms of the characters, there are also some common features that they share and that is why they can be treated according to The ClassiWed Chapters. The majority of the characters follow the principles of formal ordering. In addition to formal and phonetic arrangements, there is semantic arrangement as well: for those characters that cannot be further analysed into diVerent parts, they could be semantically grouped. (from the Preface to The ClassiWed Chapters)

The ClassiWed Chapters, for the Wrst time, established a new set of principles, i.e. dual arrangement: by radicals at the Wrst level and by rhymes at the second. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, on the other hand, arranged its headword characters following ‘formal ordering’ only, that is, according to the radicals they share. This arrangement is rather complicated and is not userfriendly in retrieval. The ClassiWed Chapters is designed to co-refer to The Rhyme Dictionary, dividing the 540 radical sections of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters into Wfteen volumes and rearranging the head characters in each radical section according to the rhymes they share. The explication in The ClassiWed Chapters centres around the pronunciation and meaning of the character. The head characters in each radical section are taken in their entirety from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters but rearranged in terms of the rhymes they share. For each character entry, its pronunciation is notated by means of fanqie, followed by deWnitions or explications. In so doing, the compiler made it very convenient for the user to consult. Second, the macrostructure of The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes is organized according to ‘phonetic ordering’. Lu Fayan divided the 193 rhyme sections into Wve volumes on the basis of the four tones shared by the rhymes, thus incorporating more than 10,000 characters into these volumes, which are ‘Wnely analysed and discriminated’ (from the Preface to The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes). Third, the macrostructure of The Ready Guide is ‘to group semantically’. When a proposal was put forward in the Wei Dynasty to compile The Broad Ready Guide, which was ‘to compensate for what is missing in The Ready Guide’, it was natural for it to model after The Ready Guide in style and format. The Ready Guide was thus recognized as ‘a stepping-stone to academics and a model for every intellectual’ (from Presenting a Memorial for The Broad Ready Guide by Zhang Yi). It is to be highly commended that ‘for the ancient meanings of characters still used in the Qin and Han Dynasties, it [The Ready Guide] can be used as a yardstick to judge its correctness; for those no longer in use, it can be used as a basis for deduction and inference’ (from the Preface to The RectiWed Broad Ready Guide by Wang Niansun). Thus, there was formed a new branch of academic learning – ‘the Erya Studies’, which is an extension of the macrostructure of The Ready Guide.


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As for the microstructure of a dictionary, its core component is made up of semantic information which is further manifested in phonetic notation, deWnition, and illustrative examples. Firstly, under the inXuence of fanqie and the fourtone theory, The Jade Chapters abandoned the traditional labelling of ‘read as’ or ‘pronounced as’, which was used as a major form of phonetic notation in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. The phonetic notation in The Jade Chapters ‘uses fanqie as the principal form coupled with direct notation’. The phonetic notation bylaw set down by Jiang Shi for Ancient and Contemporary Characters () stated that ‘the pronunciation to be notated is what is used in the region of Chu and Xia and the characters will be notated one by one’. This was the Wrst direct speciWcation of how to notate the sounds of words in a dictionary in the history of Chinese lexicography and the practice of notating the phonetics of words one by one has come down to the present day. Secondly, the paradigm of form–meaning combination set up by An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters as a major means of deWning words was broken down and a new combination, that is, phonetic–meaning combination, was established and advocated. Jiang Shi held that the principles for deWnition in a dictionary should be ‘to follow the principles of exegesis and loaning and all the meanings can be interpreted from the contexts where they occur’. ‘To interpret from the context’, as a guiding principle for deWnition, has a twofold implication: on the one hand, words and characters are the objects to be deWned in the dictionary; on the other hand, as a general principle, the meaning of a character, phrase, or text should be determined and explicated or interpreted from the context in which it occurs. Thirdly, illustrations play an indispensable part in a dictionary, although they are usually attached to the deWnitions. The principle of illustrative citations in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters is ‘to cite examples to make the meanings of words understandable when they are not apparent’. In other words, Xu Shen cited examples only in cases where the meaning of a character was unclear or unknown. The remaining parts of The Jade Chapters clearly show that under each headword character there are almost always one or more illustrative citations, and illustrative examples, which are taken from the classics and scriptures, form the backbone of The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics. To sum up, a great deal of progress was made during this period in terms of dictionary layout, entry coverage, phonetic notation, and sense deWnition. As far as dictionary layout is concerned, The ClassiWed Chapters followed the model of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters in its classiWcation of radical sections, but within each section the head characters were arranged to the order of rhyme sequences, which was obviously an innovation found in no previous dictionaries. Such an arrangement makes it very convenient for users to consult

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dictionary information. In terms of headword coverage, dictionaries of this period attempted to be much wider and more comprehensive. For instance, The ClassiWed Chapters, on the one hand, retained the tradition of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and The Jade Chapters in treating headword characters with greater prominence given to the description of their ancient pronunciations and meanings and their evolution in form and structure; and, on the other hand, greater notice was taken of the newly emerged characters which were created to meet the developing needs of the society of the time. The Rhyme Dictionary had the widest coverage of vocabulary, i.e. 53,525, which is 42,005 characters more than in The Dictionary of Initial Consonants. There was also much improvement in phonetic notation. In The Dictionary of Rhymes, for instance, when a group of characters shared the same pronunciation, phonetic notation was given only for the character in the Wrst place, and the rest of the characters in the group would follow the Wrst character. Such a method of phonetic notation helped considerably with phonetic diVerentiation. The description of sense deWnition became more detailed and speciWc than in the previous period. The ClassiWed Chapters, for instance, had not only cloned the deWnition of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters but also added its own annotation and explication – for those with variations in pronunciation or meaning, necessary explanations and phonetic notations were provided after the deWnitions. In Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures, no judgements would be given before rigorous textual research had been carried out and meticulous comments added. In The Augmented Ready Guide, detailed information was given to each animal or plant name, describing their shapes, properties, and functions with quotations from ancient books as evidence of textual research, and, if necessary, quotations were also given of popular sayings with annotations added. For instance, 鲨 (shark) only has a synonym deWnition 鮀 (a kind of small Wsh) in The Ready Guide, but a deWnition of 179 characters was provided in The Augmented Ready Guide.

Major dictionaries of the period The history of Chinese lexicography experienced a long period of exploration subsequent to the Wei and Jin Dynasties and a period of rapid progress following the Sui and Tang Dynasties. The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters () by Yan Yuansun (颜元孙), a Tang Dynasty scholar, enjoyed wide circulation and great popularity. The Tang Dynasty witnessed the appearance of a series of dictionaries and character glossaries whose major function was to codify and standardize, hence falling into the category of ‘codifying character dictionary’. In the period of the Southern and


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Northern Dynasties, the oYcial script in the Han Dynasty began to decline in use, and scripts like the running hand (行书, a style of Chinese calligraphy between the cursive hand and regular script), the cursive script (草书, a form of Chinese calligraphy with characters executed swiftly and strokes Xowing together), and the regular script were created and adopted in formal writing. They became so popular that there was much confusion in Chinese scripts and handwriting; so it was inevitable to codify and standardize Chinese characters and the forms of writing them, a number of dictionaries being compiled to serve the purpose, namely The Character Models () by Yan Shigu, The Collection of Characters from Five Classics () by Zhang Shen (张参, 714?–786?), and The New Collection of Character Models from Nine Classics () by Xuan Du (玄度). This new type of dictionary played a key role in character codiWcation and standardization. In the Tang Dynasty, there appeared another new type of dictionary, the special-purpose dictionary – the earliest and most comprehensive of its kind – dedicated to annotating Buddhist scriptures and sutras, i.e. The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics by Lu Deming, and Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures by Hui Lin. In the Song Dynasty, there also appeared some inXuential character books and character dictionaries, namely The ClassiWed Chapters by Wang Zhu (王洙) and Hu Xiu (胡宿) et al., The Exegesis of Sixcategory Chinese Characters () by Dai Tong, The ClassiWed Characters of Banma () by Lou Ji (娄机). In the Song and Yuan Dynasties, some progress was also made in the compilation of thematic dictionaries, namely The Augmented Ready Guide by Lu Dian, The Extended Ready Guide () by Luo Yuan (罗愿), and The Essentials of Augmented Ready Guide () by Niu Zhong (牛衷). There also appeared quite a number of rhyme dictionaries in this period. The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes by Lu Fayan is the earliest of its kind still extant. In the Song Dynasty, the compilation of rhyme dictionaries enjoyed great popularity. The Tang Dictionary of Rhymes () was revised by Chen Pengnian and Qiu Yong (丘雍) and was renamed The Dictionary of Rhymes. It integrated almost all the achievements in the studies of the rhyme dictionary series following The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes and is the most comprehensive one still extant. Ding Du (丁度) and Song Qi (宋祁), together with other scholars, were summoned by the Emperor to revise The Dictionary of Rhymes, which was later known as The Rhyme Dictionary. Other rhyme dictionaries include The Essential Dictionary of Rhymes () by Qiu Yong and Qi Lun (戚纶), The Essential Dictionary of Rhymes for the Ministry of Rites (), a revision of The Essential Dictionary of Rhymes by Ding Du et al., The Comprehensive Five-sound Rhyme Dictionary () by Han Daozhao (韩道昭) of the Jin (金) Dynasty, The Comprehensive Dictionary of Ancient and Contemporary Rhymes () by Huang Gongshao (黄公绍) between

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the Song and Yuan Dynasties, The Essential Dictionary of Ancient and Contemporary Rhymes () by Xiong Zhong (熊忠) of the Yuan Dynasty, The Central Plains Dictionary of Sounds and Rhymes by Zhou Deqing of the Yuan Dynasty, and The ClassiWed Dictionary of Zhongzhou Yuefu Rhymes () by Zhou Congzhi (周从之) of the Yuan Dynasty. Subsequent to the Sui and Tang Dynasties, considerable achievements were made in compiling classiWed dictionaries. The Beitang Collection of Copied Books by Yu Shinan (虞世南) et al. between the Sui and Tang Dynasties is the earliest classiWed dictionary presently available. The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works by Ouyang Xun (欧阳洵), The ClassiWed Dictionary for Beginners by Zhang Yue (张说) and Xu Jian (徐坚) et al., and The Sources of Rhyme Ocean () by Yan Zhenqing (颜真卿, 709–785), which were all compiled in the Tang Dynasty, are the earliest classiWed dictionaries whose entries were arranged to the order of rhymes. In the Song Dynasty, a large team of scholars, such as Li Fang (李昉, 925–996) and Hu Meng (扈蒙), were put together by the central government to compile large-scale classiWed dictionaries. The outcome of such eVorts included The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign, The Imperial Records of the Taiping Reign, The Historical Records of Cefu by Wang Qinruo (王钦若) and Yang Yi (杨亿) et al., The Jade Sea () by Wang Yinglin, The Miscellanies of Argumentations Concerning ClassiWed Dictionaries () by Wang Mingshou (王明寿) of the Jin (金) Dynasty, and The Compendium of Scriptures and Classics () by Zhao Shiting (赵世廷) of the Yuan Dynasty. In addition, there are also some important dictionaries compiled in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, for instance, The Language Assistant () by Lu Yiwei (卢以纬) in the Yuan Dynasty and The Gem Dictionary of Rhymes () by Yin Shifu (阴时夫) at the turn of the Song and Yuan Dynasties. Between the Wei and Yuan Dynasties, several landmark lexicographical works stood out among language, rhyme, and classiWed dictionaries. The Broad Ready Guide, which is representative of general dictionaries dealing with vocabulary and special terms as well as thematic dictionaries in the middle ancient period (from the third to ninth centuries), became the initiator of ‘the Erya Studies’. The Jade Chapters, representative of character dictionaries in the middle ancient period, inherited and developed the tradition and style of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, with remarkable innovations – its head characters were printed in regular script forms and its deWnitions occupied the dominant place in the entry. The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes, an early model for phonetic ordering dictionaries as well as homophone dictionaries, is the earliest rhyme dictionary with a rather systematic compilation format and style. The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics, representative of a new dictionary type in the middle


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ancient period, adopted the collective interpretation method to deal with the meanings of characters from diVerent classics and scriptures. It could be classiWed as a hybrid dictionary – a combination of collective interpretations of classic works and exegetic explication of ancient characters. The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters, the Wrst dictionary designed to diVerentiate character formations, displayed some noticeable innovations though it originated from The Character Models. The dictionaries compiled between the Wei and Yuan Dynasties can be generally classiWed into the following categories: (1) character dictionaries, such as The Exegesis of Ancient and Contemporary Characters () by Zhang Yi of the Wei Dynasty, The Character Forest by Lu¨ Chen of the Jin (晋) Dynasty, The Jade Chapters by Gu Yewang of the Liang period of the Southern Dynasty, and The ClassiWed Chapters by Sima Guang and Wang Zhu et al. of the Song Dynasty; (2) deWning dictionaries, such as The Broad Ready Guide by Zhang Yi of the Wei Dynasty, Sounds and Meanings of all the Buddhist Scriptures by Xuan Ying and Hui Lin of the Tang Dynasty; (3) bilingual dictionaries, such as The Complete Turkish Dictionary, () by Mahmud Khashgari (麻赫穆德•喀什噶里) of the Song Dynasty; (4) specialized dictionaries, such as The Botanic Compendium () by Chen Jingyi (陈景沂) of the Southern Song Dynasty; (5) classiWed (or encyclopedic) dictionaries, such as The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works, oYcially compiled in the Tang Dynasty, The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign, also oYcially compiled in the Song Dynasty; (6) special dictionaries, such as The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes by Lu Fayan of the Sui Dynasty, The Dictionary of Rhymes by Chen Pengnian et al. of the Song Dynasty, The Rhyme Dictionary by Ding Du et al. of the Song Dynasty, and The Essential Dictionary of Ancient and Contemporary Rhymes by Huang Gongshao of the Yuan Dynasty.

Academic values and inXuence The period of the Wei, Jin, and Southern and Northern Dynasties is a very important period in Chinese history, characterized as a melting pot of diVerent nationalities and cultures. The inXux of foreign cultures, especially the introduction of Buddhism, brought forth innovations in the format and style of dictionary compilation, in particular the birth of the rhyme dictionary. This new type of dictionary is designed in a format of rhyme sequencing. Its target user includes those people interested in composing rhyming prose, and it can help them Wnd characters that share the same rhyme. Rhyme dictionaries can be divided into two types according to their format and style. For the Wrst type, characters are Wrst classiWed according to their diVerent tones, and then further classiWed

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according to their rhymes. Characters sharing the same essential vowel or tail vowel are put in the same rhyme section. For each rhyme section a common character will be chosen as a signpost. As for the second type, characters are classiWed into diVerent rhyme sections; all the characters sharing the same essential or tail vowel are put in the same rhyme section without considering their diVerences in tone. For each rhyme section, two characters are chosen as the signpost. Generally speaking, every character in a rhyme dictionary is given some simple explanation of meaning, which is why ancient rhyme books are generally classiWed in the ‘dictionary’ category. The early rhyme books in the history of Chinese lexicography are represented by The Dictionary of Initial Consonants by Li Deng of the Three Kingdoms Period and The Collection of Rhymes by Lu¨ Jing of the Jin (晋) Dynasty. For later rhyme books, The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes might as well be called the compendium of all rhyme books over the Six Dynasties, namely the Wu, Eastern Jin, Song, Qi, Liang, and Chen between the downfall of the Han Dynasty in ad 220 and the reuniWcation of China in ad 589. This dictionary established the basic format and style of ancient rhyme books in China, ‘gained recognition by both scholars and the common people, and was accepted as a standard paradigm’, exercising direct inXuence upon rhyme books and dictionaries to come, such as The Dictionary of Rhymes, The Rhyme Dictionary, and The Essential Dictionary of Rhymes for the Ministry of Rites, The Essential Dictionary of Ancient and Contemporary Rhymes, and Hongwu Dictionary of Standard Rhymes during the Ming Dynasty. From the Yuan Dynasty on, there came a Xowering of drama and opera, as a result of which quite a number of rhyme dictionaries were compiled to meet the needs of playwrights, such as The Central Plains Dictionary of Sounds and Rhymes and The Taihe Dictionary of Rhymes (). With the introduction of The Mirror of Rhymes (), new advancements were made in the format and style of rhyme books and dictionaries – the application of phonological principles, such as the rhyme table (等韵图), to the compilation of rhyme books and dictionaries. The rhyme table locates initial consonants and vowels of a syllable in their own positions, and diagrams are drawn to illustrate their relationships. DiVerent rhyme sections can easily Wnd their places in the diagrams, which certainly beneWts users greatly. There appeared in the Tang Dynasty two new types of dictionary: character model books (字样书) and sound-meaning books (音义书). The former deals with the models, writing styles, formations, and structure of Chinese characters. The dictionaries of this type include The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters, The Collection of Characters from Five Classics, The Collection of Characters from Nine Classics () from the Tang Dynasty and The Pei Xi Dictionary


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(), The General Dictionary of Chinese Characters (), and The Dictionary of Ancient Character Exegesis () from the Song Dynasty. The latter refers to collections of meaning explanations and phonetic annotations of characters from classic works and scriptures, such as The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics and Sounds and Meanings of all the Buddhist Scriptures, which was compiled by Xuan Ying and Hui Lin of the Tang Dynasty. To summarize, the values and inXuence of dictionary making and research between the Wei and Yuan Dynastics are manifold and manifested chieXy by greater in-depth theoretical generalization concerning lexicographical issues, the emergence of new dictionary formats and styles, the standardization and conventionalization of these formats and styles, a greater variety of dictionary types, close interaction with contemporary academic research, and Wnally the farreaching impact upon theoretical inquiries of lexicographical issues, dictionary format and style design and innovation. All these aspects and related issues will be discussed in the following chapters.

11

THE DEVELOPMEN T OF C H I N E S E C H A R AC T E R DIC TIONA R I ES

W

HETHER viewed from a functional perspective and from the angle of dictionary format and style, Chinese character dictionaries underwent an important stage of exploration and cultivation during the period from the Wei to the Yuan Dynasty. New types of dictionaries emerged, new theories concerning dictionary compilation appeared, and new incentives for development materialized. All this formed a strong driving force for Chinese lexicography to progress and prosper.

11.1 the historical background In the period of the Wei to the Southern and Northern Dynasty, what lay behind the development of Chinese character dictionaries was the codiWcation of character variants, which was instrumental in the birth of ‘character model’ dictionaries. During the period of the Wei to the Southern and Northern Dynasty, separatist regimes were set up nationwide, and Southern China was cut oV from the North. The oYcial script was dropping out of use and the regular and running scripts were becoming more and more popular instead. Consequently, it was not uncommon for single characters to be written with wrong strokes or with several variants being used simultaneously, especially by ordinary people. This period

development of character dictionaries

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was a time ‘when prevailing habits and customs are discarded and characters changed – seal characters are frequently misspelled and the oYcial script has lost its true look’ (from The Book of the Wei Dynasty, ). In the North, it was nothing but a time of rebellion and unrest. The writing system began to deteriorate, which was further worsened by the constant coinage of new characters. The situation of language use in the North was more disappointing than that in the South. For instance, 忧 (worry) was interpreted as 百念 (with numerous ideas), 变 (change) as 言反 (say what is contrary), 罢 (cause to halt) as 不用 (no longer in use), 归 (return) as 追来 (run after, chase), 苏 (wake up) as 更生 (revive), 老 (old) as 先人 (one’s ancestor). Such inconsistencies are numerous and frequently encountered in the printed classics. (from The Teachings of the Yan Family, )

It became inconvenient for students and scholars to learn and study the classics and diYcult for the government to issue orders and decrees. Such a situation called for the birth of a new type of dictionary – the ‘character model’ dictionary – to codify and rectify misspelled characters and character variants. Whenever a society goes from unrest to peace, its ruler will make policies to strengthen his rule, among which language policy is usually an important element. During the Tang Dynasty, policies were open and wise and its society was stable and at peace. It was during the period of Zhenguan (627–649) in Tang Taizong’s reign that Yan Shigu was put in charge of the Ministry of Secretary. The duty of the Ministry of Secretary was to authoritatively print the classic works, to collate the styles of characters, to check and proofread the texts, and Wnally to produce a standard model textbook that could be taken as a yardstick for the printing industry and as the Wnal resort when disputes arose, which led to the appearance of a book entitled Yan’s Manual of Character Models (). He produced another book, called The RectiWcation and Standardization of Chinese Characters. Other dictionaries of the kind included The New Manual of Character Models from Classics and Scriptures () by Du Yanye (杜延业), The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters, The Dictionary of Meticulously RectiWed Characters from Classics () by Ouyang Rong (欧阳融), Sound and Meaning of Kaiyuan Characters () by Xuan Zong (唐玄宗), the Emperor himself, The Collection of Characters from Five Classics, and The New Collection of Character Models from Nine Classics. In the Preface to The Jade Chapters Gu Yewang states: Even though easily confusable words came to extinction, the meaning might be erroneous as well. It followed that a lot of disputes and disagreements remained unsettled in the Five Classics and the Writings of the Three Emperors. For the six kinds of writing script and the eight styles of writing, there remained wide variations between the ancient and

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the contemporary: on some occasions, the same interpretation is suitable for diVerent characters, and, on other occasions, the same character allows for diVerent interpretations – there is much confusion in interpretation among numerous schools of thought. For the character books and other printed dictionaries, errors are numerous. They are diYcult to consult and confusion and doubt may easily arise.

