Study Of The Relationship Between Figures And Meanings About Characters Configuration On Oracle-bone In Chinese Ancient Shang Dynasty

Among all Chinese ancient characters found now, oracle-bones are the earliest records of Chinese text into the system. After Wang Yi-rong found the oracle-bones, it has got a lot of achievements about the textual research of the oracle-bones. On these bases, some scholars had studied the configuration system of the oracle-bones. The gains of the textual research of the oracle-bones and the achievement of the study about the configuration system could promote each other. The findings of the textual research of the oracle-bones offer the reliable foundation for the study of the configuration system, and the study of the configuration system can push forward the textual research of the oracle-bones. On the bases of previous research findings, this paper would systematically sort out the relationship between forms and meanings of the oracle-bones according to the characters’ components, then analyzing the function that the characters’components combine into characters, and studying some problems about the components of the characters in the oracle-bone inscriptions.The oracle-bones system is the important material that could be used to study the characters’ development and evolution. The textual research about the configuration system has important significance.Firstly, it could contribute to researching the period of the Chinese characters system. It could provide materials and the theoretical support for the diachronic studying on the development of the Chinese characters.Secondly, it could contribute to researching the period of the functions of Chinese characters’ components and lay the foundation for the studying on the development of the Chinese characters’ components.Thirdly, it be propitious to comparing of the similarities and the differences of functions amnong the various components. Thereby we can observe the alternativation and the contrariety among the similar meaning components.Fourthly, we can study the influence on the Chinese charcters system making by the components’graphics changings.Fifthly, it is useful to reveal the rules of composition and the laws of aggregation among the components.Sixthly, we can get some new achievements and some supplementary viewpoints to the previous study about the characters on the oracle-bones in the Shang dynasty.The thesis contains five chapters. The contents of the first three chapters are the pedigree arrangement of the single characters on the oracle-bone inscriptions according to the relationship between forms and meanings. It could induce the making-characters rules which develop from the original period to the complex rank. The first chapter analyzes the characters which are used to record the things. The second chapter analyzes the characters which are used to record the action. The third chapter analyzes the characters which are used to express the property of things.The fourth chapter studies the compositions of the characters on the oracle-bones inscriptions and the functions of the character components. These are the two aspects of one problem. Firstly, the compositions of the characters on the oracle-bones would be analyzed. It studies how the components are combined into the characters according to their patterns, pronunciations and meanings. Then the functions of the character components would be researched.The fifth chapter studies the systematic problems about the characters on the oracle-bones. These problems contain the universal property and the opposition of the similar meaning symbols, the confusion of the symbols which have alike shapes, the comparison of the different patterns of the associative characters, and some non-character components.