한자의 이체자 분화 현상 고찰

Abstract

As Chinese characters evolved in their forms, variant characters appeared that later took on meanings from the divided parts of the original characters and turned into independent traditional Chinese characters. This paper aims to examine the characteristics of the written characters that emerged from these divisions of meaning and transformed into independent characters passed down through generations.<BR> This paper pursues two main arguments. First, it reviews prior research on the division of variant characters, defines the concept, and analyzes typical examples during the diachronic processes of Chinese characters from the aspects of semantic types and formative distinction elements. Second, this paper analyzes the relationships between the inherited forms and divided meanings and examines the optimized characteristics that facilitated each semantic type of these divided meanings.<BR> The findings of these analyses are as follows. First, the division of variant characters refers to the phenomenon where a variant appearing in the process of diachronic changes in Chinese characters later took on a divided meaning from the original character and came to be used as an independent character. In other words, different forms of “one character sharing the functional properties to record a word” appearing in a certain period of time were historically passed down and used as two different characters A and B with a meaning of that word for each. The division of variant characters usually appeared during the Old Chinese period, and the divisions were completed after the standardization process of forms after the emergence of the official script (隸書). Therefore, the occurrence of B