Huang Yaokun Linguistics Paper Collection

Author: Huang Yaokun
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-08-01
Features: The group of "Wei 1958" is the four tones of "Dong Dong Song Wu," with the initial sounds being "Duan Duan Xin Ying." If all of them are changed to the tongue sounds of "Dong Dong," they become "Dong Dong Dong Gu." Wei Jiangong believes that the inconsistency between the going tone, entering tone, level tone, and rising tone in this group is due to the existence of variant pronunciations or compound words for "Dong Guo," and therefore the compilers of Qie Yun did not adopt "Dong Gu" as a rhyme head. He proposes the following explanation: This can enhance our understanding of the rhyme system of Qie Yun and its independent early sounds. It can also draw our attention to the need to treat compound words separately in rhyme books. (41) However, a comprehensive review of the entire Qie Yun reveals that the above statement lacks evidence. First, let's examine whether all rhyme heads are indeed "independent single sounds." A quick check of the rhyme book immediately reveals several counterexamples, such as "Wang San," which has several rhyme heads annotated with variant pronunciations:
- Xian Su Qian Fan (another pronunciation of Su)
- Jian Su Jian Fan (another pronunciation of Su)
- Qiao Ku Jiao Fan (another pronunciation of Ku)
- You Ku Jiao Fan (another pronunciation of Ku)
- He Hu Hua Fan (another pronunciation of Hu)
- You Gu Ta Fan (another pronunciation of Gu)
- Ye Yu She Fan (another pronunciation of She)
- You Shi She Fan (another pronunciation of She) (42)
Other early rhyme books of the Qie Yun system also often annotate variant pronunciations under the rhyme heads, such as the Dunhuang manuscript S6156:
- Jue Gu Yue Fan (another pronunciation of Gu)
- You Gu Xiao Fan (another pronunciation of Gu) (43)
Therefore, the claim that "all rhyme heads of Qie Yun are independent single sounds" may not be the original intention of Lu Fayan (Lu Ci, c. 559–?). As for the so-called "separately treat compound words," this is also not the actual practice of Qie Yun. The phrase "separately treat" is rather vague—what does "separately treat" mean? Simply not using this character as a rhyme head is considered "separately treated"? "Wei 1958" did not elaborate on this, and Wei Jiangong uses the word "avoid" in the text as well (44), but Qie Yun does not seem to have paid attention to avoiding compound words. A quick check of "Wang San" reveals the following examples:
- Wen Kou Wen Hen Hen Li Xian Jin, Gen Jie, Jing Jie, Hao, Ling Jing, Jian You Xiao, Xian Mo, Fan Zan, Wu, She Jue Jing (45)
The annotations for the above rhyme heads all use disyllabic compound words, and some of them are indeed compound words (the characters in parentheses are the rhyme heads). Although Long Yuchun pointed out some errors in these annotations (46), most of them are correct. Moreover, "Jie Jing, Jing Jian, Jing Jue" are all disyllabic alliterative compounds. Therefore, the explanation and reasoning of "Wei 1958" for the rhyme and rhyme are both invalid. Let's take a look at the explanation of the second group "Dong Song Wo" by "Wei 1958." Wei Jiangong believes that for rhyme books with the same phonetic category, the rhyme heads should ideally be from the same initial sound. Therefore, since the first "Song" uses the heart initial sound, the second "Song" should also be linked to the heart initial sound. As a result, "Wei 1958" concludes the following:
- We can thus understand that the thirty letters in the horizontal arrangement follow the principle of "phonetic category correspondence," and at the same time, the thirty letters in the vertical arrangement are also interwoven in the "four tones one" system. This so-called "understanding" is quite reasonable. However, Wei Jiangong did not strictly adhere to this argument. For example, when explaining the groups "Jia Xie Gua," "Jie Hai Guai," and "Yao Qiao Xiao," he did not adopt this principle. In the group "Jia Xie Gua," both "Jia" and "Gua" are from the jin initial sound, while "Xie" is from the xia initial sound. "Wei 1958" argues that although the character "Jie" in the Xie rhyme is also from the jin initial sound, it has a variant pronunciation, so "Xie" is used instead of "Jie." As mentioned earlier, the claim that rhyme heads must use "independent single sounds" has been refuted, so "Wei 1958's" explanation for "Xie" is not fully convincing. However, the focus of "Wei 1958's" analysis of this group is not on this point. He does not emphasize the "understanding" he derived from analyzing "Dong Dong Song Wu" but proposes another reason, namely:
- There is another reason: the Xie rhyme does not have a jin initial sound. To comply with the principle of using the same initial sound for rhymes with the same phonetic category, it must also be consistent with Xie and uniformly adopt the xia initial sound. However, even if this is the reason, changing the rhyme head of the Xie rhyme to the jin initial sound "Jie" would not hinder the vertical arrangement of "Hai." According to Wei Jiangong's arrangement method, the order in the Letter Example is "Jin Xi Qun Yi Xiao Xia," and "Jie" belongs to the jin initial sound, while "Hai" belongs to the xia initial sound. "Xia" comes after "Jin" in the vertical arrangement, so there is no contradiction. In fact, choosing "Hai" as the rhyme head for the Xie rhyme is not entirely appropriate either, because the next rhyme in the vertical arrangement is the Cai rhyme, which belongs to the xiao initial sound. According to Wei Jiangong's arrangement method, the Xie rhyme could have used "Hai" as the rhyme head, as "Jin" belongs to the yi initial sound, which comes before the xiao initial sound. This would make the vertical arrangement "Jie Hai Cai," which is clearly ordered.
The above argument is based on hypothetical reasoning and cannot be established, but it illustrates that when explaining the rhyme heads of Qie Yun, "Wei 1958" often creates examples based on the text without solid evidence. If we consider the explanation of the group "Yao Qiao Xiao" as well, this point becomes even clearer, because it cannot be applied to the "Dong Song Wo" group, which was analyzed earlier. Therefore, when analyzing the group "Yao Qiao Xiao," "Wei 1958" simply states:
- This rhyme (referring to the Qiao rhyme—editor's note) is inconsistent, and the reason for adopting "Qiao" cannot be explained. This is not a bad approach. However, it also highlights the lack of comprehensiveness in the examples set by "Wei 1958."
Now, let's return to the explanation of the third group "Zhong Zhong Yong Zhu" by "Wei 1958." "Wei 1958" points out that the Yong rhyme uses the character "Yong" from the yu initial sound instead of "Zhong" (which also belongs to the zhao initial sound) because "Zhong" has a variant pronunciation. This explanation has already been shown to be unreasonable in the previous text. Chinese characters have many variant pronunciations, and whenever an unexplainable rhyme head is encountered, this "example" is used. Therefore, it can be said that "Wei 1958" has a tendency to overuse variant pronunciations.
The explanation of the fourth group "Qi Zan Ji" by "Wei 1958" is that the Ji rhyme uses the character "Ji" from the jing initial sound instead of "Yao" (which also belongs to the cong initial sound) as the rhyme head, due to the following Ci rhyme. He states that this is because the Ci rhyme does not have a cong initial sound. Although the Ci rhyme does not have a cong initial sound, it is not without options, such as "Yie" from the yu initial sound and "Ju" or "Pian" from the jin initial sound. If "Yie" is chosen, it follows the cong initial sound in the vertical arrangement; if "Ju (or Pian)" is chosen,
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