Research On The Associative Compounds In The Inscriptions On Bones And Tortoise Shells

This paper is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is the generality. At present, the research on the Associative compounds has obtained some achievements. But the research is insufficient as a whole. So first of all we briefly argued the actuality of the research on the Associative compounds in the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. We analyzed the deficiency that existing in the research meanwhile. The deficiency embodied in two aspects. Firstly, the discussion in theory is insufficient. Secondly, the analysis in quantification and qualitative is insufficient too. Then we expounded the meaning of this research. And then we briefly explained the principles and methods we employed in this research. We accounted for why we chose the "Oracle dictionary" as the basic materials meanwhile. At the end of this chapter we accounted for several pieces of consideration about this research.In the second chapter we supplemented the connotation of the Associative compounds. First we simply introduced and commented on several important definitions about the Associative compounds that were made by the scholars in past dynasties. Then we analyzed the theory — "concurrent structure" which related to the Associative compounds. We analyzed two kind of special configuration of the Associative compounds in the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells meanwhile. We pointed out that it is necessary to redefine Associative compounds owing to the situation we argued above.In chapter three, we analyzed the model of forming structure and the model of forming meaning of the Associative compounds in the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. Forming meaning is one of the most important dispositions of Associative compounds in the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. We classified the Associative compounds which we had discriminated according to the structure of them. The Associativecompounds were roughly classified into three types. They respectively are: Associative compounds that coordinated the configuration of the characters, Associative compounds that coordinated the meaning of the characters, Associative compounds that coordinated the human's body with his organ. Then we classified the Associative compounds according to the model of meaning forming into five types. They separately are: describing style, partial style, applying and bearing style, emphasized style and serried style. We gave some Associative compounds as examples and generalized their characteristics respectively.We delineated the system that formed by characters of the Associative compounds in the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells in chapter four. Character is the least unit that structured the Associative compound in the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. We separated the configuration of Associative compounds and therefore formed the characters collection. Then we classified the characters into five groups according to their source. The five groups are: human body and organs; animals and plants; nature and astronomical phenomena; daily appliance; sacrifice and else. And then we accounted and analyzed the frequency of the characters to form the Associative compounds. According to the data of the frequency we divided the characters into high frequency group and low frequency group. We concluded that the characters in high frequency group were much more frequently chosen to form the Chinese characters.In the last chapter we analyzed the direction towards which the Associative compounds in the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells developed. Firstly we accounted the ration of the number of Associative compounds and the number of the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells. Then we pointed out that the Associative compounds stagnated while the Chinese characters continually developed itself in number. Secondly, we analyzed the tendency in the development of the Associative compound. The tendency embodied in two aspects. The first one is that the Associative compounds developed from structure combination to meaning c...