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Notes on Middle Chinese: Fanqie and Tones |
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中古漢語筆記：反切和聲調 |
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Mok Kwok Yum 莫國欽* |
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The occurrence of rhyme dictionaries in Chinese literary history demonstrates that necessity is the mother of invention. It is, after all, mainly for the needs of a handy reference when composing rhyming poetry that rhyme dictionaries were invented, and then improved to better meet the challenge.[1] Phonological analysis was not the principal intent of the first rhyme books. Using rhyme dictionaries as a source to try to understand and reconstruct Middle Chinese phonology has been a scholarly activity that only began in the Qing period 清代 (1644--1911) and continues to today. Rhyme dictionaries, or rhyme books, are
arranged by tones and rhymes--the two basic components of writing an
intelligible traditional Chinese poem.[2] But
as we all know, the tradition of poetry writing in China preceded the
existence of the earliest rhyme dictionaries by some twenty-odd centuries.[3] Reasons why the primary aid to authors in writing
rhyming poetry came so late were likely the following: a) Though poetry writing in China could be dated as early as the twenty-sixth century B.C.,[4] the rhyming schemes used before the Six Dynasties六朝 (220--589) were rather loose and relatively simple. Rhyme dictionaries were not particularly necessary then.[5] b) More importantly, knowledge of fanqie反切and tones, two cornerstones of the structure of rhyme dictionaries, was not consciously known before the Han period 漢代 (206 B.C.--220 A.D.) Without such knowledge, the existence of rhyme dictionaries was not possible. Structure of Rhyme Dictionaries A traditional rhyme dictionary is a book that has words arranged by tones and rhymes (finals). Generally, ancient rhyme dictionaries are divided into four parts according to the four tones: pingsheng平聲, shangsheng上聲, qusheng去聲 and rusheng入聲. The number of rhymes included in each rhyme dictionary varies, depending on the authors’ understanding of the divisions, but the number is generally between 106 and 206. Guangyun廣韻, the most-studied rhyme book, consists of 206 rhymes or rhyme groups, which in turn encompass a total of 26,194 rhyme-words.[6] These rhyme-words are divided into four tone categories, with pingsheng being the largest group and rusheng the smallest. Because of the large number of rhyme-words included in the pingsheng category, it is further divided into two parts: the shangpingsheng上平聲, as juan卷1, and xiapingsheng下平聲 as juan 2.[7] The remaining three tones each occupy one juan, making a total of five juan for the whole Guangyun. The first rhyme-word in each rhyme group is called yunmu 韻目, which serves as a name for the whole rhyme group. When we say there are a certain number of rhymes in a rhyme dictionary, what we mean is the number of rhyme groups in that rhyme dictionary; and when we want to specify a rhyme group, it is a matter of convention to do so by using the first rhyme-word in the rhyme group, or the yunmu. The different yunmu in Guangyun have been adopted by most other rhyme dictionaries. They were arbitrarily picked in the beginning, and then became accepted and used by most authors of rhyme dictionaries, probably because fixed yunmu are easier to remember.[8] In each rhyme group, rhyme-words of the same sound are gathered together, and a circle is put on top of the first rhyme-word of each set. The fanqie of the set, in Guangyun's case, is given only after the first rhyme-word, and the number of rhyme-words in the set is indicated by a number immediately after the fanqie. Sometimes a rhyme-word may have more than one pronunciation, in such case a 又XX切 is given after that particular rhyme-word. As an illustration, we are showing the first two sets in the first rhyme group in juan 1 of the Guangyun as follows:
一 (first) indicates the first rhyme group in juan 1, which is shangpingsheng. 東 (dong) is the yunmu for the whole rhyme group; and the rhyme (final) of the whole group is therefore ong. Notice that there is a circle on top of東, denoting it as the first rhyme-word of a set which shares the same sound. Under東, the fanqie is given, which is valid for the rest of the rhyme-words of the set. In the set, there is a total of seventeen characters, as is shown by the number after the fanqie. The next set is headed by 同 (tong), which is distinguished by a circle above of it. In the東set, two rhyme-words, 涷 and凍, have a different pronunciation in addition to dong, and both are shown by 又都貢切. In the 同set, there are four rhyme-words which have pronunciations other than tong. 鮦 has three pronunciations because it is followed by two fanqie other than 徒紅切.
