A Study On Ancient Paronyms With The Phonetic Complements Wei(微),Wu(物)and Wen(文)

Homologous Dictionary is a Etymology work in the 20th century,which can be regarded as a landmark.It is written by Mr.Wang Li who has spent three years to finish it and amended it three times.In the preface of this book,Mr.Wang Li makes objective and precise standards for the identification of paronym from three aspects,that is,the sound,grammar,semantics.In terms of the sound,Mr.Wang Li points out that the paronym must have same or similar pronunciation and must be based on ancient phonetics,because the formation of most of paronym is originated from the ancient time.In the aspect of semantics,Mr.Wang Li divides the paronym into three kinds:1)the same word.2)the synonyms,namely,the words which originally are belonged to one word,but afterwards the sounds of these words are differentiated with their semantics having subtle distinctions or not being divided.3)various relationships which be subdivided into fifteen kinds of relationships including tools,objects,nature,function,similarity and so on.As for the grammar,the derivative words in Chinese are divided into three categories by Mr.Wang Li:1)shifted sound.2)the words with the same sound but different tones.3)The words with the same sound but different forms.These standards have their rationality and scientificity,which still play an essential role in current etymological research.But we can not deny that the standards made by Mr.Wang Li are too strict.In the aspect of sound,for the archaic Chinese phonology,he insists on adopting the rhyming words in the Book of Songs and adopting a part of the harmonic acoustic materials which relatively corresponds with the rhymes in the Book of Songs,but he hasn’ t adopted these harmonic acoustic materials systematically.In terms of semantics,the paronyms are mainly linked according to ancient mutual explanation,same words,common meanings and sound explanations,which only links the concrete meanings words in the surface but ignores the abstract meanings implied in the etymology.Therefore,Homologous Dictionary includes few words and has many omissions.In addition,the various groups of cognate words in the Homologous Dictionary are only in a parallel relationship,and Mr.Wang Li has not been able to sum up its common core meaning.Since then,combining with the theory of modern linguistics,Wang Ning,Meng Pengsheng,Zhang Bo and other scholars have successively studied the paronyms systematically by adopting different research methods including Homologous Meaning and Morpheme Analysis,Parallel Mutual Corroboration,Comprehensive Analysis Method,Analytic Hierarchy Process and so on.This study exactly borrows the scholars’ research theory and research methods,taking Wang Li’ s "similar sound and close meaning" as the principle,the harmony system formed in Shen Jianshi’ s Guang Yun Sheng Xi as the clue,the characters with the same phonetic elements in Ji Yun as a supplement,the“Chinese dictionary”and taking the Grand Chinese Dictionary as the research material,to link analyze the ancient paronyms with the phonetic complements.Moreover,in the process of analyzing,the common meaning of one group of cognate words is abstracted in this study,and its extension in each paronym will also be integrated and analyzed,hoping to further improve Homologous Dictionary focusing on its limitations.This study is divided into three parts:The first chapter is the introduction which firstly summarizes and teases the research history and research status of the cognate words,then elaborates the research methods and materials of this study,and lastly points out the significance and value of studies about the cognate words.The second chapter is the body of this study.In this chapter,taking the harmony system formed in Shen Jianshi’ s Guang Yun Sheng Xi as the clue and the characters with the same phonetic elements in Ji Yun as a supplement,the ancient paronymswith the phonetic complements We,Wu and Wen are linked.In this study,365 words with 19 harmonic phonetic elements are linked and reduced to 14 harmonic word families.The third chapter concludes that the research findings.