THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE

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New Interpretations on the Use of Characters and Words in the Chinese Translated Buddhist Scriptures

ZHEN Dacheng

THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2019, 5 (1): 26-39.

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The use of characters in Chinese translated Buddhist scriptures is both complex and unique. To fully recognize and master the use of characters is significant to interpret the meaning of the words correctly. This paper is written to identify the use of characters in Chinese translated Buddhist scriptures and put forward new ideas for some existed interpretations.

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ZHANG Xiaoming

THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2018, 2 (2): 60-71.

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THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2020, 12 (4): 84-123.

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KONG Xiangqing

THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2018, 2 (2): 103-112.

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Discrimination and Correction of the Fallacy of Chinese Character Strokes Theory

THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2019, 6 (2): 34-46.

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Stroke was defined as the smallest unit that constitutes the shape of Chinese characters, the dot or the line written from the start to the end during the writing process in modern Chinese graphology. According to the definition, stroke is the result of static analysis of the glyph structure, but there is no identification mark for the minimum unit, the confirmation of strokes has to rely on the dynamic analysis of the writing process, as a result, grammatology and the study of calligraphy art were mixed up. However, the writing practice showed that from the start to the end of writing, the smallest unit and stroke, there are not equivalent between every two of them. The wrong concept of strokes led to many deviations in the series of problems such as confirmation, classification and naming of strokes. Modern Chinese graphology follows the concept of once writing into one stroke proposed by Mei Yingzuo in the Ming Dynasty and the practice of mixing calligraphy strokes and retrieving strokes. For decades, the newly constructed stroke system has emerged endlessly, but none of them conformed to the grammatical principle. Based on the analysis of the features of Chinese characters, this paper defines strokes as fragments identified by endpoints in the glyphs and constructs the “nine-stroke system” according to shapes and directions of strokes, including three categories and nine kinds of strokes such as line font, corniform an punctiform. And at last, this article concludes with a description of the relationship between the “nine-stroke system” and the existing stroke systems.

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The Dominant Order and Semantic Constraints of Chinese Subordinate Complex Sentences

李晋霞、刘云

THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2019, 7 (3): 18-30.

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There is an obvious tendency in the internal order of Chinese subordinate complex sentences, that is the hierarchy order of hypothetical clause > conditional / concessive clause > causal clause >purpose clause. In this sequence, the more on the left, the bigger the preposing inclination of subordinate clause is, the more on the right, the bigger the postposing inclination of subordinate clauses is. Overall,the dominant order of hypothetical, conditional, concessive and causal clauses is preposition, and the dominant order of purpose clause is postposition. The above hierarchical order and the level differences among different subordinate complex sentences could be explained from the semantic point of view .

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Trail Argumentation on the Graphic Etymology of the Graph Zhuo ( 丵 ) in Shuo Wen (《说文》)

THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2019, 6 (2): 7-18.

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Zhuo ( 丵 ) was glossed as tussocky grass in Shuo Wen (《说文》) because the graph looks like grass growing up parallel to compete the height, but this explanation didn’t convince the majority of modern paleographers. There are many graphs of the Warring State containing the graph 丵 , and scholars deciphered them preferentially as the meaning of cha ( 察 ), qie ( 窃 ), qian ( 浅 ), zhi ( 质 ), etc., while the graph seems that it didn’t exist. This paper agrees that there are two pronunciations in Oracle Bone Inscriptions for 璞 interpreted by Tang Lan, pu ( 璞 ) and jian ( 翦 ),thus the constituent

of it also has two pronunciations, zao ( 凿 ) and chan ( 铲 ).While

being added dots would be 丵 , and

should be song ( 送 ) in Volume Two ,Tsinghua Bamboo Slips《清华·贰》, this indicates the 丵 of

could only be the phonetic constituent, which should be read as the combination of the initial of 士 and the final of 角 , so 菆丛 should be read as zouzhong ( 诹众 ), and 丵本 should be read as zhongben ( 重本 ) on Zuozhong Qiju ( 左冢漆梮 ).

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The Decipherment of a Variant Form of the Character Zhen ( 朕 ) in Oracle Bone Inscriptions

THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2019, 6 (2): 3-6.

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The graph

from the sentence

xing dong zhi he (

行东至河 ) in Oracle Bone Inscriptions has never been deciphered by previous scholars. I explained the graph

as zhen ( 朕 ), and the justification is as follows, the upside constituent

was zhou ( 舟 ), and the bottom part

was the abbreviated form of

.There were a few graphs of

（朕）written as

（朕）in Oracle Bone Inscriptions. The positions of graphic components were changing all along, and the structures could be juxtaposed structure or superposition method, thus the juxtaposed structure

（朕）could also be written as the superposition method

（朕）.The character style of this Oracle Bone Inscriptions entry belongs to the category of Shi-group in the early period of Wu Ding with the characteristics of larger font size and round-fluent strokes. This entry is precious as it is the earliest historical material which recorded the Yellow River, the content is Shang Wang said: I would go east to the Yellow River.

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THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2019, 8 (4): 33-54.

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THE STUDY OF CHINESE CHARACTERS AND LANGUAGE 2019, 8 (4): 55-61.

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