Karasaku Domain: The Seven Methods of Judgment of Incoming Characters

Excerpted from Tang Zuofan's "Phonology Course", with deletions

(The original text is traditional, in order to facilitate reading, the contemptible pure hand is converted to simplified, it is inevitable to miss and error, please correct)

There are about 500 commonly used ancient sound words, and these 500 or so words, in modern Mandarin, nearly 1/2 of them are pronounced as devoicing, nearly 1/3 become Yangping, followed by yinping, accounting for about 15%, and the least is pronounced on the upper voice, accounting for about 6%. How to infer ancient phonetic characters from Mandarin? Here we will add something from the perspective of phonology.

One

Vowels are words that are pronounced yangping without sending gas stops and plugs, and the vast majority of them come from ancient sounds. The so-called non-sending stops and plugs refer to [p][t][k] and [ts][t][t]. Examples are:

As we know, there are two sources of Yangping characters in Mandarin: one is from Gu pingsheng, and the other is from Gujinsheng. Yangping characters derived from ancient pingsheng characters, if the vowel is a voiced stop or a plug, are generally pronounced as a clear tone (i.e. [p'][t']][k'] and [ts'][t'][t'][t']). The yangping character that does not send gas will only come from the sound of the voice, and the upper and lower voices in the voice will rarely change the pronunciation of the flat sound, so it can only come from the sound. Mastering this rule, you can infer about 1/5 of the commonly used inaccessible words. There are only a few exceptions, such as the character "弼" is originally a merged mother into the sound, according to the law should be pronounced Yang Ping, but in Mandarin it is pronounced as a desound.

Two

Most of the words for rhyme are derived from ancient sounds. Such as abuse, omission, determination, confirmation, learning, month, covenant,, jeopardy, finches, burrows, blood and so on. Among the commonly used words, only the words "lame and boots" are exceptions, which are ancient and rhyme.

Three

[uo] The word rhymes with the curly tongue vowel comes from the ancient intonation. Mandarin's [uo] vowel also comes from two sources, one from yin rhymes and the other from inset rhymes. However, the words from the yin rhyme (ge ge rhyme) do not spell with the curly tongue vowel, and those that can spell with the curly tongue vowel all come from the intonation, such as "drink, table, peck, catch, bracelet, maundy, turbid, dropout, clumsy, nickname, poke, say, shuo, retrospective, ruo, weak" and so on.

Four

[ ] Most of the words spelled with the ancient end and the jing two groups of vowels come from ancient Confucianism. Such as "get, de, special, happy, then, Ze, responsibility, side, policy, plug, color, se" and so on. Mandarin's [ ] vowel also has two sources of yin sound rhyme and into sound rhyme, but the words that are spelled with the two sets of vowels of "duan and jing" do not come from yin rhyme, only from into the sound rhyme.

Five

[ie] The word spelled with the vowel of the gang and the end group comes from the ancient intonation. Such as "hold, do not, skim, extinguish, contempt, fall, butterfly, iron, post, pinch, nie, column, lie, inferior" and other words. [ie] Rhyme also has two sources, one is from the salty, mountain second shot of the fourth grade into the rhyme, the other from the false, crab two shot of the second and third class of shu sound rhyme. From the salty and mountain two intake of sound rhymes, [ie] rhymes can not only be spelled with the tooth laryngeal sound, but also with the lip sound gang group, the end of the tongue group vowel spelling, and the [ie] rhyme from the false, crab two second and third ensemble rhymes (hemp, both, jia) only with the tooth laryngeal sound (modern has evolved into [t][t][]) vowel.

Six

The vowel [f][ts][ts'][s] and [a] vowels are spelled together, from ancient sounds. Such as "hair/hair, law, cutting, punishment, turning, rubbing, sprinkling, sa, sa" and other words. [a] The vowel also has two sources, one is from the ancient yin rhyme (hemp), the other is from the ancient rhyme, and the word that is spelled with the [f][ts][ts'][s] four vowels (such as "hair, miscellaneous, rubbing, sprinkling") is generally derived from the ancient rhyme.

Seven

Some open rhyme endings (including vowel endings and non-rhyme endings) have two readings of wenbai and white, and those without meaning difference are often inaccessible words, such as the word "color", which read both [s] (文) and [ai] (white). For example, words such as "ze, choose, horn, foot, blood, wheat, vein, peeling, cutting, thin, book, fall, six, no" are generally read in two parts, belonging to this category.

The above seven articles are all inferred from the pronunciation of modern Mandarin to infer the ancient indicted characters. Mastering these laws, 500 or so commonly used sound words, the vast majority of which can be inferred. In addition, we can also exclude a large number of non-indicted words from the negative side, and ensure that they are not inaccessible words, which can narrow the scope of discerning inaccessible words. For example, the yang sound rhyme word is definitely not a sound word.

Another example is that the words pronounced [ts][ts'][s] in Mandarin are not phonetic characters, because they are only from the essence of the stop (branch, fat, and three rhyme openings), such as "zi, zi, posture, purple, zi, zi, zi, zi, female, defect, ci, porcelain, thorn, ci, ci, ci, si

Also, the words that pronounce the rhyme [uei] [uai] are basically not inaccessible words. Because the [uei] vowel and [uai] vowel of modern Mandarin are taken from stop and crab, they generally do not come from the sound. The only exception is the [uai] rhyme for a few words, such as the word "rate".

In addition, we can also use the sound symbols of the shape sound word to be analogous. For example, "he", "Guangyun" is the sound word of the [-p], then all the words "box, answer, jaw, pigeon, tower" and so on from the "he" sound are also into the sound, and they are all received [-p]. Another example is "out", "Guangyun" is the sound word that receives [-t], so all the words that come out of the "out", such as "humble, thriving, stubborn, stubborn, and digging", are also into the sound, and they are all received [-t]. For example, if we know that the sound of "reading (reading)" is "" (and the "selling" of "buying and selling" is not a word), "Guangyun" is the sound word of "-k", then all the words "渎, 椟, 犊, 牍, 黩" and other words from the sound are also in the sound, and they are all received [-k]. In such cases, everyone can do some generalizations on their own to help identify and remember which words belong to the ancient sound and which words are not.