Study Of The Colloquial Words In The Ming Dynasty's Literary Sketches

This thesis is an overall and systematic study of the colloquial words in the Ming dynasty's literary sketches.The Ming dynasty's literary sketches are numerous and their contents are very rich, in which both classical ancient Chinese and colloquial Chinese are used and considerable colloquial words data, including some slang and vulgar words and expressions, are retained. They cannot be replaced with other documentation in the study of Chinese vocabulary in the Ming dynasty and the whole history. However, because of various reasons, these colloquial materials have not been paid enough attention, let alone their overall and systematic sorting and study. Therefore, in this thesis we choose the colloquial words in Ming dynasty's literary sketches as the research object, try to dig up the slang and vulgar elements between the lines of the sketches, the oral materials of the Ming and former dynasties and the minorities' linguistic data preserved in the sketches. On the basis of collecting the possible and relevant materials, we sort the colloquial words and describe them objectively and systematically so as to make clear the basic outline of the colloquial words in the Ming dynasty's literary sketches.This thesis consists of a preface, a body and a conclusion. In the preface we introduce the research object of this thesis and the present research condition, the research purpose and value, the relevant research data and approaches, and illustrate some potential problems. In Chapter two and Chapter three we make detailed descriptions and explanations of the colloquial words produced in the Ming and former dynasties in the Ming dynasty's literary sketches. In Chapter two we divide the colloquial words of former ages according to five different historic periods, namely, the age prior to Qin dynasty, the Han dynasty, the Wei and Jin dynasties, the Sui and Tang dynasties, and the Song and Yuan dynasties, and describe the earliest use of each word according to its birth period. In Chapter three we classify the colloquial words newly born in the Ming dynasty into five categories according their meanings, analyze and describe them respectively. In Chapter 4 we examine the sources of the colloquial words and their vocabulary compositions from the aspect of pragmatics. Some colloquial words in the literary sketches are handed down from the former dynasties and some are adopted from the spoken languages of the Ming dynasty, e.g. the dialects, the vulgar tongues and the jargons, and from the translation of the minorities' and foreign languages. In Chapter five we analyze the evolution of the colloquial words from the aspect of development. So far some of the colloquial words in the Ming dynasty's literary sketches have entered the common speech of modern Chinese and some of them are still kept in some dialects. In chapter six we describe and analyze the colloquial words from the aspect of word formation, which will be helpful for us to understand and master the general features of their vocabulary system deeply and completely. In Chapter seven we talk about the research value of the colloquial words in combination with the folkloric culture, the source of the words, and the compilation of Chinese dictionaries. The conclusion part is the summarization of the whole thesis and in this part the direction of our future work is pointed out.This thesis is one special Chinese vocabulary study in one specific period. The vocabulary system theory and the diachronic layer theory are instruction theories of our research. Since the colloquial words in the Ming dynasty's literary sketches result from the vocabulary accumulation of different ages, we must adopt both the descriptive and diachronic approaches in our research. In the study of the vocabulary system of the words, we focus on the diachronic investigation of them on the synchronic basis, use relevant books, digital documents and net resources to examine each of them from the aspect of its historic development, try to make clear their origin, development and evolution, and give the suitable description, theoretic demonstration and systematic construction of them corresponding with that age. Specifically, in the aspect of synchronic description, we use the example sentences in the Ming dynasty's literary sketches and other materials in the same or nearly same period to determine the vocabulary meanings of the colloquial words and analyze the evidence to name them. In the aspect of diachronic research, we try to find the sources of the colloquial words, ensure their development in the former dynasties, and describe their evolution in the later ages and whether they are still retained in modern Chinese. In the words interpretation, we synthetically apply such methods as contrast, induction, finding the word meaning through its sound, referring to the dialects, etc. to make complete and accurate explanations of them. Because the language and the culture are closely related and the colloquial words in the Ming dynasty's literary sketches reflect the colorful folkloric culture of the Dynasty, we try to combine the colloquial words research with the folkloric culture research, which will be one direction to further our research work in the future.In this thesis we have systematically studied more than 1200 colloquial words in the Ming dynasty's literary sketches, and 386 of them have not been adopted by Great Dictionary of Chinese. At the same time, 118 new meaning items are found out and 166 new book examples are provided or pushed forward for the colloquial words collected in the dictionary. For those words with only one book example in the dictionary, we make up some new examples in the Ming dynasty's literary sketches. Meanwhile, we rectify some improper sources, explanations and meaning items for the colloquial words which have been accepted by the dictionary, in which we provide many vivid and inspiring first hand data for the research and scientific construction of Chinese vocabulary history . It will promote further research of the two subjects and recognition of the deep problems in them, provide some valuable reference for other relevant subjects, e.g. ancient literature, history, documentation, research of the whole traditional culture, and for the compilation and revision of Great Dictionary of Chinese, the sorting and reading of relevant ancient books, and the research of ancient literature and folkloric culture.