Study On The Kernel Words In The Western Han Dynasty(西汉)

Considering the facts that the"Kernel Words"is a pivot for the lexicology study while the Western Han Dynasty was an important stage in the history of the Chinese, the comprehensive and systematic study of the"kernel words in Western Han Dynasty"not only has important value to the construction of the vocabulary history of Chinese, but also offered a new material to the comparison study of Han-Tibetan family. Though forefathers had paid much attention to the research of the vocabulary of Western Han Dynasty, their achievements were only concentrated on a specific kind of words in special books without a systematic argumentation to the kernel words in Western Han Dynasty. These systematic study was carried on and the genesis and developments of the kernel words in Western Han Dynasty were discussed here according to the Semantic Field theory, which had important value in the understanding of the characteristic of the kernel words in Western Han Dynasty, by the combination of mathematical statistics and typical illustration with the help of the computer technology.The dissertation is about 230,000 words, and composed of seven chapters: Chapter one is the"introduction", introduced the general situation, meaning, research material and methods of the research of"kernel words of Western Han Dynasty". In Chapter two,"the body words"in"Swadesh 100-word list"were studied by dividing into these five parts"head, truck, four limbs, viscera, and others". The research of the 204 words about twenty body semantic fields indicated that the change of representative words of the body words is very great. In Chapter three, the"Organism words"of"Swadesh 100-word list"were studied by dividing into these three parts"relating to people, animal and plant". The research of the 197 words about fifteen organism semantic fields indicated that the representative words of"Organism words"changed less, and the words"relating to people"were influenced by social system and culture deeply. In Chapter four, the"natural phenomena words"of"Swadesh 100-word list"were studied by dividing into these three parts"astronomy, geography and others". The research of the 165 words about fourteen natural phenomena semantic fields indicated that the natural phenomena Semantic division was more detailed, and their representative words were steadier and contained many Chu language words. In Chapter five, the numerals"one"and"two"were studied. Compared with modern Chinese, there were more meaning and grammar functions of numeral in the Western Han Dynasty. In Chapter six, the kernel verbs of"Swadesh 100-word list"were studied in detail by dividing into these five parts"eating behavior, consciousness behavior , limbs'behavior , state behavior and others". The research of the 280 words about nineteen kernel verbs'semantic fields indicated that their semantic fields were divided as detailedly as the"natural phenomena words"discussed in chapter four, and their representative words'substitution was more frequently but little affected by disyllable tendency. What's more, they were many Chu language words, too. In Chapter seven, the conclusion about the overall characteristic of the kernel words in Western Han Dynasty was drawn and the research results of this dissertation were summarized. Meanwhile, the discussion about the kernel words related theory was developed.Main contribution and innovation of this dissertation:1) It was the first comprehensive and systematic study of the kernel words in Western Han Dynasty. 865 kernel words were collected in the study and detailed discussion about these words'synchronic situation in the Western Han Dynasty and their evolvement in Chinese history was developed. The characteristics about the kernel words of the Western Han Dynasty was summarized as that semantic division was more detailed, and the disyllable words were very general already. Author's own view was put forwarded that the Han Dynasty should belong in latter stage of archaic Chinese in study of Chinese history but it had its own characteristic. These achievements had important reference value in the construction of the scientific Chinese vocabulary history.2) The kernel words which had changed in the history of Chinese was studied systematically and the change's mechanism, way , reason , and characteristic was discussed and the conclusion was drawn that: (1) The main way of the change was vocabulary substitution and disyllablization ; (2) The mainly reasons of the change included the heavy burthen of semanteme, homophonous replacement and taboo, etc.; (3) It was a characteristic of the change that word with highly using frequency in kernel words or the word with higher position in the language changed more frequently. (4) The ultimate motive force of change was the interaction of economic principle and communication principle; Some of these rules were brought out for the first time, and added some new contents for the theory of the kernel words'evolvement.3) There are visions of"Putonhua vs. Dialects vs. Ancient Chinese vs. Family Language"which pay attention to combination of modern Chinese and modern dialect, and sometimes pay attention to combination of ancient Chinese and family language too. Some effective evidence for the origin of some dialects was offered. For example,"Dou(脰)"was a dialect word in the Qi(齐), Qing(青) and Xu(徐)area in the Han Dynasty, but now it was only retained in the Min(闽) dialect, which offered very valuable material for origin of the Min(闽) dialect. Meanwhile, new materials for research of comparison about family language were offered too. For instance, the word"Su(蘇) *????"which means bird's hair was actually the same word with as"Nu(帑) *naa". It could be compare with"Tail"r??-ma in Tibetan and"Su(蘇) *?????"is nearer to Tibetan language. ?4) Utilization of advanced computer technology to investigate enormous quantities of language materials to develop a relatively self-contained and complete research of the kernel words. While analyzing words, pronunciation, semanteme, grammar and pragmatics were all well considered especially the pronunciation. The meaning of some common words was researched scientifically, for instance:"Yi(臆)*???/*?l??"was not the latter form of"Yi(意)",but the related words of"Breast(胸)*????";"Neck(颈)"did not express the front part of neck ,"Mu(目), Yan(眼)"were synonyms at the beginning. There were many supplement to the early examples of"two dictionary"too, for instance: the earliest illustration quoted the word"snow foot"which meant barefoot in"the Chinese Dictionary"was Wu-Rong's poem"Sending to a teacher of Shang Yan"in Tang Dynasty:"face the wind and stick up the snow foot".In fact, there was earlier statement of"snow foot cane lance"in"History: the biographies of Lisheng(郦生) and Lugu(陆贾)".