FanqieChinese is a monosyllable-structured language. Its characters or words are composed
of single syllable sounds. Fanqie, as we understand it today, is a method of indicating
pronunciation by dividing the single-syllable word into two parts: the
initial (shengmu 聲母) and the final (yunmu韻母).[10] Using this
method, the pronunciation of an unknown word can be represented using two
known sounds, one for the initial and one for the final of a given syllable. For example, the fanqie for東 is德紅. The initial of 德 (d/e) is d, and the final of 紅 (h/ong) is ong. d + ong à dong. This shows that the initials of 東 (d/ong) and 德 (d/e) are both d; which is referred to as shuangsheng 雙聲. The finals of東 (d/ong) and 紅 (h/ong) are also the same: ong; which is called dieyun叠韻. Shuangsheng and dieyun are set rules in fanqie.[11] Also, the initial determines if the word is voiceless (qing 清) or voiced (zhuo 濁);[12] and the final determines the tone of the word.[13] This method of indicating pronunciation is roughly what we understand today as fanqie. We are not sure if it was used in the same way during ancient times, but it is generally assumed that there were differences.[14] The origin and the earliest application of fanqie is still an unsettled issue among scholars.[15] For one thing, there is no record of the first time the ancient Chinese making a distinction of a character into the initial and final components. The combination of two characters, not necessarily of an initial and a final, to give the reading of a third character, though, has examples from texts as early as the Shi Jing 詩經, Zuo Zhuan 左傳 and other works of the late Zhou周代 (ca. 4th to 2nd centuries B.C.) and early Han periods. A collection of these examples can be found in Gu Yanwu' s 顧炎武 (l6l3--82) Yin Lun 音論.[16] A few of these examples are as: 不可à叵, 之乎à諸, 蒺藜à茨, 奈何à那. Some of these examples may by chance fit exactly into our present day requirement of fanqie, but many of them do not. An obvious fallacy of reading two characters together is that it would include the unnecessary final of the first character and the initial of the second. Before the Chinese knew about the romanization system,[17] it was not easy for them to separate a character into two sounding constituents. For a long time, therefore, the fanqie we are familiar with today was not well understood by the Chinese; and many believed that fanqie was a method of pronouncing a character by reading two other characters together quickly.[18] The difficulty of understanding fanqie is reflected by the fact that as recent as 1842, Chen Li 陳澧 (1810--82) still had to devote a section exclusively to the explanation of the use of fanqie in his Qieyun Kao切韻考.[19] Earlier Phonetic MethodsFrom an evolutionary point of view, we do not believe the Chinese before the Han period could have skillfully used fanqie, for the fact that most sound glossing methods used then were more primitive than it. It is said that when the Chinese invented characters, they did so under the "Six Graphic Principles" (liushu六書),[20] of which one is the "Principle of Phonetic Compound" (xingsheng 形聲). The phonetic compounds形聲字 are characters that have one side denoting the meaning, usually developed from the hieroglyphics象形文字; the other side denoting sound--the phoneme音位. Because of its compound nature, the phonetic compounds are believed to have come later than the hieroglyphics--an invention by the forefathers to attempt to unify Chinese language with Chinese speech.[21] In Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 (l2l A.D.), about eighty per cent of the characters included are phonetic compounds.[22] No phonetic principle was used for the other five types of characters, to which pronunciations were not indicated. Later, when the function of the phonemes became gradually
blurred because of the increase of dialects and the change of speech through
time, a more general method called pikuang 譬況was adopted. In early Han commentaries, characters
were glossed as long 長言, short 短言, quick 急言, or slow徐言. This pikuang
approach obviously lacked precision.
To rectify the shortcoming, methods of glossing by using characters of
similar sound (duruo 讀若, or duru 讀如) or same sound (zhiyin 直音) were employed. The
majority of sound glossing schemes in Han commentaries used one of these
three methods.[23] The obvious deficiency of these
methods is that they would not work if both characters are not known to the
reader. Also, duruo and duru
are not precise pronunciations.
By comparison, fanqie is obviously an improved system. It is for this reason that we believe
fanqie came into use after duruo, duru and zhiyin. An examination of the classical texts
would confirm that fanqie was dominantly used from the Six Dynasties
(220--589) on, while duruo, duru and zhiyin were used
most often in the Han commentaries.[24] Invention of FanqieAnother important factor that fanqie
should arrive in China at this particular time was the introduction of
Buddhism into China shortly before the Christian era, near the end of the
Western Han Dynasty西漢.[25] Through cultural interaction and translation of Buddhist
texts, the Chinese became familiar with the splitting of Sanskrit or Pali
syllables into initial and final parts and applied the system to glossing
Chinese syllables.[26] There have been debates as to who first invented fanqie. After reading through the arguments, I agree with the opinion proposed by Yan Zhitui 顏之推 (551--?590). Yan claimed that fanqie could be traced to Sun Yan 孫炎 (ca. 200), a scholar of philology and the classics.[27] I choose this theory over the rest for the following reasons: a) Yan Zhitui was an expert in philology himself;[28] b) he was closer to what was happening; and c) Sun Yan (ca. 200) lived during the end of the Han period, which was when fanqie became more widely used, as we have discussed above. Taking side as I am with Yan Zhitui, I do not, however, believe that Sun Yan could have "invented" fanqie all by himself (in that case, we would not be able to explain the examples collected by Gu Yanwu and other scholars); rather, I think the fanqie method was to become more refined and exact in the hands of Sun Yan.[29] Tones in the Chinese LanguageChinese is a tonal
language. It means for a given sound, the variance in the pitch creates a
different representation of meaning to the listener. The reason for having these tones is that the Chinese
language has very few possible syllables--407 in total, according to the
researchers of Speech Research Group, Chinese Academy of
Sciences in Beijing.[30]
In comparison, syllables in the English
language range between 12,000 and 100,000, depending on the methods of
counting.[31] For this reason, there are more
homophonic words--words that are pronounced alike but
differ in meaning--in Chinese than in most other languages. Having tones help the relatively small
number of syllables to multiply and thereby ease the problem.
