A Study on Position Change in Pronunciation Indications of Canonical and Noncanonical Pictophonetic Characters of Longkan Shoijian with Dialect of Northwestern China in the Five Dynasties

Abstract

<p>遼僧行均所著《龍龕手鑑》，成書於宋太宗至道三年（997），乃專為佛教徒通解文字研讀佛典所編纂的一部字書。當中引用他書的情況相當複雜，除了佛經音義書，還有不少前代字書、韻書，因此不管是在音韻性質或者語料時代的判別上，皆不宜做太單純的思考。本文在孔仲溫、儲泰松等學者的啟發下，一方面考察當中眾多參用資料的成書年代，以確定其語料的時代性，繼而觀察筆者從中整理所得的四百多筆正俗體字聲符替換字組，並分析存在其間的音韻現象。發現當中某些音韻表現與唐五代西北方音的音韻特徵具有一致性，與過去學者們運用反切系聯法，以系聯當中複雜音切所得結果有所不同。在跳脫《切韻》或是通語雅音的音系框架之外，得以看見《龍龕手鑑》不同面向的音韻內涵。</p> <p> </p><p>Longkan Shoujian, a dictionary completed by a Liao dynasty monk named Xingjun in 997, is used to aid Buddhists in the study of Buddhist text and scriptures. Because Longkan Shoujian cites from numerous sources including yinyishu (dictionaries of pronunciations and meanings), dictionaries published in previous dynasties, and rhyme dictionaries, one must investigate thoroughly when attempting to decipher the phonological characteristics of Longkan Shoujian and the dynasties in which its corpuses were written. Inspired by scholars such as Chung-wen Kung and Tai-song Chu, this study examined the years in which many of the cited materials were completed to verify the dynasties in which the corpuses of Longkan Shoujian were written. Subsequently, this study explored the phonetic component substitution groups for the 400+ canonical and noncanonical Chinese characters that it had organized and summarized; and analyzed the phonological phenomena within. The study results showed that some of the phonological characteristics were similar to those of Northwestern China in the Five Dynasties period, challenging the results obtained by previous scholars using the fanqie association method (which involves separating a character’s pronunciation into two other characters). By not accepting information preached in Qieyun and the phonological system of common languages in China as the gospel truth, this study discovered the different phonological characteristics observed in Longkan Shoujian.</p> <p> </p>