A Study On The Diachronic Evolution Of Silent Word Configuration

Based on the research objects of 3500 first-level Chinese characters on the General Standard Chinese Characters Table(hereinafter referred to as the Table),the thesis,by using Chinese characters configuration theory,aims at carrying out a detailed sorting and examining of all the forms and construction patterns of 1133 silent words and summarizing the evolution rules and configuration modes.The thesis especially aims at making a detailed explanation of the configuration of Chinese characters Li Kai and the modern simplified characters for the first time,exploring the influence of their writings on the evolution of Chinese characters' structural shapes.This study is expected to have a certain guiding significance for the teaching of Chinese characters,and to be instructive to further understand the nature of Chinese characters.The study is divided into six chapters.The introduction part,firstly explains the term “silent words”,makes the research objects and research scope of the study clear,elaborates on the status quo,theory and research methods used.The first chapter makes a brief summary of the silent words on the Table.The author introduces the judgment standards and word counts of the silent words,analyzes the classification of the simplified characters and describes the methods to distinguish between the silent words and sound words of the modern simplified characters.The second chapter makes a static analysis of silent words.A brief definition and description of the five functions of components and ten kinds of configuration modes of silent words in the ancient writing stage is followed by the detailed explanation of structures and configuration modes of 132 silent words that are not easy to identify in the word Table.In addition,the 1133 silent words are classified and tallied in accordance with their word marks,word meaning and criteria of minority words.The third chapter describes the dynamic changes in configuration modes of the silent words.Configuration modes and shape models are depicted separately.The configuration modes can be divided into the changed and unchanged.The unchanged modes can be reclassified as changed by 1 times,2 times and 3 times.The form diachronic evolution is divided into 7 stages: the unchanged,cyclic deformation,variation,changing components,changing lines,rebuilding and displacement.Moreover,the diachronic evolution rules of the font structure are summarized as semantic,symbolic and phonetic evolutions.The fourth chapter is to explore the reasons for the configuration changes of the silent words.The configuration studies have focused on the evolution of Chinese characters to find out the reasons from the perspective of philology,while this thesis focuses on the explanation of the writings of the Chinese characters.Because Chinese characters include the external forms and internal structures,their external morphological changes will affect their internal structures and their external changes are directly related to their writings.This study mainly discusses the two aspects of writing tools and writing materials.The official script is an important turning point in the evolution of Chinese characters;the regular script is the further development of the official scrip.The Qin Bamboo Slips,a bronze inscription of the authentic,inherited the inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells,is the source of the mainstream Chinese characters fonts.Therefore,this article mainly focuses on the evolution of writing forms of handwritten ink book Chinese characters by means of Qin Li(ancient scribe).The study has found that the following six factors affect the styles and shapes of Chinese characters and thus affect their configurations:(1)new strokes strengthened and retained by ink book writing because of the calligraphy pauses;(2)horizontal strokes,the straight strokes shortened,bending strokes straightened,increasing fold pens of the extended seal script;(3)connected strokes simplified from broken strokes in Chinese handwriting;(4)stroke changes produced by pulling the ending stokes or exposing edge points in Chinese handwriting;(5)redundancy strokes increased for the beauty of Chinese characters;(6)stroke changes caused by the wrong variation of changes in font style.The fifth chapter discuss the application of the study of silent word configuration history.In the chapter,the author puts forward a deep understanding of the nature of Chinese characters which has been discussed for a long time in the academic circles.The chapter elaborates on the application value of the configuration history study of the silent words in Chinese teaching.Appendix is a list of 1133 silent words,which are arranged according to mainstream evolution order of Chinese characters: the inscriptions on tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty,inscriptions on the bones-Qin Li(Qin Jiandu Books)-official script,regular script font.Shuowen Jiezi plays a major role in the history of Chinese philology.Qin Xiaozhuan(seal character)is not the starting point of the evolution of official script,but we also put the seal character on the list.The right column is a detailed description of the configuration modes and the evolution of the silent words in the four stages of inscriptions on the bones,Qin Xiaozhuan,regular scrip and simplified characters.