A Collection of Essays on the History of the Chinese Language: Supplement Edition

Author: Guo Xiliang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-10-01
Features: The articles included in this collection are my papers on the history of the Chinese language. Except for one written in the 1950s, the rest were written in the past decade. The articles are organized into four categories—grammar, phonology, etymology and vocabulary, and literary language—roughly according to their content, and then arranged in chronological order of publication. I began studying the history of the Chinese language under the guidance of Professor Li Yidao when I entered Peking University as a graduate student in 1954. Due to my strong interest in classical literature and literary theory during my undergraduate studies, I remained attached to literature even after pursuing graduate studies. Therefore, I set myself the goal of studying the history of literary language, believing that this would allow me to combine literature and language. The article included in this collection, "Han Yu's Theories and Practices in Literary Language," was my thesis for that academic year. Professor Li Yidao highly praised this thesis, which greatly encouraged me. However, upon graduation, I encountered the "academic criticism" of 1958, which promoted collective book compilation, and my thesis was canceled. I had no choice but to store the materials I had collected for writing the thesis in a box. It wasn't until the 1960s, when I assisted Professor Li Yidao in compiling Classical Chinese, that I had the opportunity to use some of the materials to write two sections titled "The Structure of Parallel Prose." I also took charge of the general discussions on literary forms, except for The Rules of Verse, which was also related to my earlier interest in the history of literary language. I studied under Professor Li Yidao for 32 years, receiving constant guidance and benefiting greatly from his teachings. Under his influence, I came to understand the importance of broad and comprehensive scholarship, and during my graduate studies, I developed an interest in the history of grammar and phonology. Especially after joining the university faculty, my teaching responsibilities prevented me from continuing my research on literary language history, and my main focus shifted to the history of Chinese grammar, with some exploration into writing systems, phonology, and etymology. The Cultural Revolution forced me to interrupt my academic research. After the "restoration of order," while shouldering a heavy teaching load, I wrote dozens of articles over the past decade, in response to invitations from various journals and collections. The topics covered not only various fields of the history of the Chinese language but also writing systems, dialects, and the teaching of ancient Chinese. Some of these articles have been cited by scholars both at home and abroad, while others have been requested by young colleagues for reference. Now, I have selected some of them to be published in this collection, partly for the convenience of readers in accessing them, and partly to seek broader correction and advice from experts at home and abroad. Most of the papers included in this collection focus on grammar. Some explore the development of certain grammatical phenomena, emphasizing the excavation of linguistic facts, such as "The Origin and Development of Third-Person Pronouns" and "The Development of Word Formation in Ancient Chinese." Others offer a fresh perspective on certain grammatical phenomena from a systemic standpoint, emphasizing both a comprehensive examination of linguistic phenomena and an exploration of issues from new angles, such as "On the System of Demonstrative Pronouns in Ancient Chinese" and "New Perspectives on Pre-Qin Modal Particles." Some focus on the exploration of research methods, such as "Some Observations on the Debate over the Origin and Development of the Copula 'shi'" and "Preliminary Remarks on the Study of Ancient Chinese Grammar." In phonology, the main focus is on the phonological system of the Book of Songs, using the theory of distributional complementarity and the internal reconstruction method of phonological projection to explore the phonological systems of the Shang Dynasty and the Western Zhou bronze inscriptions, contributing to the filling of gaps in ancient phonology research. In etymology, I proposed the argument that antonymic etymologies are unreliable, which sparked a heated debate. The common thread running through all the papers is that research in all fields of the history of the Chinese language must inherit the rigorous academic tradition and achievements of traditional Chinese linguistics while also absorbing the theories and methods of modern Western linguistics. Practicality is required, but innovation is even more important. Special attention should be paid to the systematicity and diachronic variability of language, avoiding isolated observations and judging the past by present standards. Overall, most of these articles discuss various aspects of Pre-Qin Chinese, because I believe that research on the history of the Chinese language should first clarify its origins. I once envisioned continuing research on certain issues in the history of the Chinese language from the Pre-Qin period onward, but unfortunately, many of my plans and research projects were not realized due to various reasons. If conditions permit in the future, I will still strive to realize some of my original ideas. While I do not dare to be hasty in my writing, most of my articles were written in response to invitations, which imposed time constraints, and some may therefore bear the marks of being hastily completed. For this collection, in addition to standardizing the format and correcting typographical errors, I have changed the titles of two articles and made minor revisions to the wording of a few others. As for the arguments, they remain unchanged. This is not out of self-assurance but because neither time nor energy allow me to re-examine my original research in depth.