Old Chinese

This paper presents potential cognates of the qusheng derivations in more conservative languages of the Trans-Himalayan family, in particular Rgyalrongic and Kiranti. It is suggested in particular that the valency-increasing uses of the qusheng could be related to the applicative -t suffix and that its valency-decreasing uses may be a trace of the reflexive -si suffix.

This paper presents an overview of antipassive constructions in the Sino-Tibetan/Trans-Himalayan family. It shows that all of these constructions are relatively recent developments, and originate from three distinct historical sources, including the incorporation of generic nouns, the verbalization of action nominalizations and reflexive/middle markers. All productive antipassive constructions in the family are found in languages with polypersonal indexation and ergative case marking.

While consonant clusters, taken broadly to include presyllables, are commonly hypothesized for Old Chinese, little direct evidence is available for establishing the early forms of specific words.

A number of Vietnamese words borrowed from Chinese have initial consonant lenition in Vietnamese, which corresponds to presyllables in conservative Vietic languages, e.g.: Chinese 劍 kiæmH “sword” is borrowed as Vietnamese 劍 gươm [ɣ-] and Rục təkɨəm. Baxter and Sagart (2014) understand such words as reflecting Old Chinese preinitials, relying on conservative Vietic languages for the identity of the preinitial.

This essay examines a hitherto overlooked source: Old Vietnamese, a language attested in the single document 佛說大報父母恩重經 Phật thuyết Đại báo phụ mẫu ân trọng kinh (Nguyễn Ngọc San 1982, Shimizu 1996, Hoàng Thị Ngọ 1999), which writes certain words, monosyllabic in modern Vietnamese, in an orthography suggesting sesquisyllabic phonology, e.g. rắn ‘snake’ is written 破散 (phá tản < phaH sanX), cf. Rục pəsiɲ³. For a number of words, Old Vietnamese provides the only testimony of the form of the Vietic borrowing.

The small list of currently known sesquisyllabic words of Chinese origin attested in this document includes examples of both words with a secure initial Chinese cluster and words with plausible Vietic prefixation. On the one hand, we find the word *s–kương ‘mirror’ borrowed from Chinese 鏡 kiæŋH. Here, the Vietnamese *s- is corroborated by its morphological derivation, which is an instance of the Sino-Tibetan instrumental deverbal
*sV-. On the other hand, for the word 阿唱 *ʔ–ɕướng ‘to chant’, likely borrowed from Middle Chinese 唱 tɕhaŋH, the Old Vietnamese form could reflect a dummy prefix *ʔ- (Section 4) that exists in other Vietic languages.

This paper analyses and evaluates the alleged genetic relationship between Sino-Tibetan and Austronesian, proposed by the French sinologist Laurent Sagart. The aim of the following paper is neither to prove, nor to disprove the Sino-Tibeto-Austronesian superphylum but to argue whether the data presented in favour of this proposed genetic relationship do or do not stand the scrutiny of a historical linguist. This paper also considers the hypothetical homeland of Proto-Sino-Tibeto-Austronesian people, with an eye towards competing hypotheses , such as Sino-Indo-European. It is concluded that Sagart' s approach may be insufficient for proof of controversial cases of disputed genetic relationship, given the non-obvious relatedness of the languages he is comparing.

It is argued that the Old Chinese pharyngealized consonants reconstructed in the Baxter-Sagart (2014) system were created out of Proto-Sino-Tibetan CVʕ- strings in which the same vowel occurred on both sides of a pharyngeal fricative: CViʕVi-. The same strings evolved to long vowels in the Kuki-Chin group through loss of the pharyngeal consonant. Statistical evidence is presented in support of a correlation between the Kuki-Chin vowel length and the Chinese pharyngealization contrasts, as originally proposed by Starostin. Beyond Sino-Tibetan, it is suggested that the word type distinction in PST: CViʕVi- (‘type A’) vs. C (‘type B’) results from a constraint against monomoraic monosyllables, as has been described for Austroasiatic by Zide and Anderson, and in Austronesian by Wolff.

