A Probe Into The Pictophonetic Characters From Mibu (糸部)in Shuowen Jiezi(说文解字)

A comprehensive and deep understanding of Chinese characters will be of great significance to understand the glorious history and culture of the Chinese nation because Chinese characters have been used to take down the Chinese nation's brilliant history and culture, and so they bear very close relevance to the Chinese nation's history and culture. But if we want to understand Chinese characters comprehensively and deeply, first and foremost, we have to have a full view of pictophonetic characters. That some phonetic signs of pictophonetic characters can indicate the origins of the pictophonetic characters is an important feature of Chinese characters. "Youwenshuo"(右文说) is a theory that is exclusively involved in the fact that some phonetic signs of pictophonetic characters can indicate the origin of the pictophonetic characters. Since the 20th century, almost all researchers have studied or commented on "Youwenshuo" only or mainly from the aspect of language, which has prevented the researchers from making a comprehensive and objective study of it. With a view to the above facts, the writer selects the pictophonetic characters from Mibu in Shuowen Jiezi as the studying subjects, intending to make a relatively comprehensive and objective analysis of how the phonetic signs of pictophonetic characters from Mibu in Shuowen Jiezi indicate the origins of Chinese characters mainly from the aspects of etymology and characters.The paper is composed of four chapters. Chapter 1 is the preface. Its main contents include two aspects. The first is to briefly review the history of the study of the phenomenon that the phonetic signs of the pictophonetic characters can indicate the origins of the pictophonetic characters. The second is to point out the studying purpose, means and significance. Chapter 2 is to probe the etymological meanings of the pictophonetic characters from Mibu in Shuowen Jiezi. In this chapter, it is proposed that the origin, which the phonetic sign of a pictophonetic character indicates, has two kinds of meanings. One meaning is the origin of the word which the pictophonetic character refers to in the language, the other is that how the pictophonetic character is composed according to its sound and meaning. Chapter 3 is to classify the 109 phonetic signs from Mibu in Shuowen Jiezi and then summarize four features of the 109 phonetic signs. The first is that the 109 phonetic signs can be divided into three kinds: shengsheng(省声), duosheng(多声) and quansheng(全声). The second is that most of the phonetic signs themselves are not signs of pictophonetic characters. The third is that the etymological meanings may either extend in a straight way or a crooked one. The fourth is that the phoneticsigns' function of indicating origins has weakened; by contrast, their function of showing the speech sounds has strengthened. Chapter 4 is the conclusion. The achievements which this paper obtains, together with the weaknesses which this paper has, are briefly described. And the writer emphasizes the necessity to further study the phonetic signs of other pictophonetic characters.There are several breakthroughs in this paper. First, the writer first studies "Youwenshuo" mainly from the aspect of character. Second, the etymological meanings of 109 pictophonetic characters are revealed. Third, the writer first classifies the phonetic signs and summaries their features.There are also some weaknesses in this paper. First, when some etymological meanings are illustrated, there are not enough sound proofs mainly because the writer has not read enough Chinese classic writings. Second, the relevant achievements, which modern and contemporary researchers have got, are not taken full advantage of. Besides those, there are still more weaknesses in this paper, which the writer hopes that teachers and specialists will kindly point out and correct.