Old Chinese Phonology
Old Chinese Phonology
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古汉语音韵学
DOI：
10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199856336.013.0065
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发表时间：
2015
影响因子：
46.2
通讯作者：
Zev Handel
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Zev Handel
What did Chinese sound like 3,000 years ago? Written Chinese texts survive from as far back as the 13th century bce, the time of the earliest “oracle bones” of the Shang 商 royal court. While the textual record provides relatively direct evidence of early Chinese vocabulary and syntax, the nature of the nonalphabetic Chinese writing system obscures the tremendous changes in pronunciation that have occurred over the last three millennia. Modern attempts to crack the puzzle of Old Chinese (OC) pronunciation begin with the work of the great Swedish sinologist Bernhard Karlgren in the first half of the 20th century, who was the first scholar to apply the tools of Western linguistic science to the primary sources of evidence for OC pronunciation. Over the rest of the 20th century, scholars made a series of methodological breakthroughs, bringing new evidence, new insights, and new theoretical tools to bear on the problem. The past two decades have been particularly exciting for the field, leading to a radically different understanding of the structure of OC phonology. These insights have revolutionized our understanding of the etymological connections underpinning the development of the early Chinese vocabulary and are already transforming the interpretation of ancient Chinese literature and the analysis of ancient manuscripts.This chapter describes the basic sources and methodology for the reconstruction of OC phonology, the history of the field through the 20th century, and the most recent developments. It summarizes current hypotheses and discusses the implications they have for future work on the early history of the Chinese language.