Use of alternative characters in the annotations of ancient texts
汉晋注释依据异文训解典籍研究
Che Wah Ho 何志华

Abstract 摘要
Exegesis (Xungu 訓詁) is an important branch of classical Chinese philology. It is a discipline devoted to the explanation of characters and expressions in ancient Chinese texts. The emergence of Xungu can be traced back to Er ya 爾雅, a Pre-Qin dictionary. The Han-Tang period, which is the heyday of the discipline, witnessed the production of many important Xungu works, most of them appearing in the form of commentaries. They have then become the indispensable guides to subsequent readers of classical Chinese texts. Given the canonical importance of these ancient commentaries, it is not surprising to see that most modern philologists regard the explanations of ancient Chinese texts offered in these classical Xungu works as authoritative dictionary meanings and uncritically adopt them in their own works. To date, however, little work has thoroughly examined how these ancient Xungu scholars arrived at their judgments. This article remedies this gap by clarifying the working mechanism of these ancient Xungu scholars in annotating ancient texts. It argues that these ancient Xungu scholars, when explaining a character in an ancient text, would first and foremost compare that text with parallel texts from other textual sources to identify textual variants. If a difference in terms of word choice existed between the text they were commenting and other relevant parallel texts, they would often uncritically use the latter to provide glosses to the former, even if the two were obviously not synonyms or near-synonyms. This article then shows that subsequent important philologists such as Zhu Junsheng 朱駿聲 (1788–1858) and Hong Yixuan洪頤煊 (1765–1837), unaware of this unique working mechanism of ancient Xungu scholars, anachronistically mistook the judgments offered in these ancient Xungu works, which were simply made on the basis of textual variants, to be true and accurate dictionary meanings. As a result, they unavoidably established unnecessary connection between the semantically unrelated textual variants and ended up creating mistakes of their own.

中国古代语言学之研究，重在训诂。训诂学乃中国传统研究古书词义的专门学科，是中国传统的语文学。训诂之学，始于先秦的《尔雅》，而大盛于汉晋的古籍注解。自汉代以来以迄于唐，古籍传注蔚然成风，其中重要典籍注家包括东汉《诗》毛《传》，郑玄《毛诗笺》，伪孔安国的《尚书传》，高诱《淮南子注》，三国六朝时王弼的《周易注》、韦昭的《国语注》，王肃的《孔子家语注》，唐朝杨倞的《荀子注》等。过去训诂学家极重视古代典籍注解，视之为中国古代字义研究的重要依据，鲜有怀疑这些古代学者的注解可有其他依据。本文尝试援引书证，以见汉晋以来诸家传注训诂，每有参考同书其他版本异文，甚或互见文献所见异文以为说解，例证甚多，自成系统。显见据异文为注，乃是中国学者注解典籍的一种传统释义方法。可惜过去语言学、训诂学者研习中国词义诂训时，于汉晋传注相关训解方式未有注意，未能明晰此等训诂其实源出重文异文，而重文异文又不必为同义甚或近义词。因之，此等字义训诂既于古无徵，甚或扞格难通，后人不察，以为相关字义解释既出自汉晋着名学者，则其解读自亦正确无误，遂加附会曲说，强为之解，舛误乃生。本文提出诸如《说文》四大家的清代学者朱骏声、古籍义训研究权威学者洪颐煊等，均因未明汉晋注家上述训释词义方法而产生误解。

Subject Keywords 主题词

Classical commentaries 古籍注释 Alternative characters 异文 Exegetics 训诂 Semantics 词义学 Classical Chinese 古代汉语 Glossary 词汇


Journal of Chinese Linguistics vol.47, no.1 (January 2019): 1-41
Copyright © 2019 Journal of Chinese Linguistices. All rights reserved.

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