A Study Of Whether The Charges In Shang Oracle-Bone Inscriptions Are Interrogative Sentences

Shang oracle-bone inscriptions, as the earliest recording words, are the first-hand materials for present researchers to study the society, economy and culture in Shang Dynasty. The charges, Mingci, as the important parts of oracle-bone inscriptions, their mood directly influences our understanding on them, meanwhile influences the acknowledgements on the ancient Chinese grammar. Such an important issue, from the so-called interrogative sentences to the varied viewpoints, regretfully, the research circle hasn't an explicit conclusion till now.This paper, firstly, generalized the current situation on researching the mood of the charges, and raised my own ideas on some specific viewpoints. Then, it discoursed the nature of divination, the meaning of Zhenè´ž, the use of interrogative words and contents of divination, thus concluded that the charges were interrogative sentences. Through the whole analysis, I believe that the nature of divination, "divining for doubts", determined the interrogative mood of these charges. The explanation of the word Zhenè´žin Explaining Words And Articles conforms to reality, which means the words of Zhen were interrogative. Among the Shang oracle-bone inscriptions, many of the last word of sentences were not interrogative, while those ended with interrogative words obviously were questioning sentences. The charges without mood words, in term of theme, were classified into fete, celestial phenomena, year's harvest, punitive expedition, kingdom and divination. These charges covered all the oracle-bone inscriptions, and were proved as interrogative ones. During the analysis process, this paper based on the book The Explanation Sylloge of Shang Dynasty Oracle-bone Inscriptions, with the resource of the newly unearthed oracle bones in Huayuanzhuang East, we could assure that the interrogative sentences viewpoint were by no means obsolete. Thus, I draw my final conclusion:the charges in Shang Dynasty oracle-bone inscriptions were interrogative, aiming to provide a reference to research circle.