Old Chinese

It is argued that the Old Chinese pharyngealized consonants reconstructed in the Baxter-Sagart (2014) system were created out of Proto-Sino-Tibetan CVʕ- strings in which the same vowel occurred on both sides of a pharyngeal fricative: CViʕVi-. The same strings evolved to long vowels in the Kuki-Chin group through loss of the pharyngeal consonant. Statistical evidence is presented in support of a correlation between the Kuki-Chin vowel length and the Chinese pharyngealization contrasts, as originally proposed by Starostin. Beyond Sino-Tibetan, it is suggested that the word type distinction in PST: CViʕVi- (‘type A’) vs. C (‘type B’) results from a constraint against monomoraic monosyllables, as has been described for Austroasiatic by Zide and Anderson, and in Austronesian by Wolff.

In this paper, we offer a new Russian translation and an extensive commentary to the first chapter of “New Words” (Xīn yǔ), a Hàn-era treatise usually attributed to the intellectual Lu Jia. This text, frequently overlooked in the general perspective of Hàn philosophy, is actually of fundamental importance to the entire philosophical tradition of the Hàn period. Primary attention is paid to the commentary, compiled by the authors as a side project in the course of their work on a new type of dictionary for Classical Chinese; defined as having a “linguo-philological” nature, it combines elements of corpus analysis with linguistic analysis that takes into account the current state of knowledge of historical phonology, grammar, and lexicology of Old Chinese.

In this article we review the newly published fourth-century bce manuscript of the Book of Odes (Shi jing 詩經) in the collection of Anhui University. We describe the preservation and material features of the manuscript, discuss issues of provenance, and compare the text with the received version of the Odes. We conclude that the text of the Odes was already fundamentally stable by the date of the manuscript, and that written versions like the Anda manuscript provided important support for the stability of the text. However, we also argue that the manuscript shows signs of having been produced from memory, rather than sight-copying from another manuscript. We suggest that the function of the Anda manuscript was to support the learning and memorization of the Odes.

CONCLUSION

Given the extent and nature of the variation between the Anda Odes and the received Mao text, we are confident that the text of the Odes was fundamentally stable by the fourth century bce.Footnote 99 The orthography of the two versions differs dramatically, as we have learned to expect from Warring States manuscripts with transmitted counterparts. The Anda version is certainly an imperfect text, containing obvious errors. These vary from simple slips of the brush to more substantial failures of competence on the part of the scribe. Once we recognize the role of orthography and scribal competence in producing variation, it becomes clearer that most odes are close to being linguistically identical.

The fallibility of the scribe indicates that the manuscript was produced relying substantially on memory. It reflects the scribe's current state of partial mastery of the Odes, presumably acquired by learning with or emulating someone whose expertise exceeded his own. At least for the Guo feng sections, knowledge of the Odes was acquired Guo feng by Guo feng.Footnote 100 Memorization of the sequence of odes within a Guo feng section was important, since sequences are a way of avoiding omissions. We think it likely that learners of the Odes reproduced the text from standard lists of ode titles which they memorized. These titles, usually based on words from the opening line, were well established by the fourth century bce, and are common to the Anda manuscript, the Mao Odes, and citations in other texts. Meter, rhyme, and patterns of repetition from verse to verse ensured that the text within each verse was reliably established. Other features that were not controlled by memorized cues, such as the sequence of verses within an ode, were more free to vary during recall.

This textual stability and emphasis on memorization make it unlikely that the text of the Odes was subject to any kind of creative reworking. At this date and subsequently, creative approaches to the Odes were confined to interpretation of an essentially fixed text, and imagining the source and motivation for its original composition, and did not extend to modifications of its language.

The presence of written copies that served to maintain the stability of the Odes coexisted with a tradition of memorization and oral performance of the Odes.Footnote 101 We know from Warring States literature that citation of odes in extempore court speech was a prized skill. It was expected that a known repertoire of odes would be quoted and recognized in courtly speech and in prose compositions allied with that tradition of courtly persuasion and argument.Footnote 102 The Anda manuscript demonstrates the use of writing and documentary conventions to establish linguistic and organizational stability in a large text. A written manuscript was an indispensable tool to support the Odes learner's task of memorization, and perhaps a way of demonstrating that the task had been achieved.