Chapter 11 Section 4 "Release of Names" - the first dictionary of sound training

The author of "Release of Names", Liu Xi, styled Chengguo, was born in Beihai County, Qingzhou (now southwest of Weifang, Shandong Province) in the Eastern Han Dynasty. The date of birth and death is unknown.According to the inference of later generations, he may be a student of Zheng Xuan, a Confucian scholar in the Eastern Han Dynasty.About the eighteenth year of Jian'an (213 A.D.) of Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty, Liu Xi wrote 27 chapters of "Shi Ming", which were divided into eight volumes. "Book of the Later Han·Wenyuan Biography" contains 30 chapters of "Shiming" written by Liu Zhen, but his book has not been handed down to later generations, so some people say that "Shiming" was first written by Liu Zhen and completed by Liu Xi.The style of the book is modeled after "Erya" and classified according to the meaning of words, so it is also called "Yi Ya".However, the interpretation of the meaning of words is completely based on the method of sound training, which is completely different from the nature of "Erya".The so-called sound training, also known as sound training or harmonic exegesis, is to explain the meaning of words with words with the same sound and similar sounds, and to infer the origin of the names of things.Liu Xi believes that all words with the same sound or similar sounds are related to each other in meaning, so he consciously uses the same sound and harmony to explain the meaning of words in "Shi Ming", and pays attention to the source of words.

The emergence of "Shiming" Many scholars in ancient China became very interested in the real reason for the naming of things.In the pre-Qin era when a hundred schools of thought contended, part of the debate among philosophers about names and realities involved the discussion of etymology. In particular, Xunzi proposed in "Rectification of Names" that "there is no fixed appropriateness for names" and "it is appropriate for conventions to be called." .He believes that the naming of things does not matter whether it is reasonable or not, as long as people agree on it.The name of a thing does not naturally have to be equivalent to a certain object. It is reasonable to make a convention, and a name that does not conform to the convention is unreasonable.In the pre-Qin classics, such as "Book of Changes", "Mencius", etc., sound instructions have been used to explain the meaning of words, but not to explore the etymology.In the Han Dynasty, Jinwen Confucian scholars deliberately sought the connection between the names of things and the things themselves. Regarding the origin of words, they put forward a view that was diametrically opposed to Xunzi's "conventional conventions" theory, and believed that the names of things and the things themselves had a necessary essential connection.They used a lot of sound training to explain many words in astronomy, legal calendar, geography, politics, personnel, name and material system, etc., and deliberately promoted feudal ideas to cater to the needs of feudal dynasties.

In the Han Dynasty, the use of voice training was very common, such as "Huainanzi", "Historical Records", "Hanshu" and other books, some chapters used voice training.For example, almost every chapter of "Baihu Tongyi" has voice training.Ma Rong, Fuqian, Lu Zhi, Zheng Xuan and others in the Han Dynasty also used sound training to explain the meaning of the scriptures.Xu Shen's "Shuowen Jiezi" uses sound training to find out the original meaning of the word, which has reached "seven to eight out of ten" (Huang Kanyu); Preface Zhou Li Fei Xing "quoted), is to seek exegesis from the harmonic radical.At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the accumulation of sound training materials was very rich.Liu Xi believes that "names are different from reality, each has its own meaning" ("Shi Ming·Self-Preface"), and the naming of things has reasons to be explored. Monograph "Shiming".

The content of "Shiming" Liu Xi studied the tones from the perspective of linguistics, and the objects of the tones in "Shiming" are different from the words in the general books.In the Han Dynasty, people generally conducted sound training on the names of things whose original meanings could no longer be verified, such as heavenly stems, earthly branches, four seasons, four directions, five elements, and five tones; , laws and regulations and other nouns.Do not give vocal training to commonly used adjectives and verbs.Liu Xi expanded the sound training to all the names of the "people's daily names" in the Han Dynasty, including "heaven and earth, yin and yang, four seasons, states, dubi, car clothes, mourning", and "tools used by the common people", etc. aspect words.The purpose is to explain the "meaning of reason" of these words (see "Shiming Preface" for all the above quotations), that is, the reason why various things are named.Therefore, in "Shiming", the interpretation of the meaning of words abandons feudal preaching.

There are 27 chapters of "Shiming" handed down to the present, and the chapters are: Shitian, Shidi, Shishan, Shishui, Shiqiu, Shidao, Shizhouguo, Shixing, Shizhuang, Shichangyou, Shikin, Shifu Speech, food and drink, silk, jewellery, clothes, palaces, bed curtains, book deeds, classical art, utensils, musical instruments, soldiers, chariots, boats, diseases, and Funeral system.The book has a total of 1275 entries, most of which are commonly used words.In the explanation of each article, Liu Xi consciously used sound training, not only explaining the meaning of the word, but also pointing out the origin of the name of the word.For example, the explanation of the word 浍〔kuaikuai〕: "浍, the ditch is called 浍. 浍, meeting; the reason why the small ditch gathers." Also, the word "浍" in the word "浍", the water wavelet is called "浍". In these two cases, the first sentence of each case is to explain the meaning of the word, and the second sentence is to explain the source of the word with words with similar or identical sounds.

