A Historical Study Of The "Er Ya" Mingwu Words

"Er Ya" is the first ancient exegetical monograph in China, And it is of great importance in the academic history.There are a total of 19 aiticles in extant "Er Ya", of which 16 pieces are relevant with MingWu. Most scholars have studied it from the exegesis, dictionary compilation perspectives, while the value on philology and chinese characters has rarely been mentioned Since the Han dynasty.So this thesis studies the "Er Ya" MingWu words historically based on theories of philology, exegesis, dictionary compilation, textual criticism and subject of "Er Ya" and GuoPu note MingWu words.The dissertation falls into five chapters, with the second, third, fourth and fifth chapters as its body part.The first chapter is a brief introduction, concluding a review of "Er Ya" MingWu words researches and their existing problems, the research methods and steps of this thesis, etc.The second chapter is a historical study of "Er Ya" and GuoPu note MingWu words.Firstly compared with the "Shuo Wen", "Er Ya" MingWu words are traced back to their earliest original state, then, the variation of "Er Ya" Mingwu words is studied from seven aspects inspects.The third chapter summarizes four types of variant characters of the "Er Ya" MingWwu words, which are differentiated graph, allograph,borrwed graph and homograph.The fourth chapter analysis the causes of the variation of the "Er Ya" MingWu words from aspects of ideographic function enhancement, sound function definition, literature affection, corruptions of copies, synonymous borrowness and interpretation differences.And among them the ideographic function enhancement is the main reason.The fifth chapter discusses the value and significence of historical study of the "Er Ya" MingWu words and shows it contributes to summaries the Chinese character development law, to interprete "Er Ya" text and to compile large dictionaries. In addition, this chapter investigates more than two hundred characters related to "Er Ya" MingWu words.