A Supplementary Study on the Usage of the Word"qie((虘又))"at the Beginning of Sentences in Bronze Inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty
There are articles by Zhu Qizhi and Zhu Xuebin on the word"qie"at the beginning of sentences in bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty,which differentiate and analyze the views of previous scholars and put forward new ideas.They think that"qie((虘又))"should be pro-nounced as the conjunction"qie(且)".In the articles,the two gentlemen'refutation of Yang Shuda's"exclamation theory"lacks strong evidence and is difficult to reach a conclusion.According to the ex-amples in the Book of Documents(Jinwen Shangshu),which is close in time to bronze inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty,it is also unreliable to read"qie((虘又))"as"qie(且)";Furthermore,as the sentence structures starting with"jie(嗟)"or"zi(咨)"in the Book of Documents are common,it can be inferred that Yang Shuda's"exclamation theory"is correct.In addition,the"sentence"in the"beginning of a sentence"should refer to a sentence with a complete meaning,rather than a clause.The 10 examples of bronze inscriptions cited in the two Mr.Zhu's articles are not all strictly sentence structures starting with the word"qie((虘又))".
Bronze Inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynastyqie((虘又))qie(且)jie(嗟)
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