Schuessler 1987: 568. Cf.: srut sraːt {率殺} 'kill (them) all' [ShangShu 29, 17]. Secondary synonym: grǝːm {咸} [Shuessler 1987: 666]. Both words are almost freely interchangeable in Early Zhou monuments, although grǝːm is also frequently attested in its original meaning ('to complete, finish, unite'). Ineligible items include: (a) bram {凡}, a junctive word with the specific meaning 'for every X that is...', 'of all the objects that...', 'in all the cases when...', etc.; (b) krǝːy {皆}, a verbal attribute that has the same syntactic properties as srut and grǝːm, but is still attested very infrequently in Early Zhou Chinese, usually in contexts where it can be translated as 'together', 'the two (of us)'.
HYDCD VIII: 266. This is unquestionably the most frequent and common equivalent for 'all' in all Classical Chinese literary monuments, syntactically adjunct to the main verb of the phrase, cf.: cǎːy wǝ̌ krǝːy wat pǝ kʰǎːy {左右皆曰不可} "(people) on the right and the left all say that it is impossible" [Mencius 2, 12]. There also exists a partial synonym, ta {諸} [HYDCD XI: 265], which occupies the more "conventional" position of nominal attribute, but its usage is, for the most part, bound: it is most often found in idiomatic collocations, such as ta gʰin {諸臣} 'all the officers' and ta goː {諸侯} 'zhuhou, all the hereditary princes', in which its function is rather a general marking of the plural number.
HYDCD VIII: 266. Cf.: ɲin ka˞y jǚ i {人皆與之} "all the people gave him", ɲin ka˞y pǝ si̯în {人皆不信} "all the people did not believe (him)" [Linji-lu 119]. Throughout the text, ka˞y is unquestionably the most frequent equivalent for the meaning 'all'; it is also occasionally encountered as part of the compound adverbial expression ka˞y-si̯it {皆悉} or si̯it-ka˞y {悉皆} 'altogether, completely'. The attributive morpheme ü {諸} [HYDCD XI: 265] is, like in Classical Chinese, generally encountered in bound usage, with a restricted number of nouns to which it is attached in specific contexts (e. g. ü fu̯aŋ {諸方}, literally 'all sides' = 'everywhere', etc.).
DEHCD 1985: 166; HYDCD X: 632. There is a large variety of words and expressions denoting the various aspects of the meaning 'all' in Modern Chinese, but tou1 is unquestionably the most basic and statistically frequent. It is telling that, although [DEHCD 1985] does not properly list tou1 as the equivalent of Russian весь 'all', the word is nevertheless present in the majority of textual examples, e. g. 所有的書都在這里 suǒ yǒu de shū dōu zài zhèlǐ "all the books are here", where the meaning 'all' is first expressed by the adjectival word group 所有的 su̯o3 you3 tɤ (literally 'the ones being had') and then by the adverbial 都 tou1. The meaning 'all' = 'totus' ('whole'), however, more generally corresponds to Modern Chinese 全 ɕü̯an2 [DEHCD 1985: 166].
Not attested. The graphic form of the character 灰 ('fire' + 'hand') for Classical Chinese m̥ǝ̄y 'ashes' suggests an archaic origin, yet neither the word nor the character are found earlier than the Late Zhou period.
HYDCD VII: 24. Somewhat dubious, since the word is not seen in active use until the 3rd - 2nd centuries B.C. (except for Zhuangzi, where it is frequently encountered as part of the idiom sǐy m̥ǝːy {死灰}, literally "dead ashes", more exact meaning unclear). Its only possible competition is ʒinh {燼} [HYDCD VII: 307], encountered in the meaning 'ashes' or 'embers' a few times in earlier monuments (Zuozhuan), but it is extremely rare, its exact semantics is dubious, its character is a complex phonoideogram (as opposed to the simple ideogram 灰), and it also seems to be morphologically derivable from ʒín {盡} 'to end, terminate' (thus, literally 'the remains (of fire)').
DEHCD 1985: 1370; HYDCD VII: 24. Also exists as a bisyllabic compound: hu̯ei1-ɕin4 {灰燼}, but the monosyllabic variant is quite permissible in colloquial usage.
HYDCD VIII: 519. Same word as 'skin' q.v.; apparently, no special generic term for 'bark' existed in Old Chinese. On the other hand, attestations of bʰay in the meaning 'bark' are not very frequent either; the clearest example comes from the Liji [40, 5] (ƛʰǐy lǝ̌ ti̯ah nak kǝk, mǝ kʰǎ gǝ bʰay {矢以柘若棘, 毋去其皮} "arrows are made of Cudrania wood or the jujube, without stripping their bark"), but this is somewhat too late for the period represented by the current wordlist. Nevertheless, there are no alternatives whatsoever. Predictably, in Hàn-era texts, the specialized compound form mʰoːk bʰay {木皮}, literally 'tree-skin', is occasionally encountered, but bʰay always remains the principal morpheme.
Schuessler 1987: 183. Cf.: Ła gǝ pʰa sǝm puk {予其敷心腹} "let me disclose my heart and belly" (= 'innermost thoughts') [ShangShu 16, 37]. Scarce attestation, but no serious reasons to doubt this choice for Early Zhou (and no alternatives).
HYDCD VI: 1350. Cf.: kʰǝ̌y wiy kʰǒː puk wʰǝ̌ krǝy kʰaːt tǝ gʰaːɕ {豈惟口腹有飢渴之害} "is it only the mouth and belly that suffer from hunger and thirst?" [Mencius 13, 27]. Although, technically, in most contexts the word could equally well be translated as 'stomach', the latter meaning is consistently expressed in Classical Chinese texts with the word wǝɕ {胃} (not attested, however, in [Lunyu] or [Mencius]).
HYDCD VI: 1170. Cf.: li̯ü ŋi̯ǝw dǒ li̯ǐ ʂa˞iŋ {驢牛肚里生} "you will be born in the belly of a donkey or a cow" [Linji-lu, 28]. This is the only context for dǒ in [Linji-lu], and, theoretically, it could also mean 'womb', but this meaning is not supported by the overall usage of this word in later and/or earlier texts. The archaic word for 'belly', fük {腹}, is also encountered once: fük ɲet si̯im mu̯ɑŋ {腹熱心忙}, literally "the belly is hot and the mind is busy" - an idiomatic expression that cannot be considered diagnostic in this case.
