A Study On The Evolution In Pronunciation And Meaning Of Polysyllabic Characters In Shijing

Polyphony is a very important language phenomenon in Chinese.In ancient times,some polysyllabic characters are still polysyllabic characters,while some are no longer polysyllabic characters.This paper mainly studies the phonetic and semantic evolution of ten polyphonic characters in Shi Jing,in order to explore the causes and laws of the phonetic and semantic evolution of polyphonic characters.This study takes the phonetic notes of Mao Shi Yin Yi in Lu Deming’s Jing Dian Shi Wen as the research clue and refers to Mao Shi Zheng Yi.606polysyllabic characters are sorted out from Mao Shi Yin Yi,excluding the polysyllabic characters specially studied by previous sages,and then ten polysyllabic characters"Ao(敖),Bing(鞞),Lu(蓼),Mou(缪),Qi(耆),Shi(奭),Yao(铫),Yi(泄),Yi(斁),and Yu(揄)"with complete historical documents and special or rich phonetic and semantic evolution phenomena are selected,As a specific research object of sound and meaning evolution.Then,collect the relevant literature materials of these ten polyphonic words from the Chinese basic ancient books library,and use the literature research method to sort out the sound and meaning of each word and analyze the sound and meaning evolution of each word.Finally,on this basis,the causes and laws of the evolution of the sound and meaning of polyphonic characters are discussed.We believe that the causes of the evolution of the pronunciation and meaning of polyphonic words mainly include eight categories:phonetic change,word formation,phonetic loan,synonymous polyphony,proper name,fixed words,dialect phonetic change,word meaning extension,variant forms and so on;There are three main laws of the evolution of the pronunciation and meaning of polyphonic characters:the differentiation of Gujinzi(古今字),the disappearance of word meaning and the merger of synonymous polyphony.The polyphonic characters in the Shi Jing have a long history and rich literature materials,which is of great research value.By studying the phonetic and semantic evolution of the ten polyphonic characters"Ao(敖),Bing(鞞),Lu(蓼),Mou(缪),Qi(耆),Shi(奭),Yao(铫),Yi(泄),Yi(斁),and Yu(揄)"in Shi Jing,this paper finds that the reasons for the formation of polyphonic characters are diverse.What is most noteworthy is that the formation of these ten polyphonic words involves a very special phenomenon that is dialect phonetic change,for example,"yin miao(音妙)"of the word"Mou(缪)"comes from the sound change of the dialect of"mi you qie(靡幼切)".By comparing the historical sound meaning of these polyphonic words with that in the modern Chinese Dictionary(7th Edition),it is found that many sound meanings of most polyphonic words have disappeared,and the law of their disappearance is also related to the cause of formation.