The Cultural Analysis On The Legal Words In Ancient Chinese

On the basis of the academic achievements got by the former scholars and according to the materials of ancient writing as well as all the ancient books and record, this article studies a series of Chinese characters used in the law and tries to explain the Chinese ancient legal culture from the angel of exegetics.The legal words in this article are mainly from"Shuowen Jiezi"(the following as"Shuowen").It includes those words whose original meanings show the legal meanings, as well as those words whose original meanings don't show the legal meaning but the extended meanings are related to the ancient legal activities.Xushen has quoted a lot of Confusion canons and historical materials to study Chinese ancient society. Character and Vocabulary are the carries of the culture, so they often show the social reality which exist everywhere before they appear at the first time. If we study the ancient legal culture, we should not neglect those reflections of the law which exist in this dictionary that is just like an encyclopedia.First, this article interprets and these analyses legal words from the angel of the exegetics. Then, it identifys studies and classifies the legal words in"Shuowen"according to the things and activities which pointed out by these words. The author classifies these words into eight groups: characters reflecting the form of law, ones about the name of punishment the judgment of interrogation. Ones related to the capture and, ones reflecting the regulations of absolution, one reflecting detaining, ones about the name of prison, ones reflecting the guilty person and accusation, as well as ones about the law executors. At the same time, the article also introduces some legal...