| In broad outline, sememe-induction of oracle-bone inscriptions is a foundation of Lexical semantics of oracle-bone inscriptions. This dissertation focuses on the theory of sememe-induction of oracle-bone inscriptions, describes and classifies these sememes.This dissertation consists of eight chapters:Chapter 1. Introduction. This chapter introduces the target and significance of this study; shows the nature, the times and the number of oracle-bone inscriptions of corpus; shows the study method.Chapter 2. The sememe of oracle-bone inscriptions. This chapter talks about the conception "sememe", its specific property and relationships between sememe,lexeme and semantic system of lexeme in oracle-bone inscriptions.Before inducting sememe of oracle-bone inscriptions, we should make clear what the sememe is, what specific properties the sememe has, and what work sememe-induction is. Firstly, " sememe" is the smallest grade unit of words' meanings system, which, as a kind of unit of word meaning, is the unit of paradigmatic class presented with syntagmatic distribution represented by sallosemes. Therefore, making clear what the sememe is, we must distinguish sememe from salloseme. Secondly, we need not consider lexemes and the lexical level by analyzing the semantic structures of sememes. However, when inducing sememes, we should make clear which sememe the sallosemes belong to, and which lexeme the sememe belongs to. In other words, we should make clear the corresponding relationship between sememes and lexemes. Thirdly, sememe is a kind of linguistic meaning, the main specific properties that sememes have is generality, distinctiveness, systematization, nationality, sociality and fuzziness, etc. Fourthly, the work of sememe-induction is a basic work of researching into words' meanings system, and is different from the work of merging semantic item in lexicography.Chapter 3. The principle of semantic analysis in sememe-induction of oracle-bone inscriptions. This chapter recounts the basis of semantic analysis for sememe-induction of oracle-bone inscriptions. Sememe-induction cannot depart from analysis of words' meanings all the way. This dissertation advances the principle of semantic analysis in sememe-induction, mainly includes 3 aspects: (1) Generality and distinctiveness are the specific properties of sememes, by which the sememes can be analyzed. In history of lexical semantics of Chinese, words' meanings of the oracle-bone inscriptions had been retained in lexical semantic systems in later periods; therefore we can analyze sememes or words' meanings of the oracle-bone inscriptions through textual language and definitions in literature bibliography in later periods.(2) We can analyze sememes or words' meanings of the oracle-bone inscriptions according to syntagmatic relation and paradigmatic relations of semantics in the oracle-bone inscriptions.(3) We can also have the aid of graphetics to analyze sememes or words' meanings. First of all, the graphetics of the oracle-bone inscriptions are the clues to analyze sememes or words' meanings, because graphetics of oracle-bone inscriptions reflected the words' meanings with writing spoken language of Shang Dynasty (商代) through inventing scripts. Secondly, to analyze sememes or word meanings, we should not only discern graphetics of oracle-bone inscriptions by paleography and by Shuo wen jie zi (《说文解å—》) , but also have the aid of definitions and textual research data of later periods.Chapter 4. The principles of sememe-induction. There are 3 main principles for sememe-induction:Sememe-induction should be done under the generality-distinctiveness principle.Illustrative sentences principle is an important principle. Oracle-bone inscriptions sentences as a basis, it provides objective corpus for us to research sememes and inducing sememes from sallosemes in Oracle-bone inscriptions.System of words' meanings is another important principle that is the foothold of sememe-induction, and is the foundation of researches into words' meanings of oracle bone inscriptions.Chapter 5. Methods of sememe-induction of oracle bone inscriptions. This chapter illustrates how to employ the prior method to inspect sallosemes by analyzing semantic-syntagmatic distribution and by analyzing semantic relations of words' meanings, and therefore to induct and abstract the sememes.The prior method to abstract and merge into sememes is that we inspect sallosemes by analyzing semantic-syntagmatic distribution and by analyzing semantic relations of words' meanings. On the basis of this method, we can use componential analysis and semantic fields to compare one word meaning with others, afterwards identify the sememes that have been abstracted and merged.Chapter 6. Relationships