The Research Of "Phonetic Signs Indicating Theword Origin" In The Notes On Origin Of Chinese Characters

1.Outline of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin"Pictophonetic Characters has expanded gradually from 27 percent of ancient inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells to more than 80 percent of modern commonly-used Chinese characters. In fact, it has become the main part of Chinese characters, and even equaled the Chinese character configuration system. The study of traditional etymology theory tells us that phonetic signs can indicate the word origin. Through the study of the phonetic signs, it will have a positive significance to the development of etymology research in the Chinese language.As early as the Han Dynasty, scholars found that phonetic signs played an important role to word explanations. Xu Shen used the word "Yisheng" in "ShuoWen JieZi". The basic form is Pictophonetic. A part of notes in the book of "Shi Ming" written by Liu Xi also reflected the fact of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin". "Physics to Discuss" written by Yang Quan were quoted in "The Collectanea," which recorded content about using the phonetic signs to explain the meaning of the words. In Jin Dynasty "Yu pian" written by Gu Yewang can also find the notes, which used the phonetic signs to explain the words. " Meng Xi Bi Tan·Volume 14" written by Shen Kuo record: "the way of making character used by Wang Shengmei was making the right part of the character from the meaning of the character." This is the earliest theoretical text about "phonetic signs indicating the word origin", which we have seen. The saying of "The Explanation of Right-Part Theory " written by Liu Youxin helped us to get further understand Right-Part Theory. In the Qing Dynasty Duan Yucai, Huang Chengji, Liu Shipei, Zhang Taiyan and other scholars, their works had important significance in the "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" research.First, the original form of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" was appeared in the early associative compounds. In the early shape of Chinese character, though there were minority character appeared, which one part indicated the meaning, the other part indicated the sound, they were nearly associative compounds. If we regarded these characters as pictophonetic characters and associative compounds, phonetic signs of the characters must indicate the meaning. Secondly, the phonetic signs of pictophonetic characters which were produced through adding shape symbol to divide the extended meaning and the cognate meaning had the function of indicating the word origin. With the prevalence of extended meaning and the cognate meaning, it reduced the clarity of the Chinese character indicating the meaning greatly. People enabled the Chinese character to achieve the goals, which were the special character having a special meaning, the special character having a special using, so people added new signs to classify the words and make the meaning clear.The pictophonetic characters which were produced in this period all nearly have the function of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin". Thirdly, when people used pictophonetic law to make characters, people chose the phonetic signs consciously. It caused phonetic signs can indicate the word origin. With the understanding of the objective world day by day people had higher and higher requirements to the Chinese character. The pictophonetic law to make characters was the most suitable. But the people had not got rid of the function of meaning completely. People often consciously payed attention to the phonetic signs and chose the ideal phonetic signs in the creation of pictophonetic characters. There were also another part of characters. Their meanings of phonetic signs did not have any relation to the meaning of the whole pictophonetic characters, but a crowd of characters which had the same phonetic signs had the related meaning. Finally, we must specially emphasize that the pictophonetic characters losing the function of the "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" is the necessity of history development. The earlier the pictophonetic characters are produced, the more functions the phonetic signs have. The later the pictophonetic characters are produced, the weaker the functions of phonetic signs become.The study of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" pictophonetic characters plays an important role in the study of the Chinese etymology. Firstly, the study of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" function is the main clues and the main ingredients in the study of the Chinese etymology. On the one hand, phonetic sign has its unique advantage. On the other hand, there are a large number of pictophonetic characters which have "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" function. Chinese also have a large number of allogeneic words, it provides another effective way of the etymology study. Secondly, using the function of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" can explain the meaning of cognate words, "phonetic signs indicating the word origin"on the drawbacks:Ren Ji Fang, in his "Chinese Etymology", pointed out using the relation of phonetic signs to study the etymology can easily generate two drawbacks: "Limited physical" is not good for us to develop our thinking, and "sweeping" is a misleading. As long as we can only use the scientific methods to analysis the function of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin", we can make characteristics of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" give a better service to etymology research.2. The research of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin"in "Notes on Origin of Chinese Characters"The discussion about "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" of"Yisheng Characters"in the Duan Yu-cai's Book AnnotationsMany scholars have discussed about the concept of "Yisheng" and " Yisheng Characters ". we believe that:" Yisheng Characters "is only a unique phenomenon of character creation.we shouldn't classify this kind of character into associative compounds or Pictophonetic Characters. through the study of Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations,we can summarize