Question regarding 说文解字

[navaburo]

Short version: How do I interpret the following zdict's short Shuowenjiezi entry? I know that the first line is the volume and page number, and that "从彣厂聲" means "(meaning) from '彣', pronunciation from '厂'", but what about the rest of the entry?

【卷九】【彣部】彥

美士有文，人所言也。从彣厂聲。魚變切 文二

美士有彣。彣作文。非是。今正。人所言也。言彥疊韵。釋訓曰。美士爲彥。郭曰。人所言詠也。鄭風傳曰。彥士之美稱，人所言，故曰彥。有文，故从彣。大學彥或作盤。古文假借字。从彣。厂聲。厂，山石之厓巖。人可居者也。呼旱切。彥魚變切。十四部。

From this Zdict entry. (Click the 说文解字 tab)

Long version:

I often find mnemonics useful for remembering how to write characters. Sometimes I just make up something rediculous, but I try, whenever possible, to respect the etymology. For example, I was having trouble recalling the left-hand side of '颜'. So I look it up in the Zh>En feature of Zdict, and I see that '彦' is an old character meaning roughly 'elegantly learnèd'. This suffices for my mnemonic-building purposes. But then I wonder: maybe there is more that this ancient Shuowenjiezi dictionary has to offer?

I suppose that this is Classical Chinese here, because this dictionary was compiled ~100 A.D. (?), hence why I post here.

I would like to know what this entry contains not because I'm particularly interested in this character, but because I would like to know what this dictionary has to offer.

Thanks,

Chris

[OneEye]

Only part of the first line you quoted (美士有文，人所言也。从彣厂聲。) is the actual entry from 說文解字, and should be fairly easy to interpret (the 說文 is often mercifully simple). Keep in mind that 厂 is hǎn, not chǎng. The second part (魚變切) is a 反切 spelling. I'm not sure what 文二 means. All the rest is from 段玉裁's commentary on the 說文, called the 說文解字注. The first line is not volume and page number, but volume and 部首.

I'll take a stab at the first part of the 段玉裁 commentary. I think it says that 美士有文 should be 美士有彣, but that 彣 was written as 文. Then it says that 言 and 彥 rhyme. That's about all I'm willing to work through right now, but the rest probably wouldn't be all that useful for you either.

[Gharial]

Jeez, was 變 the only character around then for indicating the final -(i)an4?

[OneEye]

Jeez, was 變 the only character around then for indicating the final -(i)an4?

When? It isn't in the 說文解字, which was written before fanqie spelling was invented. Besides, it doesn't make much sense to indicate the Mandarin tone here, since the mapping is far from 1:1 with Middle Chinese. Anyway, 魚變切 is from the 唐韻, according to 康熙字典. Other fanqie spellings are also listed:

《唐韻》魚變切《集韻》魚戰切《韻會》疑戰切《正韻》倪甸切

[Gharial]

Ah sorry, OneEye, I'd forgetten that you'd said 'Only part of...' by the time I was looking more closely back at the first line of the entry that Navaburo quoted. I obviously have very little idea generally of exactly when each character appeared. And I suppose now thinking about it that 變 isn't really that hard a character. Anyway, my glib jokey point (if it can be called that) was just that I find the fanqie system's potential circularity somewhat amusing (but hey, that's what using whatevergrams to represent pronunciation does for ya!), and from the admittedly few examples of fanqie I'd so far seen, it seemed as if the tones were somehow being taken into account, but I'm happy to now realize (thanks to your pointing out what ought to have been obvious!) that this is just seemed. I guess I should just stick to my Harbaugh and not bother the erudite Classical Chinese forum ever again LOL. (Gets coat).

[OneEye]

Actually, the tones are accounted for in fanqie spellings, just not the Mandarin tone. It's the Middle Chinese tone (平上去入). The second character's tone indicates which tone the character was in Middle Chinese. Later on, once some of the tone catergories split, a new system was adopted where the first character would indicate whether it was a 陰 or 陽 tone, and the second would indicate 平上去入.

Please do stick around! We always want more people in this part of Chinese-forums. I'm very much a beginner in all of this stuff myself.

[Gharial]

Heh, OK, OneEye! Thanks for being patient with me, and helpful too. There are beginners, and then there are beginners.

a new system was adopted where the first character would indicate whether it was a 陰 or 陽 tone

I guess you meant a yin or yang sound, right? (Though obviously when the rhyme character is compounded with that onset sound, there is then talk of yangping or yinru or whatever tones).

My eyes started to glaze over a bit though during the 'four tones' page ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_tones ) following on from the fanqie page, which can only mean I guess that there unfortunately isn't much correspondence between those Middle Chinese 平上去入 and the modern Mandarin tones (I mean, if it were that easy, I'd've stayed awake! LOL).

Anyway, you are a lot more up on this stuff than I am, so I was wondering what one-stop, single resource (I'm imagining a book rather than online material, which can be a bit scattershot) you might recommend that really explains it well (i.e. in reasonable depth, but as simply and as clearly as possible!). I have Norman's, and Ramsey's, general surveys, but haven't read their historical bits that closely yet. Oh, and Karlgren's analytic dictionary (which I'm ashamed to say I haven't yet read the Introduction to - I just dip into its main body or indexes!).