The claim that Chinese had neither unambiguous, nor obligatory syntactic or morphological markers of counterfactuality, which has loomed large with philosophers of language, sinologists, and cognitive psychologists during the better part of the 20th century, is reviewed here from a diachronic and typological perspective, focussing on Old Chinese (OC). In contradistinction from the cross-linguistically widespread use of past-tense morphology or, less commonly, of dissociative spatial markers, the predominant strategy to mark counterfactuals in OC was ‘direct’ assertion in the protasis. It made use of a non-indicative copula marked for stativity by prefixation, which acts as a complementizer vis-à-vis the dependent clause. Morphological analysis, building upon advances in the reconstruction of OC
phonology in Jacques (2000), suggests that OC combined this non-indicative copula with a causative morpheme (*s-) to encode concessives and with an existential negative (*ma-) to
express a non-facultative negative counterfactual, surfacing as wēi 微 (“if it be not that...”). Straightforward “positive” counterfactuality could also be expressed through conjunction
compounding in late Classical and Medieval Chinese, or by the use of simple superordinate verbs such as shǐ 使 or lìng 令. Morphologically, these share the property of being derived
from the underlying verb base by causative or deontic prefixes, but CF interpretation also depends on the interplay with schetic markers and pragmatic embedding in the remainder of the sentence. Non-obligatory marking of counterfactuals thus emerges as a preference,
not as a categorical incapacity, while the choice of ‘direct’ assertion, rather than temporal or distal implicatures to convey it, is unrelated to the richness of morphology in a given
language.

Following a suggestion of Starostin (1989), Baxter & Sagart (2011) reconstruct *-n, *-j, and *-r as distinct finals in Old Chinese. These three finals have regular correspondences in Tibetan and Burmese. The Trans-Himalayan proto-language distinguished *-n, *-j, *-r, *-l, and *-rl. Burmese loses *-r and generally loses *-l, except after -u-, where it changes to -y. Tibetan loses *-y and changes *-rl to -l. Chinese changes *-rl to *-r. Because Burmese shows different reflexes for *aj (-ay) and *əj (> -i), the merger of *ə and *a in Tibetan and Burmese are independent innovations; and this merger does not confirm a ‘Tibeto- Burman’ subgroup (contra Handel 2008). These orrespondences require confirmation through further research on evidence of *-r in the Min dialects and Han dynasty Buddhist transcriptions from Indic languages in Chinese characters.

The paper summarizes current knowledge on the paleographical evidence for rén 仁 and its earliest variants. It is argued that no reliable attestations of the character exist prior to the mid-Warring States period. The variants recently discovered in the Guōdiàn and Shàngbó corpuses and elsewhere are shown to be predominantly based on phonetic principles which can be explained in a systematic fashion using current models of reconstruction. Proceeding
from Baxter’s (1991) arguments for rén as a cognate of Written Tibetan snying (heart; mind) and extending it to Tibeto-Burman congeners, a final section speculates about a chain shift, which propelled rén from its Sino-Tibetan meanings to an ethical notion harnessed by early
Confucianism. This shift left a lexical gap which was quickly filled by xīn 心 and ài 愛.

This is a database of basic lexicon of several (proto-)languages from around the world. I built it over several years, as a tool to facilitate long-range comparisons. It is a work in progress, as I’m constantly adding to it.
I decided to make the current version publicly available, in case other historical linguists find it useful for their research. You may freely access, download, copy and/or distribute it.

Song (2014) draws renewed attention to the problem of groups of Chinese words in which the character used to write one of the words has a stop final reading in Middle Chinese but the character used to write another of the words has an open syllable reading in Middle Chinese, although the two seem to have a shared a rime in Old Chinese. She offers a new solution employing the reconstruction of voiced and voiceless stop finals in the shared ancestor of Chinese and Tibetan. Every step in Song's reasoning is faulty and nearly every claim she makes about Tibetan is false. Haudricourt long ago solved the 'stop coda problem' (1954).

