Museum Collections Warring States Chu Bamboo Slips (a) Analysis Of Interchangeable Characters

With the discovery of the slip, the research of the slip has developed very quickly. The discovery of the first part of "Chu Bamboo Slips at Shanghai Museum" (CBS) had an great affect on the academic circle in 2000. A great tide of the research on the CBS has begun. The age of the slip is definite and people can not revise the slip, so, the slip is credible. The common character of the CBS is the big usage of the Interchangeable Words (IWs). In order to understood the slip correctly, we must research the IWs. The IWs in the first part of the CBS have been comprehensively studied in this paper. Emphasis has been paid on a few groups of IWs in the book, including accounting the amount and classifying of them. The usages and phonetic characters of Iws in acient time were summarized, the causes of radically incrseaing and the meanings of Iws in Waring States are discussed. Taking great advantage of description and notes in the CBS, combined with various achievments in studying IWs and ideas of experts, according to the priciples of determining words, finding out the meaning and pronounciation of the words, giving out the cause of interchange and examples, the origin (i.e. oracle-born inscriptions) and successor(i. e. classic works) of IWs were speculated. With the research, we find that the amount of the IWs is 277 and we can classified it by the graphemic, the relation of the "BENZI" and " JIEZI" and the sound. The research of the sound gives a great amount of proof for the research of the sound of the ancient time. The reason of the presence of the IWs is abnormity, simplification and sound current. The research of the slip has an great affect on the explaining of the slip , riching the IWs, pushing the research of the sound and revising the document.