[OneEye]

Yes, it can get pretty dry sometimes.

I guess you meant a yin or yang sound, right? (Though obviously when the rhyme character is compounded with that onset sound, there is then talk of yangping or yinru or whatever tones).

Right, I believe the 陰 and 陽 splits are what formed the tone systems in modern Chinese languages, so that, for instance Cantonese has all 8 possibilities here, plus the 陰入 tone has also split into 上 and 下, for 9 tones.

There is some correspondence between Mandarin tones and Middle Chinese tones, but it's pretty spotty and complicated. For instance, the 入 tone has disappeared in Mandarin, and 入聲 characters have dispersed across the other tones in a fairly complex way.

Again, I'm far from being an expert here, and I'm not sure about a one-stop resource. Ramsey and Norman are both great. Other than that, I learned what I do know about the subject by reading from some of Marjorie Chan's graduate course syllabi. Though it's been a while and I haven't given it a lot of thought since then, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

[Gharial]

The Ohio courses do look very good, going by their reading recommendations!

[Michaelyus]

Come on people, the tone correspondences are not that bad, even for modern standard Mandarin! It sure beats trying to predict Mandarin initials or finals from Middle Chinese... (and I dare say it's easier than predicting which syllables are stressed in Germanic vocabulary in English, although I've never tried it myself). Just because the case in standard Mandarin is a little more complicated than other modern Chinese languages... OK, it can run into problems more often than with others; but the Middle Chinese to Mandarin correspondence is fairly robust nonetheless.

平 split into two: Mandarin 'first tone' for Middle Chinese voiceless initials and Mandarin 'second tone' for what were Middle Chinese voiced initials. Hence even in Mandarin these are traditionally 陰平 and 陽平 respectively.

上 has also split into two. Overall, it has mainly ended up as Mandarin 'third tone' containing most of what was 上 tone, hence Mandarin 'third tone' being traditionally known as 上聲. But the ones with a voiced obstruent as the initial (generally called 全濁 in traditional Chinese phonology) became 'fourth tone' instead. There is meant to have been a 陰陽 split (followed by that re-allocation, dubbed [全]濁上歸去) and then a re-merger.

去 has ended up as one class, Mandarin 'fourth tone', with virtually all of what was 去 tone, hence it is called 去聲 in its own right. Again a 陰陽 split and re-merger is considered to be what happened.

入 has split the most, into three 'classes'. It has also merged into all the other classes, having completely lost a distinctive tone of its own (well, at least in the standard). Those with a voiceless initial are considered impossible to predict, as even those with the exact same pronunciation in the Middle Chinese 反切 spelling tables now have different tones. Those with a voiced sonorant initial mainly merged into Mandarin 'fourth tone', and those with a voiced obstruent initial merged into Mandarin 'second tone'.

So with that in mind, it's fairly easy to jump back:

'first tone' = 陰平、a few 陰入

'second tone' = 陽平、次濁[陽]入、a few 陰入

'third tone' = 陰上 and 次濁[陽]上、a few 陰入

'fourth tone' = 陰去 and 陽去、全濁[陽]上、全濁[陽]入、a few 陰入

Naturally there are exceptions (except for 陰入)... but actually many are quite easily rationalised in the light of these. The fact that some of the 'worst' 破音字 in Mandarin can be traced to 陰入 is quite interesting.

Back on topic for 彦, you are meant to know all your sample 反切 pronunciations in the light of Middle Chinese to get the tone right (and even then it's not guaranteed). But here, it's very straightforward: 變 is fourth tone, and ending in a nasal, means it is very likely to have been 去聲, which is the most straightforward tone: it has to be fourth tone now.

If you want to derive the whole modern standard Mandarin pronunciation from 魚變切, it's actually possible in this case:

魚 is not one of those on your 入聲-alert list... so from its modern Mandarin 'second tone', you know it had a voiced initial. Hence if the second bit is 平 or 入, you know to adjust straight away. Its modern Mandarin initial is y-, which is effectively 'null' in modern Chinese. But it must come from a sonorant in Middle Chinese, as you already know it was voiced in Middle Chinese from the modern Chinese tone, so you don't have to adjust the 上 if the final turns out to be that tone. It also undergoes a few interactions that change the final, which need to be taken care of if need be.

變 is modern Mandarin 'fourth tone', and ends in a nasal, so it's 去聲 (as 入聲 by its 'checked tone' nature never ended in a nasal in Middle Chinese, and exceedingly rarely {never?} became one in Mandarin), and the product will be Mandarin 'fourth tone'. The modern final -ian is easily to couple with the modern initial y-, as y- and -ian don't interact to change each other strongly. As modern y- is virtually a 'null' initial in front of i- (as well as ü-, where Pinyin rules change the spelling to yu), we can drop the "i" of "-ian" and produce "yan". Put the fourth tone on, and we have yàn.

Not all of them are as easy as this! (In fact the 反切 given for 顏 runs into problems pretty much straight away.)

The 說文解字 homonym scheme belongs to very late Old Chinese as far as I know.

[OneEye]

I can't believe I ever thought it was complicated. But thanks for the explanation.