(Edited by Andy Castro and Pan Xingwen)

The Sui are an official minority group of China with a population of around 430,000. The Sui language belongs to the Kam-Sui branch of the Tai-Kadai language family.
      This research presents the results of a large-scale survey of the Sui language. The goals of the survey were to document the Sui dialect situation and to elucidate the genetic and synchronic relationships among the various dialects. A 600-item wordlist was collected from sixteen data points. Comprehension
of four Sui dialects was also tested across the region using Recorded Text Tests (RTTs).
      Based on the primary data and on Thurgood’s (1988) Proto-Kam-Sui, and drawing on related languages as well as various other reconstructions, this work first charts the historical development of the Sui dialects. Secondly, it maps out dialect groups based on synchronic lexical similarity. Thirdly, it
applies Levenshtein distance analysis to the data and describes the resulting dialect groups. Finally, it describes and discusses RTT methodology and results. The report also includes wordlist data, phonology sketches for each data point, and interlinearised RTT texts.
      The results show that Sui has four main dialects and that one of these is genetically more closely affiliated to Kam than to Sui. Additionally, three dialects have low mutual intelligibility. Mutual intelligibility of dialects is not completely predicted by genetic relationships.
    Some items of particular interest in this work include: 1) evidence for sesquisyllabic words in Proto-Kam-Sui (supporting Pittayaporn 2009); 2) evidence for the areal diffusion of tonal flip-flops (Yue-Hashimoto 1986); and 3) an innovative L2 retelling method for testing inter-dialect intelligibility.
      This report was originally published in print under the title of Shuiyu Diaocha Yanjiu by Guizhou People’s Press, 2014. The English version of this book is published with permission of Guizhou People’s Press. The maps in this book were produced by the author. Maps 6.1, 6.2, and 7.1 were generated using
Creative Commons Gabmap software. (John Nerbonne, Rinke Colen, Charlotte Gooskens, Peter Kleiweg, and Therese Leinonen (2011). Gabmap — A Web Application for Dialectology. Dialectologia Special Issue II.)

We learn the words belonging to the language of Xiongnus (Asian Huns), who played an important role in the history of the world, through the works written by the Chinese who developed political, military and economic relations with this community. Some of the words recorded by the Chinese about their language contain the horse-related terms and certain animal names. The horse was the best option of mobility for nomadic communities such as the Huns and the Scythians. Much importance was given to horse in nomadic cultures. So, the fact that the horse-related terms are mentioned in the Chinese historical sources is not accidental. The earlier horse-related terms used by the Turks are present in the language of the Xiongnus but we find the oldest traces of the same terms used in Turkic in the language of the Scythians.

This study discusses the explanations of the words mentioned in the written sources related to the horse-related terms and animal names belonging to the language of the Xiongnus and will touch upon the connection between Turkic and Scythian.

Key words: Hunnic, Turkic, Scythian, Ket Language, Mongolian, Horse, Animal Names

This presentation examines the current state of progress in the reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan, with an emphasis on those aspects that remain the focus of controversy or uncertainty. Sino-Tibetan may be defined as the language family containing Chinese, Tibetan, Burmese and all the languages derived from their most recent common ancestor. The hypothetical ancestor language from which this family descends is termed Proto-Sino-Tibetan. Over the last half of the 20th century and proceeding into the 21st century, a number of scholars (including Paul K. Benedict, James A. Matisoff, and Gong Hwang-cherng) have attempted full or partial reconstructions of this language. Yet today, despite immense progress in fieldwork, data collection and consolidation, and comparative reconstruction, many basic questions remain. I will focus my discussion on the most salient of these questions, including:

• the membership of the family: which languages belong to Sino-Tibetan?
• the broader genetic affiliations of the family: can Sino-Tibetan be shown to be one branch of a larger language family?
• the proto-vowel system: did Proto-Sino-Tibetan have four, five, or six vowels?
• the proto-consonant system: did Proto-Sino-Tibetan have a two-way distinction (e.g. *p- vs. *b-) or a three-way distinction (e.g. *p- vs. *pʰ- vs. *b-)?
• the proto-word structure: were many basic words “sesquisyllabic”, made up of a reduced syllable and a full syllable? If so, were these sesquisyllabic words always morphologically complex?
• the proto-prosodic system: was Proto-Sino-Tibetan tonal? Did it have a syllabic distinction corresponding to the well-known “Type A/B” distinction of Old Chinese?
• the proto-derivational morphology: what derivational affixes existed in Proto-Sino-Tibetan, and to what degree of certainty can their functions be reconstructed?
• the proto-inflectional morphology:  was Proto-Sino-Tibetan characterized by simple or complex verbal morphology?

