Research On The Difficult Characters Of Yupian

The book Yu Pian, written by Gu Yewang of Liang Kingdom in ancient China’sSouthern Dynasty, was another important wordbook following the books Shuo WenJie Zi (Explaining Passages and Interpreting Words) and Zi Lin (Word Collections). YuPian was revised many times because of its numerous and jumbled contents in history.Soon after its appearance, King Jianwen named Xiao Gang of Liang Kingdom orderdXiao Kai and some others to revise it for its unappreciate contents. Up to the first yearof the Shangyuan Period in Tang Dynastry (674A.D.), Sun Qiang re-revised it byadding words and deleting explanatory notes. As a result, Sun’s version was popularin the place of Gu’s version, which led to the gradual extinction of Gu’s version. Inthe sixth year of the Dazhongxiangfu Period of Song’s King Zhenzong, ChenPengnian, Qiu Yong and some more revised Sun’s version of Yu Pian once again.Since then, this Guangyi version took the place of Sun’s and became popular.Gu’s Yu Pian held a significant position in the Chinese wordbook history as thefirst historic Chinese dictionary with the regular script as its main part. By using thethen popular regular version, Gu’s wordbook made wordbooks conveniet to use. Itinterpreted word meanings with a wide variety of materials to prove and especiallymade great efforts to explain and illustrate. In the respect of the layout, this wordbookadopted a meaningful way to classify words by their meaings instead of the traditionalway of by their shapes.Based on Gu’s wordbook, Guangyi Version of Yu pian was compiled by addingwords and deleting explanatory notes. The added words are mostly difficult andnonstandard, while most of the deleted ones are useful examples. Hu Puancommented on Gu’s wordbook:“First, all the quotations are from the original booksand thus can be checkd. Second, the evidences are connected and thus have muchvalue in exegetics. Third, the introducing words are easy to understand. Fourth,variant forms are widely collectd with clear notes to be easily consulted. Fifth,preserve the materials of the old books. All of these are far better than the Guangyiversion. The latter is not only lack of detailedly listed quotation books but different inlanguage from Gu’s. That’s because Gu’s Yu Pian had been changed too much bythese different revisions to be the original one.” The Guangyi version collected plentyof difficult and nonstandard words that had problems on shapes, pronuciation andmeanings by adding and deleting Gu’s Yu Pian. For different reasons, the majority of the mistakes were quoted and brought in by the later wordbooks without examination,and therefore affected the quality and value of these wordbooks. Present Hu Jixuan’sCorrction and Interpretation of Yu Pian is the best study of the Guangyi version. Hemade a thorough collation and arrangement of thr Guangyi version and examined agreat many doubtful and difficult nonstandard words. It is obvious that Corrction andInterpretation of Yu Pian has made great improvments. Nevertheless, it still has someweaknesses: it doesn’t make use of some closely relative materials and pays noattention to piles of doubtful and difficult nonstandard words. Therefore, it will be ofgreat value to carry out a thorough and systematic study of Guangyi version of YuPian from the aspect of doubtful and difficult nonstandard words.This study focuses upon the doubtful and difficult words in the book Yu Pian. Itwill carry on the systemtic study of the doubtful and difficult words in Yu Pian withphilology, exegetics, phonology, structural theory of Chinese characters, lexicographyand document studies in order to make an objective comment upon the previousresults, to give a comprehensive research into the causes and types of the doubtful anddifficult words in Yu Pian from their shapes, sounds, meanings and so on. Thisstudy will do some necessary supplement and correction on the existing results, dosome new research into some doubtful and difficult words, and conclude and illustratethe value of Yu Pian upon documentary correction and the compiling of wordbooks onthe basis of the previous achievements.The whole study consists of five chapters:Chapter1Introduction First, the brief introduction of different editions of YuPian. Second, the conceptions of doubtful and difficult words. Third, the currentsituation of doubtful and difficult words. And last, the aim, meaning, methods andprocedures of this study.Chapter2Comments upon the achievements of the research and analysis ofdoubtful and difficult words in Yu Pian On the basis of a comprehensive researchand comprative study upon the previous achievements, this study will employ plentyof instances and cases to point out: the correct conclusions in the the previous studiescan be adopted; the disputable ones should be carefully examined and selected; andthe doubtful ones must be reviewed with new materials.Chapter3the types of the study of doubtful and difficult words in Yu PianThis chapter will discuss the contributing factors of the doubtful and difficult words inYu Pian from the shapes, the sounds, the meanings and the relations among words, and conclude the formation of the doubtful and difficult words in Yu Pian into fourtypes–caused by shapes, by sounds, by meanings and by relations among words.Chapter4the examination, analysis and complement of doubtful anddifficult words in Yu Pian This part will complement and correct the357doubtfuland difficult words which have been analysized by our predecessors, and thenexamine and illustrate other new221doubtful and difficult words according to theclue of shapes, sounds and meanings with a reference of the existing results.Chapter5The value of the doubtful and difficult words in Yu Pian With theabove analysis, this study points out the value of a study on the doubtful and difficultwords in Yu Pian, which lies in four parts: to be of great value to the correction andarrangement of the Yu Pian text, to the compiling and arrangement of big wordbooks,to the collation and arrangement of traditional wordbooks, and to the explanation andreading of the classical books.This study is a systematically comparitive and textual research in the doubtfuland difficult words in Yu Pian and the relative existing achievements. It has someacademic values in the textual correction and arrangement of Yu Pian and otherwordbooks, the compiling and arrangement of wordbooks and dictionaries, as wellas the enrichment of the whole study of Chinese characters.