On The Comparison Between The Rhyme Of "Midland Phonology" And That Of "Thirty Kinds Of Zaju Inscribed In Yuan-Dynasty"

Zaju in Yuan-Dynasty is a kind of oral literature that truly reflects the spoken language in Yuan-Dynasty. Because the circulated works of Zaju were mostly inscribed in Ming-Dynasty and they were modified, and "Thirty kinds of Zaju inscribed in Yuan-Dynasty"is the only one inscribed in Yuan-Dynasty at present, the research on "Thirty kinds of Zaju inscribed in Yuan-Dynasty"makes us know better about the real situation of spoken language in Yuan-Dynasty. "Midland Phonology"is the earliest piece of writing for the rhyme of Zaju in Yuan-Dynasty. From the beginning of last century, the value for the research of the archaic Chinese has gradually been recognized by the scholars, but meanwhile two outstanding problems came into being: one is about the relations between "Midland Phonology"and Zaju in Yuan-Dynasty, that is, whether "Midland Phonology"was generalized by Zhou Deqing from Zaju in Yuan-Dynasty or not; the other is about the quality of"Rusheng being allocated into the other four tones", that is, whether the allocation of Rusheng is consistent with Zaju in Yuan-Dynasty or not. In order to resolve the two problems, I compare "Thirty kinds of Zaju inscribed in Yuan-Dynasty"with the "Midland Phonology". I have labeled all the feet in the "Thirty kinds of Zaju inscribed in Yuan-Dynasty"and then compared them with the "Phonology of the Central Plains". By contrast, I have drawn several conclusions: first, the allocation of the feet in the "Midland Phonology"complies with "Thirty kinds of Zaju inscribed in Yuan-Dynasty"; second, the allocation of the tones was examined on the basis of Zaju in Yuan-Dynasty by Zhou Deqing and the standard is a certain dialect; third, the allocation of fully voiced Rusheng into Pingsheng and that of secondarily voiced Rusheng into Qusheng accord with the fact of Zaju in Yuan-Dynasty , but that of the unvoiced Rusheng into Shangsheng doesn't correspond with "Midland Phonology".