Following discussion of these issues, the direction of future scholarship, and the prospects for future progress, will be examined.

Rhyme patterns in Old Chinese poems are important for the reconstruction of Old 22 Chinese pronunciation, as they provide evidence for groups of words which formerly 23 had similar pronunciation. Rhyme patterns can also be used to test Old Chinese 24 reconstruction systems for consistency and plausibility, as reconstruction systems 25 should minimize the conflict with attested rhyme patterns. Here, we build on the 26 idea that rhyming in Old Chinese followed the principle of vowel purity, a tendency 27 to disallow rhymes of words with different vowels, to develop a quantitative test for 28 reconstruction systems of Old Chinese. The test is illustrated by comparing seven 29 different Old Chinese reconstruction systems and by showing that, although the 30 systems differ regarding their degree of vowel purity, the principle seems to hold for

In 1989 Starostin proposed that Old Chinese had a final *-r that later changed ton (and sometimes-j). Baxter & Sagart subsequently incorporated Starostin's proposal in their 2014 Old Chinese reconstructions. This essay attempts to assemble the evidence for Old Chinese final *-r and to elaborate an explicit notation for the relative strength of this evidence for reconstructing an *-r in particular words.

Gong Hwang-Cherng in two papers (1980, 1995) collected a number of cognate sets among Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese. This paper reexamines these cognate sets (base on Gong 1995) using a six vowel version of Old Chinese, specifically the Baxter-Sagart system. In light of six vowel theory it is possible both to be more confident about some cognate sets and possible to reject or revise others.

The description of sound correlated figures of speech in early Chinese prose − where it was attempted since Jiāng Yŏugàos (d. 1851) trailblazing work on prose rhyming at all − typically did not go beyond the analysis of prosodic phenomena occuring in phrase or sentence edge positions, which
are moreover subject to relatively strict conditions of adjacency. After a short initial discussion of the problem of how to classify artfully crafted argumentative pre-imperial prose texts, the validity of approaching recurrences within Early Chinese prose in reconstructions, rather than through the intricate veil of its written representation, will be exemplified by looking at three repeatedly encountered phonological figures in Warring States-Han texts and the way the establish textual coherence. For lack of an established
terminology, these will be preliminarily be called “rhyme nets”, “assonance chains”, and “paronomastic cadences”. Consideration of the latter category leads to a discussion of its relationship with genuine figura etymologica, and
its role as a window on the self-awareness of linguistic structure on the part of early Chinese writer.

In this paper, a new method of “fuzzy identification” is proposed for circumstances in which an exact match of an epigraphic written word with later attested forms is not possible (for example, because the word has been lost from the language). Based on our increasingly sophisticated understanding of early Chinese morphological patterns and word families, it is sometimes possible to achieve an approximate understanding of pronunciation and meaning in the absence of a precise identification.

As an illustration of this approach, I consider the oracle-bone graph X as it appears in a famous eclipse inscription. This graph has been identified as 斲 zhuó and 剅 dōu (among others). I argue that any such identification is overly precise. A fuzzy identification, as a member of the word family based on root *tok with meaning ‘cut, chop’, is a more accurate reflection of the state of our knowledge and provides greater insight into the possible pronunciations and range of meaning and function of the word.
在某些情況下，早期出土文獻裡出現的有的字無法被精確地隶定為古汉语中已存在的字詞。本文提出，根據现在對早期漢語詞族與詞法結構的研究，有時候最有效的辦法是作一種“模糊辨識”來得出大概的字義和字音。本文以甲骨文「X」字為例。這個字出現于甲骨文兩個日期中间時，或被認為代表“斲”字，或被認為代表“剅”字，还有其他不同的看法存在。但是这些結論恐怕都過度精確。用模糊辨識法，可以認為「X」字屬於*tok（斬）詞族，卻無法更精确地将其隶定為任何一個後期存在的字詞。這樣的模糊辨認既可以得出不會超出已有證據所能支持的結論，又可以提供一個比較可靠的关於此字可能的發音以及功能的瞭解。

