Remarks on the Characters Indicating the Last Ranking of Relatives in Modern Chinese Dialects and Their Usage
There are four main categories in modern Chinese dialects that indicate the last ranking of relatives,namely,the categories of 末,幺,(身小)and 细.The first category includes 末,蔑,灭,晚(满,颟,蛮),㝃((子兑)),尾,屘,etc;while there is only one member for the second category,that is 幺(夭);the third category includes(身小),孻(拉),etc;and the forth cate-gory includes 细,碎,etc.These four types have their own characteristics in application,among them,the category of 末has the most members and the widest range of usage;the 幺 class has the fewest members,but the scope of its usage is rel-atively wide;the(身小)class and the 细 class have fewer members and narrower scope of usage.From the usage of these four types,末,蔑 and 灭 belong to the same-original and interchangeable characters;㝃,屘 and 孻 are the folk characters of dialect produced respectively according to the extended meanings of 晚,尾 and(身小).Besides,满,颟 and 蛮 are the homo-nyms of 晚.The character 夭 is the homonym of 幺,and 拉 is the homonym of 孻.But the character of(子兑)is the error form of 㝃.It can be seen that the usage of characters in modern Chinese dialects deserves our comprehensive arrangement and further research.
Chinese languagedialectappellationrankingfolk characters
万方数据
维普
