Chinese character tables

A compound noun can be defined as two free morphemes, at least one of which is a noun, that have been combined into an accentual and semantic unit, in such a way that no morphological affixes can be attached to the first element. For example, Classical Uighur el törö, which Kononov 1 translates as "power", is disqualified from compound status because suffixes are attested after the first noun: el-ig törö-g aï barïm tutar, which Hamilton 2 renders more accurately as "The riches maintain the state and its institutions", that is, elig törög is a coordinate nominal phrase (Sanskrit dvandva), a sequence of two nouns without an intervening conjunction.

2019

In Modern Chinese, the majority of words with a combination of two characters have been identified as compounds. However, the general consensus is that compounds or disyllabic words did not exist in early Archaic Chinese (before 220 BC). While some previous research has reported the occurrence of disyllabic words or compounds, the only compounds identified in Archaic Chinese were proper nouns and reduplicative words. The aim of this study is to investigate more thoroughly the origin of disyllabic words in the history of Mandarin. It focuses, in particular, on the nominal combination of two nouns (N1-N2), the most frequently occurring and highly productive combination in later periods. The research adopts a corpus-based approach to analyse a sample of texts spanning a period of over 3000 years. The findings show that nominal words with N1-N2 sequences originated in early Archaic Chinese, and these N1-N2 words were structurally formed using a range of linguistic rules. The occurrence ...

2003

Journal Asiatique 306.2 (2018): 229-234, 2018

The paper deals with the noun case system of the ''Dada yu/Beilu yiyu'', a little known Sino-Mongol glossary dated between 1567 and 1603. Of seven grammatical cases commonly distinguished in Proto-Mongolic, only four are attested in the Mongol language material of the glossary: nominative (the unmarked basic stem), genitive, accusative, and dative. The forms, functions and grammatical meanings of these cases are thoroughly discussed in the paper. Some features may be considered to be linguistic archaisms, e.g. formal coincidence of the accusative marker +i with one of the morphonological allomorphs of the genitive, or the variant ending +in ~ +Un used after consonant stems. However, there are a number of clearly innovative developments, such as the dative ending shape +DU < *+DU/r. In addition, some idiosyncratic features of the glossary can be distinguished as well, e.g. no overt morphosyntactic marking on the dependent in possessive phrases. A conclusion can be made that the case system of the language variety as attested in the ''Dada yu/Beilu yiyu'' may have reflected a transitional stage between Middle Mongol and Modern Mongolian.

Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale, 2020

A 250-concept list was established for the purposes of a lexically-based study of Sino-Tibetan phylogeny (Sagart et al. 2019). This paper supplies the Old Chinese version of the list, in the Old Chinese reconstruction of Baxter and Sagart 2014. Chinese words attested in pre-Han times were selected based on their meaning as given in major lexica such as the Hànyǔ Dà Zìdiǎn. At times more than one OC item was found to match a concept in the list without it being clear which of the terms was the oldest. In such cases all the candidates were retained. As a result, the Old Chinese version ofthe list contains 301 words.