November 3-4, 2018, 9 am - 6 pm
Penn Museum, Nevil Classroom

ORGANIZERS:
Adam D. Smith
Maddalena Poli

SPEAKERS:
William Baxter
Wolfgang Behr
Chen Lin
Constance Cook
Paul R. Goldin
Guo Jue 郭珏
Philip Jones
Lai Guolong 來國龍
Simon Martin
Maddalena Poli
Adam D. Smith
Sun Yan 孫岩
Stephen J. Tinney
Crispin Williams

Turkish version of my paper "The Bilingual Vocabulary Or. 12380/3948 of the Stein Collection in the British Library," in Tōhōgaku 132, 2016], investigating a bilingual fragment in Chinese script excavated from Mazar Tagh (Xinjiang, PRC).
The MS is a vocabulary of Old Turkic-Chinese, dated back to the eighth century.

In his Research Note, " Shun 舜 and the Interpretation of Early Orthographical Variation, " in this issue of Early China, Jonathan Smith made several claims about the early evolution of the graph 舜, in particular suggesting that it should be identified with the graph lin 粦 that occurs in certain Western Zhou bronze inscriptions. While showing that these claims are ill-supported, I nevertheless concur in the identification with the bronze-inscriptional graph, but show that the word being written is 濬 ∼ 浚 " deep, profound " and in no way connected with lin 粦.

This paper considers an important syllabic contrast, *-ivs. *-ji-, in the Old Chinese reconstruction system of Li . It is noted that revisions to Li's system that have been proposed over the last three decades have eliminated this contrast in all but a few phonological environments. This raises the question of whether the contrast is tenable at all, and suggests that Li's system should ver further revised by eliminating the contrast altogether. Such a revision would force us to consider alternative views of the Old Chinese vowel system, and of the nature of Old Chinese *-j-, which have been topics of debate in the field in recent years.

"Several sinologists have compared Chinese 䈦 xjwɨjX
‘burn’ or 火 xwaX ‘fire’ to an Old Tibetan word smye ‘fire’. No such Old Tibetan word exists. Instead, mye is the Old Tibetan word for fire and smye, also spelled dmeḥ, means ‘stain, impurity, sin’. Tibetan evidence in this case does not support a reconstruction *
sm- in Old Chinese."

This paper attempts to reconstruct the word “iron” in Old Chinese phonology. Middle Chinese initial th- shows several types of xiéshēng 諧聲 connections. This implies that Middle Chinese th- was derived from several Old Chinese initials. In addition, identifying phonetic elements in Old Chinese is occasionally difficult. Hence, it has been considered difficult to reconstruct the word “iron.” In this paper, we re-examine this topic using excavated documents.

Determining the nature of the four Divisions of the Qièyùn is a fundamental problem in the study of the phonetic history of Chinese. Analyses by Pulleyblank and Baxter make it possible to bring out two major changes from Old Chinese to Middle Chinese: a two-way split of the vowel system, and later the lenition of medial -r-. The use of models drawn from Mon-Khmer voice type register languages made it possible to reconstruct the phonetic bases of the four divisions. Div. I groups tense rimes, Div. II groups velarized rimes resulting from medial -r-, Div. III groups lax/breathy rimes. As for Div. IV, it represents rimes with the diphthong ie.

Various scholars have supposed that Marco Polo dictated his travel memories to Rustichello da Pisa on the basis of the details supplied in the Devisement dou monde’s prologue. According to another hypothesis, Rustichello would have reworked notes taken by Marco during his stay in Asia. The economic historian Franco Borlandi assumes the existence of a primitive version of Polo’s report, structured as a trade manual. He remarks that Oriental names and words contained in the Devisement are not transcribed according to the Old French orthographic system, but according to the Italian one. In Borlandi’s opinion, this evidence would demonstrate that Rustichello used an exemplar written in a medieval Italian vernacular for his translation. However, the analysis of Chinese toponyms proves that Marco contributed orally to the composition of the text. Oriental words are written in an orthographic system that reflects Tuscan pronunciation, rather than Venetian. Rustichello adapted to his phonologic system words which he had heard pronounced by Marco.