Actually, the background to the birth of The Jade Chapters is touched upon here. First, there appeared ‘diVerent interpretations’ of the classic works; secondly, character forms underwent dramatic changes from the seal character and oYcial script to the regular script and caused ‘great discrepancies in writing between the ancient and the contemporary’; thirdly, ‘there is much diVerence in interpretation’ of the meaning of characters; and Wnally, errors proliferated in classic works in circulation and character consultation became more diYcult. Under such circumstances, a new dictionary type became a must – to codify the font style, specify the character meaning, rectify errors and facilitate consultation. Thus, Gu Yewang made an eVort ‘to integrate the achievements of diVerent wordbooks, to proofread the many classic works and Wnally to establish his own system – a comprehensive interpretation of the meaning of characters in the Chinese language’. He beneWted greatly from his predecessors and formed his own system by relying purely on his own judgement in making decisions as to what to include and exclude, and how to, in his dictionary. In the period from the Han to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, character books and dictionaries were many in number and outstanding in quality. There appeared some great lexicographical works, such as An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, The Ready Guide, The Dictionary of Dialectal Words, and The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms. In the period from the Sui to the Yuan Dynasty, dictionary making and research developed further. In the early Tang Dynasty, there appeared quite a number of character books of considerable size. As recorded in the section on ‘Classic Works’ and in the section of ‘Art and Literature’ in both the old and the new versions of The Book of the Tang Dynasty (), there are The Guiyuan Collection of Characters (, 100 volumes) by Zhuge Ying (诸葛颖) in the Sui Dynasty and The MagniWcent Character Dictionary (, 100 volumes) by Empress Wu Zetian, which are grandiose achievements. It could be speculated on the basis of these two dictionaries as to how prosperous and vigorous dictionary making and lexicographical culture might have been. After a lapse of only a short period of time, there came another even more miraculous lexicographical work The Sources of Rhyme Ocean, which comprises 360 volumes. Unfortunately, these dictionaries are no longer in existence.


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11.2 the evolution of lexicographical theories Philological studies are the theoretical underpinning of the compilation of the Chinese character dictionary. In the period from the Wei to the Yuan Dynasty philological studies concentrated mainly on theoretical inquiries into and the sorting of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, research into the theory of ‘Six Categories’, and the promotion of epigraphy. For about four centuries after the birth of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, very scant research was conducted in relation to it. That situation did not change until the Sui Dynasty. The most outstanding research on An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters was carried out by Li Yangning in the Tang Dynasty and the Brothers of Xu Xuan and Xu Kai (徐锴) at the turn from the Tang to the Song Dynasty. Li Yangning, a Tang Dynasty scholar from County Zhao, was expert at zhuan script. His expertise in the zhuan script was considered second to none and he once praised himself as ‘the direct successor to Li Si (the creator of the xiaozhuan script in the Qin Dynasty)’. It was recorded in Xu Xuan’s Preface to The Revised Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters () that Li Bingyang ‘reprinted An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters with major revision and rectiWcation of strokes and techniques of character writing. He was widely respected and admired by scholars and there came a revival of the zhuan script and zhou script’. Xu Kai was the author of The Comprehensive Studies in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters (), which was later known as Junior Xu’s Version. It comprises forty volumes, divided into eight sections: (a) General interpretations: adding interpretative words immediately following the original texts, with indicative labels as ‘Xuan’s word’ or ‘Xuan’s note’; (b) Section comments: analysing semantic relations between various sections; (c) General comments: listing more than 140 characters classiWed into the categories of ‘heaven and earth, king and subjects, rites and ceremonies, Wve xing (the Wve elements of metal, wood, water, Wre, and earth), life and fate, father and mother, wife and sons, good and evil, wise and stupid, etc’ and discussing the origin of these characters and their form and meaning relations; (d) Removal of deceitful statements: especially for disproving the arguments of Li Bingyang; (e) Categorized gathering: words of the same kind are grouped together and their formal structures and semantic relations are analysed;

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(f) Sorting: (the analysis of word meaning is used) to deduce the tenor of ‘Six Categories’ theory, verify it against the behaviour of human beings, and fully explicate its signiWcance; (g) Suspended senses: pointing out the characters missed or suspected meaning in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, in addition to those with diVerences from the zhuan script; (h) Direct comments: those by the reviser. As analysed above, Xu Kai is the Wrst scholar who has systematically studied An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters from the diachronic perspective of lexicography in China. In the Wrst year of Yongxi (i.e. ad 976) during Tai Zong’s reign in the Song Dynasty, Xu Xuan, together with Gou Zhongzheng (句中正), Ge Tuan (葛湍), Wang Weigong (王惟恭), and others, was summoned to collate and revise An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. The revision was completed in 986 and was later known as Senior Xu’s Version, which is the most popular version of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters available today. As was stated in its Preface, Xu Xuan and others did a great deal of work towards the improvement of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, conducted a great deal of research on diVerent versions and editions, added what had been ‘left out’, supplemented the newly coined, diVerentiated the popularly misspelled, added notes and explanations, and adopted the phonetic system of fanqie as employed by Sun Mian (孙愐) in The Tang Dictionary of Rhymes. Thanks to the Xu brothers’ excellent work, An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters became popular again and, an epoch-making event, the Shuowen Studies gradually evolved as an independent branch of learning. Since the ‘Six Categories’ theory was put forward in the Eastern Han Dynasty, there has not been much research concerning its application to analyze the form and structure of characters. In the Song Dynasty, Wang Anshi wrote The Character Dictionary (), which attempts to embrace the truths of all things between heaven and earth, in keeping with what followed from The Book of Changes. The characters in The Character Dictionary are arranged in rhyming order, roughly the same four-tone sequence as in The Dictionary of Rhymes. The head characters are printed in the style of the zhuan script, through which the meaning of characters is analysed and interpreted. The form and structure of a character is analysed as a prerequisite for interpreting its meaning and then the relationship between form and meaning can be further expounded. For instance, from the analysis of the formation of the character 美 (beautiful), we can see that ‘the upper half of the character is 羊 (sheep) and the lower half is 大 (big). A ‘‘sheep’’ is ‘‘beautiful’’ when it is ‘‘big’’ ’. When interpreting the meaning of a


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character, Wang Anshi often takes into account how it is pronounced, that is, phonetically interpreting the meaning of a character. For instance, 桧 (Chinese juniper) has the leaves of a 柏 (cypress) and the trunk of a 松 (pine), and its leaves and trunk are all in curves (曲). 枞 (Wr), however, has the leaves of a 松 but the trunk of a 柏, and its leaves and trunk are all straight (直). For a 枞, we will ‘comply with’ 从 in that it is straight, but for a 桧, we will have to ‘cut or break’ (会 ¼ 刽) in that it is in the shape of a curve. Because of its straightness, we will have to follow 从 and it is pronounced 从 as in 从容 (with ease). Because of its curve, we will have to cut it (会) oV and it is therefore pronounced 会 as in 会计.

Wang Anshi also adopted the method of direct phonetic notation to help users to understand its meaning through its pronunciation. For instance, 柽 (Chinese tamarisk) can predict when it is going to rain and reveals the law of heaven. Though its nature is sacred it is still a kind of tree. A wood is divine and it cannot be secularly named. Its pronunciation is 赪 indicating ‘full-bloodied (赤) faithfulness (贞)’. Wang Anshi believed that for a character, ‘when seeing it you can know it, when hearing it you can think about it and its meaning is natural.’ ‘As Confucian scholars have been constantly arguing, the crux of the dispute is the relationship between name and essence. When this relationship is clariWed, the universal law of the world can be grasped’ (from The Collected Works of Wang Anshi (), Volume 8). He also composed a poem which goes like this: ‘All things have been correctly named since Emperor Xuanyuan. Why should we force ourselves to discuss this in vain? What we could do is Wll up the wine glass for our friends but not to order the ghosts to cry at sunset’ (from Notes to Wang Anshi’s Poems, , Volume 41). It is clear that his motivation for compiling The Character Dictionary is to correct the names of objects for practical purposes. In his analysis, greater emphasis is laid upon the characteristics of formal features and the functions and dispositions of things in order to explicate the names of objects, discriminate the diVerences, identify the mainstream and the branches, and explore the patterns and principles underlying the meanings. Aware of the changes and developments in language, Wang Anshi analysed some newly evolved meanings and extended meanings that had not been discussed in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. For instance, 除 is deWned as ‘殿陛也 (the steps in front of a palace)’. In The Character Dictionary, the extended meaning of ‘renewal’ is discussed: it comes from the ‘change or alternation’ in moving up ‘the steps in front of a palace’. The Character Dictionary is comprehensive: embracing the ideas and Wndings of the Confucian, the Taoist, and Buddhist studies, in addition to all other minor schools of thoughts. Its interpretations are basically well-grounded. Its language is simple but the

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meanings expounded are profound. One of Wang Anshi’s purposes in the compilation of The Character Dictionary is to supplement what had been missing in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. The Character Dictionary is a rather systematic sorting of the lexical semantics of the Chinese character system. Having fully recognized the role of ‘sound component’ of a character in expressing meaning, Wang Anshi began to use the principle of ‘similar pronunciation indicating common meaning’ in analysing the features of the ‘sound component’, which greatly promoted the study of Chinese characters. ‘Though not free from exegetical explanation, Wang Anshi has succeeded in dissecting how the form of a character is related to its meaning and in helping to achieve an easier understanding of meanings of Chinese characters. His contribution should be fully appreciated.’ (胡道静, Hu Daojing, 1956). The Character Dictionary functions as a bridge connecting the present to the past in the lexicographical history of China. Its inXuence on dictionary making is far-reaching and its academic value and signiWcance in theoretical exploration are remarkable. Zheng Qiao (郑樵)), a scholar of the Southern Song Dynasty, initiated the Six Categories classiWcation in his work The Succinct Explication of Six-category Chinese Characters (). He reclassiWed the 540 sections of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters into 330 sections. In his book, Zheng Qiao not only provided illustrative examples for each of the Six Categories but further classiWed them into twelve categories. His classiWcation and his method for classiWcation were, to some extent, inherently defective in that they were restricted by the ‘Six Categories’ theory. Dai Tong, a Yuan Dynasty scholar, wrote The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters, which used the Six Categories theory for analysing Chinese characters. He abandoned the sections used in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and formulated a system of his own, which comprised nine sections: numerals, astronomy, geography, human beings, animals, plants, engineering, miscellany, and unsettled things. These nine sections were further divided into 479 subsections in thirty-three volumes. He made many original analyses of the meaning of characters but these were not free from defects, such as making forced analogies and overemphasizing the past while disregarding the contemporary. Yang Huan (杨桓), also a Yuan Dynasty scholar, wrote The General Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters (, twenty volumes), which made use of ancient characters to deduce and seek the original meaning, with the Six Categories theory governing his analysis of Chinese characters. Unfortunately, his analysis was strongly conWned within the limits of the Six Categories theory and illustrative examples in his dictionary were numerous but jumbled.


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The Emperor’s fondness for bronze vessels and the great number of such vessels unearthed brought epigraphy into existence and enabled it to progress and spread quickly. From a linguistic perspective, epigraphy in the Song Dynasty broadened the horizon of philological studies and provided new methodologies. The scope of the study on ancient characters expanded from the xiaozhuan script to inscriptions on bronze, from literature passing from generation to generation to literature newly unearthed. For over 400 inscriptive characters unearthed in the Song Dynasty, the majority of the interpretations by the Song Dynasty scholars were correct. The methodologies employed by the Song Dynasty scholars were contrastive analysis, character component analysis, deduction, conWrmation from literature passed down, etc., which were the basic methods for interpreting ancient characters and are still being used today. From a lexicographical perspective, epigraphy in the Song Dynasty established the format for compiling specialized dictionaries. For instance, The Pictorial Dictionary of Archaeology () by Lu¨ Dalin (吕大临), was the earliest dictionary that provided a systematic record of ancient vessels, with illustrative sketches. This dictionary comprises ten volumes, divided according to the classiWcation of vessels. For each vessel, there is a descriptive diagram or sketch, the name of the vessel and/or its manufacturer, its size, weight and capacity, in addition to textual research and record of its owner or place of unearthing. This dictionary sets a good precedent for later lexicographers to follow in format and style. In the period of the Sui to Yuan Dynasty, inquiries into lexicographic issues were given in the dictionary prefaces or other articles. Their achievements, however, were signiWcant. As pointed out in his Presenting a Memorial for Ancient and Contemporary Characters, Jiang Shi held that characters and language serve the function of ‘when it is announced in the Palace, it would be passed among the diVerent trades in the world; when it is written down and printed in ten thousand copies, all things would be clearly identiWed.’ For Xu Shen, it was his ‘disgust of the ill-treatment of characters’ that motivated him to write An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. It is evident that one principal function of a dictionary is the standardization and codiWcation of language for a community. Lu Deming made some insightful comments on dictionary coverage. He held that ‘embracing both the ancient and the contemporary’ should be a general principle for dictionaries of every type. The principle for rhyme dictionaries was represented in The Tang Dictionary of Rhymes, which assumed that its coverage would be ‘exhaustive and supplement what has been left out in The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes’, embracing ‘names of states and counties’, ‘tales and legends, origins of family names, local produces, names of mountains and rivers, grasses and woods, birds, beasts, worms and Wsh’. As for phonetic notation and deWnition, Lu Deming pointed out that the

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pronunciation of a character in a dictionary should be ‘put in the Wrst place’so as to ‘help the user to compare usage’. A dictionary ‘should add phonetic notation, deWne the character, trace its origin, and analyse and explain the diYcult points or confusions’ (from the Preface to Sounds and Meanings of all the Buddhist Scriptures by Xuan Ying). Lu Deming believed that the citations should be ‘taken from both the ancient and contemporary literature’ and the compilers should ‘extract out the fundamental and essential elements’. The citations for each character would be ‘plain but not crude, abundant but not chaotic’. Lu Deming also established a bylaw for The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics – ‘meaning interpretation coupled with discrimination’. In other words, a dictionary should not only interpret the meaning of a character but make further discrimination from some related characters as well when necessary. The most outstanding feature of semantic interpretation for a dictionary in this period was marked by the breakthrough in the paradigm of form–meaning combination laid down in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters in the period of the Qin and Han Dynasties. A new paradigm, that is, the combination of sound– meaning, emerged as a result of the Xourishing phonological studies of the Sui and Tang Dynasties. With the introduction of Buddhism and the thriving translation and interpretation of Buddhist scriptures, the role of phonology in the textual research of scriptures and in meaning interpretation of characters in dictionary making was recognized and the theories of phonetic–meaning combination naturally evolved. Xuan Ying stated that ‘to collect and sort the scriptures is to add phonetic notations and to interpret their meanings’ (Preface to Sounds and Meanings of all the Buddhist Scriptures). The Jade Chapters also adopted the paradigm of phonetic–meaning combination, that is, phonetic notation followed by semantic interpretation; whereas, The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes put semantic interpretation in front of phonetic notations (丰逢奉, Feng Fengfeng, 1992). In the Song Dynasty, the works written since the Han and Tang Dynasties were called into question and scholars wished to get rid of them and reinterpret the argumentations and ideologies in the traditional classic works. The movement of reinterpreting the classic works and elucidating their fundamental argumentations motivated the compilation of character dictionaries. In this period, the studies in the Welds of phonetics, grammar, and semantics had all made great headway, which accelerated the progress of lexicography in cultural development, knowledge propagation, and language teaching. Dictionary making achieved some signiWcant breakthroughs in format and style, such as formal and phonetic sequencing, in phonetic notation, in phonetic–semantic combination, in sense deWnition, and in formal analysis. The quality of dictionary making and the level of lexicographical research were noticeably enhanced.


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11.3 the development of format and style After the academic disputes and cultural evolution in the period from the Wei to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, dictionary making began to undergo a process of multi-dimensional development from the Sui to the Yuan Dynasties, which was a result of eVorts to meet various lexicographical needs from all walks of life in society. In terms of functions, there appeared various kinds of dictionaries to serve the purposes of codiWcation: those for codifying the form and structure of the character in use, such as The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters, those for codifying the pronunciation, such as The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes, those for codifying the meaning, such as The Broad Ready Guide, those dealing with all three aspects, that is, form, pronunciation, and meaning, such as The Jade Chapters, those for interpreting multiple scriptures, such as The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics, and Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures, and those for interpreting a speciWc scripture, such as Sounds and Meanings of the Avatamsaka Sutra (). In terms of styles and formats, there emerged formal ordering dictionaries, such as The Character Forest and The Jade Chapters, phonetic ordering dictionaries, such as The Dictionary of Chinese Rhymes, semantic ordering dictionaries, such as The Broad Ready Guide, or dictionaries that were arranged according to the sequence of the chapters and sections from which characters were collected and interpreted, such as The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics or Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures. This indicated that dictionary making reached a rather high standard. The dictionaries compiled in this period were generally socially motivated and more user-friendly, with ease of consultation. The character dictionaries in the early Wei and Jin Dynasties followed the example of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters in increasing its coverage of characters and adding those left out by previous compilers, or of The Ready Guide in augmenting their contents. Although xiaozhuan and the ancient oYcial script of the Han Dynasty were not still in use, the most popular style of writing in this period was the regular script, that is, the modern oYcial script, and this trend was becoming more and more apparent. Consequently, more and more dictionaries compiled in this period started to adopt the regular script as the standard style of head character and were breaking away from the conWnements of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and The Ready Guide in content and format. In the Southern and Northern Dynasties, these new-style dictionaries were very popular. This trend in the evolution of dictionary making

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was also a natural response to the need of society and certainly in keeping with the general patterns of lexicographical practice. In the early Wei Dynasty, three character dictionaries, i.e. The Augmented Cangjie Glossary (), The Broad Ready Guide, and The Exegesis of Ancient and Contemporary Characters, were compiled by Zhang Yi. They were all subsequently lost except for The Broad Ready Guide, which will be dealt with later. It is evident from its name that The Augmented Cangjie Glossary was compiled to supplement Three Cang Primer. A more inXuential character dictionary than The Exegesis of Ancient and Contemporary Characters was The Character Forest by Lu¨ Chen in the Jin Dynasty. Lu¨ Chen collected many rare and odd characters or character variants to supplement what had been left out from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. In Jiang Shi’s opinion, It generally follows the example of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. It cites extensively and identiWes and diVerentiates ancient characters, characters of the zhou style, odd characters, and characters easily confusable. Its writing style is the standardized oYcial script of the Han Dynasty. It has, to a large extent, captured the essence of xiaozhuan.