The value of "Shiming" "Shiming" comprehensively explores the principle of naming things from the phonetic perspective, and uses the principle of "the same sound means the same meaning, and the similar sound means similar meaning" to explain all words, which is the first in the history of Chinese characters. For the first time, it is also Liu Xi's original creation and development of dialogue training.As one of the important methods of exegesis research, sound training pays attention to the connection between phonetics and semantics, which is a great progress compared with studying semantics only from the shape of characters.Within a certain range, there is indeed a correspondence between sound and meaning between some words, but it cannot be exaggerated as a general correspondence between sound and meaning.There are many words in Chinese that have the same or similar sounds. As long as you stretch the meaning a little, one word can produce many different sounds. However, these words do not necessarily have a meaningful connection with each other.Therefore, the abuse of sound training is easy to take the meaning out of the text.In "Shiming", "the author's method of sound training is relatively primitive, without strict guidelines, and the explanation of etymology is close to guessing riddles, so there are certainly places that are 'occasionally conceived', but there are also many that are far away from Zhenghu (gu Gu). "Some are purely arbitrary, just use a homonym to explain.For example, "Shizhou Guo" explained the word "Song": "Song, send it; the land connects Huaisi and leans southeast, thinking that after the Yin Dynasty, if the cloud is dirty, send the envoy to follow the flow east to the sea." The fief is Song, and Liu Xi compares them to the filthy things that should be sent into the sea by running water, which is used to prove that "Song" originated from "send".Some sound trainings are contrary to the correct statement in "Shuowen Jiezi".For example, "Shi Xingti": "Juice, sputum also; snot comes out." It is believed that the word juice is transformed from the word snot, and the explanation in "Shuowen·Shuibu" is: "Juice, liquid also. From water , ten tones." The word for juice has nothing to do with the word for tears.There are also sound trainings, and the pronunciation and meaning of the words used to explain the original characters are not right, such as "Shicaibo": "White, Qi Ye; like ice Qi Ye, color." Liu Xi's application of the sound training, There are relatively few explanations that are correct, and most of them are wrong.As Mr. Wang Li said: "Sound training as an academic system must be criticized, because the natural connection between sound and meaning does not exist in fact." Seek it" ("Shiming Preface").Later smart people just have to follow suit.The results of the development of Chinese language and philology show that the later people discarded the dross in its pronunciation and absorbed its essence, and established a scientific etymological theoretical system.

Although there are many mistakes in "Shi Ming", some of its analysis is not lacking in wonderful points.For example, "Shi Tian" explains the word "Sui": "Sui, the more you are; the more you are limited." Once in December. Congbu, Xusheng." It just explained that Jupiter is called "Sui", but did not explain why Jupiter is called "Sui". "Shiming" uses repeated rhymes as a lesson to explain the reason why Jupiter is called Sui, which can be used as a supplement to "Shuowen".Explanations like this are very inspiring for future generations to understand the relationship between speech and semantics.

"Shiming" is China's first dictionary of sound training, which has a positive effect on the study of ancient Chinese for later generations.Bi Yuan, a scholar of the Qing Dynasty who made evidence for "Shiming", pointed out: "Shiming" "refers to the school's local customs, examines the ancient and modern, clarifies the differences in names and objects, and distinguishes the differences in ceremonies" (Bi Yuan's "Shiming Shuzheng Preface" ) is an indispensable and important work after Erya and Shuowen. "Shiming" does not contain as many characters as "Shuowen Jiezi", but it includes some commonly used characters that "Shuowen" does not include, as well as disyllabic words, synonyms, antonyms, etc., which can let us understand the dialects of the Han Dynasty and the vocabulary of the Eastern Han Dynasty appearance. "Shi Ming" uses sound training, and many words are explained with older meanings, which is also helpful for us to understand the older meanings of words today.A large number of sound training materials in the book are also of certain reference value for the study of the history of phonetics before the Han Dynasty. The sound training method widely used in "Shi Ming" had a great influence on the later generations of philology. In the Qing Dynasty, Wang Niansun's school "seeked ancient meanings based on ancient sounds" and "extended to touch categories, not limited to form" (Wang Niansun's "Guang Ya Shuzheng (Preface to Shuzheng) seeks meaning based on sounds; modern scholars such as Zhang Taiyan, Luo Changpei, Zhou Zumo, etc. made full use of the sound training materials in "Shi Ming" to prove the ancient sound system.These are the results of the positive impact of "Shi Ming". In the process of explaining the meaning and etymology of words, "Shiming" tells a lot of knowledge about names, laws and regulations, and customs, which provides rich materials for future generations to study social and cultural life in the Han Dynasty and understand ancient things. The value of "Shiming" cannot be underestimated.

Today, only the Song Dynasty version of "Shi Ming" has been handed down, and there are many mistakes.In the Qing Dynasty, Bi Yuan wrote "Shiming Shuzheng" and Wang Xianqian wrote "Shiming Shuzheng Supplement", which was corrected for corruption.