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Problems in Archaic Chinese
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
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In reconstructing the sound system of old Chinese— the script being ideographic, the old pronunciation cannot simply be read off—we have been able, thanks to rich materials of various kinds, to determine with tolerable certainty, even in detail, the system of what we call Ancient Chinese, the language of the sixth century a.d., embodied in the dictionary Ts'ie yün. When the inquiry turns to older epochs, the materials are much more meagre and unsatisfactory, and at present, at least, it does not seem feasible to reconstruct in detail the language which we may call Archaic Chinese, the language of the Chou dynasty, the language of the classics. But we are not entirely at a loss. Important conclusions can be drawn regarding this stage of Chinese, and that by four different means. Perhaps the most important of all will be a comparative study of the sinitic family of languages; but for such researches time can hardly be said to be ripe as yet. The T'ai languages and the Tibeto-Burman languages will have to be thoroughly investigated and their most ancient forms established by comparative methods, before there is any use of comparing them with Chinese. But the three remaining sources are ready at hand even now, and some examples will be given here to show how they can be used for reaching new and interesting results about the sound system of Archaic Chinese.
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References
page 773 note 1 The rimes of the Shï king have been determined by Ku Yen-wu and Tuan Yü-ts'ai, and Legge conveniently has recorded the rimes according to the latter authority. It seems to me that both Ku and Tuan are inclined to exaggerate and see rimes even in places where it is very doubtful if the poet ever intended the lines to rime, but on the whole their researches are clever and convincing.
page 780 note 1 If Maspero had taken into account not only the words of the “second division” of the rime tables, i.e. words of the type 
Anc. ka, etc., but also words of the “third division”, i.e. words of the type 
Anc. įa, 
tsįa, he would have obtained, with the same interpretation of the Archaic vocalism, 
(Mand. ye) Arch, iò, 
(Mand. chê) Arch. tśiò. According to his own reconstruction system, however, 
(Mand. yü) was Arch, iò and 
(Mand. chu) was Arch. tśįò, and it would be unreasonable to suppose one iò 
to have become ye, another iò 
to have become yü. Hence it is evident that Maspero has had in view onl words of the type 
Anc. ka (second division).
page 783 note 1 
kuophon. in 
kâ; and 
dz'â phon. in 
ts'įwo.
page 784 note 1 This -įa' < -k' then was distinguished from the įak of the rime table 
(Ts'ie yün rime 
): 
ngįak, etc., by the length of the vowel.
page 786 note 1 Le dialecte de Tch'ang-ngan sous les T'ang, p. 79.
page 788 note 1 “Zur Rekonstruktion der altchinesischen Endkonsonanten,” Mitteilungen des Seminars f. Orientalische Sprachen, Bd. xxx, Abt. I, 21 pp.
page 790 note 1 See Hirth, F., China and the Roman Orient, 1885, p. 139Google Scholar.
page 795 note 1 It is not a proof of the same binding order as the conclusion that lįäi has had a final dental because it has 
liät for phonetic.
page 797 note 1 E. g. 
zįêu: 
tâu; 
xâu: 
xįäu.
page 798 note 1 One might imagine that his theory would help understanding why e.g. 
Anc. yuo and 
Anc. ka rime in the Shï king (cf. p. 779 above); it would be an Arch. 
yuoy riming with an Arch. 
kay. This, however, is of no value, for just as well as âng and -uong do not rime in the Shi king, a presumed -uoy and a -ay would not rime. So the rime 
: 
does not find a satisfactory explanation by Simon's theory; its reason is given, p. 786 above.
page 800 note 1 I limit the investigation here to the Shī king, as being the oldest collection of poetry. Supporting materials can be found in Ch'u ts'ï, Chuang-tsï, etc.
page 802 note 1 Observe that 
nang in another sense has the reading nâi. Also that 
has two readings, tang and tâi, and that it may have the same stem as 
d'âi, as Simon cleverly remarks (p. 13).
page 804 note 1 In the category 
, i.e. words with medial w, there is only one rime 
for β and λ in Anc. Chin. We can now easily see the reason for this: 
Arch, kji became > Anc. kji and 
kjig became > kjii; but after w which made the syllable longer, this difference in length was not kept up: 
Arch, kjwig > kjwii: was therefore contracted into kjwi and thus coincided with 
Anc. kjwi < Arch. kjwi (rime β). So rime λ in ho k'ou did no longer exist, but all the words were ranged under rime β 
(Arch, kjwi) and 
(Arch, kjwig), etc.
page 805 note 1 The cases 
proposed already by Simon, p. 13.
page 809 note 1 Simon has added an interesting example: 
kįwo “wild boar, to fight”. I had supposed, Dict., p. 163, that 
ξuo was phonetic and that 
g'įαk “sport” was a logical compound: 
“fight with 
sword”. Simon proposes that 
had an Arch. guttural, and was simply phonetic in 
. I believe he is right, for there is a parallel 
g'įak (riming with 
zįäk in Shi king, p. 476). This entails kįwo < -k' also in the derivates 
.
page 810 note 1 I do not count then 
(Legge, p. 329), where 
, contrary to Legge's indication, obviously does not belong to the rime; nor 
, which I take for a rime pattern a: b: b: a.
page 810 note 2 Which would be highly interesting, for then 
ńźįwo < -g and 
hźįak could be suspected to be two phases of the same stem.
page 810 note 3 This is a bad rime, for the -p and -k of these words are attested in all kinds of sources and in still living dialects. But sometimes Shī king throws an unexpected light on phonetic problems otherwise obscure. There is 
Anc. tsįek, the final -k of which seems strange because it has 
tsiet as phonetic and is itself phonetic in 
tsiet. Shï king shows a -t instead of the traditional -k: rimes 
lįet: 
śįět: 
(Legge, 142); 
miět: 
(Legge, 489).