Research On The Naming Explanation In Zheng Xuan’s Annotation Of The Rites Of Zhou

The interpretation of etymological investment: to make a traceable explanation byusing the relations of pronounciation and meaning between interpreted words andinterpreting words. Exploring the source of words has been appeared in pre-qin era, andprevalent over the East and West Dynasty. Scholars of New Text Confucianism usuallyused the exegesis to explain the etiquette system and national titulary and elucidatedprofound connotations. Merging the past and the present and annotating most Confucianclassics, Zhengxuan, usually running through exegesis with the pronounciation, observedand studied the meaning of words and also sought the source. Based on Zheng Xuan’sannotation of the rites of Zhou, guided by the theory of mordern etymology, this papermade the deep research for exegesis in Zheng Xuan’s annotation of the rites of Zhou byusing the methods of connecting the homology, tracing the origins of words and explainingthe origins of names.This paper sorts out and analyzes the contents on exegesis in Zheng Xuan’sannotation of the rites of Zhou and then summarizes the styles and methods on how toprobe into the exegesis of Zheng Xuan. According to the phonetic-semantic relations ofwords, devided the relations of motivation into ten parts, this paper chooses the typicalexamples to prove, explores the origins of words and analyzes the motivation ofword-creation. Through the research of Zheng Xuan’s exegesis contents, this paper alsotalks about the materials and methods of words’ origins research.This paper is made up by four parts:The first part is the Introduction, basically introducing the origin of Rites and theform of the Three Rituals、Zheng Xuan and the rites of Zhou; generally commenting the research status of ZhengXuan and the annotation of the Three Rituals; and illustrating theresearch meanings of this paper and research methods.The second part is to briefly summarize the history of the words of origins; tointroduce the academic background of Zheng Xuan’s Exegesis, which includes theforefathers’ explorations on phonetic-semantic relations and explorations on theexpanded origins of names and words based on phonetic-semantic relations, and theconcept formed by Zheng Xuan under such background; to summarize the technique ofexpression、style and technical terms of exegesis in Zheng Xuan’s exegesis.The third part is to analyze theoretically the motivation of words; tidying the materialsin Zhengxuan’s annotation of the rites of Zhou, divided those into nine types, that is, timeand place、quantity and function、tool and method、object and result、quality and character、analogy and similarity、causality and aim、action and responsibility、custom and concept;to explain the motivation of words by proving the typical contents.The fourth part is to generalize the materials and methods of research on origins ofwords from Zheng Xuan’s source-probed exegesis as parts: source-seeking of exegesis、thesystem of assonance、the exegesis and variations materials of inference meanings fromsounds.The aim for this research is to support for uncovering the meanings of words andmotivation of words via accumulating some proved materials; and to provide helps forlater research on origins of words via concluding the materials and exploring thetheoretical methods.