In other words, the oYcial script was dominant in this book and its style of character writing did not violate that of xiaozhuan. The Character Forest had become popular in the Southern and Northern Dynasties. Yan Zhitui, a scholar of the Northern Qi Dynasty (550–577), wrote that once, accompanying the Emperor, he went to a village, named Lielu¨. It is in Shang’ai County, dozens of miles to the east of the frontier pass of Jingjing. Later, he went to another place, near the town of Kangqiu, about a hundred miles to the east of Jinyang. It is unknown to them what these two places were originally. He tried hard to seek answers through the books, both ancient and contemporary, but none was forthcoming. When he came to the character dictionaries, i.e. The Character Forest and The Collection of Rhymes, the riddle was immediately solved (from The Teachings of the Yan Family). It is the character books that helped him Wgure out the diVerent names of two places and the pronunciation of three archaic characters. It is evident that The Character Forest would be popular in everyday life for its consultative value. Yan Zhitui was also well aware of the signiWcance of language and characters. He stated: Words and characters are fundamental. For students nowadays, they rarely have a better knowledge of characters: when they read the Five Classics, they follow Xu Miao (徐邈) rather than Xu Shen, and when they practise writing fu-poems, they believed in Chu’s (褚) interpretations but neglected Lu¨ Chen’s.


18 7

He held that it was wrong to ignore the role of the character dictionary. And here, when he mentioned the name of Lu¨ Chen, what Yan Zhitui referred to was The Character Forest he compiled, which served as a transition between the foregoing An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and the subsequent The Jade Chapters. Jiang Shi, a well-known scholar of the Northern Wei Dynasty, was endowed with a profound knowledge about Chinese characters. He was born into a family acknowledged for its academic study of the diVerent writing styles of Chinese characters. Jiang Qiong (江琼), his ancestor from the Three Kingdoms period, was a disciple of Wei Qu (卫觊) and was expert at writing in the ancient zhuan style and in exegetic studies. Jiang Qiang (江强), his grandfather, also good at the ancient zhuan style, held the title of senior academic consultant for the government and donated about one thousand books he had collected. Jiang Shaoxing (江绍兴), his father, was appointed as an oYcial of the royal library and had been in charge of writing the national history for more than twenty years. Jiang Shi inherited a great deal from his family. He was good at writing diVerent character styles, especially the style of xiaozhuan. His writings could frequently be seen on the signboards of important buildings in the capital city. In the Northern Wei Dynasty, he presented a memorial to request permission to compile a character dictionary – Ancient and Contemporary Characters. This memorial discussed the origin and evolution of Chinese characters, the merits and demerits of character books compiled since the time of the Qin Dynasty in their content, format and style. That was an important article on the study of Chinese characters and in the history of lexicography in China. As far as the format and style of this character book was concerned, it exempliWed An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters: for each head character, the writing style of xiaozhuan is presented Wrst, followed by its oYcial script form, and, for its diVerent writing styles, such as the zhou script, odd variants and vulgar ones are listed after the xiaozhuan style with some comments on their diVerentiation. For each character, pronunciations are added, which are further diVerentiated as dialectal and standard ones. That dictionary comprised forty volumes. The memorial Jiang Shi presented showed that it was comprehensive, embracing both the ancient and the contemporary. The xiaozhuan and oYcial scripts were contrasted and the variants were extensively collected. For each character, its pronunciation was noted by using fanqie and the diVerences in pronunciation between diVerent regions were examined. Therefore, that dictionary is noteworthy for its unprecedented coverage and combination of features and advantages found in many others, especially The Dictionary of Dialectal Words and An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. Jiang Shi himself once commented on the dictionary that ‘it has removed

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redundant characters’. It proved highly beneWcial for exegetic studies and dialectal investigations of later generations. The pity was that it was an unWnished work and has not been handed down to the present time. The Jade Chapters diVers from those compiled under the guidance of the Six Categories theory in format and style and is characterized as follows. First, its head characters are in the form of the regular script. The head characters in dictionaries compiled before The Jade Chapters are all in the style of xiaozhuan and the oYcial script, for instance, An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, The Exegesis of Ancient and Contemporary Characters, The Character Forest, and Ancient and Contemporary Characters. The Jade Chapters is the earliest dictionary found to have head characters in the form of the regular script. Its coverage is over 22,000 characters, including some newly coined characters and variants, which gives an authentic and comprehensive description of language change in this period: a more fully developed language system, dramatic increase in the number of Chinese characters, and the variation of the writing style of Chinese characters. Second, reform in the components and radicals of Chinese characters was well under way. The Jade Chapters removed ten radical sections, such as the radical sections of 哭, 眉, 后, and 弦, from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and added twelve new sections, such as those of 父, 兆, 索, 单, and 丈. The ordering of radical sections was also changed from ‘formal ordering’ to ‘semantic ordering’. This change resulted from the change of the writing style from xiaozhuan and the oYcial script to the regular script, and from the motivation to make dictionary consultation a more user-friendly activity. Third, fanqie became the dominant form of phonetic notation, assisted by direct notation. The phonetic notation in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters was rather imprecise in that a character is usually notated by means of using labels such as 某声 (pronounced as) and 读若某 (pronounced like). The Jade Chapters adopted the method of fanqie, which was a rather substantial advance in phonetic notation. It not only made dictionary consultation an easier and more pleasant activity but also reXected the progress in lexicography of its time. Fourth, deWnitions became more detailed and speciWc. The deWnition in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters was oriented towards analysing the form and structure of Chinese characters and inquiring into their original meanings. The Jade Chapters, however, laid more emphasis on interpreting the meanings of characters rather than on analysing their formal features on the understanding that when someone comes to a dictionary he usually wants to know its pronunciation or meaning rather than its formal structure and original meaning. Look at the following citation from The Jade Chapters:


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夫, 甫俱切。云: 丈夫, 从一大, 一以像簪, 周制八寸为尺, 十尺为丈, 人长八尺, 故曰丈夫。又, 夫三为屋, 一家田为一夫也。又音扶, 语助也。 (夫: pronounced with the combination of the initial consonant of 甫 /pu/ and the vowel of 俱 /ju/. An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters says: 丈夫 ‘husband’ comes from the combination of 一 ‘one’ and 大 ‘big’ in which 一 stands for a hairpin. In the Zhou Dynasty, eight inches make one foot and ten feet make one yard ‘丈’. The height of a man is usually eight feet, roughly a yard. And a man is usually dubbed as ‘one yard person’. Also, 夫三为屋. The size of the farmland of a family ‘家’ is made suitable for a single man. Also, it is pronounced as 扶, used as an exclamation expressing the mood.)

Fifth, in the process of meaning interpretation, the compiler’s ideas and opinions were often added as notes. In The Jade Chapters, ‘Yewang’s note’ was used to indicate that opinions and comments came from the compiler himself. The notes involved the compiler’s analysis and reXections about the form, meaning, and pronunciation of the speciWc character in question. As for the formal aspect, it identiWed its variants, examined those characters sharing more similarities in formal features, described how a character underwent diVerentiation and/or combination. As to the semantic aspect, semantic analysis and interpretation became the dominant method instead of formal or phonetic interpretation. For deWnition, semantic analysis was more suitable and methodologically more scientiWc than formal and phonetic analysis, for it was more compatible with the users’ reading habits. The methods adopted in The Jade Chapters for semantic interpretation are: (a) description: such as 缆 (mooring rope): Yewang’s note: 缆 refers to thick rope for mooring. (b) contrast: 呼: Yewang’s note: air out is 呼 ‘exhale’, whereas air in is 吸 ‘inhale’. (c) generalization: 服 ‘garments’: Yewang’s note; 衣, for covering the upper part of the body, and 裳 for the lower part. In general, both of them can refer to 服 ‘clothes, garments’. (d) synonym: 伞 ‘umbrella’: Yewang’s note: it is a shield or shelter. Sixth, the appendix of Minute DiVerences in Character Formations () was attached to the end of the dictionary, which was an invention on the part of Gu Yewang. He listed a large number of pairs of characters identical in form. For each pair, he provided phonetic notations and deWnitions to help consultants to discriminate their diVerences in form, pronunciation, and meaning. For instance, the pair 帷 and 惟: the pronunciation of the former is described as ‘the combination of the initial consonant of 于 /yu/ and the vowel of 眉 /mei/, its

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deWnition is 帷幔 (curtain)’, whereas the latter is described as ‘the combination of the initial consonant of 以 /yi/ and the vowel of 佳 /jia/, its deWnition is 辞也 (functional character)’. In the Song Dynasty, Ding Du, along with others, compiled The Rhyme Dictionary. In comparison with The Jade Chapters, it manifested a large increase in coverage but it is a pity that it did not co-refer to The Jade Chapters. Some other rhyming characters excluded from The Rhyme Dictionary were gathered into a new dictionary – The ClassiWed Chapters. For these two dictionaries, ‘those characters phonetically related are all included in The Rhyme Dictionary while those formally related are all included in The ClassiWed Chapters’ (Preface to The ClassiWed Chapters). Therefore, The Rhyme Dictionary and The ClassiWed Chapters are complementary. The compilation of The ClassiWed Chapters was carried out successively by Wang Zhu, Hu Xiu, Zhang Cili (张次立), and Fan Zhen (范镇), and Wnally edited by Sima Guang. That dictionary project started in 1039 and was completed in 1066. The Rhyme Dictionary falls into the category of rhyming dictionaries while The ClassiWed Chapters is a character dictionary. They are, however, complementary in terms of function. The latter consisted of Wfteen parts and each was further divided into three volumes. The section divisions in The ClassiWed Chapters were basically the same as those in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, i.e. 540 sections altogether. Because each of the four sections 艸 (grass), 食 (food), 木 (wood), and 水 (water) actually had two subsections there were 544 sections in The ClassiWed Chapters. The table of contents of the dictionary was given at the end as an appendix. Its coverage was 31,319 characters, more than twice the size of The Jade Chapters. It followed the example of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and The Jade Chapters, the main focus being laid on form and semantics, on investigations into the origin of characters, on analysis of ancient pronunciations and senses, and on evolution of the writing style. The ClassiWed Chapters had a rigorous format and spared no eVort in making up what was left out of The Rhyme Dictionary and in eliminating what was redundant in The Rhyme Dictionary. In each character entry, its fanqie notation was given in the Wrst place, then the exegetic explanation. When the character had a diVerent pronunciation or meaning, they would be indicated as appropriate. The characters identiWed as having multiple pronunciations and/or senses in The ClassiWed Chapters far surpassed those in The Jade Chapters. The policy adopted by The ClassiWed Chapters to deal with these characters was to list the pronunciations and senses in rhyming order. Like The Jade Chapters, more emphasis was laid upon pronunciation and meaning rather than on the analysis of the formal structures of each character. Where there existed a variant or variants this


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would be noted after the character and sometimes its xiaozhuan form was indicated as well. In The ClassiWed Chapters there was a new type of note, i.e. 凡之类皆从 (all those like . . . are categorized as . . . ), indicating that semantic categories had already been considered in working out the format. The writing style of characters became standardized after it underwent several stages of evolution, and the theory of ‘Six Categories’ was no longer applicable to the analysis of characters. The ClassiWed Chapters elaborated nine ways to compensate in its Preface, which were clearly a summary of its style and format and a reXection of many of its unique characteristics: . For characters with the same pronunciation but diVerent forms, they are coreferred; . For characters with the same meaning but diVerent pronunciations, they are not co-referred; . When its original meaning is lost, keep its original explanation, i.e. following the traditional method of treatment; . When the ancient meaning has changed to a new one, keep the new one; . When the ancient meaning was lost without a new one, keep the ancient one; . For those newly coined characters without evidence, give no ‘see special note’ (i.e. give no new separate section); . For those losing their original evidence but where their meanings are selfevident, clarify their motivations; . For those left out of The Rhyme Dictionary, they are fully treated in this dictionary; . For those without a clearly identiWable section, group them according to their semantic categories. Since the time of its birth, more and more defects and shortcomings of The Jade Chapters have come to light, for instance, its listing of characters which is chaotic in parts, its cumberrome consultation, over-proliferation and disorderliness in section identiWcation, limitation of lexical coverage, the strictures imposed by An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, and its misclassiWcation of some characters. Han Daosheng (韩道升) criticized it for ‘selection with the best being missing and imperfection with many being left out’ and ‘for its classiWcation, being redundant and sophisticated’. In the 1180s, Wang Yumi (王与秘) revised it by arranging the characters according to their number of radicals and renamed it The MagniWcent Chapters (). And in the 1190s, Han Xiaoyan (韩孝彦) further revised it – ‘The Jade Chapters is reorganized according to the Wve scales, and its greatest excellence lies in choosing characters from the thirty-six initial consonants. This

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new method surprises the whole academic world’ (Han Daosheng: Preface to The MagniWcent Chapters). In 1208, Han Daozhao, the second son of Han Xiaoyan, made an even further revision and combined the sections into 440 sections. Its coverage was also greatly enlarged and the dictionary was re-entitled The MagniWcent Chapters: with Augmentations of Five Scales and Categorizations of Four Tones (), comprising Wfteen volumes with a coverage of 54,595 characters. The indexing system adopted in both The MagniWcent Chapters and The Dragon Shrine Character Manual () is phonetic ordering but the speciWc format and arrangement are diVerent. The MagniWcent Chapters arranges the characters in the sequence of the thirty-six initial consonants and, for each initial consonant, four scales are further diVerentiated.

11.4 a brief introduction to some representative character dictionaries Among the character books and dictionaries compiled in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the most important is The Jade Chapters, the Wrst regular script character dictionary in the history of Chinese lexicography. Gu Yewang, born in Wu County, Wu Shire, Liang State in the Southern Dynasty, was a prodigy. He could read the Five Classics when he was seven and started to write articles such as The Sun () when he was nine. When he grew up ‘he read all the scriptures and historical books extensively. His knowledge involved astronomy, geography, divining and astrology, diVerent writing scripts and rare characters’ (The Book of the Chen Dynasty, ). He died at sixtythree. His academic achievements include The Jade Chapters, which was completed when he was twenty-Wve, and The Stemmata of the Gu Family (), in addition to a collected work of twenty volumes, and various other works. Regarding the time of its writing and completion, there is a record in the Song Dynasty version of The Jade Chapters that ‘on 28 March, the ninth year of Datong in the Liang Dynasty, Gu Yewang wrote it.’ According to The Biography of Xiao Kai () in The Book of the Liang Dynasty (), ‘before that, Doctor Gu Yewang at the Imperial Academy had been ordered to write The Jade Chapters. Taizong was dissatisWed with it and employed Xiao Kai (萧恺) to revise it because Xiao Kai was known for his broad knowledge and expertise in philology.’ It is therefore evident that the writing of The Jade Chapters was not directly ordered by the Emperor but by the prince – Taizong. In the ninth year of Datong in Emperor


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Liangwu’s reign, the twenty-Wve-year-old Gu Yewang presented the completed version of The Jade Chapters to Prince Xiao Gang (萧纲, Emperor Jianwen). In 548, Xiao Gang ordered Xiao Kai, the son of Xiao Zixian (萧子显), to take charge of the revision of The Jade Chapters. It is thus clear that the compilation of The Jade Chapters started in 538 and was completed in 543. It was revised by Sun Qiang (孙强) in the Tang Dynasty (674) and by Chen Pengnian and others in the Song Dynasty (1013). After all these revisions The Jade Chapters was not what it had been when it was compiled by Gu Yewang. The most popular version of The Jade Chapters currently available is the revised edition by Chen Pengnian et al. and it is renamed The Immensely Augmented Jade Chapters (). The present version of The Jade Chapters, i.e. The Immensely Augmented Jade Chapters consisted of thirty volumes. The number of characters totalled ‘158,641 in the old version and 51,129 in the new version, 209,770 characters altogether. The explanatory notes were 407,530 characters. The number of characters covered in the dictionary were actually a little over 22,000. Thus, the present version is neither what it was like when Gu Yewang wrote it nor when Sun Qiang revised and expanded it. The Jade Chapters basically adopted the section segmentation system of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, with 542 sections, two sections more in number. It deleted some sections of Xu Shen’s dictionary, such as the radical sections 哭, 延, 杀, 眉, 白 [actually 自 ‘self ’, not 白 ‘white’], 饮, 后, 弦, etc., added some new sections, such as the radical sections 父, 喿, 处, 兆, 盘, 索, 床, 单, and 丈. The character 书 was just a character in Xu Shen’s dictionary, but it was established as a separate section in The Jade Chapters, and the section 画 in Xu Shen’s dictionary was downgraded as part of the 书 section. The sequence of the sections was also diVerent from that in Xu Shen’s dictionary as a result of adjustment and rearrangement. For instance, the thirteen sections involving such characters of interpersonal relations as 人, 儿, 父, 臣, 男, 民, 夫, 予, 我, 身, 兄, 弟, and 女 were collectively treated in Volume III, which made it fundamentally diVerent from Xu Shen’s dictionary insofar as the sections were arranged according to the ‘formal ordering’ principle based on the Six Categories theory in Xu Shen’s dictionary, whereas in The Jade Chapters, they were treated according to the semantic relations they bear. It is hard to pass judgement on this treatment, but for those users who are not familiar with the Six Categories theory, it is more convenient. Unlike An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, which analyses the form and structure of the character according to the Six Categories theory, The Jade Chapters focuses on phonetic–meaning relations in deWnition. After each head character, it is the phonetic notation by fanqie, followed by an explanation

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of its meaning. Some explanations are supported by citations and there are also situations where citations are directly employed as ‘deWnitions’. For those characters with diVerent spellings, the ancient spelling or its variants are listed afterwards. For example, 堆 is in section 土 of Volume 2. It is deWned and explained as ‘堆, 都回切, 聚土也。云: 陵魁堆以蔽视。 ’ (堆 is notated in fanqie as 都回. It means 聚土 ‘earth piling up’. In The Songs of Chu, there is 陵魁堆以蔽视 ‘The biggest mausoleum is piled up and the horizon is obstructed’.) The citation from The Songs of Chu is used directly as a deWnition. Let us look at another example: 垂 has an entry ‘垂, 时规切。云: 远边也。 ’ (垂 is notated in fanqie as 时规. And in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, it says 远边也 ‘faraway’.). It is obvious that there is no further explanation of it since An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters has already deWned it nice and clearly. For a few characters, direct phonetic notation is employed rather than fanqie. For instance, 茵 in 示 section is notated 音因 (pronounced in the same way as 因). The present version of The Jade Chapters includes a preface written by Gu Yewang, which points out that the purpose of its compilation is to research and discover similarities and diVerences between ancient and contemporary characters in their formal structure and semantic interpretation and to help solve the users’ confusions and diYculties in these respects. He aims to ‘comprehensively study and integrate the many texts, compare and verify the diVerent books, and form a scheme of his own’. The explanations of characters in it, however, are on most occasions highly simpliWed. This might be a result of revision and deletion by later scholars. According to The Book of the Sui Dynasty, The Jade Chapters comprises thirty-one volumes, possibly counting the preface as one volume. The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters was compiled by Yan Yuansun, a Tang Dynasty scholar, and comprises only one volume. Yan Yuansun, known as Yu Xiu, was born in Wannian (Xi’an today). Yan Shigu, Yan Yuansun’s ancestor, had been ordered by Emperor Taizong to ‘verify and authorize the Scriptures. Thus [he] has recorded the writing styles of characters as samples to verify the writing style of regular scripts. These sample writings are very popular and entitled Yan’s Manual of Character Models’ (Preface to The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters), on the basis of which Yan Yuansun compiled The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters. By 干禄 ‘Ganlu’ is meant ‘seeking a position earning salaries’. This dictionary was intended to help diVerentiate the diVerent styles of character writing, especially for oYcials to recognize and correctly use the characters in government documents, such as memorials, letters and correspondences, court verdicts and legal charges. It is the Wrst character dictionary to diVerentiate the formal features of Chinese characters. Though originating from


