The Process and Motivation of Disyllablization of Vocabulary in Late Ancient Chinese from Unearthed Bamboo and Silk Medical Manuscripts
Early ancient Chinese primarily comprised monosyllabic words,whereas by the Wei-Jin period of the Middle Chinese era,polysyllabic words prevailed.The transition from the Qin to the late Western Han dynasty represents the late ancient Chinese period,a crucial phase in the acceleration of disyllablization.This study aims to comprehensively in-vestigate 17 excavated medical manuscripts from this period,analyzing the distribution based on grammatical categories and frequency of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words.By comparing these findings with those from oracle bone inscrip-tions,bronze inscriptions,and pre-Qin to Han dynasty transmitted texts,the study explores the process and motivation of disyllablization through the emergence of new words and meanings in medical manuscripts.The conclusions are as follows:First,during the late ancient Chinese period,there was a significant increase in the number of polysyllabic words,and monosyllabic words were no longer the main form for new word creation.Second,although polysyllabic words were gradually dominant in number,monosyllabic words were still atthe core of the vocabulary system in terms of usage frequency.Third,from the perspective of internallinguistic development,the disyllablization of Chinese words begins with nouns,and the fundamental motivation lies in the need for more precise expression.
ancient Chinesedisyllablizationbamboo and silk medical manuscriptsmonophonic wordspolyphonic words
万方数据
维普