Shēngyùn lùncóng 聲韻論叢VI, Táiběi: Xuéshēng Shūjú, pp. 471-530, 1998

﹒ 甲骨文所見若干上古漢語披在t 母問題&測 ﹒ 甲骨文所見若干上古漢語 複聲母問題議測 畢鴨 一 、 前言 從事歷史比較語言學的學者都知道，被輔音是 一 個深藏於語言僻 處的奇物，運用各種各樣的擬測方法把它誘導出來，既非易事，亦常 誤入歧途。據 D岳 csy (1993) 對有關語音共性現象的粗略估計，世 界上約 9 5% 的活語言中不存在任何復輔音聲母 。 ，更沒有複輔 音節 尾。與之相反的是 ， 大多數 用傳統新 語法學派的擬測方法歸納出來的 原始音位系統 ，無論是原始印歐語、藏緬語、阿爾泰語、 個泰語 、苗 。 很可惜. D岳 csy (1993) 未說明這個統計的資料來源。據 Ruh1en (1987:1) 的統計，到目前為止，世界上大約有 5 ， 000 種活語言。其中 至少 Greenberg( [1965]/1978) 所記載的 104 種語言中 (2.0 日%)有 衛壁畫由或複韻尾 a 顯然，如果在剩下來的約 4 ， 900 種語言中還包括複 輔音的話. D岳 csy 的數字似乎就太高 7 一 些 ， . 471 . ﹒ 聲頓諭叢 第六輯 ﹒ 瑤語、孟一高棉語、烏拉爾語、乍得譜、 班圖 語、南部高 加索語、納 一得內語、佩努提亞語等系統，都毫無例外地含有形形色色的複輔 音。 據此看來，一方面，人類自然語言在 音系 上幾乎都會一再 趨於簡 化，另一方面，語言的辭彙、旬法和語用行為越來越復雜， 二者 最終 則 又構成一種平衡。 雖 然被輔音簡 化 在語言歷時演變過程中處處都占 主導 趨 勢，但 也有一些例外 。 例如屬於南高加索語系的斯凡諾 (Svan) 就很明顯地違背 7 r 最節約原則JJ '在簡單輔音的原始基礎上生發了 其他南高加索語所無的次要復輔音。 @ 在歷時演變的過程中，復 輔音 簡化的兩個最典型的發展是複輔 音 的節縮 (cluster s imp l ification) 和插入 音 (epenthes is ) 。 如原始漢藏語 ( 以下簡稱 PST ) 的數詞 「 九」可以擬作 . ' dkwayW Ð 和原始藏緬語 ( TB) 的可 -kuw @ 參見 Schmidt (1991) 。 @ 參見柯蔚南 (Cob1 in 198 6 :11 3) 。 我們採取蒲 立本 ( Pulleyb1ank 1962 , 1992 , 1994) ，鄭張尚芳 (1987 )和 Starostin (1989) 的說 法，對中古三等字不綴出﹒ -J-介音 ，而 用國際音標系統的重音符號 ( ' [x] 0 ) 表示中古三等字在上古音系 裡， 音節第一短音節 上帶某種韻律 或超切分特徽。關於上古漢語的重音和超切分特徵請參見金恩德 (Künstler 1971) 的機想 。另外 也採 用陽托夫 (Jaxontov [1960 ] 1963 , 1 965) 、蒲立本 (1962) 、 李方桂 ( 1 971) 等學者的說法，認為 中古二等字和重紐三等字帶 .-r-介音。上古韻母的稱音在本文基本上依 照白一平 (Baxter 1991) 的系統，但是在聲母方面也包括了鄭張尚芳 (19 日 7 ， 1991) 、潘悟雲 ( 1 990) 和 Starostin (1989) 的一些建議 。 . 472 • ﹒ 甲骨文所見若干上古漢語放聲母問題是現'1 ﹒ 。 。在藏語書面諾 (WT) 的 dgu 和完語(桃坪方言)的 xgue 33 6) 中還 保留著的原有複聲母形式 ， 在臟話大部分現代方言裡已則經過節縮， 變成了 kU 1 2 ( 拉薩、噶爾、日土、普蘭、革吉、措勤等方言 ) gu 12 ( 札遠方 言)或 者 ge 31 ( 改則方 言)等 簡單輔音形式 @ 。插入 音方法則出現在門巴( Monba )語錯那方言的 tu 31 kU 53 和最頗語 ( Ka ch in ) 的 tf ã 31 khu 31 等 形式中。 @這樣的歷時變化往往平行 於共時層次上的現象，例如公元八 二一 年〈唐蕃會盟碑〉所見的漢語 譯音資料當中 WTdgu 寫作「突捏 J (EMC 叮 [wat] -gu品 >d -gu 品)的 分裂音形式，但是在同 一 個人名裡的 WT khri ( r 御座 J )既可以

… : Morphology, phonology and the lexicon in …, 1998

The present paper illustrates some of the major known morphological processes of Old Chinese-roughly, the language of the Chinese classical texts of the Zhou E dynasty (llth-3rd centuries BCE). To speak of morphological processes in Old Chinese may surprise some ...