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Yan’s Manual of Character Models, it ushered in a new epoch of character dictionary compilation and a new dictionary species – the Chinese character dictionary with a focus on formal description and diVerentiation. The characters in the dictionary are Wrst divided into four sections according to the four tones in pronunciation and are then further arranged according to the radicals they share. For each character entry, there is a split into three styles, namely popular, general, and standard, according to their diachronic sequence and diVerence in areas of use. Listing is also made of some popularly used simpliWed characters with elaborate sense diVerentiation. As meaning explication is not done character by character, and deWnitions, if there are any provided, are usually rather rough and ready, this dictionary can only be used as a general character glossary for checking character variants. In 774, Yan Zhenqing, Yan Yuansun’s nephew and also a great master of calligraphy, copied it and had it inscribed on stone tablets. According to Chen Zhensun (陈振孙), a Song Dynasty scholar, there is a sequel of The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters, which is entitled The Extended Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters (, Wve volumes) by Lou Ji in the Song Dynasty. Unfortunately, it is no longer in existence. The Collection of Characters from Five Classics was written by Zhang Shen in the Tang Dynasty. It consists of three volumes. In June 776, he started to collate and verify the words and characters in the Five Classics on imperial order. When he ‘had Wnished collecting the diVerent versions of the Five Classics, all the walls of the room were piled up with books’. Then, he began to collect confusable characters and interchangeable variants. Based on the Xiping Stone Inscriptions of the Han Dynasty and other wordbooks and dictionaries, such as An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, The Character Forest, and The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics, he identiWed 3,247 characters (3,235 characters according to his Preface). These characters are further classiWed into 160 radical sections. For each character, phonetic pronunciation is notated, mainly by means of fanqie, but sometimes direct notation is also employed. In terms of character formation, diVerentiation is made in the evolution of the writing style of the character, the variants of a character, the characters bearing resemblance in form, and the misspelled characters. In terms of pronunciation, diVerentiation is made in characters with divergent pronunciations and characters easily mispronounced. In terms of character meaning, loaned meanings are further identiWed, and the deWnitions are more speciWc and precise than those in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. Moreover, new senses or existing senses left out of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters are added, and the characters newly added are also well treated in terms of their sense deWnitions. This is a special wordbook about diVerentiating the formal structure and phonetic pronunciation

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of characters in the classics and scriptures in the tradition of Yan’s Manual of Character Models, The New Manual of Character Models from Classics and Scriptures, and The Ganlu Dictionary of Chinese Characters. In a word, the collection of characters is rich in content, with careful discrimination of their writing styles in the classics, good illustration of the diVerences in spelling between the ancient and the contemporary, and eVective correction of mistakes. Furthermore, the work has preserved many ancient pronunciations and exegetic interpretations, making it an important contribution to the standardization of Chinese characters. The New Collection of Character Models from Nine Classics was written by Xuan Du in the Tang Dynasty, consisting of one volume only, and was based on cotextual research of other classics to rectify the errors in character writing styles in The Collection of Characters from Five Classics. It also identiWed 421 characters missing from The Collection of Characters from Five Classics and classiWed them into seventy-six sections. It focused on investigating and codifying the form and style of characters, notating the pronunciation, and interpreting the meaning of characters. It followed the same pattern as The Collection of Characters from Five Classics in format and arrangement, but not in phonetic notation. It employed direct phonetic notation rather than fanqie, and if no character sharing the same pronunciation is available, it would oVer indirect notation by using two characters with one sharing the same initial consonant and the other the same vowel. Functionally speaking, The New Collection of Character Models from Nine Classics can be virtually treated as a supplement to The Collection of Characters from Five Classics, aiming to discriminate and codify the form and writing style of characters in the classics, help the user understand the diVerences in spelling between the ancient and the contemporary, and preserve a number of ancient pronunciations and exegetic interpretations. It is extraordinarily rich in language data and particularly beneWcial for studying the ancient classics. The Five-scale Compendium of Chinese Characters: with Revisions and Four-tone ClassiWcations (), is generally abbreviated to The Fivescale Compendium () and variously known as , , , , and . It was compiled by Han Daozhao, a Jin (金) Dynasty scholar. Han Daozhao, known as Bo Hui, was born in Songshui of Zhengding (Zhengding County in Hebei Province today). It was completed in 1208, based on The Four-tone MagniWcent Chapters () and with much revision, amendments, and augmentation. The motivation for writing the book is clear from the Preface by his cousin, Han Daosheng: Daozhao has extensively collected previous literature to discover their principles and paradigms. After thorough comparison and consideration he concludes that the literature


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on phonetic notation of Chinese characters is good enough but the information is not speciWc enough and the classiWcation of sections and entries are rather wordy and redundant . . . So he starts to recast the regulations and patterns, to revise, combine, and add new information, to specify the underpinnings and look into the origins.

The Five-scale Compendium had a coverage of 56,001 characters and had been the most comprehensive collection of regularized Chinese characters in the history of Chinese lexicography. Its entry characters are in the form of the regular script. It has 444 radical sections, the number coming from The Book of Changes, i.e. the 384 yao plus sixty – a cycle of years, indicating its foursquareness and conventionality. It has established a new format based on the classiWcation of Wve kinds of pronunciation, i.e. front dentals, tongue-sounds, labials, back dentals, and laryngeals. Its phonetic notation is mainly by means of fanqie, with direct notation occasionally. As for its deWnition, it has basically kept the style and features of The Jade Chapters and The ClassiWed Chapters and is a collective integration based on The Jade Chapters and The ClassiWed Chapters, hence a large-scale character dictionary with a relatively complete adoption of the Chinese character system from the time of the Han Dynasty. It has provided a general picture of the evolution of the Chinese character system since the compilation of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. It has also recorded many variant and rare characters and has well preserved the reading materials with pronunciation notated and the earliest meanings of some characters and rarely seen materials as well as the names of the rhyme books later lost. There is a great deal it can contribute to sorting the character books of today, studying the evolution of the writing styles of Chinese characters, tidying up character variants, and studying the cultural history of China and the history of the regularization of Chinese characters. Once the writing style of the zhuan scripts had become outdated and the oYcial and regular scripts ever more popular, the great discrepancy between ancient and contemporary characters was more apparent. There was also a dramatic increase in the number of newly created characters and variants of character spelling, drawing the attention of more scholars to research in this Weld. Since the time of the Song Dynasty, a number of character books and dictionaries had been compiled, some focusing on discriminating the standard writing form and style of popular characters, some on the evolutional deterioration of pictophonetic characters, and other on inquiring into the evolution from oYcial script to regular script with An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters as its basis. The most famous character books and dictionaries of this kind include The Pei Xi Dictionary, The Dictionary of Ancient Character Exegesis, The General Dictionary

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of Chinese Characters, The Dragon Shrine Character Manual, and The Character Mirror (). The Pei Xi Dictionary was written by Guo Zhongshu (郭忠恕) in the Song Dynasty. It has three volumes. The Wrst volume deals with the objectives of compilation and the author’s opinions on the evolution and change of characters. The second and third volumes divide the characters into ten sections according to the four tones of the Chinese characters. The easily confusable characters are arranged together in pairs and their diVerences in pronunciation and meaning are notated and explicated. It includes an appendix that diVerentiates and rectiWes the misspelled characters. This dictionary sets an example for discriminating easily confusable characters and between characters similar in form, pronunciation, and meaning. The Dictionary of Ancient Character Exegesis was written by Zhang You (张有) in the Song Dynasty. It has two volumes and its lexical coverage is 3,000 characters or so. These characters are divided according to their tones. The mistakes in the popular use of characters are identiWed according to the standard set by An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. For each character entry, the head character is of a zhuan-script style, coupled with variants in the vernacular and popular style. The characters similar in form and strokes are discriminated one by one to guarantee freedom from misuse. This dictionary proves to be of value to the study of the change in the form of characters in ancient times. The General Dictionary of Chinese Characters was written by Li Congzhou (李从周) in the Song Dynasty. It has only one volume, aiming to explore the origin of characters. It makes use of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters to explain the radicals of regular script in popular use. It covers 601 characters, which are further divided into eight-nine sections, or 89 sections according to the strokes of regular scripts. The head character is in the style of the zhuan script, included with notes in regular scripts. The phonetic notation is in the Wrst place, followed by its deWnition. The exegetic interpretations all follow what is said in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. This dictionary is important for the study of lexicographical theories concerning dictionary compilation in the Song Dynasty. The Dragon Shrine Character Manual was written by Seng Xingjun (僧行均) in the Liao Dynasty and was completed in 997. It was originally entitled The Dragon Shrine Character Mirror (, originally ), and was renamed as such because the last character (镜) in its original title bore the same pronunciation as the second character (敬) in the name of the Emperor’s grandfather Zhao Jing (赵敬). This book was intended for studying the Buddhist scriptures and its characters are arranged according to the radicals and the four


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tones that the characters share. There are 240 sections in the book and they are further classiWed into four volumes according to the four tones. Its format has integrated the advantages of both radical and phonetic ordering and it is an innovation with respect to the traditional format. The characters covered in each section have become roughly Wxed. The book has over 26,430 entry characters and more than 163,170 notated characters, 189,610 in total size. Under each character entry are listed its standard style, folk style, ancient style, contemporary style, general style, and variant style. Each entry character is phonetically notated and semantically deWned. The pronunciation is notated in fanqie or directly notated. The deWnitions are usually very simple. The book has a ‘miscellaneous section’ (list of characters diYcult to retrieve). It has provided a workable way for using radical ordering in dealing with diYcult characters. The book has also collected a large number of folk-style and variant-style characters prior to the Tang Dynasty, which are important materials for studying the change and evolution of ancient characters. It is especially valuable for the study of and research on the scriptures in Dunhuang grottos. Meanwhile, its innovation in format has also provided direct evidence for studying the format and style of character dictionary compilation in the Liao Dynasty. The Character Mirror was written by Li Wenzhong (李文仲) in the Yuan Dynasty. It has Wve volumes and the characters are arranged according to their tones and the 206 rhyme sections. The comments on the misuses and errors of folk style are usually given after the phonetic notation and semantic interpretation. It takes An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters as its standard in making judgements regarding character spelling, eliminating misprints, and correcting mistakes in using characters in the past. In addition to the dictionaries for rectifying the errors in character use, there are also those specializing in diVerentiating characters from historical works, such as The ClassiWed Characters of Banma, which was written in 1181 with the aim of collecting and dealing with the ancient and rare characters used in The Records of the Historian by Sima Qian (司马迁) and The Book of the Han Dynasty by Ban Gu. The characters are arranged according to their tones. The book covers 1,800 characters in Wve volumes. In 1264, Li Sengbo (李僧伯) revised it and added 1,239 characters, which were attached to the sections they belong to. The dictionary is based on co-textual research on the two historical books for diVerentiation of character meanings and pronunciations. For entry characters in the book, a great deal of information is provided in relation to sense discrimination and pronunciation diVerentiation, and there is also a detailed and exhaustive listing of loan characters and ancient and contemporary character variants. This dictionary is not only useful for reading The Records of the Historian and The Book of

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the Han Dynasty but also very important for studying the compilation of special dictionaries in the Song Dynasty. The Dictionary of Characters from Classics and Scriptures with Phonetic Discrimination () was written by Jia Changchao (贾昌朝, 997–1065) in the Song Dynasty with a view to phonetic codiWcation. It has seven volumes. The Wrst Wve volumes are designed to diVerentiate characters ‘similar in formation but diVerent in pronunciation’, Volume 6 to discriminate character pronunciations in voicing and rhyming, and characters whose pronunciations are confusable, and Volume 7 to deal with the merits and demerits of exegetic interpretation. It is the Wrst dictionary dealing with the transformation of parts of speech and character senses in the history of Chinese lexicography, which identiWes both the change in meaning and the change in part of speech according to their pronunciations. In a sense, it can also be regarded as the Wrst morphological dictionary in the history of Chinese character dictionary. Special attention should be paid to its achievement in using the change in phonetic tones to index the change in meaning and in part of speech. Zhu Yizun (朱彝尊), a Qing Dynasty scholar, holds that ‘the dictionary is specialized in phonetic discrimination, dealing with the characters with the same spelling but diVerent pronunciations. The pronunciations are collected from the classics and the diVerent dialects nationwide.’ Thus, he ordered Zhang Shijun (张士俊), his disciple, ‘to print it and let it pass down from generation to generation’. In the Song Dynasty, there was another dictionary worthy of special mention, i.e. The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters, literally ‘Six Categories’ Interpretation, which was written by Dai Tong. Dai Tong was born in Yongjia, today’s Zhejiang Province. The dates of his birth and death are unclear. It is also unclear when the dictionary came to fruition, but according to The General Interpretation of Six-category Chinese Characters, that book took him thirty years. The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters explicates the meanings of characters in the light of the ‘Six Categories’ theory. The main parts of the book are an introduction, table of contents (including explanatory notes), general explanations, and the body of the text. ‘General Interpretations’ is an expatiation on the author’s philological theories. The main body has 33 volumes, dealing with 7,603 entries. The principles for selecting entry characters are: (a) no unusual characters, i.e. rarely used characters; (b) no deteriorated character form, i.e. only the original form of the character; (c) no characters without citations from the ancient or contemporary books. According to the principle of ‘things are sorted by their classiWcations and grouped together’, the characters are classiWed into seven types, namely ‘number, astronomy, geography, human beings, animals, plants, engineering’, in addition to a ‘miscellaneous’ type. For


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those characters whose formations are unidentiWable and their derivatives, he identiWed 222 characters for them and classiWed them into a separate section and attached it to the end of the book as an appendix of ‘Questionable Types’. In The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters, none of the entry characters is used to head the radicals. Instead, the bronze inscription is employed as the base character. If the inscription does not suYce, then xiaozhuan is employed to reinforce. Therefore, The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters diVers in format from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. In the main body, each character is normally treated in one separate entry. The original character form is given in Wrst place, then phonetic notation, followed by deWnition. The phonological system of The Dictionary of Rhymes is adopted for this book and the mode of phonetic notation is in fanqie, coupled with four tones and direct notation of homophones. The deWning methods are semantic signposts, analogy, and direct interpretation, etc. The meanings abstracted from citations are also employed and glossed as supplementary means for meaning interpretation: 于书传为某某之义 ‘meaning . . . according to the annotation from a certain book’, 说见某下 ‘for annotations, see below a certain character’, 义见某下 ‘ for meaning, see below a certain character’, 详见某下 ‘for details, see below a certain character’, 义不待训 ‘for meaning, further interpretation needed’, and 义不待释 ‘for meaning, further explanation needed’. By these means, the compiler aims to achieve concision and avoid redundancy. The features of this book are as follows: It not only concentrates on the original meaning but also points out the extended meanings and loaned meanings. It contrasts the contemporary with the ancient and compares the standard with the popular. It lays more emphasis on citations and textual research, combining the features of notating, researching, and discriminating. It contains abundant knowledge of ancient culture. Its value also lies in its employment of the technique of ‘seeking meaning by sounds’ and the method of using bronze inscriptions to attest the characters.’ (刘斌, Liu Bin, 1988)

Under the inXuence of The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters, there appeared a series of dictionaries named after 六书 (Six Categories), such as The General Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters, The Original Exegesis of Sixcategory Chinese Characters (), The Overall Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters (), The Origins of Direct Phonetic Notations of Six-category Chinese Characters (), The Learned Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters (), The Standardized Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters (), and The Phonological Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters (). The best-known dictionary is The General Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters, written by Yang Heng

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(杨恒) in the Yuan Dynasty. It has twenty volumes and its compilation is governed by the theory of ‘Six Categories’. It aims to rectify the writing style of xiaozhuan in accordance with ancient characters, dazhuan, and bronze inscriptions. For each character entry, the ancient character form and dazhuan form are listed Wrst, followed by the bronze inscription character, and Wnally the xiaozhuan form. For the categories of pictographic, associative, pictophonetic, and mutually explanatory characters, it mainly follows The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters with some amendments and supplements. As to the other two categories, i.e. self-explanatory and phonetic loaning, they are mainly based on the research conducted by the compiler himself.

11.5 the academic value and cultural implications The academic values of Chinese character dictionaries in the period from the Wei to the Yuan Dynasties are mainly evident in the improvements in dictionary format and style established in the Han Dynasty. In terms of macrostructure, it is principally a question of the widely used radical system as the basis for the arrangement of head characters, and, in terms of microstructure, phonetic notation becomes more accurate, senses to be deWned are more selective, and citations are somewhat more standardized. The sociological value of character dictionaries in this period is evident in the codiWcation and standardization of Chinese characters and their use. The wide circulation of dictionaries has facilitated the process of the standardization of Chinese characters. The Jade Chapters diVers, to some extent, from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters in format and style. The 542 sections in The Jade Chapters basically result from revisions and amendments of the 540 sections in An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, but its deWnition style is quite diVerent. The head character in The Jade Chapters is in the form of the regular script, and therefore it does not have to resort to the Six Categories theory in analysing the form and structure of characters. It focuses on providing exact and comprehensive deWnitions of the deWned characters. In this sense, The Jade Chapters surpasses An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters in terms of practicality and ease of consultation. Its inXuence on dictionaries of later generations is profound and far-reaching in their megastructural design, in their format and style, and in their theoretical explorations.


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The ClassiWed Chapters is a direct heritage of both An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and The Jade Chapters. It has provided helpful experience for later dictionary compilation. The nine items its Preface elaborates upon in relation to dictionary compilation are still thought-provoking for today’s dictionary makers in entry selection and arrangement. It has followed the model set by An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and The Jade Chapters, giving great prominence to etymological inquiries, extensive collection of homophones, homographs, and homonyms, and elaboration of transformation in writing styles from the ancient to the contemporary forms. Its lexical coverage, however, is not conWned to that of An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters and The Jade Chapters. It has taken in a great number of newly created characters and archaic characters and is, therefore, commended by Huang Kan as ‘the most comprehensive character dictionary ever compiled’. Its lexical coverage is extensive, precise, and meticulous. It is a treasure house of Chinese characters, having preserved valuable reference materials for tracing the development of Chinese characters. The ClassiWed Chapters provides labels for homophones, homographs, and homonyms if there are phonetic and semantic variations. It has established a new system of character arrangement and retrieval – radicals used as the basis for its macrostructure and rhyme segmentation as supplementary retrieval means. Where characters have various pronunciations and senses, their phonetic notations and deWnitions are, as a rule, arranged in the order of their rhyme segments. The arrangement of all entry characters in the dictionary follows the order of rhyme segments rigorously, which is unique in the history of Chinese lexicography. The contribution of The Four-tone MagniWcent Chapters to Chinese lexicographical studies lies in radical simpliWcation and stroke-based character arrangement. It is a trend in the development of Chinese character dictionaries to reduce the number of radical sections. It has reduced the number from 542 in The Jade Chapters to 444. In the same radical section, characters are arranged according to the number of strokes. Its wide selection of Chinese characters tempted the compilers of The Imperial Dictionary of Kangxi to take serious note of it and adopt quite a number of entry characters from it, which is solid proof of its great academic value and its profound impact on later generations of dictionaries. The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters by Dai Tong was compiled to contest the phenomenon of ‘name-essence chaos’ in traditional philology and exegetic studies, with the aim of achieving ‘a name matching its reality’. In The General Interpretation of Six-category Chinese Characters, he states:

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During the decline of the Zhou Dynasty, oYcials were forgetting what they should obey and the scholars were forgetting what they should learn. To the time when books were burnt in the Qin Dynasty, the good deeds of former kings had become extinct. From zhuan script to bafen (a type of oYcial script), and to cursive script and regular script, errors and falsehoods were widely circulated and passed on. And today, the chaos and disorder in character use have gone to extremes and the use of names is even worse. Name, a big thing for ruling; character, a big thing for naming. When characters are in disorder, the names will be in chaos too; and when the names are in disorder, the realities are easily distorted; when names are in disorder and realities distorted, the people will be deluded, orders confused, laws disobeyed, and rites and ceremonies violated. Consequently, the whole of society will be in disorder. If a country is to be well governed, it should start from name rectiWcation.

In the Preface to The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters, he also points out: The theory of Six Categories is the entrance to learning and the ancestor of all scholars . . . It is a general interpretation of all the scholarly works. If the theory of Six Categories is mastered, one can read all the books under the sun without the assistance of any explanatory notes. If it is not grasped and if one possesses erroneous explanatory notes, he could only expect to be puzzled and lost.

Having recognized the extreme importance of the Six Categories theory, Dai Tong aims to compile a dictionary to help scholars study the classic works ‘without resorting to explanatory notes’. It is not hard to imagine that The Exegesis of Six-category Chinese Characters holds an important position in the lexicographical history of China. It is a cultural treasure and plays an indispensable part in helping to read ancient literature and in conducting ancient lexicographical research. Certainly, it has its limitations. For instance, it has exaggerated the role of the Six Categories theory. For some characters, their arrangement is problematic. Moreover, there are also some mistakes in its explanatory notes in the text. But, most deWnitely, the presence of Xaws will not obscure the splendour of the jade.

