先秦時期諧聲聲符的選擇問題

The Selection of Phonetic Elements in the Pre-imperial Chinese Script

沙加爾(Laurent SAGART) ； 馬坤(MA Kun)

《饒宗頤國學院院刊》 6期 (2019/08) Pp. 73-82

摘要

基於作者和白一平教授關於文字的想法，本文描述了聲符在漢字裏選擇的過程。本文認為，先民在創造漢字時，不曾意識到「聲符與被諧字既要同韻又要擁有發音部位及發音方法相近的基本輔音」這一原則。相反，古漢語文字裏存在著一套大約有1,000個聲符的集合，造字者從中挑出語音上的最優選擇，而那些擁有非最優聲符的形聲字則被淘汰。這導致聲符體系逐漸形成一個像音節表的系統。本文以該系統的*-aŋ韻為例，討論了此韻內各聲符的分工。本文認為，若一個形聲字的聲符兼有表義作用，是由於該主諧字和它的聲符擁有相同的詞根，即聲符是基於語音而非語義挑選的。本文還描述了如何同步運用同源詞組和諧聲系列得出關於上古音的推斷。新的聲符不能被隨意創造，本文展示了如何將已有形聲字作為新聲符來填補系統中的空格，從而使得聲符系統與語音系統之間更加契合。

關鍵字

漢字 ； 聲符 ； 歷史語音學

並列摘要

Based on ideas of the author's and William H. Baxter's, this paper describes the process by which the phonetic elements in the Chinese script were selected. It argues that creators of Chinese characters were not aware of a principle requiring a phonetic element and the word it wrote to have (a) the same rhyme and (b) initial consonants of similar manner and place of articulation. Instead, a finite set of some 1,000 phonetic elements existed and creators of Chinese characters selected from that set the element that gave the best phonetic match. Characters that were unable to give a good phonetic match were discarded. This led to the gradual formation of phonetic elements into a syllabary-like system. A fragment of that system, corresponding to the *-aŋ rhyme, is presented. The paper discusses the workload of phonetic elements within the *aŋ rhyme. While, in addition to its phonetic function, a phonetic element also seems to play a semantic role in a particular character, this paper argues that the phonetic itself and the character which contains it share the same lexical root: the phonetic was selected based on the pronunciation of that common root; and thus it was not selected on the basis of semantic considerations. The paper also describes the inferences on Old Chinese pronunciation that can be drawn from a simultaneous consideration of word families and phonetic series. Although new phonetics could not be created ex nihilo, this paper shows how empty slots in the system of phonetics could be filled through promotion of existing xíngshēng (phonetic series) characters to the status of new phonetic elements. The result was improvement in the adequation of the system of phonetics within the language's phonology.

並列關鍵字

Chinese script ； phonetic elements ； historical phonology