that there are eight kinds of the forms of "yisheng". The main difference is the bias in Pictophonetic characters or in associative compounds.The origin of "Yisheng Characters "has the following several kinds: First, "Yisheng Characters " which were produced in the ancient Chinese characters foundation ,are used to divide the extended meaning and the cognate meaning. Second, " Yisheng Characters "and their lateral parts are not the relation of differentiation, and two or several lateral parts are coordinated in making the character. The meaning of this Yisheng Characters is made up of several lateral parts. Third, add the meaningful part in the ancient Chinese characters to constitute the new character, actually the meaning of ancient and modern characters are completely the same. Fourth, a part of Yisheng characters produce meaning differentiation , and then increase the lateral parts to make their meaning clear, because the ancient and modern evolves. Fifth, some explanations of Yisheng characters are not correct in Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations ."Right-Part Theory "acctually did not equate "Yisheng Characters"."Yisheng Characters "focused on the relations of the single character and the phoneticsigns. but"Right-Part Theory " was from viewpoint of system to analyze the meaning relations of a group of the same phonetic signs.In the book written by Shen Jianshi the statistics of the Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations about"Right-Part Theory "were sixty-eight. we called this sixty-eight notes the joint clue. Some have made the homologous word association in the annotation.The pictophonetic characters which have the same phonetic signs and the same origin element were combined to analyze.Some phonetic signs represent not only one origin element."phonetic signs indicating the word origin" can be divided into four types: first, origin element is the original meaning of the phonetic signs. Second, origin element is the extended meaning of the phonetic signs. Third, origin element is the etymologic meaning of the phonetic signs. Fouth, origin element is cognate meaning of phonetic signs, in the absence of such sixty-eight terms.We have carefully analyzed examples and annotation in the Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations. it is clear: " indicating something " does not explain the word meaning, but also explains some relations of the phonetic in the using character and used character. On the one hand, we can use it to point out "false phonetic getting its meaning" On the other hand, we may explain that the explanatory of the same or similar phonetic .it has also included the massive homologous words.Such forms often appear in Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations. Some character and some phonetic are the same in the sound and similar in the meaning; one character and another character is interlinked in pronunciation and meaning; one character and another character is similar in pronunciation and meaning ,and so on. We call them the "similar sounds and identical meaning." This form and "something indicating something" directly reflect the relationship in the sound, the shape and the meaning between two characters. similar or identical"sound " and "meaning", to some extent, reflect the key meaning of sheng xun, this point is consistent with "something indicating something". So we can find the clue of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin"in the form of same or similar Phonetic and meaning.Except the most common form we mentioned above, we can also find that many other clues of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" hide in the Note. these clues and the forms of clues we mentioned above all reflect the analysis of the phonetic,shape and the meaning of Chinese character in Duan Yu-cai's Book. They have no clear form for reference, but we actually might find the pictophonetic which is the same as the explained character and word in the note, then we analysis the notes to judge whether they indicate the origin.3. the significance of the research about "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" in "Notes on Origin of Chinese Characters".(1). the significance of guiding in the theoryOn the one hand, after he absorbed Consonants Omitted in "Shuo Wen JieZi", Duan Yucai explained the Consonants Omitted indicating the meaning from the perspective of etymology, then found that a number of Consonants Omitted wereYisheng. On the other hand, Duan Yucai put forward a number of view in the relations of Xiesheng.(2). "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" in the Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations promoting the compilation of dictionaries we should start from the homologous word, when we compile Chinese homology word dictionary. Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations provides us rich research materials about "phonetic signs indicating the word origin".(3). Theoretical exploration of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" helping to explain the wordsThe correct explanations of the words are traced to the discussion of the original meaning of the words. The phonetic signs in pictophonetic characters play an important part in the explanations of the words. Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations get the key role of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin".(4). "phonetic signs indicating the word origin" in Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations is helpful to collect the ancient book.We can make the right judgment to deal with the problem in ancient book through the function of "phonetic signs indicating the word origin". We can get great inspiration.The problem we should pay attention to in the research of Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations.There is a phenomenon which is to get the meaning from the appearance of the word in Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations. Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations did not make use of the information about the Oracle, Inscriptions on Bronze, because of the limitation of the era. Duan Yu-cai's Book Annotations has not used the new unearthed materials, and complied with "Shuo Wen Jie Zi" excessively, and resulted in a lot of wrong word cases.