Two recent comprehensive studies of the phonology of Old Chinese (i.e. the language of the early and mid Zhou periods) have independently proposed a root structure for the recon­structed language, which is characterized, among other things, by the presence of a contrast between ”loosely attached”, schwa-epenthetic presyllables (also termed ”iambic forms” or ”ciyao yinjie”, ”se­condary syllables”), and straightworward ”fused” cluster initials (Sagart 1999, Pan Wuyun 2000). Irrespective of the question whether all of these cluster types can be shown to be non-lexical, i.e. to represent genuine prefixation morphology or not, and igno­ring whether non-fused iambic types are metrically true ”sesquisyllables” or not, it is likely that the proposed syllable typology, so reminiscent of that of Austroasiatic languages (on which see Haiman 1998), is one of the sources of ”dimidiated” or lento compounds scat­tered throughout the pre-Qin edited literature (Behr 1994). Adopting Sagart’s (1999) model of syllable typology and reconstruction, I will try to find evidence for the proposed set of prefixes (*s-, *p-, *t-, *k-, *m-, *N-, ?*q-) in the rich docu­mentations of lento forms contained in Wang Guowei’s (1877-1927) Lianmian zipu, Li Weiqi (1985), and several other recent studies on the Huainanzi. Finally I would like to discuss the implications of these materials for a chronology of the rise and fall of prefixation in Old Chinese, and, if time permits, comment upon their bearing on the question of the origins of the Chinese writing system (cf. Boltz 2000/01). References: Behr, Wolfgang (1994), ”‘Largo forms’ as secondary evidence for the reconstruction of Old Chi­nese initial consonant clusters”, Paper presented at the 27ème Congrès International sur les Langues et la Linguistique Sino-Tibétaines, Paris, 38 pp. Boltz, William G. (2000/01). ”The structure of oracle bone characters”, Ms., Univ. of Washington, Seattle. Haiman, John (1998), ”Possible origins of infixation in Khmer”, Studies in Language 22 (3): 597-617. Li Weiqi (1985), ”Heyinci li”, in: Hunan Shifan Xueyuan Gu Hanyu Yanjiushi ed., Gu Hanyu lunji : 302-3018, Changsha: Hunan Jiaoyu. Pan Wuyun (1998), ”Han-Zangyu zhong de ciyao yinjie”, in: Shi Feng & Pan Wuyun eds., Zhongguo yuyanxue de xin tuozhan Hong Kong : City University of Hong Kong Pr. ——— (2000), Hanyu lishi yinyunxue, Shanghai : Shanghai Jiaoyu. Sagart, Laurent (1999) The Roots of Old Chinese (CILT; 184), Amsterdam & Philadelphia : J. Benja­mins.

The reconstruction of Old Chinese consonant clusters, and, a fortiori, remnants of derivational morphology, apart from exploiting root homologies within and across traditionally recognized phonophoric (xiesheng 諧聲) series, relies heavily on the analysis of character reading variants attested in the post-classical Chinese commentarial literature. While Lu Deming's 陸德明 (556-637) Jingdian shiwen 經典釋文 [Glossed characters from the Classics], as the earliest extant and most comprehensive compendium of variants encountered in the classics has been quite extensively scoured for clues on the reconstruction of OC morphology during recent years (see, e.g., Huang Kunyao 1992, Sagart 1999, Sun Yuwen 2000), later collections have been by and large neglected so far. One of these is Jia Changzhao's 賈昌朝 (998-1065) Qunjing yin bian 群經音辨 [Differentiation of the sounds in the Classics], which, despite its rather late date, incorporates many genuine Early Medieval readings. In this paper I will focus on the fanqie spellers and glosses detailed in Jia's chapter "Bian zi yin qing zhuo" 辨字音清濁 ["On the Differentiation of 'clear' (voiceless) and 'muddy' (voiced) readings"; j. 6], compare them with competing glosses in other chapters of the book as well as in other pre-Tang commentaries, and show how the implied derivatonal affixes fit into current theories of Old Chinese morphology (i.e. Sagart 1999, Schuessler 2002, Jin Lixin 2002).