Four TonesAs a matter of practicality, tones have
probably existed in Chinese speech for a long time, and may have a history
older than the Han race漢族.[32] However, tones, and specifically, the four tones (sisheng四聲),
in Chinese speech and poetry were not an issue until the Six Dynasties六朝
period (220
- 589). It is generally agreed that the pioneers
who set the rules of the four tones for Chinese poetry and coined the terms 平、上、去、入to designate them were Shen
Yue沈約
(441--513), Zhou Yong周顒 (?--485) and their circle of friends.[33]
As often is the case with
scholarly endeavors, there have been objections to associating Shen and Zhou
as discoverers of the four tones.[34] My opinion on the matter is as
follows: We all agree that tones had existed in Chinese speech long before
Shen Yue's time; but naming them as such, theorizing and writing a rhyme book
based on the theory, as shown in history, was clearly first attempted by Shen
Yue and his friends.[35] Their influence is confirmed by the fact that rhyme
dictionaries since then have basically adopted the four-tone scheme. Unfortunately, the works by Shen Yue (the Sisheng Pu 四聲譜 [ca. 502--13]) and Zhou Yong (the Sisheng Qieyun 四聲切韻) on the four tones no longer exist. We do not know much about the phonological quality of the original four tones except that ping平, shang上, qu去 and ru入 are really names depicting the quality[36] and that ru tone ended in -p, -t, -k.[37] However, through the reconstruction work of modern linguists, Middle Chinese phonology is fairly well understood. From other existing rhyme dictionaries of the Middle Chinese period,[38] we also know the distribution of rhyme-words over the four tonal categories, as well as the tonal variations that some rhyme-words had with particular meanings, since the rhyme dictionaries give pronunciations aberrant from their '"basic" ones through the 又XX切 scheme.[39] Five SoundsBefore Shen Yue and his group of friends articulated the four tones in speech, based on which they devised a system of rhyming for poetry composition, there already existed in the literary circle a schema of five sounds (wusheng五聲) since late Han or early Six Dynasties. Shen Yue and his friends had applied wusheng to their writings,[40] but doing so seemed to be the exceptions rather than the norm at the time.[41] Wusheng by itself is not difficult to comprehend, since it generally refers to the five Chinese musical scales, with their individual notes--gong宮, shang商, jiao 角, zheng徵 and yu 羽, equivalent to the western pentatonic scale c d e g a.[42] Yet, two of the earliest rhyme books: Sheng Lei 聲類 (ca. 250 A.D.)[43] and Yun Ji 韻集 (ca. 280 A.D.),[44] are known to have had a division of wusheng.[45] The wusheng scheme likely evolved into the sisheng system used by Shen Yue and others, and then was adopted by later rhyme dictionaries. Because of this relationship, it is suspected that the wusheng in the two early rhyme books was also based on tonal categories. Since the two rhyme books are lost and no other reliable source concerning wusheng as tonal categories is left, all studies on this subject are to some degree speculation.[46] As to how wusheng was divided and its relationship to the four tones, it seems there are more disagreements than agreements.[47] On the suspicion that wusheng was used as tonal categories in the two early rhyme books, I would like to volunteer a random thought of my own. Tones in our present day speech refer to pitch quality. Though there is not yet a consensus among modern linguists that Middle Chinese tones were also a matter of pitch, it is at least agreed upon by most that Middle Chinese tones were related to pitch.[48] Wusheng as musical scales are also concerned with pitch. It is because of their similar nature, I suspect, that wusheng was incorporated into the rhyme dictionaries. By the time Sheng Lei and Yun Ji were written, the term sisheng四聲 (four tones) had not been invented yet. Once the more appropriate term was known, later rhyme dictionaries all employed sisheng. This is a case of natural selection. Tones in Old Chinese[49]For tones of the Chinese language prior to the Six Dynasties period, even less is known. However, one thing modern scholars have come to agree upon is that the rhyme-words of Shi Jing詩經 have shown a strong tendency to rhyme with the tonal categories of Middle Chinese.[50] But this only tells us that words in Old Chinese, meaning words in the Shi Jing period (12th to 6th centuries B.C.), may fall under two, three, or four categories, depending on which theory one believes in.[51] Lastly, in between Old Chinese and Middle Chinese, the language of the Han period is the least studied of all.[52] |