12

THE DEVELOPMENT OF C H I N E S E WO R D DICTIONA R I ES

B

ETWEEN the Wei and Yuan Dynasties, the Confucian classics and their studies continued to hold a uniquely signiWcant position in China’s academic world. Consequently, Chinese dictionary compilation over this period still attached great importance to the exegetic explanations of Confucian classics, represented by such word dictionaries as The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics, The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics, and The Broad Ready Guide. Starting from the time of the Sui and Tang Dynasties, Buddhism had become widespread within the Chinese territories, and the exegesis of Buddhist scriptures turned out to be another focus of dictionary compilation during this period, represented by Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures and its sequel.

12.1 the historical background Human history is divided into periods in all civilizations, and each period is culturally marked and academically led by the mainstream of its human needs. The evolution of lexicography in the period of the Wei to Yuan Dynasty is naturally directed and spurred by the mainstream humanity need of the period. On the one hand, the upper class was chieXy dominated by the Confucian ideology in classic knowledge, ways of thinking, and religion. The representative

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dictionaries of this period are The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics by Kong Yingda et al. and The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics by Lu Deming. On the other hand, the lower class was increasingly inXuenced by the gradual eastward penetration of Buddhism in their everyday life, ways of thinking, and regional religion. The representative dictionary is Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures by Buddhist monks in the Tang Dynasty. Since the time of the Han Dynasty, the Confucian School had gradually assumed the dominant position – enjoying the power of advocating the truth. And, naturally, the Confucian works became the authoritative classics in the ideological world of China. These classics were thought to have contained all the knowledge and thought in the world. The process of interpreting, expounding, and adding explanatory notes to these classics was thought to be a process of seeking the ‘meaning’ beyond them. The addition of notes to the classics meant starting from the analysis of words and characters so as to construe the meaning of the classics; to preach the classics was to advocate the meaning in them, but it must start from interpreting the meaning of each name and object that a character or word designates. For each scholar or oYcial, reading and studying the classics had become compulsory. For a united empire, there was also a need for a uniWed interpretation system for classic works. Such a system would be helpful in integrating the ideology of the people, educating young children in school, and putting scholarly oYcials to the test. Education played an important part in laying a sound foundation of knowledge and thought for young people, and oYcial selection would promote the common knowledge and thought in a community and ensure that it was oriented in a desirable direction. For the government, when facing such a situation of confusion and disorder in knowledge and thought resulting from the enormous explanatory notes on the classics accumulated over centuries, a rational decision had to be reached as to the establishment of a uniWed interpretation system for classic works. Since the time of Southern and Northern Dynasties, the study of Confucius and the preaching on Confucianism had become prevalent, which resulted in various schools and extremely diversiWed interpretations. In the eyes of Lu Deming, it was a time ‘when minute words have lost their colours and the great imports have deviated and become absurd. With the intention of attacking diVerent opinions, some scholars have even come to inventing interpretations’. He undertook to compile The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics ‘to save the classics from dying out’ (from the Preface to The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics). This dictionary was intended for the codiWcation of language and characters and for the satisfaction of the need to read and interpret the classic works. In the Tang Dynasty, against the new socio-cultural background, scholars

development of word dictionaries

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began to reconsider the textual meanings of the Pre-Qin Dynasty classic works in order to appreciate the traditional culture contained in them. Dictionaries were produced to help interpret and understand the Pre-Qin Dynasty classics and to rectify mistakes in the exegetic interpretations of classics in previous dictionaries, for instance, The RectiWcation of Classic Interpretations (, eight volumes) by Yan Shigu of the Tang Dynasty. This dictionary cited extensively from ancient classic works, aiming to rectify errors in interpreting and understanding the words and phrases of the Six Classic Books. Look at the following example: 渚: The Ready Guide says: ‘a small 洲 (islet) is called 渚 and a small 渚 is called 沚.’ They all refer to small pieces of land on the river that people can live on. In The Book of Songs, there is ‘鸿飞遵渚’, which means geese Xying over the islets. But in On Destiny (), Liu Xiaobiao (刘孝标) says ‘三闾沉骸湘渚’ (San Lu¨ OYcial, i.e. Qu Yuan, drowned himself between the islets in the Xiang Jiang River). Note: Qu Yuan went to the Miluojiang River to drown himself. The water there had to be very deep. It could not be between the shallow islets.

Buddhism was introduced into China in the Eastern Han Dynasty, as the Buddhist scriptures were becoming numerous and voluminous. As time passed, the language of the Buddhist scriptures became more and more diYcult to comprehend, which was completely out of keeping with the popularization of Buddhism among the general public. Meanwhile, errors occurred in the copying and circulation of the scriptures. The situation was adequately described by Liu Yu (柳豫) as follows: The Buddhist scriptures are voluminous and the argumentations in them are profound. They are aZicted with errors and misspellings, and their phonetic notations and semantic interpretations are often rough and neglectful. Days and months are spent in studying and sorting them. There is some progress, but concerns are inevitable. ReXections on them often come to nothing. All the scholars of good will would be troubled by them. (from The Compendium of China’s Buddhist Sutras, , Volume 59:510)

Against such a background, dictionaries emerged that were oriented towards facilitating the understanding and interpretation of the sounds and meanings of Buddhist scriptures. In the period of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there emerged academic works on phonetic notation and semantic interpretation of Buddhist scriptures. For instance, Dao Hui (道慧), a monk of the Northern Qi Dynasty, compiled Sounds of All the Buddhist Scriptures (). With the introduction and translation of Buddhist scriptures, the Indian and Chinese cultures

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began to converge and exert inXuence upon each other, which promoted intercultural communication. There were some new words introduced from Buddhism into the Chinese language, such as 因果 (cause and eVect), a free translation, and 浮屠 (Buddha), a transliteration. These new words call for special dictionaries of Buddhism and general dictionaries to deal with them. The Tang Dynasty brought with it general dictionaries for interpretations of Buddhist scriptures, such as Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures by Xuan Ying and Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures by Hui Lin. At the time of the Liao Dynasty, there appeared a sequel to Hui Lin’s Sounds and Meanings of all the Buddhist Scriptures – The Extended Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures ().

12.2 the evolution of lexicographical theories The theoretical underpinnings of Chinese dictionary making are the semantic studies of the Chinese language and serious probing into the Chinese lexicon. In the period from the Wei to the Yuan Dynasties, the focus of the semantic studies shifted to an investigation into phonetic–semantic relations in the Chinese language, which is manifested by preliminary explorations from the phonetic and the lexical semantic perspectives. The most inXuential school of thought is the ‘right radical theory’. The ‘right radical theory’ is explained by Shen Kuo (沈括, 1031–1095), a Northern Song scholar, in The Mengxi Collection of Written Dialogues as follows: Wang Shengmei (王圣美) was interested in the study of characters. He developed a theory that the meaning of a character resides in its right radical. For the ancient character books, all the focus was on the left radical of the character. For Chinese characters, the left radical indicates the category it belongs to and the right radical indicates its semantics. For instance, for all the characters related to wood, their left radicals are all 木 (wood). As to the right radical, let us have a look at 戋, which means 小 (small, little). When there is little water, it is 浅 (shallow); when there is little ‘gold’ (金), it is 钱 (coin); when there is little badness (歹), it is 残 (defect); and when 贝 (shell, meaning ‘money’ in ancient Chinese) is small, it is 贱 (cheap). For all the characters of this type, their meanings are related to and based on the right radical 戋 (small, little).

The left and right radicals refer to the formal and phonetic components of the Chinese character respectively. The ‘right radical theory’ diVers from phonetic interpretation in that phonetic interpretation focuses on the pronunciation but


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overlooks the meaning. Moreover, the criteria used in phonetic interpretation are rather vague. The focus on phonetic components in the ‘right radical theory’ is motivated by the fact that for pictophonetic characters, phonetic components are also ‘meaning-embodied’. In the Song Dynasty, Zhang Shinan (张世南) and Wang Guanguo (王观国) made similar proposals to the ‘right radical theory’. Zhang Shinan states: Since An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, the left radical of a character has been used as an indication of its category and The Jade Chapters follows suit. It is not known to them that the right radicals normally also fall into categories. For instance, 戋 means ‘shallow’ and ‘small’. So the water that can be waded through is called 浅 (shallow). The defects caused by illness are called 残 (handicapped); goods that are not expensive are called 贱 (cheap); and types of wood that are light and thin are called 栈 (plank). Let us look at another instance. 青 (green) has the meaning of essence and brightness. The sun with nothing to cover it is called 晴 (Wne); the cleanliness and clearness of water is called 清 (clean and clear); bright eyes are called 睛 (bright eye), and the polished rice is called 精 (reWned). From these two examples we can see the general pattern. (from The Travels of a Tourist OYcial, , Volume 9)

Wang Guanguo proposed a similar theory, called the ‘proto-character theory’. He states: 卢 is a kind of proto-character. Adding 金 (metal) to it, it is 鈩 (furnace); adding 火 (Wre) to it, it is 炉 (stove); adding 瓦 (tile) to it, it is ‘卢瓦’ (stile); adding 目 (eye) to it, it is 矑 (eyeball); adding 黑 (black) to it, it is 黸 (black). When it is necessary to omit some part of a character, it will be the radical part rather than the proto-character. When the bare proto-character is used, its meaning is still complete in cases where it is used to substitute part of the characters sharing the proto-character. Let us see another example. 田 (Weld; farmland) is also a proto-character. It can be used as 畋 (Weld) in 畋猎 (Weld hunting); and it can also be used as 佃 (till) in 佃田 (till the farmland). When there is a need to use the simpliWed form, 田 can be used instead. This applies generally to other similar situations. (from The Scholarly Circles, , Volume 5)

Dai Tong, a Yuan Dynasty linguist, laid special emphasis on exploring the relations between phonetics and semantics. He proposed that the meaning of a character should be sought from its pronunciation. He held that the character, its radical included, comes from its pronunciation. Pronunciation comes Wrst, and when a form is given a pronunciation a character comes into being. For the meaning of a pictophonetic character, if it is sought from its pronunciation, it can be obtained, but if it is sought from its character or its radical, one will be confused. For 昏 (dizziness), it originally refers to 昏 (dusk, evening) of a day. The 昏 of the mind or eye is analogical to that of the day, and 心 (mind) or 目

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(eye) needs to be added to it. As for ‘marriage’, it usually takes place at dusk and it is also called 昏 and 女 (female) needs to be added to it (from The Exegesis of Sixcategory Chinese Characters).

12.3 the development of format and style Compared with the period of the Han Dynasty, the format and style of word dictionaries in the period of the Wei to the Yuan Dynasties had the following features. First, in macrostructure, the entries are arranged according to their formation and structure and their phonological and semantic systems. Second, fanqie is usually adopted in phonetic notation and it is relatively more precise. Third, the focus of deWnition has shifted from the original meaning to the multiple meanings simultaneously: rational meaning, denotative meaning, social meaning, aVective meaning, reXective meaning, associative meaning, and thematic meaning. Fourth, more attention has been given to etymological investigation. Fifth, as to the controversial deWnitions, diVerent opinions are collected and presented together, which calls into play ‘sense sorting’ and ‘set explanation’. Finally, the scope of citation has been expanded. In addition to the classic works of Confucian and the Taoist schools, quotations are also given from books concerning history, philosophy, Buddhism, and other sources. Let us Wrst examine the diVerent ways etymological information is treated by two lexicographers and show how the organization of an entry has beneWted from previous lexicographers and what this implies for future lexicographers. Kong Yingda, in dealing with sense relations of Chinese words, proposed that ‘the meaning of a character exists in its pronunciation’ and that ‘a borrowed pronunciation carries with it its meaning’. He was the predecessor of the Qing Dynasty scholars who advocated that ‘the meaning of a character can be sought from its pronunciation’. The principle of the meaning of a character residing in its pronunciation applies to cognates. Let us have a look at the following example: In Mao Heng’s Exegesis of the Book of Songs, there is ‘韩侯取妻, 汾王之甥’. As for the meaning of 汾, Mao Heng’s Exegesis of the Book of Songs interprets it as 大 (large). In The RectiWed Interpretation of Mao’s Book of Songs, Exegetic Interpretation () interprets 坟 as 大. Mao Heng’s Exegesis of the Book of Songs reasons that 坟 and 汾 are identical in pronunciation and therefore infers that they should share the same meaning of 大. In Kong Yingda’s reasoning, 汾 has the same pronunciation as 坟. Since 坟 means 大, thus, the meaning of 汾 should also be 大.


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The principle of borrowed pronunciation carrying its meaning with it applies to those phonetically loaned characters. Let us have a look at the following example: In Mao Heng’s Exegesis of the Book of Songs, there is ‘周公遭变者, 管蔡流言, 辟居东都’. As to the meaning of 辟, The RectiWed Interpretation of Mao’s Book of Songs has it that in ancient times, 避, 辟, 譬, and 僻 were the same. The others had all borrowed its pronunciation and carried with them its meaning respectively. Zheng reads 辟 as 避 according to such an interpretation. Let us turn to Hui Lin’s interpretation of etymological information. Firstly, he looks into where the term comes from. Here is an example: In ‘绰袖: 上昌若反, 下囚就反’, what does 绰袖 mean? ‘Note: 绰袖 refers to a coat with a large sleeve. Probably a fad word: when someone with a large sleeve passes by, this will create a gentle breeze. It is thus called 绰袖.’ (from Volume 37:12) Secondly, he goes back to its source. Look at the following example: For 摩挱 (massage), The Dictionary of Initial Consonants says ‘摩挱, like caressing and touching’ (from Volume 37: 2). It is evident that 摩挱 came into use no later than the period of the Three Kingdoms. From the analysis of the format and style of The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics, we can also see a similar relationship of heritage for its microstructure – learning from the previous and with implications for the future. The format and style of The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics concerns three aspects – character codiWcation, phonetic notation, and sense deWnition. In character codiWcation, work is done as follows: (a) for apparent erroneous ones, write the correct one directly, and in the note, use the label ‘. . . 字或作某’ to indicate the erroneous one; (b) use a character with similar spelling to substitute one with a diVerent meaning, and they are both taken as correct; (c) for those folk characters that are already widely accepted in popular use, make no change or comments; (d) for some variants, notate the proper one; (e) for those ancient-style characters in The Collection of Characters from Ancient Books (), notate their contemporary counterparts; (f) for those deviational characters resulting from circulation or copying, collate them and identify the proper one. In phonetic notation, work has been done to the diYcult characters, those with diVerent pronunciations, those phonetically loaned characters, and those confusable characters. In sense deWnition, part of the tradition from An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters has been kept and there are also some innovations by Lu Deming himself: (a) list the correct deWnition at the Wrst place but still keep the diVerent interpretations for reference; (b) the data for deWnition come not only from the masters’ notes to the scriptures and character books compiled from the Han to the Six Dynasties, but also from the dialects and customs; (c) in addition to sense deWnition, there are also explanatory notes to grammatical

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phenomena. It is certain that quotations from the dialects and explanations of grammatical phenomena did not fall into the scope of previous wordbooks and dictionaries. What is especially worth noting is the appearance in the period of the Wei to the Yuan Dynasties of a new type of dictionary, such as The Dictionary of Characters from Classics and Scriptures with Phonetic Discrimination, which, for the Wrst time in the history of Chinese lexicography, deals with the transformation of parts of speech and lexical meanings. It was written by Jia Changchao of the Song Dynasty. This dictionary comprises seven volumes: the Wrst Wve diVerentiate between characters that are the same in formation but diVerent in pronunciation; the sixth discriminates character pronunciations – their diVerences in voicing, rhyming, and characters whose pronunciations are confusable; and the seventh deals with problems in exegetic interpretation. Generally speaking, the tone conversion and the change of voicing dealt with in the dictionary fall into four categories. First, the level tone, the rising tone, and the voiceless tone have converted to the falling tone, the entering tone, and the voiced tone respectively; second, the falling tone, the entering tone, and the voiced tone have converted to the level tone, the rising tone, and the voiceless tone respectively; third, the level tone, the rising tone, and the voiceless tone have remained unchanged; and fourth, the falling tone, the entering tone, and the voiced tone have remained unchanged. All these four categories of change can bring about a change in part of speech and lexical meaning. The changes fall into 11 patterns: 1 rising tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in Volume 6 (a) N ! V: * 2 level tone to there is ‘枕, 藉首木也, 章荏切。首在木曰枕, 章鸠切’. * rising tone, Category III. 3) entering tone to falling tone, Category IV. 1 rising tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in Volume 2 (b) V ! N: * 2 falling tone to level tone, there is ‘数, 计也, 色主切。数, 计目也, 尸故切’. * Category II. 1 rising tone to entering tone, Category I. For instance, in (c) V ! Adj.: * 2 falling tone to Volume 2 there is ‘数, 计也, 色主切。数, 屡, 色角切’. * level tone, Category II. 3) level tone to rising tone, Category III. 1 rising tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in Volume (d) Adj. ! V: * 2 falling tone to level 1 there is ‘近, 迩也, 真谨切。近, 附也, 其靳切’. * tone, Category II. 3) falling tone to entering tone, Category IV. 1 rising tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in Volume 1 (e) N ! Adj.: * 2 fallthere is ‘跛, 足疾也, 波我切。跛, 偏任切, 彼义切, : 立无跛’. * ing tone to level tone, Category II.


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1 level tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in (f) Adj. ! N: * Volume 2 there is ‘敦, 厚也, 都屯切。敦, 器也, 都队切, : 珠盘玉 2 falling tone to level tone, Category II. 敦’. * (g) Num. ! Partitive nouns: rising tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in Volume 6 there is ‘两, 偶数也, 力奖切。物相偶曰两, 力让切, : 葛履五两’. (h) Intransitive Verb ! Transitive Verb: rising tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in Volume 6 there is ‘远, 疏也, 于阮切, 对近之称。疏之曰远, 于眷切, : 敬鬼神而远之’. 1 (i) Nouns without a change in part of speech but with a change in tone: * level tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in Volume 1 there is ‘牙, 牝齿也, 五加切。牙, 车輮也, 五驾切, : 牙也者以为固抱也’. 2 falling tone to level tone, Category II. * 1 level (j) Verbs without a change in part of speech but with a change in tone: * tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in Volume 1 there is ‘分, 别也, 府 2 level tone to rising tone, Category III. 文切。分, 限也, 扶问切’. * (k) Adjectives without a change in part of speech but with a change in tone: rising tone to falling tone, Category I. For instance, in Volume 1 there is ‘少, 鲜也, 书沼切。少, 稚也, 施诏切’. The above discussions are all concerned with the transformation of parts of speech and lexical meanings brought about by the change in phonetic tones, which all belong to the morphological changes of classical Chinese philology. It is in this sense that The Dictionary of Characters from Classics and Scriptures with Phonetic Discrimination is regarded as the earliest morphological dictionary in the history of Chinese lexicography.

12.4 a brief introduction to some representative word dictionaries The word dictionaries of the ancient Chinese language in the period from the Wei to the Yuan Dynasties fall into two major classes: the interpretation of Confucian Classics, represented by The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics, The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics, The Broad Ready Guide, and the interpretation of Buddhist scriptures represented by Xuan Ying’s and Hui Lin’s Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures.

