Luo Zhenyu's Study On Philology

Luo Zhenyu is one of the earliest scientists who study the ancient Chinese character, specialist in gold and stone, archaeologist, emendator, collector, publisher and calligrapher. He left to us 189 masterpieces and 642 collated editions of books. He acquires great achievement in the field of the ancient Chinese character research.We input Luo's masterpieces into the computer. On the basis of the complete study on Luo's philological works, we summarize his methods and characteristics, experience and lessons of verifying and explaining ancient Chinese characters systematically. We conclude his understanding of the ancient Chinese character's features and evolution rules. We compare Luo Zhenyu with Sun Yirang and Wang Guowei, and discuss several special subjects about oracle-bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, and stone drums inscriptions and so on. It's the first time to study Luo's philology completely, systematically and deeply.The thesis consists of nine chapters.Chapter one introduces basic information, such as research subject selection, research value, literary materials, research method and previous literature. From Chapter two to Chapter four is the part about methodology. Chapter two is'verifying depending on structure', Chapter three'verifying depending on pronunciation', and Chapter four 'verifying depending on meaning'. In this part, we summarize Luo Zhenyu's method of verifying and explaining ancient Chinese characters, and meanwhile discuss his failure in this aspect. Chapter five discusses Luo Zhenyu's view on the philology. It's a conclusion of his views on philology. Chapter six and Chapter seven is the horizontal and vertical Comparison of Luo Zhenyu's philology research from the aspect of academic history. Chapter six is the development of Luo Zhenyu's research on philology. We make a comparison between his former and latter works on ancient characters. Chapter seven compares Luo Zhenyu with Sun Yirang and Wang Guowei. Chapter eight is monographic study on Luo Zhenyu's philology. In this chapter, we discussed according to different subjects in different fields involved in Luo Zhenyu's philology research, summarized and commented the achievements and lessons of his research in these fields. Chapter nine is conclusion, including the main characteristics, main achievements, failures and reasons of Luo Zhenyu's philological research.Based on the previous research, this thesis has made some innovations as follows:Firstly, we studied Luo's philological works completely and deeply for the first time. Our work enriches and perfects the academic history of philology. Secondly, we summarized and analysed Luo Zhenyu's methods to verify and explain ancient Chinese characters completely for the first time. Furthermore, we discussed about the scientific methods and some problems needed to be paid attention in practice.Thirdly, we concluded Luo Zhenyu's views on philology systematically and completely for the first time. It's helpful for the research on the development history of thoughts of philology.Fourthly, the study and discussion about verifying the original meaning from the original from is a makeup and correction for lexicology and exegetics.We concluded the main features of Luo Zhenyu's philological research based on the studies over all his works as follows:His research covers wide fields. He paid the same attention to the description and textual research in his research. He did a multi-angle study based on the comprehensive survey of the ancient Chinese character materials. He traced back to the origin and perceived the evolution history of the ancient Chinese characters. He has independent viewpoint in study. He is serious with his study.The main contributions of Luo Zhenyu's philological research as follows:First, finding out the place of oracle bones being found and the age of the oracle bones recorded. He pointed out that Xiaotun village of Anyang City in Henan Province is Yin Dynasty ruins. He realized that the oracle bones are relics of Shang Dynasty according to the fact that many names appearing in the oracle bones are the same as the names of Shang kings recorded in Shiji.Second, a large number of descriptions provide valuable materials for the later researchers. The descriptions include oracle-bone inscriptions, bronze inscriptions, tablet inscription, script on seal and sealing clay, banknotes, tallies and tablets, mirror inscriptions, land purchase certificates, etc.Third, his research results, especially the study of ancient Chinese characters promote the rapid development of paleography.571 characters are discussed in Zengding Yinxu Shuqi Kaoshi and most of them are correct. Based on his achievement it is probable to read through the contents of the oracle inscriptions and analysis them. Moreover, he studies bamboo slips in Liusha Zhuijian and scripts on stone drums in Shiguwen Kaoshi.Fourth, he clearly puts forward the method of textual research:from Shuowen Jiezi tracing back to the inscriptions on bronzes, from bronze inscriptions tracing back to oracle-bone inscriptions. He argues that we should put the research on the oracle bone inscriptions into the development history of ancient Chinese characters. He is the first man who proposes the historical comparative method theoretically.. Fifth, he is the inaugurator and practitioner of the method of "dual evidence". He claims that the unearthed oracle-bone and bronze inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty and the historical books and records can be proved by each other.Sixth, he arguing that reading through oracle inscriptions should be paid more attention when clarifying the ancient characters. He arguing that reading through oracle inscriptions should be paid more attention when clarifying the ancient characters and trying best to analyze their positions and functions in the sentences. He did a good job in this aspect.Seventh, he pays great attention to the analysis of character components. He has a certain scientific knowledge about the formative system of the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells.Eighth, he researches ancient Chinese characters based on the background of Chinese characters'development. He puts his research in the chain of the development of Chinese characters. He compares oracle-bone inscriptions with bronze inscriptions, stone drums inscriptions, tablet inscriptions and all kinds of Chinese character types in Shuowen such as Xiaozhuan, Bieti, Huoti, Guwen, Zhouwen and so on. He studies the simplification, complication, differentiation, omission and erroneous evolvement in the development of Chinese characters.Ninth, Luo Zhenyu summarizes the characteristics of ancient Chinese characters. For example, he found that synonymous parts of characters can be used generally, there is no difference between complex and simplified forms nor between the characters with their components in different position, the position of the components is not fixed and the commonly used words usually write in a character's position, etc.Of course, there are some failures in Luo Zhenyu's research, the main reasons as follows:He didn't make a meticulous analysis of the structure differences so that he confuses the similar writing forms.He didn't analyze deeply the meaning of components combination. He simply claims that it's a simplified form or a complicated form while not making careful analyses.He analyzed the shape inscribed on bones and tortoise shells from the explanation of Shuowen so that he drew wrong conclusions.Sometimes, he drew a conclusion only depending on structural analysis but not verify in sentence context.