DEHCD 1985: 501; HYDCD VI: 1170. The old word fu4 {腹}, also listed in [DEHCD 1985], has no real colloquial usage in the meaning 'belly' other than idiomatic.
Schuessler 1987: 108. Numerous quasi-synonyms with approximate meanings like 'big', 'large', 'great' are attested in the early classics, but statistically, dʰaːɕ is still the most frequent choice.
HYDCD II: 1231. Cf.: dɑ̂y ʰa˞ik ci̯ɨ ᶚâŋ, ʰa˞w si̯ǐ lɑ̂w xɑ̂n ŋi̯ǚ {大策子上, 抄死老漢語} "upon a big bamboo plank, they copy the words of dead fellows" [Linji-lu 77]. Encountered passim as the default word for 'big' throughout the text of Linji-lu.
Schuessler 1987: 442. Cf.: tiːwʔ ƛʰaʔ liw kʰaʔ {鳥鼠攸去} "that (place) from which the birds and mice retreat" [Shijing 189,3] and multiple other examples. No other Early Zhou words ever pretend to expressing the general notion of 'bird'.
HYDCD XII: 1031. Cf.: tǐːw tǝ caŋ sǐy, gǝ mreŋ lʰi̯ǎy ʔǝːy {鳥之將死其鳴也哀} "when a bird is about to die, its singing is mournful" [Lunyu 8, 4]. This and other examples confirm that tǐːw is the generic term for any bird in Classical Chinese. There also exists a very frequent term gʰǝm {禽} [HYDCD I: 1587], which, however, refers quite specifically to 'game-bird' rather than 'bird' in general (and is, in all likelihood, itself a result of conversion from the verbal stem gʰǝm 'to capture'); general usage is more or less restricted to the idiomatic expression gʰǝm-tuh {禽獸} 'birds and beasts' (< 'hunting objects'; the word 獸 tuh 'beast' is also a result of conversion from tuh {狩} 'to hunt'). It should be noted that in Classical Chinese, tǐːw-tuh {鳥獸} 'birds and beasts' is at least equally frequent.
DEHCD 1985: 1814; HYDCD XII: 1031. The word ɕʰin2 {禽}, also quoted in [DEHCD 1985], is only used as part of idiomatic compound formations ('water-birds', 'singing birds', 'fowl', etc.).
Schuessler 1987: 129. Reconstruction is based on the Middle Chinese reading diet for this meaning (there are at least several other pronunciations corresponding to different usages). In Early Zhou Chinese, attested securely only in the Yijing, e. g.: pǝ diːt nin haŋʔ {不咥人享} "if he (= the tiger) does not bite the person, there will be joy" {Yijing 10, 1]. Obviously, this is scant evidence, but no other contexts are known at all with a verb that could be unequivocally interpreted as 'bite'.
HYDCD III: 527. This word is not attested in either Lunyu or Mencius, but it is nevertheless the most frequent and unambiguous equivalent for the meaning 'to bite' (usually said of animals, e. g. dogs) in many other Classical Chinese documents (Zuozhuan, Yanzi Chunqiu etc.). Numerous rare and semantically dubious synonyms are also attested, e. g. cʰrwaːɕ {嘬} 'to bite (of insects)' [Mencius]; cǝːp {噆} 'to bite, sting (of insects)' [Zhuangzi]. The only statistically and contextually serious competition for daɕ, however, may be ŋʰeːt {齧}, also encountered several times (Zhuangzi; Guanzi) in the meaning 'to bite' as applied to dogs. The distinction between daɕ and ŋʰeːt may have originally been dialectal (e. g. "Northern" vs. "Southern"), but it becomes seriously blurred in Hàn times (e. g. both terms are interchangeable in the Huainanzi), not to mention other synonyms, e. g. ʒʰeu̯k {嚼}, that also make their first appearance in that period. All in all, the item displays very erratic behavior.
HYDCD III: 342. The possibility of ŋǎ˞w 'to bite' (which first appears in written sources in the Táng era, but has since become the default Chinese equivalent for this meaning) as the basic equivalent in Linji-lu is only hinted at indirectly in the following context: xi̯âŋ ʔi̯it cʰiet fü̂n kʰôy ᶚâŋ lwɑ̂n ŋǎ˞w {向一切糞塊上亂咬} "they chaotically bite into any lump of dung" [Linji-lu 64], although the meaning here is actually closer to 'chew, gnaw (upon)' than to 'bite'. However, the polysemy 'chew' / 'bite' is fairly typical for different varieties of Chinese, so, given the circumstances, the word can be included with some doubts.
Schuessler 1987: 232. Although there are numerous words in Early Zhou Chinese traditionally interpreted as 'black', the most common Chinese designation for this color, s=mǝːk, is well represented during the epoch, and there is little basis to doubt its basic nature, cf. especially the following example: maːk kʰi̯ak pǝyʔ gʷaː, maːk smǝːk pǝyʔ ʔaː {莫赤匪狐莫黑匪烏} 'there is nothing redder than a fox, nothing blacker than a raven' {Shijing 41, 3}. The second most frequent term for 'black', gʷiːn {玄} [Schuessler 1987: 702], is never encountered in such diagnostic contexts; it can be surmised that its general meaning was 'dark', referring to deep shades of different colors rather than specifically 'black'.
HYDCD XII: 1322. The word is only attested once in the principal Confucian texts of the period: mʰenh ƛʰǝm m̥ǝːk {面深墨} "(his) face is of a deep black color" [Mencius 5, 2] (where 墨 mǝːk 'ink' in the orthodox orthography almost certainly stands for m̥ǝːk {黑} 'black'; in any case, both words are etymologically related). Statistically more frequent within these texts is the word crǝ {緇} [HYDCD IX: 928]; however, it is exclusively applied to clothing (usually within the compound crǝ ʔǝy {緇衣} 'black robes') and rather denotes a special technique of dyeing than natural black color. In most other texts usually dated to the Classical period, the word m̥ǝːk is quite frequent, and also functions as the most common antonym for braːk {白} 'white' q.v.
