A Study On Phonetic Variations Of Adjectives In Classical Chinese

There are two or more pronunciations in a word,which we call it "variable pronunciation."(Focusing on the change of pronunciation,we also called " the phonetic variations)In terms of subdivision,there are roughly three cases:(1)the meaning or usage of the two pronunciation is exactly the same,and the difference in pronunciation may be caused by "historical phonetic changes";(2)the meaning or usage of two pronunciation are without any connection,this difference in pronunciation is likely to be caused by“phonetic loan”;(3)the meaning and usage of the two pronunciations are not exactly the same,and this difference may belong to morphological shape or configuration form which is called " four tone-changes" and "derivation by tone-changes".The variable pronunciation also exist in ancient Chinese adjectives.What is the law of phonetic-semantics? This article will take the variable pronunciation of adjectives in the book Classical Chinese as the starting point,comprehensively examine the syntactic-semantic meaning of the adjectives,analyze the law of phonetic variation and the reasons for non-phonetic variation,thus explore the essence of variable pronunciation.The article is divided into three parts.The first part is the adjective vocabulary of Classical Chinese including vocabulary examples and vocabulary text,the text includes the phonetic variation of the perfective,the phonetic variation of the adjective-ordinary verb,the phonetic variation of causative usage.,the phonetic variation of conative usage,the phonetic variation of the adjective-noun,the phonetic variation of adjective referring,the particular phonetic variation of adjective interior,the two types of phonetic variation and others.The second part is the law of the phonetic variation of adjectives in ancient Chinese including the phonetic variation between adjectives and verbs,the phonetic variation between adjectives and nouns,the special phonetic variation in adjectives and others.The third part is the conclusion including the causes and the essence of phonetic variation.Through investigation,it is found that the causes of phonetic variation of ancient Chinese adjectives including rhyme,corruption,historical phonetic change,phonetic loan,morphological shape,configuration form and so on.Among them,morphological shape account for the largest proportion.In other words,the ancient Chinese adjectives are mostly based on the original words to produce new words,new meanings or new usages,the essence of which is morphological shape or configuration form.In author's opinion,the essence of phonetic variation with in ancient Chinese adjectives belongs to morphological shape,and main marks are opposite of non-entering tones to entering tones(entering tones originated by *-s),voiceless to voiced(voiceless originated by *s-),some exists level to rising(rising by *-?)tone-changes.