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The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics was compiled by Kong Yingda, Yan Shigu, and others in the Tang Dynasty. In the third year of Zhenguan, i.e. 629, Yan Shigu was recommended by Wei Zheng (魏征) to take charge of the revision of The Book of the Sui Dynasty. The following year, when he realized the numerous errors in the classic works resulting from long-time circulation and manual copying, Emperor Taizong ordered Yan Shigu to collate and rectify The Five Classics (). The Confucian scholars were not satisWed with the rectiWed version of The Five Classics by Yan Shigu and the book met with Werce criticism. The Emperor ordered Fang Xuanling (房玄龄) and other Confucian scholars to examine and assess the book. Yan Shigu answered one by one the various questions and censures he faced. His citations came from a variety of contemporary and ancient books and his argumentation was logical and convincing. Later, when Kong Yingda et al. were ordered to compile The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics, Yan Shigu was also invited to participate in the project. The Five Classics codiWed by Yan Shigu was oYcially issued nationwide. It was used in the Imperial Examination and scholars read it scrupulously and respectfully. For centuries it had not met with criticism or opposition. ‘RectiWed interpretation’ in the title of The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics comes from ‘rectifying the notes and interpretations identiWed by previous scholars’. The dictionary comprises 180 volumes, containing The RectiWed Interpretation of the Book of Changes (, fourteen volumes), The RectiWed Interpretation of the Book of Ancient Texts (, twenty volumes), The RectiWed Interpretation of Mao’s Book of Songs (forty volumes), The RectiWed Interpretation of the Book of Rites (, seventy volumes), and The RectiWed Interpretation of Zuo’s Spring and Autumn Annals (, thirty-six volumes). In the compilation of The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics, the principle is strictly observed that ‘emphasis should be Wrst laid upon interpreting and sorting the text and that the notes given by previous scholars should not be readily discarded’. Where disputes arose, they would be judged against the many notes added by scholars in the Han and Wei Dynasties. Thus, The RectiWed Interpretation of Five Classics is also a book surveying and summarizing the achievements accomplished in the period of the Han to Jin (晋) Dynasties. The characters and their meanings in the Pre-Qin Dynasty classic works underwent major changes: as for the pronunciation, there were great discrepancies between the ancient and contemporary and, as for the form of characters, they were subject to the transitional changes from the zhuan script to the oYcial script. The use of phonetically loaned characters had also given rise to the abuse of variant and simpliWed characters. These changes and transformations made it very diYcult for people to read Pre-Qin classic literature. After a survey of various opinions


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from 230 diVerent schools and a careful examination of their similarities and diVerences, Lu Deming compiled The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics. It is an important work for studying the notes on Pre-Qin Classic works. Lu Deming was born in Suzhou, today’s Jiangsu Province. He was a Confucian scholar and his other academic works include The Exegesis of Words and Sentences from the Book of Changes (, twenty-four volumes), The Exegesis of Lao Zi (, Wfteen volumes), and The Exegesis of Words and Sentences from Zhuang Zi (, twenty volumes). The compilation of The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics came to fruition in 583 when he was teaching at the Imperial College. The book has thirty volumes, the Wrst of which is the Preface and Contents; the remaining twenty-nine volumes deal with the words and sentences of fourteen classic works, namely The Book of Changes, The Collection of Characters from Ancient Books, Mao Heng’s Exegesis of the Book of Songs, The Rites of the Zhou Dynasty, Etiquette and Rites (), The Book of Rites, Zuo’s Spring and Autumn Annals, Gongyang’s Spring and Autumn Annals (), Guliang’s Spring and Autumn Annals (), The Book of Filial Virtues, The Analects of Confucius, Lao Zi, Zhuang Zi, and The Ready Guide. These classic works are arranged in chronological order and the quotations for interpreting meaning and pronunciation are clearly identiWed by their sources. As for the treatment of words and characters in The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics, some are phonetically notated only, some are semantically interpreted only, and some are simply collated without any treatment of pronunciation or meaning. The earliest exegetic dictionary subsequent to The Ready Guide is The Pocket Ready Guide by Kong Fu of the Han Dynasty. Its coverage, however, is limited. Of the Erya (i.e. The Ready Guide) dictionary series, the most important is The Broad Ready Guide by Zhang Yi of the Three Kingdoms Period. In its title, ‘broad’ means ‘broaden its use’. Zhang Yi left behind no autobiography. According to the biography of Jiang Shi in The Book of the Wei Dynasty, ‘In early Wei Doctor Zhang Yi from Qinghe county wrote The Augmented Cangjie Glossary, The Broad Ready Guide, and The Exegesis of Ancient and Contemporary Characters.’ Yan Shigu also mentioned Zhang Yi in The Style Guide to the Book of the Han Dynasty () when he was commenting on scholars with expertise in explanatory notes from the time of the Western Han Dynasty. He says that ‘Zhang Yi, known as Zhi Rang, came from Qinghe, or Hejian according to another source. In the period of Taihe (ad 227–ad 232) in Wei, he was appointed Doctor.’ In his Presenting the Memorial for The Broad Ready Guide, Zhang Yi spoke highly of The Ready Guide but, at the same time, he pointed out its defects and shortcomings: its coverage of exegetic interpretation on characters and its scope of things discussed are not complete. So he read and collected extensively to embrace what was not

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included in The Ready Guide. There were extensive citations from ancient character glossaries and the notes and commentaries added by Confucian scholars of the Han Dynasty to classic works. It recorded ‘characters with identical formations but diVerent meanings, characters whose pronunciations are lost because of phonetic changes, special expressions from diVerent regions, and names of common objects which changed over time’. In other words, it made an eVort to take in what had been left out in The Ready Guide – the exegetic interpretations that had been left out and newly emerged characters, words, and phrases. His Memorial for The Broad Ready Guide stated that The Broad Ready Guide had three volumes and 18,150 characters. Later, in the process of circulation and copying, it was subdivided into four volumes and then into ten further volumes, but the number of entry characters was less than that of the original. The number of semantic categories, represented by chapters, in The Broad Ready Guide was the same as The Ready Guide, i.e. nineteen categories. The mode of interpretation and explanation remained the same. The Wrst three categories, i.e. Interpreting Exegesis, Interpreting Words, and Interpreting Rhetoric, dealt with general words and expressions. The following sixteen categories dealt with words of an encyclopedic nature. For each chapter, there were new supplements. For instance, Interpreting Mountains in The Ready Guide stated that ‘Taishan is East Mountain, Huashan is West Mountain, Huoshan is South Mountain, Hengshan is North Mountain, and Central Summit is Mid Mountain’, whereas in The Broad Ready Guide the wording was: ‘Daizong is called Taishan, Tianzhu Huoshan, Huashan Dahua, and Changshan Hengshan’. For the four big mountains, each of their diVerent names was given, which was what The Ready Guide had failed to do. A note added to ‘Huoshan is South Mountain’ in The Ready Guide by Guo Pu said ‘that is Tianzhu Mountain, where water comes from’. It is clear that in the period from the Wei to the Jin (晋) Dynasty, Huoshan had already been called Tianzhu. In the Preface to The RectiWed Broad Ready Guide, Wang Niansun, a Qing Dynasty scholar, commented on The Broad Ready Guide stating that it [The Broad Ready Guide] had broadly embraced the great masters’ interpretations of The Book of Changes, The Book of Ancient Texts, The Book of Songs, The Book of Three Rites Texts, and Three Annals (, that is Zuo’s Spring and Autumn Annals, Gongyang’s Spring and Autumn Annals, Guliang’s Spring and Autumn Annals), the annotations on The Analects of Confucius, Meng Zi, Hong Lie (), and Standard Words, the appreciation and explanations of The Songs of Chu and Fupoems of the Han Dynasty, the records of divination combined with the mystical Confucian belief in the Qin and Han Dynasties and the diVerent theories contained in The Cangjie Primer, The Exegetic Primer, The Pangxi Primer, The Dictionary of


217

Dialectal Words, and An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters. For the meanings of ancient characters retained from the Zhou, Qin, and Han Dynasties, it could be used to rectify them and for those lost as a basis to look into them. Its signiWcance to exegetic interpretation and explanation is enormous. The data sources of The Broad Ready Guide are so extensive that it has well preserved the exegetic studies of the Zhou, Qin, and Han Dynasties. It is the most important exegetic dictionary since The Ready Guide. The word dictionaries in the Song Dynasty had generally followed the example of The Ready Guide. The Augmented Ready Guide was written by Lu Dian between 1078 and 1085. The Extended Ready Guide by Luo Yuan was completed in 1174. They are mostly amendments to works on The Ready Guide – further additions to the contents and more detailed interpretations and deWnitions. In the Yuan Dynasty, the main thematic dictionaries were The Essentials of Augmented Ready Guide by Niu Zhong and The Phonetic Interpretation of the Extended Ready Guide () by Hong Yanzu (洪焱祖). 埤 in 埤雅, the Chinese title for The Augmented Ready Guide, means ‘beneWcial increase’, so The Augmented Ready Guide aimed to beneWcially augment, amend, and supplement The Ready Guide. Early in the Southern Dynasty Liu Yao (刘杳), a Liang scholar, compiled a dictionary called The Augmented Ready Guide (Wve volumes), and in the Tang Dynasty Liu Bozhuang (刘伯庄) compiled Supplements to the Ready Guide (, one volume). However, unfortunately, both of them were lost. The version of The Augmented Ready Guide available at present was compiled by Lu Dian, a Song Dynasty scholar. Lu Dian was born in Shanyin in Yue State (today’s Shaoxing County, Zhejiang Province). He was an oYcial scholar and was known for his expertise in the study of The Book of Rites and the research in exegetic interpretations of names of objects. He had written 242 volumes of academic works, such as The Proprieties (), The Later Spring and Autumn Annals (), The Taoshan Collection (), and Talks on Poetry (), and all of them are lost. The works still available are The New Meanings of the Ready Guide (, twenty volumes) and The Augmented Ready Guide. The Augmented Ready Guide was originally entitled The ClassiWcation of Things and Objects (), consisting of Interpreting Fishes (thirty entries), Interpreting Beasts (forty-four entries), Interpreting Birds (sixty entries), Interpreting Creatures (forty entries), Interpreting Horses (Wfteen entries), Interpreting Woods (thirty-one entries), Interpreting Grasses (sixty-four entries), and Interpreting Heavens (thirteen entries). The Augmented Ready Guide had eight chapters and twenty volumes. It deWned not only the Chinese lexicon but the names of objects as well. It consisted of 297 entries, among which ninetyWve were plant names, 189 were animal names, and thirteen were astrological

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terms. The dictionary was over 100,000 characters in size and had diVerent versions in the Song and Ming Dynasties. The features of The Augmented Ready Guide were as follows: when interpreting the names of objects, it gave some brief descriptions of their shapes and features, some explanations of the features, and explorations of their origins. Moreover, quotations were extensively given from a variety of sources. It provided exegetic interpretations and explanations of both words and expressions and encyclopedic terms, and linguistic information was usually provided in dealing with the names of objects. It was slanted towards practical usage and user-centered in solving problems and confusions. As to the diYcult characters, phonetic notations and brief deWnitions were usually provided. It manifested a spirit of seeking truth from the facts and its emphasis was on investigation. It provided valuable lessons for future researchers of exegetic interpretation to learn. Unfortunately, there were some conjectures cited from The Character Dictionary by Wang Anshi in interpreting character meanings and far-fetched interpretations could occasionally be encountered. Another defect is found in its citations whose sources were not directly labelled, which is inconvenient for users since they have to refer back to the original sources. Supplements to the Ready Guide was written by Luo Yuan in the Song Dynasty and aimed to interpret the names of objects in The Ready Guide, involving the names of grasses, trees, birds, animals, creatures, and Wshes. It was compiled as an extension to The Ready Guide, hence the name. It has thirty-two volumes and 407 entries. The names of objects fall into six categories: grasses, woods, birds, beasts, creatures, and Wshes. The objects sharing similarities in properties, functions, or performances are grouped into the same volume. With regard to the format and style, it diVers slightly from The Ready Guide, with each character explained in one paragraph as one entry. It describes the object for what it is and it is done through careful and detailed examination. For the citations, they are veriWed against their sources before they are Wnally adopted in the book. Its content is extensive and profound, good enough to explain the doubts away and to answer the questions fully. (from Essentials of the Well-known Chinese Academic Works: Language and Characters Volume, 1992:167)

Buddhism was introduced into China in the early Eastern Han Dynasty and was prevalent in the Tang Dynasty. In order to help the believers to study the scriptures of Buddhism, especially help them to overcome the diYculties in learning the pronunciations and capturing the meanings of characters, a series of dictionaries were compiled to phonetically notate the pronunciations of characters and semantically deWne their senses. There are dictionaries for one


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speciWc Buddhist scripture, such as Sounds and Meanings of the Lotus Sutra (, eight volumes) by Kui Ji (窥基, also known as 大乘基), Sounds and Meanings of the Avatamsaka Sutra by Hui Yuan (), and Sounds and Meanings of Maha Parinibbana Sutta (, two volumes) by Yun Gong (云公); there are also dictionaries for a set of scriptures, such as the two versions of Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures by Xuan Ying and by Hui Lin respectively, The Extended Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures by Xi Lin (希麟), etc. The term 一切经 (all the scriptures, all the sutras) Wrst came into use in the Sui Dynasty, also known as 大藏经, referring to all the classic scriptures or the whole canon of Buddhism. The term 音义 refers to ‘notating the sounds of characters and interpreting their meanings’, that is, by means of extensively citing from ancient character books, rhyme books, and other classic works to interpret the meaning of characters and notate their pronunciations. With regard to the life story of Xuan Ying, mention was made in a postscript to The Continuation of Biographies of Great Monks (), which states that ‘Xuan Ying is a monk in a temple in the capital. He has won wide respect for his accomplishments in philological studies. He is a master of the study of the phonetic system of Buddhist scriptures.’ In The Records of Internal Classics of the Tang Dynasty (), there is also an account of him, which states that Xuan Ying, a Master in the Temple of Da Ci’en Temple, was summoned several times by the Emperor to collect and sort Buddhist scriptures and phonetically notate and semantically interpret characters from them. He cited quotations from various classic works to support his interpretations. The book can help its users to readily understand the scriptures. It is a pity that his works stopped at that, without going further.

Xuan Ying Wnished his Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures at the end of the Zhenguan period during the reign of Emperor Taizong. It consists of twenty-Wve volumes and the characters treated in the book involve 454 Buddhist scriptures. In format and style, it follows the example of The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics by Lu Deming – in each character entry phonetic notation with fanqie is given in the Wrst place, then its deWnition. The Buddhist names and terms are also given phonetic notations and comments are given on their translation. The book has the function of both a Buddhist dictionary and a general-purpose dictionary. Its defects lie in its lack of a co-referential network for the characters treated, in frequently encountered unnecessary repetitions, and in the imbalance of the treatment between diVerent characters in notation and interpretation. With regard to the life story of Hui Lin, there is a relatively detailed record in the Wfth volume of The Biographies of Great Monks of the Song Dynasty ( 卷 5). Hui Lin was born in Sule State in the West Territories (today’s Kashi in Xinjiang Province) and his family name was Pei. He was a disciple of a great master named Bu Kong in ‘True Word’ Sect. He was a monk of Xi Ming Temple in Chang’an (today’s Xi’an, Shanxi Province). He ‘inwardly strictly observes the regulations and outwardly studies the Confucian Classics. He has a profound knowledge of Indian philology and exegetic studies.’ It is recorded that he started to write Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures in 788 and Wnished it in 810 (according to another account it started in 783 and Wnished in 807). It is also known as , abbreviated to (Hui Lin’s Sounds and Meanings). It has 100 volumes, covering 31,000 entries and the characters individually treated came to 6,000 in total. The words and phrases interpreted and notated in the book are cited from over 5,700 volumes of the 1,300 diVerent Buddhist scriptures, with a total of about 600,000 characters in size. In order to notate and interpret the sound and meaning of the character in Buddhist scriptures, he has broadly cited from various ancient rhyme dictionaries, such as The Interpretative Manual of Rhymes (), Rhyme Essentials (), and The RectiWcation of Initial Consonants and Vowels (), and from various character glossaries and dictionaries, such as An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, The Jade Chapters, The Character Forest, The Orthographical Manual of Characters (), The RectiWcation of Ancient and Contemporary Characters (), and Sounds and Meanings of Kaiyuan Characters. For those characters, words, and phrases which were not treated in previous rhyme books and character dictionaries, he would cite extensively from the classic works. Moreover, it recorded the sounds and meanings added by Xuan Ying, Hui Yuan, etc. It is a huge masterpiece of notation and interpretation of the sounds and meanings of characters in Buddhist scriptures – exhaustively embracing the ancient exegetic interpretations, phonetically notating the Sanskrit classics – and it is broad in collection and rich in content. The Extended Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures was compiled by Xi Lin in the Liao Dynasty. He was a monk in the Congren Temple in the capital of Yanjing. According to An Introduction to Buddhist Scriptures in China () by Chen Yuan (陈垣), this dictionary was Wnished in 987. It consisted of ten volumes and the entry characters were taken from 226 volumes of Buddhist scriptures. For each entry, phonetic notation was given in the Wrst place, followed by its deWnition. It cited Wrst from the character books and rhyme books, then from Confucian classics and historical books and other classic literature. It followed Hui Lin’s Sounds and Meanings in format and style.


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12.5 the academic value and influence The academic value and inXuence of dictionaries over the period from the Wei to the Yuan Dynasties has gone beyond its function as a reference tool. The dictionaries have become classic works in themselves. They serve not only as references for studying and reading classics but also as beacons for researchers of later generations, and not surprisingly some academic disciplines have come into being as a result of the study of these dictionaries. Wang Niansun, a Qing Dynasty scholar, was an expert in exegetic studies. He spent ten years compiling The RectiWed Broad Ready Guide. He pointed out that ‘‘the present version is based on a version of The Broad Ready Guide whose size is 16,913 characters. It deletes ninety-six redundant characters and adds 590 characters previously left out. It now has 17,326 characters, 824 characters fewer than the number mentioned in the original version’ (cf: Zhang Yi’s Memorial for The Broad Ready Guide: Appendix). Verifying against other character books and dictionaries, Wang Niansun collated Cao Xian’s (曹宪) version. He worked entry by entry and gave detailed reasons and evidence for his revision. His work involves correcting errors, eliminating redundant characters and adding missing ones, in addition to rearranging those in the wrong order or misplaced. He rectiWed 580 erroneous characters, added 490 characters that were left out, and deleted thirty-nine redundant characters. He corrected 123 places of wrong ordering, removed nineteen textual wordings from among notating wordings, and removed Wfty-seven notating wordings from among textual wordings. He spared no eVort in keeping the original appearance of the book. Meanwhile, he cited extensively to expound the content of The Broad Ready Guide, believing that ‘the essence of exegetic explanation lies in its sound. Thus, there are characters with the same pronunciation but diVerent spellings and characters with similar pronunciations but identical meanings. These characters have been grouped together or separately, but they are linked by a single thread.’ Therefore, ‘ancient meanings should be sought according to their ancient pronunciations. Analogies should be made and extensions should be taken into consideration, not being conWned to their formal features and stylistic characteristics’. Greater attention was given to seeking meaning by means of studying its sound, without being conWned by formal analysis alone. It appears, through the continuous eVorts of later generations, that the discipline of ‘the Erya Studies’ has won independence from exegetic studies of philological reference books. Another inXuential work is The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics. It bears signiWcance not only to the study of the circulation history of ancient classics

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but also to linguistic studies in identifying the sound and meaning of characters, segmenting sentences, and rectifying errors while reading ancient books. The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics has preserved a number of phonetic notations of ancient characters and materials of the 8,000 entries of variant and loaned characters, very valuable for studying Chinese phonetic history. Its preservation of the pre-Tang Dynasty pronunciations is precious material for studying and restoring the phonological system in mid and early Ancient Chinese. It has adopted the phonetic notations from 230 diVerent schools in the Han to Six Dynasties. It has recorded the exegetic studies of some Confucian scholars and veriWed them against each exegetic book available. With the help of this dictionary newcomers are able to have an insight into the ancient meanings. Apart from books of exegetic studies, this is the only dictionary that scholars can refer to. As a remnant of the past, scholars could experience what it was originally like. (from The General Catalogue and Abstracts of the Imperial Collection of Four Branches of Literature, )

The sounds and meanings recorded are very useful for studying the changes of phonetics and rhymes since the Jin (晋) Dynasty, the evolution of ancient lexical meanings, and the appearance of a character with diVerent pronunciations and meanings. The Exegetic Interpretation of Classics has preserved a great deal of linguistic data not available from other sources. It has also rectiWed fourteen classic works, including The Book of Changes. Thus, it is very important in classiWcational literature and collative studies. It is the earliest special dictionary for phonetically notating and semantically interpreting characters from a set of scriptures and it holds an important position in Chinese lexicographical history. The two diVerent versions of Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures by Xuan Ying and Hui Lin respectively relate to interpreting the sounds and the meanings of the characters of Buddhist scriptures. They are extremely useful for studying Buddhist scriptures. Having preserved the pronunciations and meanings of ancient characters, they turn out to be valuable to exegetic studies of ancient characters. They have also cited widely from various ancient classic sources and therefore retained what have been lost in other sources, bearing signiWcance to collative studies. This is especially true of Hui Lin’s Sounds and Meanings, which ‘is as vast as the sea, embracing numerous streams and therefore profound, and is as bright as a mirror, reXecting tirelessly the objects in the world’ (from the Preface to Sounds and Meanings of All the Buddhist Scriptures). It is commented upon by Yang Shoujing (杨守敬), a contemporary scholar, as follows: ‘It is where philological studies reside and a diamond in the academic forest’. In The Dictionary of Buddhist Studies () by Ding Fubao, many comments are cited from this book, which shows its wide-ranging and profound inXuence.

