| The unearthed Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips at Zoumalou, Changsha,Hunan Province, supplement and complement the important missing links of the unearthed texts in the Three Kingdoms. As one of the major archaeological achievements in the past two decades, Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips also provide for the study on the Wu History in the Three Kingdoms period important historical materials, which have, in recent years, received the most heated discussion and exploration among historians. However, it is still rare that the related systemic study regards the Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips as fresh materials from the perspective of history of Mandarin Chinese.Taking the vocabulary of Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips as the example, the study covers the following aspects in the theories of history of Mandarin Chinese.The study initiates comprehensive description and analysis of polysyllabic words, following the related methods of Cheng Xiangqing and Liu Shuxin in descriptive vocabulary of Mandarin. There are three main findings below:First, as the elaborate description of the polysyllabic words and summarization of the morphological types have herein shown, no monosyllabic words are found while817polysyllabic words categorized. The adverbial-headword modifying words are526, accounting for64.5%. This shows that the adverbial-headword modifying polysyllabic words are the most important category in Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips. There is such word formation process as ricochet words and monosyllabic words, but a new type does show up, that is the serial-verb polysyllabic words, which is rather rarely seen in the corpus of the Pre-Qin and the Former and the Latter Han Dynasty (See detail in section3and5etc., Chapter2).Second, various methods are employed to describe polysyllabic words. When analyzing171polysyllabic words whose modifying morpheme presents the nature or property of the modified, in addition to the dichotomy of "the head morpheme presenting people or things while the modifying the nature or property," we further classify them according to what the head morpheme presents. This classification mainly adopts thought and various clues provided by the Economic History and Institution History, and cultural attributes of the cultural words or concept attributes (See detail in Section3, Chapter2).Third, the characteristics of the polysyllabic vocabulary of Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips are generalized and its place in the Chinese lexical history is explored. Different from the materials in the chronologically close periods, such as Lun Hung, Buddhist Text,Sou Shen Ji,Shi Shuo Xin Yu, in Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips polysyllabic words outnumber the others while the joint ones come secondary and the governable type, supplemental type and adjuncts type are very few. In comparison with the related literature in the Former and the Latter Han Dynasty, the percentage of the polysyllabic words in Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips reaches as high as71.2%, which shows a clear increase in polysyllabic word production. Similar to such literature as The records of the Three Kingdoms(san kuo chi), the rapid proliferation of polysyllabic words, with their overwhelming advantage, have replaced the once-dominant monosyllabic words.(See detail in Section5, Chapter2). Few studies on polysyllabic words in Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips have employed theories of modern linguistics. The study incorporates the related theory of element analysis and cognitive linguistics into the semantic analysis of the vocabulary of the Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips. Two conclusions are drawn as follows:First, more accurate meanings are deduced by altering the way of element analysis. The study encapsulates the normative and accurate meanings of Li Type(Official) and Mi Type (Rice) by altering from Theories of Stratification, Clan Theory and Financial management (Public Economics), which is an important tentative attempt at analyzing the unearthed polysyllabic words with element analysis (See detail in Section2, Chapter3).Second, this study, by adopting the method of "prototype property listing to property tabulation to prototype sequence arrangement," summarizes the prototype sequence of Li-Type words and illustrates the prototype and category of Mi-Type words, which is one of the few explorations that analyze the vocabulary of the Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips within the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics (See detail in Section3, Chapter3).The study covers the following aspects in the applied studies of history of Mandarin Chinese.Firstly, new words and also new meanings of the Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips are summarized, which can add129new lexical entries to the Chinese Dictionary, with21new meanings supplemented to the existed lexical entries,2mistakes corrected,8accurate interpretations provided, and more than20earlier documentary evidence supplied. Among the above findings, rarely in the literature available are122nouns, which account for71%of the total number of the new polysyllabic words and meanings in the vocabulary of the Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips, and further verify the important place and research significance of the proper nouns in the polysyllabic words of the Wu State Inscribed Bamboo Slips (See detail in Chapter4).Secondly, the innovations in exploring the vocabulary are illustrated as follows:First, other than the simple explanation of Cai Yong Qian("财用'”,Expenditure for Government Procurement) given by the field, new meanings are explored. We summarize in this study the meaning "Cai Yong"("财用") as "The material of government offices and servicing, belonging to the financial expenditure areas," and further give a normative and accurate interpretation of this proper noun from the angle of financial administration to reconstruct its fiscal revenue procedure. It is further pointed out that the so-called "Cai Yong Qian" is a tax item levied from ordinary people for purchasing ink, paper, lute and other office supplies for official administrative agencies. The levy objects are household adults (belonging to a variant of the poll tax). In the beginning of levy,"Cai Yong Qian" is used exclusively for its designated purpose of government office supplies procurement (See detail in Section2, Chapter5).Second, it is rare to see some related discussion of BingMi(禀米)and Bing Hu Mi(禀斛米)in literature."Bing (?)Mi(禀米)”,‘’Bing Hu Mi(禀斛米)”,"LinMi(库米)”,"Lin Hu(库斛)’’and "Bing HuMi(禀斛米)”share the same the meaning, synonymous with Shao Shi (moment food), Yue Shi (monthly food) and Lin Shi(Food Provision), which is grain ration for ordinary people provided by the government on a monthly basis. The ration is100:96compared with the conversion of the ordinary "rice tax", which is still in the scope of financial expenditure. In addition, in the fiscal revenue stage, as an important reserve materials "rice tax","Yan Jia Mi" are stored by warehouse clerks; according to the requirements of early financial management in Wu period, the rice tax and "Yan Jia Mi "should be transferred out in the name of "Bing Hu M" and "Bing Mi"(as the food or salary of officials at all levels, the workers in commission), allocated and distributed to the officials people (See detail in Section3, Chapter5).Third, the so-called "Dong Ci Bu"("冬赐布”,’cloth as winter gifts"), which is an almost untouched topic, is another type of real tax which is levied from ordinary people for storage in treasuries, or for the "December gifts"("冬赐”"winter gifts") held regularly every year, or for the salary as a reward for officials. Tax area covers the whole territory of state and the humble people such as big males and men. The rate is fixed and the deadlines generally are from March to November in the year. In addition, in order to meet the needs of the winter gifts,"requisition (provisional), government procurement" will also be used (See detail in Section3, Chapter5).Fourth, the essence of "Cong Shi Wei"("从史位,"secondary officials") and "Cong Yuan Wei"(“从掾位”"secondary Yuans") is the same. From the point of view of appointment and qualifications,"Cong Shi Wei" are casual officials who are county made, sharing the status and order of "Yuans" and "officials". Compared with professional officials, as "alternative officials" or assistants, they can bear part of the transactional work for the time being, but they still have the chance to change their identity in the future and to be the formal officials, and also even promoted. In addition, the "Big Men" and "Big Women"(“大男”,“大女”)mean male or female household, while "Little Boy" and "Little Girl"(“小男”、“小女”/“子男”、“子女”)are the unmarried sons and daughters.(See detail in Section4, Chapter5).Second, Innovative methods are employed. Except for these cultural linguistic theories, when exploring Zu Mi(“租米’’).Xian Mi(‘限米”)etc., the study also follows the related theories about fiscal management with the focus on the taxation elements to generalize the vocabulary elements (See detail in Section3, Chapter5). |
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