A Study On Quantifying Early Western Han Dynasty Bamboo Slip Script

The development history of Chinese Character is also the history of the movement of Chinese Character system.As one of the important factors of character system,the character quantification could reflect the dimension,field of application and maturity as well as other features of the character system.Dating examination is an important method to do character quantification research,through which detailed data could be obtained,the evolution of Chinese Character could be observed,the development sequence of Chinese Character could be traced,and the rule of development of Chinese Character could be summarized.Diachronic comparation helps to learn more about the development history of Chinese Characters and to establish the status of the Chinese Characters of ancient dynasties in the history of Chinese Character development.From the perspective of dating,there have been some achievements on the research of character quantification and frequency from Yinshang Dynasty to Zhan Dynasty.The character of early period of Western Han Dynasty is the phase of conversion from Old to Modern characters,when body writing and circumstances of applying characters were complicated and volatile,and the content of characters was rich.Systematical process and analysis of the characters of this stage could fill in the blank of the research of related character system of this period.Meanwhile,dating comparison based on the existing research results could help to understand the development rule of Chinese Character.This dissertation contains five chapters.Chapter one,Introduction.This chapter mainly concerns with object and content of this research,description of the early Western Han Dynasty Bamboo slips and the research situation of explanation of these slips and the character ontology.I have illustrated the significance and methods about this research.Chapter two,Character Release.The verification and affirmation of character shape is the fundamental element of research on character quantification.Ididrevision study on the character explanation to determine the definition of all the literature words.At the same time,I listed the form of the characters which have been changed in the basis of district.This chapter lays firm foundation for the next comprehensive analysis and description of the research.Chapter three,Quantification Research.This chapter is divided into three sections.I explained on the perspectives of the isomerism,variant use,joint character,same character and changed character,and determined the statistic counting rules.There are 3731 individual characters and 113669 used total characters;And I did the analysis from variable perspectives,classified based on character frequency and cleared among the high-frequency words,less-frequency words and rare used words,reflecting status and role of different characters in the character system.I also did the horizontal and vertical levelcomparison.In horizontal level,for different types of references,I made the comparison between documents and ancient books,character quantification and frequency between Zhangjiashan Han Dynasty bamboo and Yinqueshan Han Dynasty bamboo,analyzing the differences of character usage among different types of references;In vertical level,I compared the Shuidihu Qin Cemetery bamboo legal references and Zhangjiashan Han Dynasty bamboo legal documents,summarizing features of character usage of various references in different times.Chapter four,I studied the variant form of early Western Han Dynasty,mostly established on the component,learning variant characters from the point of transposition,replacement and increase or decrease of the component of this period and collecting situation of the distribution of frequency.Chapter five,Characters which cannot be seen from Shuo Wen.This chapter contains three sections.The first section introduced the general situation of characters not included in Shuo Wen,totally 581 characters and the total usage of characters 1349,having counted the quantity of unknown characters,inheriting characters and new characters.In the second section,I analyzed the features of character quantification and frequency of uncollected characters in Shuo Wen.Finally as well as compared with the Qin Dynasty Bamboo and discussed the inheritance relationship between the traditional characters.During the process of analysis and research,this dissertation always uses the digital means to arrange the materials comprehensively to make sure the data accurate,the conclusion scientific and the problems solved.This paper has some innovations:For the first time on the early Western Han Dynasty Bamboo slips in the variantcharacters,misused characters statistics and analysis.I also did the horizontal and vertical level comparison.Systematical process and analysis of the characters of this stage could fill in the blank of the research of related character system of this period.For the first time,make quantitative research on the quantity and forms of the variant characters in early Western Han Dynasty Bamboo slips and draw an objective conclusion as data by using character databases.For the first time,introduced the general situation of characters not included in Shuo Wen,having counted the quangtity of unknown characters,inheriting characters and new characters.