Chapter 5 The Interpretation Method of the Fifth Section

Literal meaning and word meaning refer to the meaning expressed by words and words.Ancient calligraphy used words to explain the meaning of words.In the initial stage of creating characters in Chinese, the shape structure of a character is consistent with the meaning that the character intends to express in the language.The semantics that can be directly represented by the glyph is the original meaning of the word, also called the original meaning of the word.In the process of using Chinese characters, one word is often used to express many different meanings, so that the word is extended from one meaning to many different meanings.

In ancient classics, the use of some words still retains its original meaning.But the original meaning of a word is not necessarily the common meaning of the word, and the extended meaning and escape of many words have become common meanings, but the original meaning of the word is rarely used. "Shuowen Jiezi" is an ancient calligraphy book that specifically explains the original meaning of characters, while the interpretation of general calligraphy books pays more attention to the explanation of common meanings of characters. Lonely meaning attached to the back. The interpretation of the meaning of ancient words is also called exegesis. The term "exegesis" was first called "excitation", or "exercise": "exercise", which means "execution", is to use popular words to explain the meaning, scope of application, and its relationship with other words. The difference between synonyms and close synonyms; "诂", that is, to explain the meaning of ancient words and dialect words with words of contemporary standard language and common language.

There are three basic methods of exegesis in ancient calligraphy.Shape training: use the method of analyzing the shape of characters to explain the meaning of words.Shengxun: Also known as Yinxun, or "harmonic exegesis", it uses words with the same or similar sound and rhyme to explain the meaning of words.Yi Xun: There is no need to rely on the sound or shape of characters, but directly use popular words to explain the meaning of ancient words or dialect words. Interpretation uses words to explain words, generally using synonyms, related words, or antonyms to explain the meaning of another word.It includes the following methods.

Same training: List a series of synonyms and near synonyms together, and then use a synonym to explain their meanings.Such as "Yi, Yi, Yue, Le Ye." Zhixun: Use one word to explain another word.Such as: "Yuan, beginning." Mutual training: use two synonyms to explain each other.Such as "Dian, top;Such as: "language, discussion; discussion, discussion." Counter-training: In form, antonyms are used to explain the meaning of words.Such as "Chaos, governance." Using words to explain words, sometimes it is impossible to explain the meaning of the interpreted words very accurately.Therefore, starting from "Erya", ancient calligraphy used more definitions and interpretations, that is, using phrases and sentences to define the meaning of words and determine the connotation of word meanings.For example, "Shuowen Jiezi" "Department": "Sun, the son of the son is called Sun."

It is sometimes difficult to give a definition by definition, or to have a clear explanation of the word to be defined.Therefore, in interpretation, examples are often cited, that is, citing the original text of classics, ancient calligraphy books, commentaries of famous scholars, expositions of predecessors, or materials obtained from investigations, as the basis for interpretation.The quality of a calligraphy book depends to a large extent on whether its interpretation of word meanings is comprehensive, accurate, and concise.The choice of interpretation method is determined according to the characteristics of the words to be interpreted and the compilation requirements of various scripts.As a matter of fact, none of the ancient calligraphy books used only one method of interpretation, and generally used one or several methods as the main method while using multiple methods to complement each other in order to achieve complete and accurate interpretation.