A Lexical Study On Baoshan Chu Slips

Rearch on vocabulary is an essential part to linguistic study. To research on vocabulary,we should find their origine and development. From the eighties of the twentieth cencury, some scholars devoted themselves to the study on the special ancient books and records and made some improvement.But besides the books that were handed down from ancient times, we should also pay attention to the unearthed literature to examine the language history. By making use of the unearthed literature,we can reveal the language state of that time more truthfully.,and offer time coordinate for the study of the special ancient books and records. In a word, the unearthed literature is valuable to the study of the history of Chinese. In the recent years,a large amount of bamboo slips and silks were unearthed. It is a superexcellent chance to develop the research on words recorded in the unearthed literature.Baoshan Chu bamboo strips were found in the tomb which is situated at Jingmen ,Hubei in the Warring States Period. There are 278 bamboo slips and 1 bamboo tablet,including judicial writs,augury annal and burial articles register. It is an unprecedented finding because its amount, preservation and content are all unexampled. Based on other scholars' textual research, using the theory of lexics,calculating by computer, I make a careful and detailed analysis on Baoshan manuscript.That is ,1 sort noun,verb,adjective, quantifier,pronoun and form word from the manuscript. And noun is divided into thirty lower level according to the meaning. Form words comprise adverb, preposition,conjunction, auxiliary word,mood word and synaeresis word. The common format is all the words in some sort being arranged. The monosyllabic words are in the front rank and complex tone words followed. The number of the bamboo slips and the frequency are behind the word. Every word is explained or analysed except for noun and quantifier. Furthermore, there are three special topic to discuss the usage of thesaurus, the difference compared with Shuihudi Qin bamboo slips and corrections to the Hanyu Da Cidian.This paper on the first time sorts out the Baoshan Chu bamboo slips in lexical category. It lays out and analyses the usage of words in Chu during the Warring States Period. It also probes into the complex tone words, thesaurus, the time and distribution of words and so on and provides new evidence to the study.