—— Paleontology since the Southern Song Dynasty
Author: Zhong Ruxiong Hu Juan (Professor of School of Literature and Journalism and Communication, Southwest University for Nationalities, Associate Professor of School of Yi Studies)
Editor's Note
Chinese civilization has been passed down for thousands of years and has accumulated a vast sea of cultural classics. However, since Chinese pronunciation, writing, vocabulary, grammar, etc. have changed with the development of the times, future generations must read through the classics, not only with knowledge of writing and exegesis, but also with knowledge of phonology. "Non-phonological rhymes, that is, can not pass through the text of the exhortation, theory is so. However, it is not enough to understand the written precepts, nor is it enough to understand the rhyme. Huang Kan, a master of traditional Chinese studies, explained the relationship between the traditional "primary school" phonology and the difference between words and exegesis. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the philosophy and social science work forum: "We must attach importance to the development of 'absolute learning' and unpopular disciplines with important cultural value and inheritance significance. As a study of the Chinese phonetic system, phonology is regarded as an unidentified "absolute learning" that is not easy to master. This issue of "Language and Writing" introduces you to the basic features of ancient phonological research from the perspective of paleophonology, so stay tuned.
A kind of learning that will attract attention and study only when human beings are conscious and needed. The ancient sounds of Chinese were neither paid attention to nor studied before the Tang Dynasty. Before the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the tone of the Chinese language was not known; it was not until the Liu Song Dynasty that the literati began to pay attention to the relationship between tone and poetry and rhyme, and began to compile rhyme books to serve the creation of new poems "Yongming Body".
The ancient pronunciation referred to by phonologists refers to the pronunciation of pre-Qin Chinese; paleophonology refers to the study of the pre-Qin Chinese phonetic system. Lu Deming of the early Tang Dynasty gathered the notes and exhortations of more than 230 scribes before the Six Dynasties of Han and Wei, examined their similarities and differences, and wrote the Classic Interpretations, which pioneered the study of ancient books. However, Lu's heterophonic research is not really paleotonics, and Wu Tang of the Southern Song Dynasty was inspired by Lu Deming to open the door to the study of ancient sounds and became the founding father of paleo phonology. In the more than 800 years since the Southern Song Dynasty, after several generations of paleophonologists's "deduction and encryption", paleophonology research has achieved brilliant achievements.
Replica of "Guangyun"
Portrait of Gu Yanwu
The study of ancient sounds began with ancient rhymes
The study of paleophony began with ancient rhymes. The corpus of Wu Tang's study of the ancient rhyme department is mainly the rhyme of pre-Qin rhymes such as "Fengshao". "Mao Shi Ye Yun Complement" is wu Tang's pioneering work in the study of ancient sounds, he imitates Lu Deming's research methods, brings together the example of "Ye Yin" of "Mao Shi" cited by his predecessors, and summarizes the rhyming rules of the "Book of Poetry". Wu believes that the ancients used rhymes wide and could be "turned", so the pre-Qin ancient rhymes were divided into nine parts. Although its division is slightly rough, it is far from the actual rhyme part of the pre-Qin Dynasty, but it has played an enlightening role in the study of ancient rhyme. Therefore, the "Outline of the Four Libraries of the Whole Book" wrote: "Since the Song Dynasty, those who have written a book with Minggu sounds have actually been from the beginning ... Although the book of Tang is a hundred ends, and later the ancient pronunciation has been deduced from this, so it is still there to dispel its fallacies and still exist, in order not to be without the merits of the blue wisps of the road. "This assessment is more objective.
Southern Song Dynasty scholars who studied ancient rhymes also included Zheng Yu and Xiang Anshi, but unfortunately their writings were almost lost, and later generations knew little about their research results. It is learned from Chen Zhensun's "Explanation of the Records of the Zhizhai Book" that Zheng Ku wrote a volume of "Poetry Ancient Sound Discernment", and its six ancient rhymes are found in Xiong Penglai's "JingShu" of the Yuan Dynasty and Dai Zhen's "Sound Rhyme Examination" of the Qing Dynasty. Mr. Wang Li said: "Zheng Yu speculated about the pre-Qin phonetic system from the Song Dynasty speech system, only knowing the merger, not the analysis, so although the rhyme is wide, according to the "Poetry Rhyme", there is still rhyme. Mr. Zhang Minquan also said: "Zheng Yu's ancient phonetic research is also accomplished, especially the principle of his ancient rhyme division, which has had a very profound impact on the paleo-phonology of the Qing Dynasty. According to the "Song Shi Yiwen Zhi", Xiang Anshi wrote one volume of "Poetry Before the Sayings" and twenty volumes of the "Commentary on the Classics", and its ancient rhyme divisions have eleven thick lines and more than thirteen subdivisions.