HYDCD XII: 1322. Within Linji-lu, only attested in compound expressions (e. g. xɤk ʔɤ̂m {黑暗} "(black) darkness"; xɤk mu̯ɑ̂n mu̯ɑ̂n {黑漫漫} "black all over", etc.), but there is no reason to suggest that the default word for 'black' in Middle Chinese could be any different.
HYDCD VIII: 1340. Attested only once in [Mencius 12, 27], in the idiomatic expression sreːp w̥iːt {歃血} 'to smear (lips) with blood' (the other case of attestation in the same text is a paraphrase from the Shangshu and therefore not diagnostic). However, this is statistically the most common term for 'blood' in all of Classical Chinese and beyond.
DEHCD 1985: 836; HYDCD VIII: 1340. Also exists in the bisyllabic variant ʆü̯e4-ye4 {血液}, literally "blood-liquid", but this is a "formal" term, used in restricted contexts; in most basic contexts, the monosyllabic variant is freely used in colloquial speech.
Not attested. Schuessler [1987: 206] quotes a possible occasion of kuːt {骨} in a Shang oracle bone inscription, but this is beyond Early Zhou, and, furthermore, one instance is somewhat dubious.
HYDCD XII: 394. Cf.: raːw gǝ kǝn ku̯ǝːt {勞其筋骨} "(Heaven) wears out his sinews and bones" [Mencius 12, 35]. This is clearly the most generic and unmarked term out of all the different designations for various kinds of bones in Classical Chinese. Its only potential competition may be the word grǝː {骸} [HYDCD XII: 406], which is frequently translated as 'bone(s)', but refers almost exclusively to human bones in contexts related to death and burial, i. e. 'skeleton', 'remains'. Of note is the fact that the compound grǝː ku̯ǝːt {骸骨} 'skeleton-bones' is very frequent, but not vice versa (ku̯ǝːt grǝː {骨骸} is only attested a few times in the entire corpus next to over a hundred encounters of grǝː ku̯ǝːt); this further suggests the interpretation of grǝː as a collective 'skeleton' and ku̯ǝːt as individual 'bone(s)'.
DEHCD 1985: 818; HYDCD XII: 402. The monosyllabic ku3 {骨} also exists in the modern language in various idiomatic usage, but "this is a bone" would be translated as zhè shì yī kuài gǔtou {這是一塊骨頭}.
Schuessler 1987: 756. Not attested directly in the meaning '(male) chest' in Early Zhou monuments, but figurative usage (e. g. kō ʔrǝŋ {鉤膺} 'hooked breastplates /for horses/' [Shi 261, 2]; verbal usage in the meaning 'to withstand, resist', etc.) suggests this item as the best candidate for 'chest' during this period.
HYDCD VI: 1251. Cf.: ŋ̥oŋ truŋ teŋh {胸中正} "(everything) is right within the breast" [Mencius 7, 15]. This word is not attested at all in Early Zhou, yet is statistically the most frequent and neutral equivalent for '(male) chest' in all of Classical Chinese.
HYDCD VI: 1251. Somewhat dubious; within Linji-lu, attested only once in the bound expression ǐ xi̯üŋ {指胸} "to point at (one's) breast" [Linji-lu 89], which may be an archaic formula. However, no other candidates are known.
DEHCD 1985: 372; HYDCD VI: 1251. The word exists as a monosyllable as well as part of bisyllabic compounds with more or less comparable statistic and situational distribution (ʆi̯oŋ1-bu4 {胸部} 'chest (as part of the body)', ʆi̯oŋ1-ɕi̯aŋ1 {胸腔} 'thorax', etc.). It is, however, quite distinct from ɻu3-faŋ3 {乳房} 'female breast'.
Schuessler 1987: 162. Cf.: raʔ bǝn gǝ sʰiɕ {旅焚其次} 'the traveller burns his camp' [Yijing 56, 3]. Several other Early Zhou verbs are also commonly glossed as 'burn', 'burn down', etc. (e. g. hoːŋ {烘}, also possibly 'to dry (over fire)'; reːwh {燎}, also possibly 'to sacrifice by fire'), but bǝn has the advantage of not having any additional semantic usages. It is also attested as early as Shang inscriptions, and its character - an ideogram consisting of 'fire' and 'wood' - is more archaic than the phonoideograms transcribing the other words.
HYDCD VII: 87. Cf.: kǎː sǒː bǝn rǝ̌m {瞽瞍焚廩} "Gu-sou burnt down the granary" [Mencius 9, 2] (can alternately be translated as "set fire to the granary", which is not relevant, since there does not seem to be any evidence for a specifically inchoative 'set fire to' in Classical Chinese). This seems to have been the default equivalent for 'to burn' (both transitive and intransitive) at the early stages of Classical Chinese. Monuments from the 3rd century onwards, however, show a steady increase in the usage of ŋ̥ew {燒} [HYDCD VII: 247], which, by Hàn times, seems to have become the new standard (cf. the following figures: 42 cases of bǝn vs. zero cases of ŋ̥ew in the Zuozhuan /5th century B.C./, but 17 cases of bǝn vs. 58 cases of ŋ̥ew in Shiji /1st century B.C./). The compound form bǝn-ŋ̥ew {焚燒} is also attested (Xunzi, Mozi, etc.), but very sporadically. The original meaning of ŋ̥ew may have been 'to singe': thus, its only attestation in the Zhuangzi is with 'horses' as object, obviously, not in the meaning 'to burn horses', but rather 'to brand horses'.
HYDCD VII: 247. Cf.: bǐ xu̯ɑ̌ lɤy ʂew {被火來燒} "you will be burned by fire" [Linji-lu 45]. The two independent occurrences of ʂew in Linji-lu are attested with a passive meaning ('to be burned'); in the required transitive meaning ('to burn smth.') this stem is only met within the binomial construction vün ʂew {焚燒}, in the phrase vün ʂew kieŋ zi̯ǎŋ {焚燒經像} "to burn writings and images" [Linji-lu 85]. Nevertheless, since it is ʂew and not vün that serves as the common invariant in all cases (vün is not attested on its own), it is safe to assume that in this variety of Middle Chinese the basic meaning 'to burn' was primarily associated with ʂew (an assumption that agrees with the notes on 'burn' in Classical Chinese q.v.).