between sounds,meanings and forms of the oracle-bone characters. This chapter discusses the relationships between sounds,meanings and forms of the characters. Considering relationships between sounds,meanings and forms of the characters--this is a distinguishing feature insememe-induction of oracle-bone inscriptions. Oracle-bone inscriptions wrote words and their sememes by the principle of writing spoken language through inventing scripts or the principle of writing spoken language through employing scripts. There were some corresponding relationships between oracle-bone characters,words and sememes: firstly, a polysemic inscription character had many relationships with sememes, in other words ,sometimes an inscription character had written several words and sememes; secondly, a word and its sememe or sememes had been written by several inscription characters; thirdly, words and sememes were concerned with "homographic character","heterograph" and "cognate word" ; fourthly, the corresponding relationships between oracle-bone characters, words and sememes concerned with the identity of words. Although meanings of an oracle-bone character have been textually researched out, but if we had not yet made clear which word the character was to write, we would not have known the relationships between sounds, meanings and forms of the character thoroughly.Chapter 7. Preliminary study on types of sememes in oracle-bone inscriptions. In this chapter we put sememes that have been abstracted and merged in order, and describe them as two types: sememes of original meanings and sememes of extended meanings.Chapter 8. Conclusion. This chapter concludes the main achievements and significance of research done in this dissertation.At last, we attach lists of sememes in oracle-bone inscriptions to classify and describe sememes.This dissertation initially advances sememe theory of oracle-bone inscriptions, provides the method of oracle-bone lexical semantics. In the course of study, we may find some distinguishing features of sememe-induction of oracle-bone inscriptions'.Sememe-induction of oracle-bone inscriptions is concerned with (1) relationships between sememes and sallosemes; (2) relationships between one sememe and other sememes; (3) relationships between sememe,lexeme and semantic system of lexeme; (4) relationships between sounds,meanings and forms of the characters. Sememe-induction of oracle-bone inscriptions is based on the characters textually researched out in oracle-bone inscriptions; this is the foundation of research into words' meanings of oracle-bone inscriptions. Theoretically, the number of characters in oracle-bone inscriptions of Shang Dynasty (商代) and early period of Xi zhou Dynasty (西周早期) should be definite, but in fact, there has not an identical view on the number of characters among scholars up to now. We should have a criterion about "characters". This dissertation distinguishes grapheme from graphitic unit, inspects about 5200 graphitic units of oracle-bone inscriptions that have been found so far. There are nearly 1900 graphitic units discerned, and 1200 graphitic units read out. Among these graphitic units, there are nearly 100 graphitic units of oracle-bone inscriptions in early period of Xi zhou Dynasty (西周早期) not to reappear in oracle-bone inscriptions of Shang Dynasty (商代) ,so that there are above 1000 graphitic units that had been discerned and read out in oracle-bone inscriptions of Shang Dynasty (商代) .We have defined 985 graphemes writing words and expressing words' meanings definitely in oracle-bone inscriptions from these graphitic units in order to induce sememes.This dissertation has defined 1456 lexemes that include 220 polysemy lexemes and 1236 monosemy lexemes, and has defined 1760 sememes that include 524 sememes of polysemy lexemes and 1236 sememes of monosemy lexemes. There are 565 sememes of original meaning, 479 sememes of extended meaning, and 698 sememes of proper name and others.The target, which we had to research into words' meanings, is to put words' meanings in system order by sememe-induction according to the principles of Lexical semantics. The research into words' meanings should base itself upon sememes so that the systems of sememes could be abstracted and merged, described and explained according to distributions of words' meanings in oracle bone inscriptions. Sememe-induction should be done under the generality-distinctiveness principle,the illustrative sentences principle and the words' meanings systematic principle. This research has important significance not only for lexical semantics of oracle-bone inscriptions but also for researches of the history of Chinese lexical semantics.
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