"serial Interpretation Of" The Cognates Research

Xu Kai's Notes for Shuo Wen Jie Zi was the first book on the comprehensive and systematic research of Shuo Wen Jie Zi. He achieved a lot in critical interpretation of ancient texts, lexicology and etymology. When Xu Kai explained Shuo Wen Jie Zi, he found and pointed out many cognates. It not only left plenty of corpora for cognates but also kept innovative in research methods. Therefore, this paper chose these corpora in Notes for Shuo Wen Jie Zi as research object. We listed the characteristics of cognates researched by Xu Kai and reveal value for the research on etymology through the comprehensive investigation and profound study.Under the guide of modern theory on etymology, this paper made an all-side inspection on parts of cognates in Notes for Shuo Wen Jie Zi—annotation. And then we sorted out sixty-six groups monosyllable cognates with high credibility.In chapter two, we classified these sixty-six cognates into two categories according to the form of expression. One is "using the term" and the other is "not using the term". Adopting the methods of parallel reciprocal verification, plereme analysis, document evidence and data statistics, we drew the following conclusions. Firstly, the terms used by Xu Kai to connect cognates are synonymous, similar, extended, ZhiYan and You. Compared with traditional way, it inherited and also developed at the same time. Secondly, Xu Kai touched upon a little bit the connection between homophones and cognates, which showed his clear cognition of "reveal source by phoneme".In chapter three, we concluded and analyzed the types of speech sound and word meaning among these sixty-six groups monosyllable cognates. In terms of speech sound, they have homophones, similar sounds, mutation and homophones with mutation. As far as word meaning concerned, they have two types, that is, identical and correlated. After comprehensive inspection on sound-meaning relation and deep analysis of the nature of core-meaning element in the word meaning of cognates, we realized that these sixty-six groups cognates multiplied due to the development of word meanings. And the alikeness and similarity in properties and characteristics are the main causes of multiplicities of cognates.In chapter four, we summarized Xu Kai's achievements and drawbacks in the process of his study of cognates. His achievements are the breakthrough of research methods and the realization and utilization of "reveal source by phoneme" phenomenon. The disadvantages are the arbitrariness of using terms and the minorness of being a system.Our results showed that Xu Kai's method on seeking the connection among words really enlightened "get meaning from sound " in Qing Dynasty. The related evaluations of the scholars are objective and fair. The corpora of cognates in Notes for Shuo Wen Jie Zi are worth sorting seriously and using rationally. And we can also draw on the method of making use of sound-meaning relation of cognates to investigate the meaning of a word.