13

CLASSIF I ED DIC TIONARI ES – T H E E N C YC LO P E D I C DICTIONA RY I N A N C I E N T C H I NA

A

CCORDING to The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (Chinese-English Edition, 2002), 类书 (classiWed dictionaries) is deWned as ‘reference books with materials taken from various sources and arranged according to subjects’. A comparison between classiWed dictionaries and modern encyclopedic dictionaries will reveal that there is quite a lot in common between the two, in terms of mega-conWguration, information organization, and interpretation of words and phrases. Therefore, classiWed dictionaries are treated as one type of encyclopedic dictionary in this chapter.

13.1 the historical background to the birth of classified dictionaries In ancient China the classiWed dictionaries were usually supervised by the government in their compilation. They were compiled to meet both the political and academic needs of the time. From the political perspective, the large-scale

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compilation of classiWed dictionaries in a dynasty serves as a manifestation of its ‘academic success in a peaceful reign’. For instance, the Wrst Emperor in the Tang Dynasty, Li Yuan (李渊), gave the imperial edict to compile classiWed dictionaries on a large scale. In the same year when he gave the order to compile The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works, he ordered the history of the period prior to the Tang Dynasty to be written. Some staV members working on The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works were also involved in this history book compilation. Ouyang Xun was summoned to write The History of the Chen Dynasty (), Chen Shuda (陈叔达) and Linghu Defen (令狐德棻) to write The History of the Zhou Dynasty (), and Pei Ju (裴矩) to write The History of the Qi Dynasty (). The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works was completed within a quite short period of time, while the history book projects lagged far behind. Another reason why a large number of classiWed dictionaries had come into being was that some emperors took advantage of compiling classiWed dictionaries to mitigate conXicts within political groups. For instance, Emperor Zhao Guangyi (赵光义) seized the crown from his brother. In order to appease the oYcials of the late Emperor, he gave imperial edicts to compile classiWed dictionaries on a large scale. From the academic perspective, the compilation of classiWed dictionaries is principally motivated by academic retrieval, dogmatic guidance, and imperial examinations. ClassiWed dictionaries are Wrstly used for citation and ready access. Once, when Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty was preparing to travel in order to inspect, an oYcial asked him whether he wanted to carry some books with him in case he might need to consult. The Emperor replied, ‘No need. Yu Shinan is in our company, and he is a walking dictionary’. At that time the oYcials serving the Emperor had to be familiar with various books and stories in order to answer the spontaneous questions from the Emperor. So the oYcials and servants around him had to be learned scholars with good memory. They should also have been well armed with reference books so as to reply promptly. The ‘invisible walking book’ of Yu Shinan is the classiWed dictionary he compiled – The Beitang Collection of Copied Books. The Emperor himself and other members of the imperial family made use of classiWed dictionaries to get to know the feudal culture while the feudal oYcials turned to those classiWed dictionaries to familiarize themselves with feudal dogma. Since the time of the Tang Dynasty, imperial examinations have become the chief way for selecting scholars to Wll government oYcial positions, and classiWed dictionaries soon became the necessary reference tools for preparing examinations. Some feudal scholars also compiled classiWed dictionaries to collect and accumulate data, to sort what they learned, and to summarize the achievements

emergence of classified dictionaries

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of civilization with the purpose of facilitating the task of writing compositions and taking examinations. In feudal times, the poems and compositions were usually full of literary quotations and writers had to turn to these classiWed dictionaries in the course of poetry writing. The Beitang Collection of Copied Books, The Six Writing Models () by Bai Juyi (白居易), and The ClassiWed Collection () by Yuan Zhen (元稹), among others, were compiled to serve such purposes. The classiWed dictionaries compiled by book houses were chieXy used for consultation and examination preparation. Sometimes, classiWed dictionaries were also compiled for everyday purposes. Understandably, the ultimate purpose of the classiWed dictionaries by book houses was to make money.

13.2 the emergence of classified dictionaries The methodology adopted in the compilation of classiWed dictionaries in ancient China diVers from the principles guiding the compilation of encyclopedias in modern times. For each entry in a modern encyclopedia, a text is composed, rather than merely a collection of the original data. ClassiWed dictionaries in ancient China, however, are reference books in nature, integrating the features of an encyclopedia and a language corpus. The encyclopedic nature of the classiWed dictionary was, nevertheless, distinctive when it was initially compiled. Between 220 and 222, Cao Pi (曹丕), the Emperor of the Wei Dynasty, summoned a group of Confucian scholars to compile a then-completely-new type of dictionary: The Imperial Survey (). It was the prototype of the classiWed dictionary in ancient China. In format and style, ancient classiWed dictionaries were heavily inXuenced by The Ready Guide and other works towards the end of the Warring State Period and adopted the macrostructure of The Ready Guide as its megastructural conWguration, i.e. explicitly labelled classiWcations and sections, and the microstructure of The Lu¨ Survey () as the prototype of its microstructure. In the period from the Sui to the Yuan Dynasties, classiWed dictionaries developed very quickly and there appeared a series of such dictionaries with high sophistication and quality. The Pearl Collection () is the earliest classiWed dictionary presently available. It was compiled by Du Gongzhan (杜公瞻) on the order of Emperor Yangdi of the Sui Dynasty. It originally consisted of fourteen sections in four volumes, but only Wve sections of the Wrst two volumes are available today. A statistic from these Wve sections shows its citations from 194

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books. In The General Catalogue and Abstracts of the Imperial Collection of Four Branches of Literature, it is listed in the top place for classiWed dictionaries. The Beitang Collection of Copied Books is the earliest classiWed dictionary that is available today almost in its original shape, consisting of 173 volumes in eighty parts. The presently available version has 160 volumes, nineteen parts in 851 categories. It is a collection from the ancient books of literary quotations, words and phrases, and verse and prose for writing poems and compositions. The books quoted are those written before the Sui Dynasty. According to statistics, there are about 800 kinds of books that were quoted from, in addition to those from other sources. Those sources were mainly written before the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and approximately eight out of ten are lost today. Thus, this book has a very important literary value. The Sources of Rhyme Ocean by Yan Zhenqing of the Tang Dynasty is the earliest classiWed dictionary arranged by rhyme order. In the early Tang Dynasty, there existed The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works (100 volumes) by Ouyang Xun; during the reign of Emperor Taizong there existed The Essentials of Literature and Thoughts (, 1,200 volumes) by Gao Shilian (高士廉); during Empress Wu Zetian’s reign there existed The Pearl Collection of Three Religions () by Zhang Changzong (张昌宗); and in Mid and Later Tang Dynasty there existed Xuanzong’s Collection of Things and Events (, 130 volumes, also called The Star Collection of Things and Events ) and The ClassiWed Dictionary for Beginners (thirty volumes) by Zhang Yue, Xu Jian, and others. The ClassiWed Dictionary for Beginners was completed in 725. It has 23 sections and 313 subsections. It was commented in The General Catalogue and Abstracts of the Imperial Collection of Four Branches of Literature that ‘among the classiWed dictionaries compiled by the Tang Dynasty scholars, it [The ClassiWed Dictionary for Beginners] is next to The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works in broadness but superior to it in depth.’ The Bai’s Collection of Classics, Histories and Events (, thirty volumes) by Bai Juyi was a classiWed dictionary compiled for private consultation of idioms and stories. It was not divided into sections, but each volume had its own table of contents. There was further development of classiWed dictionaries in the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The feudal government selected a team of scholars led by Li Fang and Hu Meng to compile two large-scale classiWed dictionaries – The Imperial Records of the Taiping Reign and The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign. The former was completed in 978, the third year of the Taiping (literally ‘peaceful’) Xingguo period. It collected short note-style stories from the Han to the Northern Song Dynasties. Its sources involve unoYcial history, miscellany, stories, and Buddhist


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and Taoist scriptures. It is classiWed into 500 volumes and it is the Wrst general collection of stories. The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign will be discussed later in detail. During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong in the Song Dynasty, Wang Qinruo and Yang Yi began to compile The Historical Records of Cefu (100 volumes). It was Wnished in 1013 and had 10,000,000 characters in size. It brought together the stories about kings and emperors and their oYcials from remote times to the Five Dynasties (907–960), including the histories of seventeen dynasties. In addition, there are also a number of other important classiWed dictionaries, such as The Jade Sea by Wang Yinglin of the Song Dynasty, The Miscellanies of Argumentations Concerning ClassiWed Dictionaries by Wang Mingshou, and The Grand Dictionary of Classics () by Zhao Shiyan (赵世延) in the Yuan Dynasty. There appeared specialized dictionaries in the period from the Sui to Yuan Dynasties. Between 650 and 655, on the orders of Emperor Gaozong, Li Ji (李勣) and Yu Zhining (于志宁) began to revise An Annotated Collection of Materia Medica () and renamed it The Yinggongtang Materia Medica (). And later, it was further revised under the editorship of Su Jing (苏敬) and Zhangsun Wuji (长孙无忌) and renamed again as The Newly Revised Materia Medica (). It has Wfty-three volumes with numerous illustrative diagrams. It is a collectively compiled medical dictionary. In the Tang Dynasty, there were also a number of other medical dictionaries, such as One Thousand Golden Medical Prescriptions () by Sun Simiao (孙思邈) and The Waitai Collection of Secret Prescriptions () by Wang Tao (王焘). There was also a special dictionary of family names, that is, The Yuanhe Dictionary of Family Names () by Lin Bao (林宝) in the Tang Dynasty. A number of special dictionaries were also compiled in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, such as Archaeological Diagrams () by Lu¨ Dalin, and Xuanhe Collection of Archaeological Artefacts (), which was an oYcial compilation. They were both dictionaries on ancient objects and vessels, illustrated with excellent pictures. Records of Ancient Coins (, Wfteen volumes) by Hong Zun (洪遵) was a dictionary of ancient coins. It recorded more than 300 kinds of ancient domestic and foreign coins before the Five Dynasties. The coins were classiWed into nine types, such as oYcially made ones, fake ones, knife-form ones, etc. It recorded various opinions and made detailed textual research on them. The Botanic Compendium (Wfty-eight volumes) by Chen Jingyi in the middle of the thirteenth century was the earliest botanic dictionary in the world. There also existed in this period some classiWed dictionaries of other kinds, such as The Language Assistant by Lu Yiwei in the

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Yuan Dynasty, and The Gem Dictionary of Rhymes by Yin Shifu at the end of the Song Dynasty. The Gem Dictionary of Rhymes is an important dictionary of literary quotations.

13.3 a brief analysis of some important classified dictionaries ClassiWed dictionaries are generally divided into Wve categories. First, in terms of the nature of the content, they can be divided into general classiWed dictionaries and special classiWed dictionaries. The former is a collection of all knowledge concerning nature and human society, such as The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign, whereas the latter is concerned with a speciWc Weld of knowledge, such as The Historical Records of Cefu, involving only politics and history. Second, in terms of compilation style, some classiWed dictionaries record events only, some a combination of recording events and collecting the verses of poems; some are arranged in rhyming order, some on the basis of diagrams, and others are an integration of all of the above. The category of event recording is the earliest form of classiWed dictionary and the most popular one. The Imperial Survey belongs to this group; The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works is a combination of event recording and collection of poems; and The Pearl Collection deals with diction, wording, and useful expressions in the lexicon. Third, in terms of the method of compilation, some are classiWed according to the categories that things and events fall into, some according to rhyming categories, and others are numerically classiWed. The Wrst categorization is the major type of compilation. Since the time of The Imperial Survey, the majority of the classiWed dictionaries have fallen into this group. Fourth, in terms of the organization of the dictionary project, some are oYcially organized, some privately compiled, and others compiled by book houses. The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign was oYcially compiled. The Beitang Collection of Copied Books was compiled by scholars themselves; and The Broad Records of Things and Events () was published by book houses. The last did not come into being until the Southern Song Dynasty when engraving and printing technology was invented and widely applied and bookstores were accordingly mushrooming. Fifth, in terms of the functions and social eVects of the dictionaries, some are intended for general consultation, such as The ClassiWed Collection of Art and


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Literary Works and The Imperial Survey; some are for poetry working, such as The Extensive Miscellany of Minute Things (); some are for imperial examinations, such as The Jade Sea; some are for beginners’ enlightenment, such as The ClassiWed Dictionary for Beginners; and others are for everyday use, such as The Complete Guide to How to Do (), which is similar to the encyclopedic dictionary of modern times. In the Wfth year of Wude in the early Tang Dynasty, i.e. 622, Emperor Gaozhu ordered Ouyang Xun et al. to compile The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works. As a reference work, it has more in common with a comprehensive encyclopedic dictionary – more comprehensive in its content and more speciWc in its classiWcation. ClassiWed dictionaries are the product of their time and naturally manifest the values and ideology of the mainstream social classes. The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works is no exception and bears the characteristics of feudal culture in the organization of its content. It has forty-six sections, namely heaven, year and time, earth, states, shires, mountains, water, omens and incarnations, emperors and kings, queens and princess, crown prince, human beings, rites, music, positions and oYcials, investiture, politics, criminal law, scribble, military, arms and weapons, settlements, industries, garments and hats, ceremonial ornaments, clothing ornaments, ships and carts, food, vessels, craftsmanship, arts of necromancy, domestic ceremonies, supernatural, Wre, medicine, fragrant smells, herbs, precious stones, grains, cloth, fruit, woods, birds, beasts, Wshes, worms, auspicious signs, calamity, etc., which are further classiWed into 727 subsections. For each subsection, the stories are given at the Wrst place, followed by theme-related poems. The works are arranged chronologically; for each story quoted, the title of the source book is given and for each poem, its time, author, and title are given in the notes and they are variously labelled according to their styles, such as ‘poem’, ‘fu-poem’, ‘compliments’, etc. The sources quoted are enormous, amounting to 1,431 kinds, nine out of which are lost. Unfortunately, there was no rigorous classiWcation criterion established in that the author never grasped the attributes of things to be described. As a result, the classiWcation is ‘neither justiWable in deciding whether to deal with it in detail or in brief nor appropriate in deciding whether to deal with it separately or in combination’ (from The General Catalogue and Abstracts of the Imperial Collection of Four Branches of Literature). For instance, in the ‘Mountain’ section, no mention was made of Taishan Mountain and Hengshan Mountain. And papers, writing brushes, and ink stones were mistakenly categorized into the ‘Scribbles’ section. As to the style of compilation, The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works also made some innovations, which is best shown by the principle that ‘the things and events are classiWed according to the categories they fall into, and, in the meantime, the poems, comments, and articles quoted from past literature are

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listed following each section’, which makes it distinct from previous classiWed dictionaries and unique in the classiWed dictionary format and style. The paradigm of classiWed dictionaries has been changed by combining ‘things and events’ with ‘related texts’. Moreover, its use of co-reference is also noticeable in the study of compilation style. The ClassiWed Dictionary for Beginners was compiled by Zhang Yue and Xu Jian on the orders of Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty to help the royal children to learn literature – to quote literary works and consult the things and events important in history or literature. It comprises twenty-three sections, namely heaven, year and time, earth, states and shires, emperors and kings, inner palaces, crown princes, imperial relations, positions and oYcials, rites, music, human beings, administration, civil and military, Taoism and Buddhism, settlements, utensils, dressing and food, precious stones and artefacts (attached to Xowers and grasses), fruits and woods, animals, birds (attached to Wshes and insects), which are further classiWed into 313 subsections. Within each subsection, the order of arrangement is ‘narration’ (叙事), ‘antithesis’ (事对), and ‘poetry and prose’ (诗文). ‘Narration’ is quoting relevant stories from ancient books so as to give a general introduction to the subsection; ‘antithesis’ is condensing the story and quotations into antithetical sentences; and ‘poetry and prose’ are direct quotations from poems and articles. The materials of The ClassiWed Dictionary for Beginners are taken from the classic works of diVerent schools of thought throughout the Pre-Qin Dynasties, the poems and other rhyming articles of each foregoing dynasty, and the neo-classic works of the early Tang Dynasty. As to its format and style, it followed the example of The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works. It cited widely and organized the citations into a coherent text. All the materials centre around the title and elaborate on it, which bears some features of an encyclopedic dictionary but contains richer information. In the early years of the Northern Song Dynasty, society became more stable and peaceful. In 977, i.e. the second year of the Taiping reign, Emperor Taizong ordered Li Fang to compile The General Digest of the Taiping Reign (). The book was Wnished in 983 and the Emperor made it a rule to read three volumes a day and Wnish the whole book in a year. It was thus granted the imperial title The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign and was sometimes shortened to The Imperial Digest. It was chieXy based on and modelled after The Imperial Survey of Xiuwen Palace (), The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works, The Essentials of Literature and Thoughts, and various other imperial collections. It has 1,000 volumes and 500 million characters in size. The book was classiWed into WftyWve parts – heaven, time sequence, earth, emperors and kings, chiefs of feudal princes, imperial relations, states and shires, residences, feudal systems, positions


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and oYcials, soldiers, personnel, hermits, relatives of the same clan, rites, music, culture, study, administration, criminal law, Buddhism, Taoism, ceremonies, dressing badges, dressing utensils, arts of necromancy, diseases, arts and crafts, implements, sundries, boats and ships, carts, supplies, messengers, minorities, jewellery, clothing, properties, grains, drinks and food, Wre, truces, punitive expeditions, gods and ghosts, evil spirits, beasts, birds, Wshes, insects, woods, bamboos, fruits, vegetables, fragrant grasses, herbal medicine, and Xowers. Each part can be further divided into several subcategories, and some of these subcategories have some subsections attached. Altogether there are 5,426 categories (5,474 according to another version) and attached subsections. Each volume is prefaced with a catalogue of classic works and historical books, from which the book cited. According to the catalogue, the source books total 1,690 (actually 1,989) diVerent kinds. There are also a great number of poems, fu-poems, didactic literary compositions, etc., whose titles have not been listed. According to Ma Nianzu (马念祖), the sources amount to 2,579 diVerent kinds. The format of The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign follows this pattern: coming after the title of each category is the title of a book, then comes the original text cited. All of these are arranged chronologically with no comment from the compiler himself. Zhao Heng (赵恒), Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, also wanted to compile a massive book to match The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign, which was compiled during his father’s reign. In 1003, he ordered Wang Qinruo, Yang Yi, and others to start to compile The Stories of Emperors and Their OYcials in Previous Dynasties (). It was Wnished in 1013 and the Emperor wrote a Preface to it and renamed it The Historical Records of Cefu, the body of which consists of 1,000 volumes, ten volumes of tables of contents, and ten volumes of sounds and meanings of its terms and expressions. Presently available are the main body and the table of contents. The volumes covering sounds and meanings are lost. The currently popular version is the one printed in the Ming Dynasty. It has thirty-one parts, namely emperors and kings, illegal succession, usurping, monarchs of various countries, crowned princes, imperial clans, maternal relatives, prime ministers, generals, central oYce and provincial oYcers, foreign nations, constitutional oYcials, remonstrance, judicial oYcials, national history, ritual oYcials, schooling, criminal law, oYcial supervision, royal guardian, oYcial selection, civil examinations, oYcial messengers, domestic ministers, county magistrate, court oYcials, assistants, general recorders, external oYcials. For each part, there is a general preface at the front, introducing the history of this part. The thirty-one parts are further divided into 1,104 sections, and for each section, there is also a short preface to introduce that section. The Historical Records of Cefu is a classiWed dictionary on the administrative history and

