Ancient Chinese "Pseudo-word" Summary

There are many disputes on the phenomenon of "phonetic loan character-Tongjia" among ancient Chinese scholars, and the research of ancient Chinese faces the complex problem correspondingly by reason of the existence of massive interchangeable uses of Tongjia phenomenon in ancient books. But on the other hand, the existence of Tongjia provides us a number of different information on the study of exegetics and phonology, which enables us to understand the evolution process of the ancient language deeply and broadly to make it clearer for future generations and provide favorable evidence for the future research on ancient Chinese. This thesis is aimed at integrating the research conclusions from different schools, comparing and analyzing their advantages and disadvantages, as well as providing comprehensive information and views on the study of Tongjia.This article first lists the researches on Tongjia, and discusses its definition and research situation. By generalizing the major ancient Chinese academic viewpoints, the author tries to prove that the major issue should be whether to divide Tongjia and Jiajie definitely or not. The fact is that Chinese researchers give no clear distinction between Jiajie and Tongjia before modern times. The term of Tongjia was widely used only in modern age. As the innovation and development of the theories of philology, most scholars have been aware of the necessity for detailed classification. Detailed research and clear classification of Jiajie and Tongjia are of great significance to the future study on Chinese exegetics and Chinese philology, at the same time the definition on Tongjia can be clear.This thesis summarizes the researches on Tongjia through a diachronic way. Earlier in the Western Han Dynasty, Chinese literal scholars start to pay attention to Tongjia which appeared in ancient books, though at that time the focus when the scholars make the notes is Jiajie. With the in-depth study of Chinese language, from Easten Han Dynasty, the terms of exegesis has become increasingly rich, for example, terms as "for the time (say)", "such as the time (if)", and so on. By the Qing Dynasty, the research on exegesis has reached its high peak, and the scholars' emphasis at that time is the use of ancient phonetic achievements to correct the mistakes of their predecessors, which not only defines the concept of Tongjia, but also explores the causes and scope, as well as preliminarily discusses the literal significance of it. Many of the Qing Dynasty scholars have started to value the importance of Tongjia, and classified Tongjia and Jiajie in "the six categories of Chinese characters-Liushu". The research on Tongjia becomes more and more popular in the twentieth century, and the researchers begin to pay much attention to the in-depth study on this field, such as giving a more detailed definition, discussing the role of Tongjia in the character development and the era levels of Tongjia, and so on.In addition, the article discusses the current division standards of Tongjia, at the same time discusses the categories of it. Since the different division standards, its classification becomes diversified, such as according to the pronunciation it can be divided into homophonic Tongjia and similar-sound Tongjia; according to the part of speech, it can be divided into content-word Tongjia, function-word Tongjia, and content-function-word Tongjia, etc.; and according to the character pattern, it ban be divided into related Tongjia and unrelated Tongjia. Each definition or each way of classification has its sense, yet has certain disadvantages, and this research tends to provide the clearest and most essential definition and the way of classification, to distinguish the phenomenon of Tongjia much more clearly, understand ancient Chinese easily, and then further promote the study of ancient Chinese.The appearance of the first Tongjia character may derive from the slip of mind or slip of pen, thus the author used other character with the same pronunciation, or because the author or the scribe wanted to take the easier way, thus the person chose another character with the same or similar sound, or as a consequence of avoid using the personal names of emperors of one's elders, thus the author wrote another character instead. The analysis of Tongjia characters should be started from the word meaning, based on the word pronunciation, and supported by literature. Researchers need not only be good at using the fruits of previous studies, the ancient sound, but also the character pattern, especially the morpheme-phonetic element, as well as all other available materials, to improve the reading level, recognize the Tongjia characters more accurately, better study the ancient books, and promote the development of ancient Chinese study. Mastering how to identify Tongjia in the reading of ancient books is very important.This thesis also discussed the differences between Tongjia and other phenomena about commonly used characters in ancient books, such as the ancient word, the word variant, homologous characters, simplified characters, and so on. Through the one-to-one comparison from the diachronic and synchronic angles, the author distinguishes these phenomena so as not to confuse the study on ancient Chinese.At present, the world has entered an era of knowledge-based economy, and the natural sciences have been valued and developed beyond example, yet the human sciences have the tendency to be ignored. Fewer and fewer people are able to read the traditional humanity books in which there are many treasures of human culture that should not be neglected. The improvement in the study of Tongjia is of great significance for the reading and understanding of ancient books. This article combines the previous studies of Tongjia, explores its definition on the basis of the former studies, summarizes its research conditions, lists its categories, searches its classification and recognition, and discusses its distinction with other general characters. Tongjia is one of the most important terms in the traditional exegetics. How to definite it is one hot issue among the scholars. This thesis analyzes and summarizes its current research condition in terms of its trend of definition, survey of research, and the classification and distinction through integrating the previous research results. Due to the limited level, this article has yet to be explored to enhance the depth, and expand the breadth. It is intended to make a more comprehensive study on the current Tongjia phenomenon, provide some research summary for this study, in order to reiterate that Tongjia is an inevitable phenomenon in the development of characters, therefore, research on it has great significance in pronunciation as well as in the study of ancient Chinese.