A Comparative Study On Configuration Differences Between Characters On Qin Bamboo Slips And Characters On Chu Bamboo Slips And Silk Books In The Perspective Of Components

The Warring States period was turbulent time in Chinese history,which wasalso an important stage of transformation in Chinese characters evolution.At thisstage,Chinese characters took on a new look in form by reforming itself based onan inheritance from traditional standardized form.More prominently,due toseparatist regimes,Chinese characters in different areas and states of dukes andprinces also formed their own characteristics in form.Therefore to investigate theconnections and differences between those characters is of great significance forauthentic description and dynastic study on characters during this period,whichwill in turn perfect the system of Chinese characters evolution.Since Qin bambooslips and Chu bamboo slips and silk books are the most abundant and the richestamong all the unearthed literature during this period,my thesis has chosen them astwo research objects,using both synchronic and diachronic way,in order to findtheir connections and differences in characters forms,and to reflect their differentdevelopment trend,thus to provide important material and data basis forconstruction of a more complete system of Chinese characters evolution.The existing studies on configuration differences between characters on Qinbamboo slips and characters on Chu bamboo slips and silk books lay particularemphasis on discussing individual character forms by exemplification,whileignore the quantitative and exhaustive investigation on components which areactually the basic units in configuration system.Therefore,in terms of the contentunder comparison,the thesis goes to the level of components.Taking characters onQin bamboo slips and Chu bamboo slips and silk books as the scope ofinvestigation,it sorts out specific components of the two character types.Specificcomponents refer to direct components of a certain character type which aredifferent in form and structure from another.Based on above knowledge,the thesisalso makes a quantitative assessment on how influential these specific componentsare in character-building,therefore to reveal the different development trend of Qinand Chu characters. The thesis consists of four parts and an appendix table.Part one is the exordium,which gives a summary of the current researchconditions of the characters on Qin bamboo slips and Chu bamboo slips and silkbooks,as well as the material source and character tabulation.Part two focuses on the arrangement and discrimination of the specificcomponents in characters on Qin bamboo slips and Chu bamboo slips and silkbooks.It divides the specific components into two types:inherited specificcomponents and new specific components.It also sorts out 96 specific componentsin characters on Qin bamboo slips and 311 in characters on Chu bamboo slips andsilk books.Part three makes a quantitative assessment on and comparison between thespecific components in the above two character systems.Taking frequency asparameters,the thesis respectively describes the proportion of the specificcomponents in characters in two systems from four aspects:not-repeated characters,literature used characters,structural functions and new specific components,whichreveals the influence of the specific components in their own character system,aswell as the difference degree between characters on Qin bamboo slips andcharacters on Chu bamboo slips and silk books as the numbers of both the specificcomponents and all the components are clearly known.The results show theproportions of the specific components in characters on both Qin bamboo slips andChu bamboo slips and silk books are small,with weak character-building ability,low occurrence frequency and minor influence in their own system,therefore thedifference degree between the two character types is also quite low.Part four analyzes different development trend of characters on Qin bambooslips and characters on Chu bamboo slips and silk books by reasoning causes of thespecific components.From an ontological view,the causes of the specificcomponents in the former are more complicated than in the latter.Inheritancetransformation,partial transformation,creating a new form and erroneous transformation being the causes of both,increasing components and reducingcomponents are the causes which can only be found in characters on Chu bambooslips and silk books.According to quantitative statistics of the distribution ofdifferently caused specific components in different levels,we find in thedevelopment of characters on Qin bamboo slips,the traditional character systemhad been adapted to meet the needs of practical use,the character formationmechanism became more irrational and the characters became simplified in general;while in the development of characters on Chu bamboo slips and silk books,thesense of inheritance was much maintained,some adjustment and creation of newcharacters had been made to keep pace with the development of language,thecharacter formation mechanism remained rational,and the characters became morecomplicated in general.