DEHCD 1985: 499; HYDCD VII: 247. The monosyllabic variant of this word is used primarily in stable idiomatic expressions, e. g. ʂao1-ʰai1 {燒柴} "to burn wood", ʂao1-tʰan4 {燒炭} "to burn coal", etc. In less idiomatic contexts, one of several bisyllabic expressions is used instead, such as the archaic form fen2-ʂao1 {焚燒} or ʂao1-hu̯ei1 {燒燬}. Since the morpheme ʂao1 is the common ingredient in all of these forms, it should be accepted as the most basic equivalent of the meaning 'burn' in Modern Chinese.
Li 1998: 154. The root morpheme ci̯au1 {燒} is attested only in compound formations. Another possible option for the meaning "to burn (tr.)" could be laŋ2{爁} [Li 1998: 185].
Schuessler 1987: 818. Slightly dubious; in Early Zhou, the word is usually met as part of the binome ɕruːʔ ŋraː {爪牙} 'claws and teeth', i. e. soldiers as 'defenders' [Shi 185, 1], in which both words individually refer to the corresponding animal body parts. Considering, however, that the same word is clearly used to denote human fingernails in late-period Classical Chinese, and that no better candidate for 'fingernail' is to be found in Early Zhou, we may surmise that the meanings 'claw' and 'nail' were probably not differentiated during this period.
HYDCD VI: 1101. The word is not attested in early Confucian documents, and its most frequent usage in other texts is in the meaning 'claw' (of birds or animals); notable attestations in the meaning 'fingernail(s) / toenail(s)' are in the Hàn-era parts of the Liji (although even there the word is more often found in predicative use, e. g. crǔː cok {爪足} 'to trim one's toenails' (literally 'to toenail one's feet'). No alternate candidates for the meaning 'nail' are, however, known throughout the entire period.
Schuessler 1987: 800. Cf.: ʔraŋ ʔraŋ braːk wʰǝn {英英白雲} "bright are the white clouds" [Shijing 229, 2]. This is clearly the original word for 'cloud', not only because of the confirming contexts, but also because of the archaic form of the pictographic character (originally written as simply 云).
HYDCD XI: 632. Cf.: tʰiːn lu nan caːk wʰǝn {天油然作雲} "Heaven produces dense clouds" [Mencius 1, 6]. No serious competition for this word in any Classical Chinese monuments.
DEHCD 1985: 1181; HYDCD XI: 632. Also exists as a bisyllabic compound: yün2-cʰai3 {雲彩}, literally 'cloud-variegation', but more often used in the original monosyllabic form.
Schuessler 1987: 222. This is the most frequent and seemingly neutral adjective expressing the basic meaning 'cold' in Early Zhou. Several other quasi-synonyms, such as rʰat {冽} [ibid.: 384] or 淒 sʰǝːy [ibid.: 467], are met only occasionally in poetic literature and are likely to represent marked high-style equivalents.
HYDCD III: 1542. Cf.: sw̥aç gaːn {歲寒} "the year is (becomes) cold" [Lunyu 9, 28]. Also frequently encountered in the nominal function (e. g. in combinations with krǝy {飢} 'hunger'), and occasionally in the figurative meaning 'cold' (illness) [Mencius]. Typically antonymous to ŋet {熱} 'hot' q.v.
HYDCD II: 401. Cf.: xip lǎ˞iŋ ʰʰi̯î w̃ü ʔi̯ek {吸冷氣無益} "to breathe in cold air will be of no use" [Linji-lu 88]. The old word ɣɑn {寒} is only met once in Linji-lu, within the idiomatic expression ɣɑn zi̯üŋ {寒松} "winter pine" [Linji-lu 143], indicating that it must have already switched to the more modern usage in the meaning 'seasonal cold', 'wintertime'.
DEHCD 1985: 2480; HYDCD II: 401. The compound form han2-lɤŋ3 {寒冷}, combining the "old" term for 'cold' with the "new" one, is rarely used in colloquial speech.
HYDCD I: 1296. Cf.: ŋʰǎːy cʰi̯ǎ wǎŋ kēnh, Lǝy-cǝ̌ pǝ rǝː {我且往見, 夷子不來} "I will go see (him), Master Yi will not come (to me)" [Mencius 5, 5] (one of numerous examples that illustrate fairly well the basic opposition between rǝː {來} 'come' and wǎŋ {往} 'go' q.v. in Classical Chinese).
Schuessler 1987: 578. The most basic equivalent for 'die' since Shang; we do not list the numerous euphemisms and stylistic variations here due to their irrelevance.
HYDCD V: 146. Cf.: nin tǝ caŋ sǐy, gǝ ŋan lʰi̯ǎy dǎn {人之將死, 其言也善} "when someone is going to die, his speech is good" [Lunyu 8, 4]. Although an elaborate hierarchical system of polite equivalents for the meaning 'to die' existed throughout Classical Chinese (e. g. pǝːŋ {崩} 'to die' (of a ruler), literally 'to collapse'; sm̥ǝːŋ {薨} 'to die' (of a prince), etc.), the most basic and neutral term has always been sǐy (its usage may be markedly impolite/rude only next to official titles; a simple nin sǐy {人死} is not to be interpreted as 'someone kicked the bucket', etc., but merely as 'someone has died').
DEHCD 1985: 2375; HYDCD V: 146. The composite synonym sɨ3-waŋ2 {死亡} (literally 'to die-disappear') is also listed in [DEHCD 1985], but it is a "formal" term, not really used in colloquial speech.
Schuessler 1987: 500. A few other words are found denoting different kinds of dogs, e. g. mroːŋ {ʰʡ} 'shaggy dog' [ibid.: 403], but kʰʷiːnʔ is clearly the basic term, well attested already in Shang inscriptions.
