A Study On The Vocabulary Of Inscription On The Ancient Bronze Objects In The Western Zhou Dynasty

Among the study of the Chinese unearthed documents, the research into the interpretation of the Chinese characters is exetremely profound and profuse. Nevertheless, the researchers seldom investigate the meaning of a word into the system of semantics, and although this is analogous with philology which is aimed to interpret the classics, it is far from the requirement of modern linguistics. The unearthed documents are characterized with scarcity and authenticity, among which there are many language phenomena unrecorded in the documents handed down from ancient times. In spite of a profound awareness of the value of the language phenomena, in practice, relevant and necessary research has never been employed by linguists. In fact, the greatest accompilement has been achieved in the grammar, then in the phonology.In lexicology, however, it is the least achieved branch.Such a current situation calls for an urgent change.Initially started in the Song Dynasty, and then prevalent in the Qing Dynasty and in the Republic of China, the study of inscription on the ancient bronze objects has become one of the four branches in the paleography. However, with the involvement of modern linguistics, the focus of whose research is mainly on grammar and phonology, but little research has been done to the vocabulary of inscription on the ancient bronze objects characterized with systematic conception. This is a problem in great need of solution.Since the inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells were found at the end of the...