Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese
Title | Minimal Old Chinese and Later Han Chinese PDF eBook |
Author | Axel Schuessler |
Publisher | University of Hawaii Press |
Pages | 449 |
Release | 2009-04-14 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN | 0824863623 |
Although long out of date, Bernard Karlgren’s (1957) remains the most convenient work for looking up Middle Chinese (ca. A.D. 600) and Old Chinese (before 200 B.C.) reconstructions of all graphs that occur in literature from the beginning of writing (ca. 1250 B.C.) down to the third century B.C. In the present volume, Axel Schuessler provides a more current reconstruction of Old Chinese, limiting it, as far as possible, to those post-Karlgrenian phonological features of Old Chinese that enjoy some consensus among today’s investigators. At the same time, the updating of the material disregards more speculative theories and proposals. Schuessler refers to these minimal forms as "Minimal Old Chinese" (OCM). He bases OCM on Baxter’s 1992 reconstructions but with some changes, mostly notational. In keeping with its minimal aspect, the OCM forms are kept as simple as possible and transcribed in an equally simple notation. Some issues in Old Chinese phonology still await clarification; hence interpolations and proposals of limited currency appear in this update. Karlgren’s Middle Chinese reconstructions, as emended by Li Fang-kuei, are widely cited as points of reference for historical forms of Chinese as well as dialects. This emended Middle Chinese is also supplied by Schuessler. Another important addition to Karlgren’s work is an intermediate layer midway between the Old and Middle Chinese periods known as "Later Han Chinese" (ca. second century A.D.) The additional layer makes this volume a useful resource for those working on Han sources, especially poetry. This book is intended as a "companion" to the original Grammata Serica Recensa and therefore does not repeat other information provided there. Matters such as English glosses and references to the earliest occurrence of a graph can be looked up in Grammata Serica Recensa itself or in other relevant dictionaries. The great accomplishment of this companion volume is to update an essential reference and thereby fulfill the need for an accessible and user-friendly source for citing the various historically reconstructed stages of Chinese.
Grammata Serica Recensa update
Title | Grammata Serica Recensa update PDF eBook |
Author | Axel Schuessler |
Publisher | |
Pages | 303 |
Release | 2006 |
Genre | |
ISBN |
Late Han Chinese
Title | Late Han Chinese PDF eBook |
Author | W. A. C. H. Dobson |
Publisher | |
Pages | 172 |
Release | 1964 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN |
Late Han Chinese: a study of the Archaic-Han shift
Title | Late Han Chinese: a study of the Archaic-Han shift PDF eBook |
Author | W. A. C. H. Dobson |
Publisher | |
Pages | 0 |
Release | |
Genre | Chinese language |
ISBN | 9780783705361 |
Old Chinese
Title | Old Chinese PDF eBook |
Author | William H. Baxter |
Publisher | Oxford University Press, USA |
Pages | 449 |
Release | 2014 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN | 0199945373 |
This book introduces a new linguistic reconstruction of the phonology, morphology, and lexicon of Old Chinese, the language of the earliest Chinese classical texts (1st millennium BCE).
ABC Chinese-English Dictionary
Title | ABC Chinese-English Dictionary PDF eBook |
Author | John DeFrancis |
Publisher | University of Hawaii Press |
Pages | 0 |
Release | 2023-12-31 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN | 0824846095 |
This dictionary, also available in a pocket edition, ushers in a new era in Chinese lexicography. The first strictly alphabetically ordered and Pinyin computerized dictionary, it offers the simplest and quickest way to look up a term whose pronunciation is known. User-friendly radical and stroke indexes are provided for those cases when pronunciation of a term is not known. Each entry provides Chinese characters, part of speech, environment (area and level of usage), definition in English, and, possibly, examples. An innovative typographical format packs more than 71,400 entries into a handy, portable size without any sacrifice of legibility.
ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese
Title | ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese PDF eBook |
Author | Axel Schuessler |
Publisher | University of Hawaii Press |
Pages | 680 |
Release | 2006-12-31 |
Genre | Foreign Language Study |
ISBN | 0824829751 |
This is the first genuine etymological dictionary of Old Chinese written in any language. As such, it constitutes a milestone in research on the evolution of the Sinitic language group. Whereas previous studies have emphasized the structure of the Chinese characters, this pathbreaking dictionary places primary emphasis on the sounds and meanings of Sinitic roots. Based on more than three decades of intensive investigation in primary and secondary sources, this completely new dictionary places Old Chinese squarely within the Sino-Tibetan language family (including close consideration of numerous Tiberto-Burman languages), while paying due regard to other language families such as Austroasiatic, Miao-Yao (Hmong-Mien), and Kam-Tai. Designed for use by nonspecialists and specialists alike, the dictionary is highly accessible, being arranged in alphabetical order and possessed of numerous innovative lexicographical features. Each entry offers one or more possible etymologies as well as reconstructed pronunciations and other relevant data. Words that are morphologically related are grouped together into "word families" that attempt to make explicit the derivational or other etymological processes that relate them. The dictionary is preceded by a substantive and significant introduction that outlines the author’s views on the linguistic position of Chinese within Asia and details the phonological and morphological properties, to the degree they are known, of the earliest stages of the Chinese language and its ancestor. This introduction, because it both summarizes and synthesizes earlier work and makes several original contributions, functions as a useful reference work all on its own.