HYDCD V: 1. Cf.: hlǎː preːwh tǝ kʰu̯aːk lu kʰu̯ǐːn laŋ tǝ kʰu̯aːk {虎豹之鞹猶犬羊之鞹} "the hide of a tiger or leopard is like the hide of a dog or sheep" [Lunyu 12, 8]; kʰu̯ǐːn tǝ seŋh lu ŋwǝ tǝ seŋh {犬之�撋Sдǯдзйʰ} "the nature of a dog is like the nature of a cow" [Mencius 11, 3]. The semantic relationship between kʰu̯ǐːn 'dog' and kǒː {狗} id. [HYDCD V: 36] in Classical Chinese is a very complex one. Broadly speaking, there took place a gradual replacement process of the former by the latter: Early Zhou Chinese has no evidence whatsoever for kǒː, whereas in Hàn-era texts kǒː has quite firmly replaced kʰu̯ǐːn as the main equivalent for 'dog' (although kʰu̯ǐːn still remains in frequent use). The problem is in establishing the more exact chronology and character of the replacement. In Lunyu, there are 2 attestations for kʰu̯ǐːn and none for kǒː. In Mencius, there are already 4 cases of kǒː vs. 6 cases of kʰu̯ǐːn, and it may be seen that kʰu̯ǐːn is more willingly employed within the idiom kʰu̯ǐːn mrǎː {犬馬} 'dogs and horses' (i. e. domestic animals used for hunting), whereas kǒː is more often listed alongside other ƛʰuk {畜} 'domestic animals' such as 'chickens' and 'pigs'; this suggests the original introduction of kǒː to specifically denote dogs bred for meat rather than hunting dogs-kʰu̯ǐːn. Of significant importance is one of Hui Shi's famous paradoxes: kǒː pǝy kʰu̯ǐːn {狗非犬} "a dog-kǒː is not a dog-kʰu̯ǐːn" [Zhuangzi 3, 11, 7], which, since it is a paradox, should suggest that normally, a kǒː is a subspecies of kʰu̯ǐːn (not vice versa, analogous to the even more famous "a white horse is not a horse"). This context may have given rise to the occasional lexicographic interpretation of kǒː as 'puppy' (along with an ambiguous entry in the Erya), but such an interpretation is not really supported by any contexts at all (including Zhuangzi itself, where kǒː quite explicitly and frequently refers to grown-up dogs). Since our list is targeted at Early Classical Chinese rather than Late Classical (3rd to 1st centuries B.C.), we prefer to include kʰu̯ǐːn as the principal entry and place the definitive replacement of it by kǒː (originally 'a special breed of dog', possibly for eating) around the 3rd century.
Late Middle Chinese:
Not attested in the text of Linji-lu. The colloquial term for 'dog' in Middle Chinese, in all likelihood, was kɤ̂w {狗} [HYDCD V: 36].
DEHCD 1985: 2119; HYDCD V: 36. The old word ɕʰü̯an3 {犬}, despite being mentioned as one of the equivalents for 'dog' in [DEHCD 1985], is not in use in colloquial speech.
HYDCD XII: 504. Cf.: haŋ nin ʔǝ̌m cǝ̌w {鄉人飲酒} "the villagers were drinking wine" [Lunyu 10, 10]. Passim in all Classical Chinese texts.
Late Middle Chinese:
Not attested in the text of Linji-lu. In one context, the idiomatic expression "to drink tea" is rendered as kʰiek ɖa˞ {喫茶}, literally "to eat tea"; however, this single context is hardly sufficient to suppose that the dialect of Linji-lu did not distinguish between 'eat' and 'drink' (this distinction is normally characteristic of most forms of Chinese), so we prefer to leave the slot empty.
Schuessler 1987: 187. Slightly dubious, since there are no truly diagnostic contexts for this word in Early Zhou (e. g. 'dry clothes', 'dry surface', etc.); most of the time it is encountered in the meaning 'dried (of food, meat)', e. g. gʰar nʰuk {乾肉} 'dried meat' [Yijing 21, 5], gʰar goː {乾餱} 'dried provisions' [Shijing 165, 5]. Quasi-synonyms may include grat {竭} 'to dry up' [Schuessler 1987: 310] and hǝy {晞} 'to dry in the sun' [Schuessler 1987: 654]. Still, the combination of internal and external factors speaks in favor of gʰar as the default word for 'dry' in Early Zhou.
HYDCD I: 784. As in Early Zhou, diagnostic contexts conveying the required meaning 'dry' = 'devoid of extra moisture' (rather than 'dried, withered' = 'devoid of regular moisture') are very hard to come by; they are completely absent in either Lunyu or Mencius, but cf.: paŋ caŋ pʰay pat nǝ gʰan {方將被髮而乾} "(he was) just going to spread out his hair to dry" [Zhuangzi, 2, 14, 4]. Ineligible pseudo-synonyms include kʰǎːw {槁} 'dry, withered' (of plants), saːwh {燥} 'dry, scorched' (of earth, weather, as if by fire), gaːk {涸} 'dried up' (of a body of water) and quite a few other, much more rare, words.
HYDCD I: 784. Highly dubious. Within the text of Linji-lu, attested only once in the idiomatic expression kɑn ʂǐ gi̯u̯ǝt {乾屎橛} "wooden bar for maintaining personal hygiene", literally "shit-drying wood-piece" (not only is the whole compound of an idiomatic nature, but even the literal meaning of the word is that of an active verb rather than the required adjectival use). On the other hand, there is no direct or indirect evidence for any other word functioning as the default equivalent for 'dry' in Middle Chinese. We tentatively accept kɑn into the wordlist.
DEHCD 1985: 2227; HYDCD I: 784. The word exists both on its own and as part of various compounds with slight semantic differences, e. g. kan1-cao4 {乾燥} (of dried up / withered objects), kan1-pa1 {乾巴} (the second component is desemanticized), etc.
HYDCD VIII: 646. Cf.: ʒɤ̌y ŋǎ˞n wi̯et kîen, ʒɤ̌y ɲɨ̌ wi̯et w̃ün, ʒɤ̌y bi̯î wi̯et xi̯aŋ {在眼曰見, 在耳曰聞, 在鼻嗅香} "in the eyes they (= the Dharmas) are called 'seeing', in the ears they are called 'hearing', in the nose they are called 'smelling'" [Linji-lu 31].
DEHCD 1985: 2413; HYDCD VIII: 647. Literally: 'ear-bunch'. Attested as a bisyllabic compound from the IXth century onwards. The monosyllabic ɑɻ3 {耳} is still used as part of idiomatic expressions.
