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BULLETIN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHINESE LITERATURE NATIONAL CHENGCHI UNIVERSITY NO.21
Publication date： 2014-06
Special Article 上古陰聲字濁輔音韻尾存在的證據及其消失的年代
The period of Republic of China (1912~1949) saw the drastic changes in the Chinese society, and the historicization of the Confucian Classics, or the rise of historical approach of the classics. During these thirty eight years, there were about a thousand and five hundred works on Confucian Classics, which was surprisingly phenomenal. Among these one thousand and five hundred classicists, there are five authors who made certain contributions on classical studies and who should not be easily forgotten. In this paper, I would like to introduce and bring attention to the academic accomplishments of the five classicists: Xu Tianzhang, Chen Dingzhong, Dai Li. Zhang Shoulin, and Li Yuancheng. It is hoped that this paper can shed some light on the studies of Confucian Classics in the period of Republic of China.
Zhang Taiyan, the eminent scholar of the Late Qing and Early Republican Period, wrote a number of works related to the Book of Documents. During his lifetime, he published two monographs: The Ancient Script Documents according to Sima Qian and Notes on the Ancient Script Documents. In addition to these academic accomplishments, he also composed several short pieces on the canonical text, and often referred to it in his scholarly correspondences. About two years after his death, his student Zhu Zugeng, drawing on Zhang’s lectures and other related writings, compiled the work, The Book of Documents according to Zhang Taiyan. However, this work was not published until almost eighty years later after Zhang’s death, by Zhonghua shuju in 2013. Zhu’s compilation of Zhang’s works is an admirable one, bringing together a large body of materials. But there are still some omissions that I would like to bring attention to. The aim of the present study is to identify and date among Zhang’s writings those discussions related to the Book of Documents. With this paper, it is hoped that the future scholars can compile a more comprehensive collection of Zhang’s writings on the Book of Documents.
This paper aims to examine Yang Xiangkui’s view of New Text and Old Text Confucianism and the influence of Gu Jiegang on his studies of Confucian Classics. Yang Xiangkui, a well- established history scholar, has been noted for his studies of Chinese ancient history. Yang’s discussions of Confucian Classics in three life stages (from his early age before 1949, to his middle age in the 1950-1960, to his late years in 1970-1980) have been focused on the issue of New Text and Old Text Confucianism. As the core of Yang’s studies, this issue involves discussions such as the authenticity of texts like Zuozhuan and Rites of Zhou; relations between politics and studies of Confucian Classics in Han Dynasty. And the studies on Yang’s view of New Text and Old Text Confucianism cannot do without discussing Ku shih pien school, a school led by history scholar Gu Jiegang. Despite being deeply influenced by Gu, Yang’s studies of Confucian Classics often defies and even denies Gu, claiming that the so called “Ku shih pien school,” or the school of doubting ancient history, only betrays the prejudice of Jin-wen (New-Text) school.
This paper aims to examine the “temple tour poetry” composed by literary groups in South Dynasty. As a special genre in religious literature, “temple tour poetry” integrates Buddhist experiences and landscape description. In this paper, I will focus on the cultural meaning of “temple tour poetry” in terms of tour, game, and power. In the process of the temple touring, the climbing of the hills and the gazing at the landscape resemble those in a pilgrimage. It can also be seen as a metaphor of the elite group’s power. Poets took Buddhism into their word game. The playfulness not just dismisses the solemnity of religious rituals but also shows the wide spread of Buddhism in this period. “Temple tour poetry” features the dual power of religious power and political power. In this genre, they influence and reinforce each other. Tour serves as a kind of recreation, and game may imply the structure of order and power. The cultural meaning of “temple tour poetry” is thus constituted by tour, game and power.
In the studies of the grammar of turtle carapaces inscriptions, research previously was often impeded by the complicated patterns, crevices and fragmentation on the tortoise shells. Thus researchers did not view it as of great academic value until very recent years. Somemore completetortoise shells are now available for studies after the rejoining is done by dedicated scholars. This paper aims to examine the grammar of turtle carapaces inscriptions of Shi and Bin groupswith the methods which includethe arrangement of oracle bone inscriptions, crack sequence, order of oracle inscriptions, and Symmetry inscriptions distribution.In this paper,Ialso seek to formulate the mode of how the turtle carapaces inscriptions record a month in the hope it may shed some light on the studies of oracle bones in the near future.
A language can be seen as a kind of ruin where linguists re-construct linguistic continuity through horizontal comparison of different dialects. By using the comparative method to pull together written records and modern Chinese dialects, this paper seeks to establish the step-by-step changes of Chinese over time. The changes of stops are one of the most widespread and noticeable phenomena both in the ancient and modern Chinese historical phonology. From the viewpoint of historical linguistics, most of the sound changes are related to place of articulation, manner of articulation, changing of airstream mode. The major sound changes include lenition, displacement, airstream change. Lenition involves sound changes from stops to affricates, from affricates to fricatives, and from fricatives to complete disappearance of sounds. Many examples of lenition can be found both in modern Chinese dialects and the written documents of ancient Chinese. For example, the sound changes of Chinese from stops consonants (bang group,duan group,zhi group,jien group) to affricates (zhang group, jing group, zhuang group), or to fricatives (fei, fu, feng, xin, sheng, shu, xie, chuan, chan, xiao, xia) are mainly categorized as lenition. Displacement involves sound changes from velars to dentals or alveolars, from bilabials to dentals. Airstream change involves sound changes from nasals to orals, from lateral to fricatives or stops. In order to get the whole picture and grasp the generalities, I re-construct the rules of sound change of stops group by using the techniques practiced both in synchronic and diachronic phonology. The comparative analysis of historical dialect materials contains credible evidence and clear explanation showing that ancient Chinese and modern dialects have many variations in common. In this way, a proper understanding of stops sound changes can be established.
The dialect of Guishan Island in Yilan County has the typical final[u‚i‚]of the Changchou-type accent as well as the final[iN]found in other dialects. The vowel system/i、e、a、u、ç/ of this dialect is also different from that of other dialects in Yilan (/i、e、a、u、ç/). This paper examines the dialect of Guishan Island to determine if it preserves the feature[u‚i‚] of Changchou-type accent more than other dialects in Yilan County; the paper also looks at sound variation and change in the Guishan Island dialect and the social factors that result in the change. With vocabulary tables, I investigated 88 informants from different generations. The main materials for analysis are from 52 senor, middle-aged and young informants, all inhabitants of Guishan Island. The study shows that the dialect of Guishan Island does preserve more of [u‚i‚] and[iN]than the dialects of Toucheng Town and Jiaoxi Town. The vowel system of this dialect does not distinguish /o/from /ç/, and its vowel system /i、e、a、u、ç/ makes this dialect stable with little variation. Lastly, the main social linguistic factor that brings about sound change appears to be age rather than gender.
What makes history become history? It involves the observer, the narrator, the interpreter, and the critics. Moreover, for the historians, it also requires a theoretical framework where history itself becomes the subject of observation. Different attitudes towards history lead to different styles of historical narratives. Different interpretations of historical narratives are created by different theoretical and historical frameworks. For the last one hundred years, two approaches have been used in the studies of Chinese history. One is to put Chinese history within the framework of world history; the other is to view it from within the Chinese society. This paper aims to examine and compare the two different approaches so as to evaluate their significance in the studies of Chinese history. In this way, the twofold meaning of Chinese history becomes clear in modern historical studies.
