A Study On The Characters With The Same Or Similar Structures In The Oracle Bone Inscriptions

The phenomenon of the same or similar structures in different characters in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions is one of the features of Chinese characters in the period of Oracle Bone. This phenomenon is also an illustration of the under-development in word system during the developing process of Chinese characters.This phenomenon, nonetheless, often causes confusion in words,resulting in misunderstandings when interpreting the Oracle Bone Inscriptions.Based on the character structures collected in the "Xinbain Jiaguwen Zixing Zongbiao" edited by Jianhua SHEN and Jinyan CAO, this dissertation firstly counted the number of those characters which share the same or similar structures, and then classified these characters into different types. Lastly, drawing on the combination of Zuobing DONG’s Five Periods of the Oracle Inscriptions and Mengjia CHEN’s Zhenren Groupings of the Oracle Inscriptions, this paper placed the counted characters into the corresponding periods and analyzed the features of these characters. The analysis of these characters which share the same or similar structures is achieved by making reference to the collections of Oracle Bone Inscriptions such as the " Jiaguwen Heji"、" Jiagu Wenzi Gulin" and "Jiaguwen Heji Shiwen" and others.Through exemplification, the current dissertation has sorted out and discussed the phenomenon of the same or similar structures in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions. It has identified the primary character groups which share the same or similar structures, explored the reasons for this phenomenon, and expanded some of the interpretations to these characters. The findings of this present paper are insightful to further research in this field.