Research On Mutual Interpreting Words In Shuo Wen JieZi

Shuo Wen Jie Zi (说文解字), usually abbreviated as Shuowen) compiled by Xu Shen (许慎) is the first dictionary in Chinese history. Mutual interpreting is one of the ways used to explain words in Shuowen. There are 320 pairs of mutual interpreting words which are used popularly. Studying on them is valuable to interpretation of ancient lexis (词汇训诂), the development of Chinese vocabulary and the studying of Chinese Culture history. But few has taken a comprehensive study on it till now. This dissertation discriminates the mutual interpreting words in Shuowen comprehensively, aiming to provide a correct understanding of the semantic relationship between mutual interpreting words.There are two parts in this dissertation. The first part is to distinguish and interpret the mutual interpreting words, mainly the difference in the same sememe, including the extent, range, emotional inclination, habitual collocation, etc. This dissertation studies from the perspectives of etymology, pragmatics and culture, focusing on the points commonly disputed or seldom mentioned in academic circle. According to the characters of interpretation, the mutual interpreting words are classified into three kinds, direct interpreting (defining a word with another one), definition (defining a word with a sentence), direct interpreting and definition. The second part is comprehensive analysis. Based on the first part, some theoretical issues of mutual interpreting words in Shuowen are discussed, including the types, characteristics, semantic relationships, forming reasons and deficiencies of mutual interpreting words in Shuowen.