The paleophonists of the Yuan and Ming dynasties spared no effort to criticize the Song people's "Ye Yin" theory. Because the essence of "Ye Yin" is to use Tang and Song Yin as the standard to re-read the rhyme of "Fengshao" in order to seek harmony, this seriously deviates from the historical development law of pronunciation. Jiao Zhu said in "Ancient Poetry Without Leaves": "Poetry has ancient rhymes and modern rhymes. Ancient rhymes have not been passed down for a long time, and scholars have read them in the "Mao Poems" and "Departure from Sorrows", and if there is a discord, it is strong. "In general, yuanming paleophonologists have not systematically studied the phonology of ancient sounds, and have not contributed much to the reconstruction of the ancient sound system.
Reconstruction of ancient sound research in an all-round way
The study of paleophonology in the Qing Dynasty ushered in a stage of comprehensive development, and a large number of paleophonologists not only carried out a long-term and in-depth discussion of ancient rhymes and made major breakthroughs, but also made unprecedented achievements in the study of ancient vowels and tones.
(1) Study of the Department of Ancient Rhymes
When the Song people studied the ancient rhyme department, they regarded each rhyme part of the Guangyun as a whole, and did not think of splitting them and then reorganizing them, so although the rhyme part was set very wide, it was inevitable that the rhyme would be out. Gu Yanwu split some of the rhymes of "Guangyun" into several parts, and then merged them with other rhymes to create a new method of separating "Guangyun". The "Guangyun" segregation method, which not only takes into account the systematicness of the voice but also takes into account the historical development of the phonetics, has become the basic principle and method of ancient rhyme research, which can be described as "pifu for the hundred masters, and the law of the world in one word".
Pan Xian is the creator and practitioner of the harmonic partial classification method, and then Duan Yujie formally put forward the concept of "homophony must be the same part", so that the harmonic partial classification method has also become the basic principle and method of ancient rhyme research.
The Qing people studied ancient rhymes, or focused on the "Book of Poetry" with rhymes and harmonic sound systems as the basis, or paid attention to the analysis of the sound theory of equal rhymes, the former is called "archaeology", the latter is called "trial sound", thus forming the "archaeological school" and "trial sound school". The method of combining archaeology and phonological analysis has also become the basic principle and method of ancient rhyme research. Mr. Tang Zuofan said: "Since Gu Yanwu, the archaeology school has generally ignored the trial of the sound, and since Jiang Yong, the trial school has not paid attention to archaeology. Jiang Youyu is the best combination of sound and archaeology. ”
(2) Ancient vowel research
Compared with the ancient rhyme department, the study of ancient vowels lagged far behind, and it was not until the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty that it was first started. Qian Daxin has made significant contributions in this field.
First, there is no light lip sound. "Light lip sounds" are lip-tooth sounds. The four lip-tooth vowels of "non, shi, bong, and micro" in Middle Chinese were still pronounced in the pre-Qin era of double lip sounds (accents) of "help, 滂, and ming". This was a major discovery of Chen Di in the Ming Dynasty, but he did not clearly put forward the theory of pre-Qin lipless tooth tone, and Qian Daxin, a Qing dynasty, was the creator of "ancient no light lip sound". He said, "Wherever the sound of a light lip is a heavy lip in ancient times." ”
Second, there is no tongue-in-cheek sound. The "supraglossal tone" is the prelingual tone. The three front vowels of "zhi, thorough, and cheng" in Middle Chinese are still pronounced in the tongue tip of the tongue in the pre-Qin dynasty, "end, through, and fixed". This is Qian Daxin's major discovery, he said: "There is no distinction between the tongue and tongue in ancient times, and the three mothers of zhi, thorough, and cheng are pronounced in the present sound, and there is no difference between photograph, wear, and bed, and the ancient sound of seeking is no different from the end, transparency, and certainty." ”
Third, there is no orthodontic sound in ancient times. The orthodontics of Middle Chinese are divided into two sets of vowels, the hindsprung "Zhuang, Chu, Chong, Shan, Qi" (also known as "Zhao'er") and the anterior tongue sounds "Zhang, Chang, Boat, Shu, Zen" (also known as "Zhaosan"). Qian Daxin believes that the vowel in front of the tongue still reads the pre-tongue prophony of "fine, clear, congruent, heart, and evil" in the pre-Qin dynasty.
(3) Ancient tone research
Although the four voices of The Chinese language were discovered during the Liu Song Dynasty, the study of pre-Qin tones was not concerned until the Qing Dynasty. Whether it is Wu Tang's "four-voice communication" theory or Cheng Yi's "four-voice mutual use" theory, in essence, it is a denial of the existence of tone in the pre-Qin. Chen Di said more clearly, "The distinction between the four voices was not there by the ancients." This sparked controversy among Qing dynasty scholars.