Schuessler 1987: 617. Cf.: nʰaʔ bʰreŋ tuyʔ tʰaːʔ {汝平水土} [Shangshu 2, 28] as an example of the word being used in the meaning 'earth (as substance)' rather than the more commonly encountered 'land' (geographical term); the use of the same word to denote one of the "five elements" must also be fairly archaic. Secondary synonym: Łʰays {地} [Schuessler 1987: 121-122]; used much more sparingly and nearly always in the meaning 'ground, earth (as surface)', e. g. sʰimʔ tǝ Łʰays {寢之地} 'put her to sleep on the ground' [Shijing 189, 9].
HYDCD II: 979. Cf.: ma srǝ̌ tʰǎː sʰǝn pra {無使土親膚} "do not let the earth get near the skin" [Mencius 4, 16] (said of placing deceased people in coffins). Just as in Early Zhou Chinese, the quasi-synonym Łʰayh {地} is generally used in the meaning 'ground (surface)' rather than 'earth (substance)'. The compound form tʰǎː Łʰayh {土地}, well preserved up to modern times, is already attested quite frequently in Mencius and other Classical Chinese monuments, usually in the meaning of 'territory' (of a state).
HYDCD II: 1016. Cf.: bǐ dî ʆu̯ǐ xu̯ɑ̌ püŋ {被地水火風} "you suffer earth, water, fire, and wind" [Linji-lu 44]. Note the use of dî as the main word to indicate 'earth' as a substance, an important change from Old Chinese. Throughout Linji-lu, the old word tʰǒ {土} is almost always encountered only within the compound form ku̯ɤk tʰǒ {國土} "territory (of state)".
DEHCD 1985: 624; HYDCD II: 979. In Modern Chinese, the morpheme tʰu3 {土} generally denotes 'earth' as 'substance' (the required list meaning), whereas ti4 {地} is generally 'earth' as 'surface', 'land'. The compound form tʰu3-ti4 {土地} is used quite frequently as well, but hardly ever in such contexts as 'to scoop up some earth (in the hand)', etc. Cf. the example in [DEHCD 1985]: yòng tǔ bǎ kéng tián píng {用土把坑填平} "to fill the pit with earth". Because of this, we postulate no lexical shift from the Old Chinese state.
HYDCD XII: 477. Cf.: ku̯ǝn cǝ̌ lǝk ma gu prǔː {君子食無求飽} "when the noble person eats, he does not seek satiation" [Lunyu 1, 14]. Numerous stylistically marked synonyms are attested during the epoch, but lǝk is clearly the most frequent and neutral equivalent.
HYDCD III: 401. Cf.: ʔi̯it ɲit kʰiek tɑ ʂew {一日喫多少} "how much do they eat per one day?" [Linji-lu 91]. Although the archaic verb ʐik {食} is occasionally encountered in the text (mostly in bound expressions or quotations), kʰiek is clearly the one that is both the most statistically frequent and neutral equivalent.
HYDCD II: 527. Not attested in early Confucian documents, but amply attested in various other Classical Chinese texts; in any case, no other candidate for 'egg' is known from this period.
DEHCD 1985: 2623; HYDCD VIII: 885. Literally: 'hen-ball' (蛋 is a late graphic variant of earlier 彈 tan4 'ball; pill; bullet'). This is the most frequent word to denote the most usual type of eggs (hen's eggs) today. The initial morpheme may be substituted by names of other birds if necessary (e. g. ya1=tan4 {鴨蛋} 'duck egg'). The old word lu̯an3 {卵} is still in use, but it is a more formal term, designating "marked" types of eggs (e. g. 'ovule', 'fish roe', etc.), and is hardly eligible for inclusion.
HYDCD VII: 1209. Cf.: nɑ̌ kɑ̂ ᶚǐ êŋ ŋǎ˞n {那箇是正眼} "which one is the genuine eye?" [Linji-lu 12]. This is undoubtedly the main basic equivalent for 'eye' in Linji-lu; the older equivalent mük {目} is almost exclusively used in the bound expression mük-ʒien {目前} 'current, present' (literally "before the eyes").
DEHCD 1985: 335; HYDCD VII: 1218. Literally (and historically) a compound: yän3 'eye' + ɕiŋ1 'eye-ball'. The compound form is attested already in the Táng epoch (VII-IXth centuries), but becomes the default equivalent for 'eye' somewhat later.
Schuessler 1987: 829. Cf.: ɕeɕ kiy {祭脂} 'we sacrifice fat' [Shijing 245, 7]; pra na ŋǝŋ kiy {膚如凝脂} '(her) skin is like congealed fat' [Shijing 57, 2]. A very close synonym is available in kaːw {膏} [Schuessler 1987: 190], although in Early Zhou it is mostly attested in secondary usage, e. g. 'glossy (as if with fat)' (adjectival), 'to smear (with fat)' (verbal), etc. There is no reason, nevertheless, to deny the word an original nominal meaning, and the primary semantic difference between these two quasi-synonyms remains unclear. (The Shuowen jiezi explains kiy as 'fat of horned cattle' and kaːw as 'fat of hornless cattle', but this is not supported by actual textual usage). It is advisable to choose kiy as the primary entry for historical reasons (the morpheme still functions as the main designation of 'fat' in the modern language, unlike kaːw), but on the synchronic level, both words have to be treated as synonyms.
Classical Chinese:kiy {脂}1
HYDCD VI: 1248. As in Early Zhou, the difference between kiy {脂} and kaːw {膏} [HYDCD VI: 1361] is quite obscure, even though both types of 'fat' are even opposed to each other in certain texts (e. g. the Huangdi neijing, in which both are depicted as elements of the human body). One possible line of demarcation could be kiy 'solid fat' vs. kaːw 'liquid (thin?) fat', but there is no truly firm textual evidence for this. We treat both words as synonyms.
DEHCD 1985: 504; HYDCD VII: 1249. This compound form is attested in texts since at least the Jìn dynasty (III-Vth centuries), but becomes the regular colloquial equivalent for the word 'fat' only in Modern Chinese. However, the main root morpheme ɨ1- remains the same as in Old Chinese.
Schuessler 1987: 781. Schuessler translates the word as 'plumes, wings, feathers', and there are no distinctive contexts in Early Zhou Chinese that allow to choose the meaning 'feather' over the meaning 'wing'. However, the meaning 'wing', for a variety of reasons, is better applicable to Łǝk {翼} [Schuessler 1987: 745], which leaves w(r)aʔ as the best available candidate for 'feather'.
