The Taiyan "new Dialect Study

The New Dialect (新方言) by Zhang Tai-yan (章太炎) stands in an important post in the history of Chinese dialectology, Chinese etymology and Chinese linguistics. Much attention is attached to the studies of GuoguLunheng (国故论衡) and Wenshi (文始) by Zhang, while the studies and evaluations of The New Dialect are generally impressionistic and general, not systematic and concrete. By analyzing The New Dialect, this thesis, of great value and initiatory, chiefly deals with the achievements and deficiencies of Zhang's studies on Chinese linguistics and philology and enlightens us to further discuss modem Chinese linguistics and philology. We take the initiative to render our study based upon enormous data made from a thorough inquiry in which we find out 1466 words and expressions used at present as well and 216 groups of variant forms of the same dialect word in The New Dialect. On the three levels of traditional Chinese dialectology and modern dialectology and foreign dialectology, this thesis judges the importance of The New Dialect in the history of Chinese linguistics and philology and solves some problems about modem linguistics, so it provides an overall and new panorama.Through comparing The New Dialect with all sorts of dialect documents, especially with Hanyu Fangyan Da Cidian (汉语方言大词典) and Xiandai Hanyu Fangyan Da Cidian (现代汉语方言大词典), the thesis counts and studies several sorts of words in The New Dialect such as those excluded by Hanyu Fangyan Da Cidian, those included and illustrated in the same way as The New Dialect, and those included and labeled with same pronounciation and same meaning with The New Dialed but not labeled the proof of The New Dialect. The thesis lists the variant characters of the same dialect word alive today in The New Dialect, corrects the errors on entry, definition of words and supplying of examples in Hanyu Da Zidian (汉语大词典) and Hanyu Fangyan Da Cidian. By analyzing the typical examples, this thesis makes it clear that the studies of The New Dialect on looking for the etymological character of a word and the studies of variant characters of the same word give some suggestions to Xiandai Hanyu Fangyan Da Cidian oft selecting characters. Therefore, our research benefits to the close study of The New Dialect, and the revise of Hanyu Da Zidian and Hanyu Fangyan Da Cidian and Xiandai Hanyu Fangyan Da Cidian.We write the thesis and desire, by counting and analyzing the words of the common spoken Chinese and Chinese dialects in The New Dialect, to evaluate the achievements of The New Dialect on Chinese dialectal investigation; by analyzing the contents and methods about etymological studies in the New Dialect, to observe the contributions of The New Dialect to Chinese etymology; by analyzing the vocabulary comparison in The New Dialect, to observe The New Dialect's reveals about the systematicness of Chinese vocabulary and its enlightenment on modem linguistics; by analyzing the studies of function words in The New Dialect, to observe the contributions and deficiencies of The New Dialect on studying dialectal grammar; by reasoning and analyzing the dialectal investigations, the standardization of languages and characters, and the edit of dialectal dictionaries, to observe the contributions and deficiencies of traditional linguistics represented by The New Dialect on the level of recording and studying pronunciation; from the modem linguistic point of views, to observe the means and the achievements and the limitations of The New Dialect about looking for etymological character of a word; finally, from the angles of traditional Chinese dialectology and modem dialectology and foreign dialectology, to evaluateThe New Dialect on Chinese dialectology and raise some proposals for the development of modem linguistics. Those goals are all basically achieved.To make a more concrete, complete and deep evaluation of the deficiencies and contributions of The New Dialect to the history of Chinese dialectology, Chinese etymology and Chinese linguistics, the thesis in...