A Study On The Initial Consonants Of "Tang Yunzheng"

Gu Yanwu is the founder of the archaic Chinese phonology in Qing dynasty. His remarkable achievements have a great influence on the study of archaic Chinese phonology in Qing dynasty. This thesis is a tentative study focusing on Tang Yun Zheng, which is excerpted from Gu’s masterpiece Yin Xue Wu Shu.This study falls into two parts. The first part is about the initial consonants in Tang Yun Zheng. Gu initiated "Li Xi Tang Yun", dividing archaic Chinese phonology into ten parts, which makes significant contribution to the study of phonology. Some scholars in modern times hold that Gu also probes into ancient initials, and that he has already knows there is no labiodental. Starting from this, the author makes detail comparison and analysis on the initial consonants in Tang Yun Zheng, and discusses the exceptions of the phonetic notation. Through the study, the author finds that Gu doesn’t fully understand ancient initials.The second part is a comparison between the phonetic notation of Tang Yun Zheng and the variant pronunciation of Guang Yun. There are such sentences as "Jin Ci Zi Liang Shi Er Ji,Shi Liu Xie Bu Zhong" in Tang Yun Zheng, which shows that Gu has made reference to the Variant Pronunciation of Guang Yun. Through relevant researches, the author finds that976phonetic notations in Tang Yun Zheng have their correspondents in Guang Yun, among which424are the same with the variant pronunciation of Guang Yun, accounting for about50%of all the variant notations. This denotes that Gu has referred to the variant pronunciation of Guang Yun extensively while doing the phonetic notation of Tang Yun Zheng.It is hoped that the present study can make a contribution to its research field. Gu’s achievements in ancient phonetic divides and ancient tones have received sufficient attention. As to whether he probes into ancient initials or not, there is no systematic research except for some speculations based on scattered material. The present study tries to answer this question. By doing an exhaustive statistical research on the phonetic notations in Tang Yun Zheng, and a systematic research on the initials involved, the author comes to the conclusion that Gu has no clear understanding of ancient initials.In addition, the present study discusses the source of the phonetic notation in Tang Yun Zheng. The author also collates all the58inconsistences between the Fan Qie of Guang Yun which are listed in Tang Yun Zheng, and those of Song Ben Guang Yun.