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a large-scale collection of historical data in the light of their categories, recording the stories about the emperors and their oYcials from Early Ancient Times to the Five Dynasties and arranged on the basis of a general classiWcation of people and events. The data are mainly cited from the histories of seventeen dynasties, in addition to Confucian classics and classics of other schools but excluding novels and non-oYcial histories. The presently available version is the photocopied one by Zhong Hua Book Company in 1960. The Historical Records of Cefu has two major diVerences from The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign in format and style and with respect to other classiWed dictionaries: Wrstly, the sources from which the data are cited have not been directly indicated; secondly, they not only cite and record but also ‘express’ – for each part there is a ‘general preface’ to describe its organization, and for each section there is a short preface for its content – what they designate. There are thirty-one ‘general prefaces’, each about 1,000 characters long, but there are exceptions; for instance, the preface for ‘central oYcials and provincial oYcers’ has 12,000 characters. There are 1,116 ‘short prefaces’, each about one or two hundred characters in size. These general and short prefaces are excellent compositions in themselves. The Broad Records of Things and Events was a popular classiWed dictionary of ancient times, being of the nature of an encyclopedic dictionary for everyday use. It was compiled by Chen Yuanjing (陈元靓) at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty. It comprised four collections: the Wrst one had thirteen volumes involving sixteen categories, the second thirteen volumes involving nineteen categories, the third, also called the follow-up collection, ten volumes and ten categories, and the miscellaneous collection eight volumes and eight categories, altogether forty-two volumes and Wfty-one categories. It was compiled to meet everyday needs, thus keeping a large amount of data concerning the everyday life of the time. For instance, the sixth, seventh, and eighth types in the follow-up collection were about the arts and literature, recording a variety of methods and modes of entertainments, involving diVerent games for drinking at banquets, chess games, ball games, talk shows, and magic. In the judicial type of the fourth volume of the miscellaneous collection, there were records of diVerent procedures of lawsuits: a military man on beheading, title-granting, and equipment; a widow without an oVspring on appropriation or remarriage, etc., which give a picture of the reality of that time. The Broad Records of Things and Events set a good example for various classiWed dictionaries in ancient times. As to the macrostructure, it was the Wrst one to provide pictorial illustrations, depicting the marketplaces and social life of ancient times. In the period of the Tang and Song Dynasties, there were no pictorial illustrations in the majority of classiWed


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dictionaries, and it should be Chen Yuanjing who is accredited with such an innovation. The Broad Records of Things and Events had a variety of illustrative diagrams, such as charts, tables, maps, pictures and paintings. For instance, in the calendar category, there were ‘diagrams of weights and measurements’, ancient and contemporary ‘lotus water clocks’; in the ritual category, there were ‘learning genuXection diagrams’; in the agriculture and sericulture category, there were ‘farming and gathering’ diagrams, ‘fair trade’ diagrams, and ‘silk weaving’ diagrams; in the schooling category, there were ‘the king’s Wve kinds of learning’ diagram, ‘the king’s practising opening ceremonial music’ diagram, ‘schools of feudal princes’ diagram; in the literature category, there were ‘River Diagram’ and ‘Luo River Book’ diagram; in the clothing category, there were diagrams of various caps and hats and diVerent clothes; in the implement category, there were diagrams of weights and measurements, sacriWcial utensils, cart-making, Xagmaking; in the musical category, there are diagrams of diVerent musical instruments; in the martial arts category, there were diagrams of infantry shooting and cavalry shooting, etc. These diagrams are quite straightforward and can greatly increase the readability and interest of the book. The innovations of The Broad Records of Things and Events in its format and style have been widely adopted by later dictionaries, such as The Yongle Compendium (), which was oYcially compiled in the Ming Dynasty and The Compendium of Ancient and Contemporary Books (), which was oYcially compiled in the Qing Dynasty, both having given great prominence to the role played by illustrative diagrams. There is one scholar whose name and whose works cannot be neglected in the discussion of ancient classiWed dictionaries in China. This scholar is Shen Kuo, known as Cunzhong (存中). He was born in Qiantang (Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province) and was an outstanding scientist, reformist, diplomat, Wnancier, and strategist. He was an expert in a variety of disciplines, such as astronomy, geography, chemistry, biology, temperaments and calendars, music, medicine, and decrees and regulations. His works include The Everlasting Prosperity Collection (), The Mengxi Collection of Written Dialogues, etc. The Mengxi Collection of Written Dialogues was written in his late years when he lived at Dream Stream (Mengxi) Garden in Run Zhou (today’s Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province). It was a classiWed dictionary of a rather sketchy nature, completed in 1091. It consisted of twenty-six volumes, in seventeen categories, namely stories, dialectics, temperaments, astronomical phenomena, human life, administration, empowerment, arts and literature, calligraphy, crafts, utensils, miracles, alien things, falsehood, humour, jottings, medicine, etc. In his Introduction to the book, he stated:

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since I retired I have lived a simple life in the woods; I have had the time to recall my conversations with friends and to jot them down. It seems that I have begun to understand things deeper and better and in so doing time has passed quickly. With whom have I conversed? – the writing brushes and the ink stones. That is why it is entitled ‘written dialogues’.

What had been discussed and reXected upon in The Mengxi Collection of Written Dialogues was what Shen Kuo observed and thought about while he travelled extensively around the country and talked with friends. Its content was exceptionally broad and involved numerous domains – historical events, biographies, administrative schemes and regulations, examination systems, philosophy, music, painting, calligraphy, involving almost every aspect of social life. Three-Wfths of its content, however, was ‘on nature and on rigorous science, containing information, description, and theoretical explorations on engineering, technology and inventions.’ ‘The excellent dissertation of the author’s rational inquiry into physical phenomena has increasingly caught the attention of modern scholars. He was the leading Wgure in the scientiWc world of his time’ (Hu Daojing, 1981). The Song Dynasty also saw the birth of the Wrst botanic dictionary in the history of human civilization – The Botanic Compendium. It was compiled by Chen Jingyi, a Song Dynasty poet. It extensively collected the names of Xowers, grasses, and trees, exhaustively collected and attested their relevant data, and inquired into their sources. The book had two collections, which were further divided into eight parts and Wfty-eight volumes. The Wrst collection had only one part – on Xowers, coming to twenty-seven volumes; the second collection had seven parts, namely fruit, small grasses, grasses, trees, agriculture and sericulture, vegetables, and medicine, amounting to thirty-one volumes. For each part, further division was made into classes and there were 400 classes altogether. Each entry was for one speciWc plant, and each entry consisted of three ‘sources’. The Wrst source was ‘the factual source’, which was further divided into ‘fragment records’, ‘summary’, and ‘miscellaneous’, centring around scientiWc knowledge, stories and legends about the plant. The second was ‘the composing source’, seventeen types in all, such as prosaic sentences, antithetical couplets, classic poems, eight lines, four lines, which were all poems. The third was ‘the diction source’, which listed only verses, sentences, or expressions of a speciWc type of classic poetry. The book gave about 307 kinds of plants and the data were not later than the Song Dynasty. The Botanic Compendium boasted remarkable characteristics in its content and style and came 300 years earlier than the Wrst book on botanic history in the West.


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13.4 the social and academic influence ClassiWed dictionaries are the repository of knowledge and information. They are compiled mainly to record and transmit knowledge. As one type of ‘encyclopedic dictionary’, classiWed dictionaries have the following four aspects of social and academic values. First, as ‘encyclopedic dictionaries’, classiWed dictionaries have fulWlled the role of textbooks for the people of the time. To turn new information into knowledge is the work of the compilers and to popularize the knowledge into common knowledge for the people is the function of classiWed dictionaries. Thus, ancient classiWed dictionaries have played key roles in popularizing scientiWc knowledge and culture and in transmitting the civilization of a nation. Second, ancient classiWed dictionaries have played an important part in educating the people. While introducing knowledge to the people, classiWed dictionaries have also introduced the ideology and values of the dominant class. The general public has been subtly inXuenced when using these books. In other words, these classiWed dictionaries have functioned as a means of governing and shaping the thoughts of people and have transformed their way of thinking. Third, these classiWed dictionaries can be used to collate the ancient books and literatures that have been lost for reasons unknown. The role of classiWed dictionaries is closely related to their nature – a categorized accumulation of data. When they were compiled, the majority of the data had been directly cited from their original sources with explicit labels. They are mostly reliable in that they are faithful to the originals though there might be occasional deletions or revisions. As early as in the Southern Song Dynasty, Hong Mai (洪迈) had noticed there were quite a few ancient books no longer available although fragmentary citations could be found in The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign. Fourth, classiWed dictionaries have the function of ‘indexing’ for scholars to retrieve relevant sources in the course of their research. The data in classiWed dictionaries are mainly second-hand and they need to be checked against the original sources. ClassiWed dictionaries collect relevant data under one cover and, to a large extent, narrow down the scope of information retrieval. Searching via classiWed dictionaries is much more convenient and eYcient than browsing in the endless sea of sources. For instance, The Data Corpus of Ancient Chinese Musical History (, 1962) was motivated and initiated as a result of the study of classiWed dictionaries in the course of a general survey. The general principle for its compilation lies in taking advantage of the ancient classiWed dictionaries that have individual parts or volumes on music and

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following the threads they oVer for doing further research. When the original sources are not available, the data from the classiWed dictionaries will be quoted directly and labelled accordingly. Another instance is The Probe into Ancient Novels () by Lu Xun (鲁迅), in which such ancient novels are mentioned as The Peizi Language Forest (), which is lost and the entries on them are almost all taken from The ClassiWed Collection of Art and Literary Works. The literature quoted by The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign is enormous and today only about 10% is available. From this book, however, thousands of books lost from the time of the Qin and Han Dynasties could be traced. There is every reason to rank The Imperial Digest of the Taiping Reign above all the other ancient classiWed dictionaries in China. The compilation of classiWed dictionaries has greatly facilitated the process of composing essays and adding notes to books. However, there may be a tendency, if they are improperly used, to bring out in users the bad habits of learning by rote without reading the original books and exploring the original sources. The negative eVects of using classiWed dictionaries can implicitly be found in the ideology, objectives, training procedures, or assessment criteria of education–or even going beyond education into other aspects of socio-political life.

14

R H Y M E D I C T I O NA R I E S – A SPECIAL DICTIONARY TYPE I N ANCIENT C H I NA

I

N the field of lexicographical studies in China, rhyme books are likely to be considered book-like in characters, thus overlooking the features they share in common with language dictionaries. As the investigation into the attributes of rhyme books goes further, more and more scholars have come to the consensus that rhyme books, which later develop into rhyme dictionaries, should fall into the ‘dictionary’ category and be classiWed as one type of special dictionary. The most representative view of this school is expressed in the deWnition of 韵书 (rhyme dictionaries) in The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary (2002): ‘dictionaries of characters with the same rhymes or with the same pronunciations for writing literary composition in rhyme, such as The Dictionary of Rhymes, The Rhyme Dictionary, and The Central Plains Dictionary of Sounds and Rhymes, etc.’ Yong Heming (2003), according to the ‘subject domains’, classiWes dictionaries into two types – ‘general dictionary’ (普通词典) and ‘special dictionary’ (专门词典). The latter can be further classiWed into ‘specialized dictionary’ (also ‘special-subject dictionary’) and ‘special-aspect dictionary’. ‘Specialized dictionary’ deals with the terms of a speciWc subject Weld, such as agriculture, law, and medicine. Since the words collected are mainly conWned to a certain subject Weld specialized dictionaries are classiWed according to the subject Weld they belong to, such as law dictionary, medicine dictionary, and economics dictionary. ‘Special-aspect dictionary’ deals with the lexicon or part of the lexicon of a language, or one aspect or theme of language use. It can be

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further classiWed according to the types or aspects of the lexicon or the themes of language use. From this point of view, rhyme books should be regarded as one type of special dictionary – the ‘special-aspect dictionary’ in the ‘special dictionary’ category.

14.1 the historical background to the birth of rhyme dictionaries The period from the Wei to the Southern and Northern Dynasties was subject to great upheavals which lasted for about four centuries. In the Sui and Tang Dynasties China was blessed with reuniWcation and great sense of unity: social stability, national prosperity, and the order of feudalism being greatly strengthened. In addition to the further development of exegetic and philological studies, a new discipline was established – phonology – a major event in the history of linguistic studies in China. Since that time, phonological studies have been exceptionally remarkable in traditional linguistic study in China until the early Qing Dynasty. There are four reasons why phonological studies evolved into an independent discipline after the period of the Wei and Jin (晋) Dynasties. First, constant warfare in the period of the Wei to the Southern and Northern Dynasties brought about the largest and longest migration of the Chinese population. Meanwhile, quite a number of ethnic groups conquered the Central Plains in rapid succession. Consequently, there was a melting pot of people from diVerent nations. There were more opportunities to communicate in diVerent languages or dialects, and these would inevitably exert inXuence upon each other. As pointed out by Yan Zhitui, a scholar of the Northern Qi Dynasty, the common language was ‘contaminated by the Wu and Yue dialects from the South and mixed with the language of Yi State and the language of the Hu people from the North’ (from The Teachings of the Yan Family). With diVerent languages and dialects, the Wrst thing that people perceive is a diVerence in phonetics. Such a diVerence stimulates an interest in the study of phonetics. Second, the period of the Wei to the Southern and Northern Dynasties was also a time in which the Han Dynasty Literature transformed into a new type, i.e. the Tang Dynasty Literature. The literary forms, Ci-poem of Chu State (楚辞) and Fu-poem of the Han Dynasty (汉赋), evolved Wrstly into Pai Fu (俳赋) and then into Lu¨ Fu (律赋); the form of prose changed from a half-rhythmical style to a wholly-rhythmical style, marked by parallelism and magniWcence; and the style

emergence of rhyme dictionaries

239

of poetry changed from the ancient style into the Tang Dynasty ‘modern style’. In a word, the literary works of this period emphasized the beauty of linguistic form, pursuing the Xamboyance of words and the harmony of prosody. As Shen Yue (沈约, 441–513) stated: The dazzling brilliance of the Wve colours and the harmonic Xuency of the eight sounds are due to the laws and patterns regulating the mixing of colours and the matching of sounds. Thus, they can Wnally harmonize with the objects in speciWc surroundings. In order to change the pitch of a sound, e.g. from Gong (宫) to Yu (羽) or from low pitch to high pitch, or to adjust the mutual restriction of high and low pitches, it must be observed that, if there is a Xoating sound in the front, then the following one must be a loud falling tone. Within one bamboo’s clip, the loudness of the sound and the corresponding rhyming should be diVerent; whereas, between two adjacent sentences, the degree of loudness, i.e. light or heavy, should be totally diVerent. Only when such a tenor is reached can it be considered gorgeous. (from The Book of the Song Dynasty, )

The development of literature promoted the study of language, especially studies in phonetics and phonology. Third, as early as in the period of Pre-Qin Dynasty, some knowledge had already been gained of the analysis of speech sounds and was complete by the time of the Han Dynasty. As Zhou Zumo stated: By the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, scholars were already good at speech sound examination and analysis. As to the position of articulation, there is a distinction between diVerent positions of the tongue in the mouth and diVerent ways of lip movement; as to the pitches of rhyming, there is discrimination between internal and external, and between hasty and slow; as to the opening and closing of rhymes, there is a diVerence between lax and tense, and between lip-rounded and lip-unrounded; as to the opening and closing of end vowels, there is lip opening and lip closing; as to the length of tone, there is the diVerence between long and short. The analysis has reached such a degree of a precision and accuracy and revealed the underlying patterns . . . I once attempted to discourse on this and I contend that the study of speech sound examination in China started from as early as the Han Dynasty.

Phonological study in China has evolved from such a basis and progressed rapidly. Fourth, from the Wei to the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Buddhism underwent a period of huge growth and development. In the Tang Dynasty Buddhism was Xourishing. With the introduction of Buddhism, Chinese scholars took the opportunity to learn Sanskrit and the phonetics and grammar of the Indian language. Because of the great diVerences between Sanskrit and Chinese in their grammars, it was very diYcult for Chinese scholars to adopt

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the methodologies used in studying the grammar of Sanskrit but it was relatively easier for them to accept and learn from phonological studies. The phonetic knowledge of the Indian language had a very strong and positive inXuence on the establishment and development of Chinese phonology. Chinese phonology started from the invention of fanqie and the discovery of the four tones of classical Chinese. Fanqie is a method for giving phonetic notation to Chinese characters in ancient China. It makes use of the pronunciations of two characters to indicate the pronunciation of a third one. For instance, in The Dictionary of Rhymes: Rising Level Tone (), the phonetic notation of the Chinese character 东 goes like this: 东, 德红切. The pronunciation of 东 can be obtained by means of fanqie, that is, through the combined pronunciations of the initial consonant 德 and the vowel 红. For the Chinese language, the syllable of a Chinese character can be segmented into two components: the initial consonant and the coda vowel. In applying the method of fanqie, the pronunciation of a new character, such as 东, is obtained by combining the two components – the initial consonant of the Wrst known character, 德 in this case, and the vowel of the second known character, 红 in this case. The birth and wide circulation of fanqie was concomitant with the introduction and development of Buddhism in China, which is not a sheer coincidence. The Book of the Sui Dynasty states: From the time of the popularization of Buddhism in the Central Plains in the Eastern Han Dynasty, we have also seen the introduction of the language of Hu and its writing system from the Western Regions, which has made it possible to invent a phonetic system to indicate all the speech sounds by using only fourteen characters. It is very simple but profoundly signiWcant and it is called the Brahmin writing style. This writing system is totally diVerent from the eight scripts and the six styles of calligraphy in ancient China.

It is evident that the Sanskrit letters and their phonetic notations were introduced into China at the same time as Buddhism was introduced. The birth of the method of fanqie was after the revelation of the phonetic principles of Sanskrit. The establishment of fanqie bears great signiWcance to the progress and development of lexicographical culture in China. First, fanqie provided the most advanced method of the time for phonetic notation. Before its invention, there were various forms of phonetic notation, but they were all relatively disadvantageous by comparison with fanqie. Yan Zhitui states: Only after Zheng Xuan’s adding notes to The Six Classics (), Gao You’s (高诱) interpreting The Lu¨ Survey and Huai Nan (), Xu Shen’s creating An Explanatory Dictionary of Chinese Characters, and Liu Xi’s writing The Dictionary of Chinese Characters and Terms, were there established the methods of analogy and phonetic loaning to

emergence of rhyme dictionaries

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attest the characters and their pronunciations. As for the diVerences between ancient and contemporary languages, and the diVerences in their degree of stress and their possessing of voicing, there is no way for us to know. As for the labels, such as ‘internal or external articulation’, ‘hasty or slow articulation’, and ‘read as’, they have caused much confusion. (from The Teachings of the Yan Family)

Chen Li (陈澧, 1810–1882) states: In ancient phonetic books, ‘read like . . .’ or ‘pronounced in the same way as . . .’ are often employed to indicate the pronunciation. But where there is no character found with the same pronunciation, this method does not work. When a character is found with the same pronunciation but it is a diYcult character with very low frequency of use, then this method does not work either. When Sun Shuyan (孙叔言) initiated fanqie, two characters are used to indicate the pronunciation of a single character. This method is workable in all conceivable situations. This method has surpassed its predecessors.

The advantages of fanqie made it likely to be employed to provide phonetic notations for Chinese characters by later lexicographers. Second, fanqie is an important prerequisite for the birth of rhyme dictionaries and phonetic alphabets. Yan Zhitui says, ‘Sun Shuyan’s writing Sounds and Meanings of the Ready Guide () illustrates the Wrst knowledge of fanqie. Fanqie became very popular in the Wei Dynasty . . . since then, rhyme books have begun to come out’ (from The Teachings of the Yan Family). As Chen Li explained: As to ‘since then, rhyme books have begun to come out’, Sun Shuyan was referring to Li Deng’s compilation of The Dictionary of Initial Consonants, which was the Wrst rhyme book in the history of Chinese lexicography. When the method of fanqie was invented, it was possible to group together characters with the same rhymes, and consequently, rhyme books came into being.

In other words, a rhyme book can be compiled if the second characters, that is, characters sharing the same vowel, are grouped together. Similarly, when the Wrst characters, that is, characters sharing the same initial consonant, are grouped together, rhyme books of a diVerent type will be compiled. As a further step, when the characters sharing the same initial consonant are grouped together and one character is chosen as a representative, the alphabetical system can be established. Thus, with the establishment of fanqie and the sorting into phonetic data, Chinese rhyme books (and eventually, phonology) came into use, and this exercised profound inXuence on the development of linguistics in later periods. Tone is an important suprasegmental quality in the Chinese language. It was Zhou Yong (周颙,?–485) and Shen Yue in the Southern and Northern Dynasties

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who discovered tones in the Chinese language and identiWed them as having four scales, i.e. level, rising, falling, and entering. The scaling of the four tones came about mainly for practical purposes. As stated in The History of the Southern Dynasty (

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