DEHCD 1985: 1434; HYDCD IX: 636. Literally: 'feather-(body) hair'. The compound has a collective meaning; to denote a singular feather, the simple yü3 {羽} may still be used (e. g. bái yǔ {白羽} 'feather', etc.).
DEHCD 1985: 1221; HYDCD VII: 1. In some contexts, the expanded compound form hu̯o3-yän4 {火焰} ('fire-flame') may be used instead, but in most contexts, the simple monosyllabic hu̯o3 is sufficient.
Schuessler 1987: 158. Cf.: wʰǝʔ tiːwʔ kaːw pǝy {有鳥高飛} 'there is a bird flying high' [Shijing 224, 3]. The word was originally written by the simple character 非 (symbolic depiction of a bird's wings?), later borrowed to transcribe the homonymous pǝy 'not to be'.
HYDCD XII: 689. Within early Confucian documents attested only in a few idiomatic expressions, e. g. pǝy tíːw {飛鳥} "flying bird", but the word is clearly the basic equivalent for 'to fly' in all of Classical Chinese.
DEHCD 1985: 881; HYDCD XII: 689. Various specific compounds with semantically close meanings also exist, but all of them have fei1 {飛} as the main morpheme (e. g. fei1-ʆiŋ2 {飛行}, literally 'fly-move', etc.).
Jian'ou Chinese:üɛ2 {虎+風}2
Li 1998: 93. Transcribed in the dictionary with the complex character {虎風}, indicating unclear etymology.
Schuessler 1987: 835. Written without the radical (simply as 之), attested already in Shang inscriptions (the original form of the character depicts a foot; the same character with an added horizontal stroke, i. e. 'earth', corresponds to the later shape 止, transcribing a homophonous tǝʔ 'to stop'). The fact that this is the default Early Zhou word for 'foot' (lower part of leg) is established mostly through the graphical shape (in texts it is also applicable to hooves of animals, cf. rǝn tǝ tǝʔ {麟之趾} 'the feet (= hooves) of the unicorn' [Shijing 11, 1]), as opposed to ɕok {足} 'leg', the character for which depicts a full leg in Shang times. There are no Early Zhou contexts whatsoever to suggest that the opposition between these two words began to be neutralized earlier than the Classic period.
HYDCD X: 423. Cf.: pǝ tre cok nǝ way kroh {不知足而為屨} "he does not know (the size) of feet, yet makes sandals" [Mencius 11, 7]. The word is quite clearly the default designation for either 'foot' or 'leg + foot' in all of Classical Chinese, opposed to ƛʰǔ {手} 'hand'. Only towards the 3rd-2nd centuries B.C. does the word in question become gradually replaced by kak {腳} [HYDCD VI: 1271], originally, perhaps, a jargonism of "Austric" origin (cf., e. g., Malayo-Polynesian *kakiʕ 'foot', or similar forms in Thai-Kadai languages /Ong-Be kok, etc./, usually understood as borrowings from Chinese but quite possibly vice versa). Early Zhou Chinese tǝ̌ {趾} 'foot' is, with sufficient reliability, assumed to mean 'toes' in Classical Chinese.
DEHCD 1985: 1154; HYDCD VI: 1271. The word is quite different from tʰu̯ei3 {腿} 'leg' [DEHCD 1985: 1154]. The old word cu2 {足} is only found in bound idiomatic expressions.
HYDCD VII: 1417. In the early Confucian documents, the word is more frequently attested in the function of the transitive verb 'to fill', cf.: Mǝːk Łeːu̯k tǝ ŋan leŋ tʰiːn gʰrǎː {墨翟之言盈天下} "the words of Mo Di fill the space under Heaven" [Mencius 6, 14], but occasional adjectival usage is encountered as well, cf. hla nǝ way leŋ {虛而為盈} "empty and yet is made full" [Lunyu 7, 26]. Already in Zhuangzi (but not in the Daodejing, where leŋ dominates completely), the word is found in serious competition with mǎːn {滿} [HYDCD VI: 56] (formerly 'to fill up, overflow', of liquids, judging by the shape of the character), and it is almost impossible to distinguish between the two. The process of "archaization" of leŋ must have been relatively slow, since it is still found quite frequently in Hàn-era texts. Since the early Confucian texts give no hints whatsoever on the use of mǎːn in the meaning 'full', we do not include it in the calculations for Classical Chinese.
Schuessler 1987: 26, 780. Of the many verbs that denote the idea of transferring objects from one person to another (frequently with well-established specific meanings like Łǝ {貽} 'bestow, donate' or slʰeh {賜} 'to present (to an inferior)', etc.), two have the most frequent and most "neutral" distribution: piɕ {畀} and laʔ {予}. Any hypotheses about the semantic difference between the two would amount to no more than speculations, as in some texts they almost seem to be interchangeable; cf. gʰa:y lǝʔ piɕ tǝ {何以畀之} 'what shall I give him?' [Shijing 53, 1] vs. gʰa:y lǝʔ laʔ tǝ {何以予之} id. [Shijing 53, 2] (two different verses of the same poem). Considering that piɕ ceases to function as an active word in the Classic period, this may be a case of "transit-synonimity", but there are no real chronological arguments to prove it.
HYDCD II: 159. Cf.: lǎ tǝ bǎ {與之釜} "give him a cauldron" [Lunyu 6, 4]. Depending on the text in question, the word is alternately spelt either as {予} (the "older" variant) or {與} (the "newer" variant), but the readings are always the same. Early Zhou Chinese piɕ {畀} is generally only met as an archaism, in quotations or ancient idioms.
HYDCD II: 159. Cf.: yǚ ŋɑ̌ ku̯ɑ̂ bo du̯ɑn lɤy, ŋa˞ bi̯ên ku̯ɑ̂ bo du̯ɑn yǚ cʰi̯wî w̃i {與我過蒲團來, 牙便過蒲團與翠微} "'Pass me the reed mat here!' - Ya passed the reed mat to Cui-wei" [Linji-lu 117]. In this example, yǚ is the neutral verb that designates the act of giving, whereas ku̯ɑ̂ {過} indicates the more specialized idea of 'passing smth. (from one location to another)'.