Against the background of recent developments in the reconstruction of Old Chinese phonology
and morphology, this paper reviews etymologies for the the alleged first Chinese dynastic name
xià proposed in the literature so far, and looks into the history of its representation in writing. Six
possible ethnonymic derivations are discussed and compared to typological parallels in genealogically
unrelated language families. Proposals for an identification of xià in the oracle bone
inscriptions are rejected. Finally, it is argued that – despite being fraught with uncertainties and
complexities – the study of (social, ethnic) group and state names in China holds a real potential as
a corrective for theories of ethnonymic typology based largely upon Indo-European data and a
hardly comparable nation-state background in Europe.

Spiegelreflex: Reste einer Wu-Überlieferung der Lieder im Licht einer Bronzeinschrift der späten Han-Zeit Wolfgang Behr (Bochum) I. Bronzespiegel sind in China im Gegensatz zu Bronzegefäßen bereits seit dem Äneolithi kum der Qijia-Kultur (ca. 23001900 v.Chr.) in Ost-Gansu bekannt. Das Fehlen zugehöriger Gießerei-und Verarbeitungstechnologien, sowie die auffällige stilistische Nähe der geometrischen Dekors zu Spiegeln der Steppekulturen am Ober-und Mittellauf des Jenisej im Minusinsker Talkessel, hat dabei vielfach Anlaß zu Erwägungen über eine allochthone Entstehung der Artefaktform Spiegel im Besonderen und der chinesischen Metallurgie im Allgemeinen gegeben, die keinesfalls als abgeschlossen gelten können. 1 Auch in der chinesischen historiographischen Literatur findet die Verbreitung des Spiegels in der Steppenzone, etwa bei den Qiang -stämmigen Bewohnern der nordwestlichen Lateralstaaten (fangguo ), noch spät einen Widerhall. So berichtet z.B. das Hou Han shu über den bereits entwaffneten Dianling-Unterzweig der Xianling : () manche trugen Holzbretter als Waffen, manche hielten Bronzespiegel, um wie Soldaten zu erscheinen. 2 Einige chinesische Archäologen betonen eine handwerkliche, stilistische und soweit derlei Rückschlüsse aus der Fundposition bzw. dem Beigabenkontext im Grab überhaupt zulässig sind rituelle Kontinuität der Qijia-Spiegel zu Bronzespiegeln der Shangund der Westlichen Zhou-Zeit. 3 Neben der heute weithin anerkannten indirekten Beeinflussung aus dem seit den zwanziger Jahren des vergangenen Jahrunderts der sogenannten Karasuk-Kultur (1400900 v.Chr.) zugeordneten Gebiet, 4 werden allerdings auch weiterhin alternative diffusionistische Modelle und, zumindest für die Periode seit dem ausgehenden zweiten vorchristlichen Jahrtausend, der umgekehrte Verbreitungsweg von Zentralchina nach Südsibirien diskutiert. 5 Für wertvolle Hinweise und Korrekturen danke ich Rodo Pfister (Basel) und den Herausgebern dieser Festschrift.

i ii Abréviations et symboles employés OC : Old Chinese (chinois archaïque) MC : Middle Chinese (chinois ancien -chinois médiéval) • EMC : Early Middle Chinese • LMC : Late Middle Chinese [ ... ] : écriture phonétique (API). En reconstruction Baxter/Sagart = segment indiqué, ou possédant les mêmes réflexes /.../ : écriture phonologique (API) : ne sont gardés que les segments pertinents {...} : caractère ancien écrit au moyen de son correspondant en graphie moderne Qīnghuá : une lexie chinoise est toujours donnée en transcription pīnyīn, excepté dans les titres pour des raisons d'économie 漢字 : une lexie dont la transcription pīnyīn a été donnée une fois peut être reprise seulement en caractères chinois iii iv 11 CHAPITRE 2. LE TANG CHU YU TANG QIU ET LES MANUSCRITS DE QINGHUA