The first to think that the pre-Qin had four voices was Jiang Yong, who said: "Although the four voices rise from the left side of the river, according to the fact, they have their own sounds, and they cannot be increased or decreased, and after that, they will make up for the one that the predecessors did not prepare." Ping self rhymes flat, goes up into the rhyme and goes up to the person, Heng ye. Duan Yujie, who looked at the tone of the pre-Qin dynasty with the perspective of development and change, was the first person, and he proposed in the "Table of Sounds of the Six Books" that "the ancient sound has no sound" and said, "The ancient four voices are different from the present rhyme, and the ancient pronunciation is different from the modern rhyme." ”
Construct a new method to study ancient sounds
If the Southern Song Dynasty is the initial period of paleophonology, and the Qing Dynasty is the historical reconstruction period of paleotony, then modern times are the construction period of paleophony. While continuing to "isolate Tang yun", modern paleophonologists began to work on the construction of the ancient sound system, trying to refine new methods such as harmonic sound series and harmonious sound levels to study ancient sounds.
(1) Ancient rhyme part construction
The so-called "ancient pronunciation" is the sound quality problem of the pre-Qin rhyme department. Duan Yujie's "rough ancient sound is more convoluted, and the present tone is more luxurious", that is, the pre-Qin ancient rhyme has many fine sounds (Qi teeth, pinch mouth), and the present sound is more Hong yin (open mouth, closed mouth).
The construction of the sound quality of the ancient rhymes began in modern times. Zhang Taiyan divided the ancient rhyme into twenty-three parts, Huang Kan divided the ancient rhyme into twenty-eight parts, the yin and yang into three parts, and the sound was completely independent, and at the same time began to construct the sound quality of the twenty-eight parts. Swedish sinologist Gao Benhan comprehensively used modern dialect materials to prove the middle phonological system, and then deduced the ancient phonology, and completed the phonetic composition of the middle and ancient sounds respectively, which can be described as unprecedented and unique. Wang Li "divided the pre-Qin ancient rhyme into twenty-nine parts, and the Warring States period thirty parts", and at the same time carefully constructed the sound values of the twenty-nine parts, so that the division of ancient rhymes and the proposed measurement of their sound quality were perfected day by day. In recent years, Guo Xiliang's "Chinese Character Ancient Phonetic Table Draft" and Sun Yuwen's "Research on the Phenomenon of Ancient Chinese Rhyme Weight" have taken advantage of the new progress in the study of ancient rhyme mothers in recent decades to put forward the latest construction of the ancient rhyme mother system.
(2) Ancient vowel configuration
In the Qing Dynasty, Xiong Shibo, Zou Hanxun, and others once put forward the theory of "Gu Yin Niang, Ri Er Niu Returned to the Mud", but there is no sufficient evidence. Zhang Taiyan made a full argument using corpus such as harmonic sounds, vocal training, different texts, and different readings, "The ancient sound has a tongue mud button, and after it is branched, there is a female button on the tongue, and there is a day button on the tongue and a half tongue and a half tooth, and the ancient mud button is also." Gao Benhan proposed the "niang" mother as [n] and the "day" mother as [ȵ], indicating that they are different. Huang Kan summarized the achievements of the various families, and the ancient vowels were nineteen, which was quite systematic; Wang Li was proposed to be thirty-three, and all of them were phonetically constructed. At this point, a complete and tight ancient sound mother system was formed.
(3) Ancient voice modulation
Huang Kan advocated the two-voice theory of "ancient no going up", which disguisedly denied that ancient Chinese had a tone. Lu Zhiwei advocated "long to short", saying that he divided the sound into two categories: "Shusheng (Tongping up)" and "Promoting Sound (Short)", and the induction later became into the sound, and the Shu sound later became the three sounds of "Ping, Up, and Go". Inspired by Lu Zhiwei, Wang Li divided the ancient tone into four types: "shusheng" and "promoting sound", "The ancient four voices not only have the difference in pitch, but also have the difference in pitch (volume). In the past 20 years, Tang Zuofan, Guo Xiliang, and Sun Yuwen have all clearly put forward the five tones of ping, up, going, long and short, which have aroused great attention.
Looking at the study of paleophonology for more than 800 years since the Southern Song Dynasty, a relatively complete and rigorous ancient phonetic system is presented to us. The establishment of the ancient sound system is the result of the wisdom and repeated argumentation of countless generations of paleophonologists. However, we should see that this system is only a conception of paleophonologists, and whether it is the real phonetic system of ancient Chinese remains to be further demonstrated.
Guangming Daily (12th edition, November 23, 2019)