Quantitative Study Of Interchangeable Words In The Tsinghua Bamboo Slips

This article is based on the interpretation opinions of the academic community on volumes one to nine of the "Tsinghua University Warring States Bamboo Slips"(hereinafter referred to as the "Tsinghua Bamboo Slips").In a quantitative manner,it systematically organizes the situation of the use and form two frequency character spectra for the purpose of borrowing characters and for the purpose of using original characters.Then we further describe and analyze the results of exhaustive organization in the perspective of the history of Chinese language with a particular emphasis on the study of differences in character usage habits within Tsinghua bamboo slips,and explore the existence and characteristics of subordinate systems.The innovation points of the content are highlighted: 1.It has comprehensively absorbed the research results of academic interpretation.2.A quantitative method was used to organize the interchangeable characters of Tsinghua Bamboo Slips for the first time,forming two frequency character spectrums from both borrowed and original characters.3.By taking into account both internal and external frequency attributes,we comprehensively reveal the interchangeable words of Tsinghua Bamboo Slips.The systematic results of the interchangeable characters in Tsinghua Bamboo Slips are divided into two types: borrowed characters as the entry and borrowing characters as the entry.The word spectrum with borrowed characters as entry,is sorted according to "Shuowen Jiezi",and arrange each word in ascending order according to the corresponding frequency of the borrowing word.In the word spectrum with borrowing characters as entry,the corresponding number of borrowed words in the text is given after the word list and arranged in descending order.The corresponding frequency of borrowed words in the text is given after each borrowed word,with each one separated by a "/".Then,the overall interchangeable character usage of Tsinghua Bamboo Slips reflected by the frequency sorting results was analyzed from three aspects: the degree of common use of interchangeable character groups,character usage habits,the level of standardization in word usage.Finally,by analyzing the degree of unity,the proportion of non-uniform interchangeable character groups is sorted from two perspectives of borrowed characters as entry and borrowing characters as entry.After comprehensive consideration,8 chapters with highly unified interchangeable characters and 8 chapters with highly non-uniform characters are selected.We use interchangeable character groups as clues and figure out the specific interchangeable character groups in different articles.It reveals that there is a subordinate subsystem within the Tsinghua Bamboo Slips that affects the use of interchangeable characters in different articles.Subsequently,we conducte a word by word analysis of specific interchangeable character groups,evaluating the accuracy of interpretation,to determine the specific usage of specific interchangeable character groups in the text.Then we cluster similar articles and summarize the reasons for the differences.By comparing with existing relevant research results,we have obtained 50 specific interchangeable character groups only in Tsinghua Bamboo Slips,and 21 specific interchangeable character groups shared in ancient book materials in Chu Bamboo Slips.Therefore,we confirm that there are differences in the use of interchangeable characters in the internal chapters of Tsinghua Bamboo Slips and induce ten reasons that can cause specific interchangeable character groups.They are regional factors,avoidance of repetition needs,differentiated meanings,additional emphasis,influence of the original record,errors in handwriting,nature of literature,proper names and specific characters,preservation of ancient characters,and lack of standardization.And it was found that three clusterings have closer relationships.