DEHCD 1985: 385; HYDCD IX: 824. The colloquial Beijing reading kei3 is irregular and reflects some kind of dialectal influence. With the "literary" regular reading ɕi3 (< Middle Chinese *kip), the word is attested already in Old Chinese with the meaning 'to provide, furnish'; semantic shift to the more neutral/basic 'give' begins some time after the Middle Chinese epoch. [DEHCD 1985] and other sources also list many compound expressions, denoting the various semantic "nuances" of the meaning; since most of them include kei3 as a component, it is not necessary to list them here.
Schuessler 1987: 225. A very close quasi-synonym is raŋ {良} [Schuessler 1987: 379]; both words are commonly translated as 'good' and sometimes seem to be interchangeable. However, analysis of Early Zhou contexts shows that raŋ is almost exclusively (with but one or two exceptions) applied to people or horses, whereas huːʔ has, from the very beginning, had a much wider sphere of application, including inanimate objects, situations, etc.; conversely, in a context like nin ma raŋ {人無良} 'the man does not have goodness', huːʔ can never replace raŋ. It is likely, therefore, that the broad meaning 'good, positive' that interests us was expressed by huːʔ, whereas raŋ carried the more limited semantics of 'good-spirited, kind' (of animals and people).
HYDCD III: 439. Applied to people (most frequently), but also to general circumstances; quite often used all by itself (as an exclamation - "Good!"). Curiously, the character 好 throughout most of the Classical Chinese period is most often employed to transcribe the derived verbal stem huː-h 'to love' rather than the original adjectival stem hǔː 'good' (as in Early Zhou Chinese); the latter cannot by any means pretend to denote the basic qualitative predicate '(to be) good' in any of the early Confucian texts or, in fact, in any of Classical Chinese up at least to the Hàn period. Thus, it is a rare (but not unique) isogloss that places Early Zhou Chinese closer to post-Classical language than to the Classical epoch.
DEHCD 1985: 2483; HYDCD IV: 281. Cf. also the compound expression li̯aŋ2=hao3 {良好} (see notes on Early Zhou Chinese for the original meaning of li̯aŋ2), used in specific contexts that are not as frequent as the ones with the simple monosyllabic hao3.
Schuessler 1987: 490. There are several words denoting the color spectrum from 'blue' to 'green' in Early Zhou Chinese, with practically no hope of establishing their exact semantic equivalents. The word sʰeːŋ is found applied to several plants, including generic "leaves" (gǝ lʰap sʰeːŋ sʰeːŋ {其葉青青} 'its (the flower's) leaves are green'), as well as (in one context) "green flies" (sʰeːŋ lǝŋ {青蠅}). This, as well as the word's statistical frequency in Classical Chinese, would suggest using it as the primary choice. The most obvious secondary synonyms include: (a) roːk {綠} [Schuessler 1987: 398], although of the several objects defined by this adjective in Early Zhou, the only "typically green" one is bamboo (rok truk {綠竹}); (b) sʰaːŋ {蒼} 'blue, green' [Schuessler 1987: 54], a word that can define both 'Heaven' ('blue') and 'reeds' ('green'?); however, it is much more rare statistically and more dubious semantically (at the very least, 'Heaven' is definitely not 'green').
HYDCD XI: 515. Although the word is not attested in the early Confucian documents, it is statistically the most frequent equivalent for the entire 'blue / green' spectrum in all of Classical Chinese. The word roːk {綠} [HYDCD IX: 914] is, on the whole, encountered about ten times less frequently. This is an important argument for positioning sʰeːŋ as the default equivalent for 'green' and roːk as the marked one (e. g. 'light green'). Also, it is always sʰeːŋ, not roːk, which functions as one of several "basic" colors in all the listings (along with braːk {白} 'white', gʰu̯aːŋ {黃} 'yellow', etc.).
HYDCD XI: 515. Cf.: pǎ˞ ŋɑ̌ ʈak tǐey ʔi̯i, ɲîn cʰieŋ ɣu̯ɑŋ ʰek ba˞ik {把我著底衣, 認青黃赤白} "he seizes the clothes that I wear, considers them to be green (blue?), yellow, red, white" [Linji-lu 75]. This example shows Middle Chinese cʰieŋ {青} as one of the "basic" colors, along with 'yellow', 'red', and 'white', but there is no certainty as to whether it is truly used here in the meaning 'grass-green' or 'dark blue'. We tentatively accept it as the equivalent for 'green' based on comparative considerations (see notes on Early Zhou and Classical Chinese).
Hashimoto 1976: 82. Difference between se1 and li̯ak7 not specified (the words may refer to different shades of green, as they sometimes do in other dialects).
Schuessler 1987: 152. This is very transparently the main word for 'head hair' (cf.: Ła pat kʰok gok {予髮曲局} 'my hair is tangled' [Shi 226, 1], etc.), as opposed to mʰaːw {毛} 'body hair; (animal) fur'.
HYDCD XII: 733. Cf.: ŋʰaː gǝ pʰay pat {吾其被髮} "we would have to wear our hair unbound" [Lunyu 14, 17]. As in Early Zhou Chinese, this collective word ('head hair') is expressly opposed to mʰaːw {毛} 'body hair; (animal) fur', as well as gaːw {毫} '(a single) hair'.
DEHCD 1985: 213; HYDCD XII: 308. Specifically denotes the hair on the head (with tʰou2 'head' q.v. as the first component of the compound). Distinct from mao2 {毛} or, more rarely, mao2-fa {毛髮} 'hair (in general)'. No lexical replacement from Old Chinese times, since the same morpheme fa serves as the primary bearer of the meaning at all stages.
HYDCD XII: 666. Cf.: ʒit l̥ǔ ciu̯k ʔaːt {疾首蹙頞} "with aching heads, they wrinkle their noses" [Mencius 2, 8]. By early Hàn, the gradual process of replacement of the old word l̥ǔ {首} by the newer equivalent dʰoː {頭} [HYDCD XII: 295] is well under way, although even in Hàn-era texts, statistically, the old word is usually more frequent than the new one (possibly due to its persistence as part of multiple idioms, although this needs to be checked). In any case, the new word is very sporadically, if ever, encountered in pre-3rd century texts, and is completely lacking in the early Confucian documents, so we are fully justified in selecting l̥ǔ as the basic equivalent for this period.
Cf.: ʒɤ̌y ŋǎ˞n wi̯et kîen, ʒɤ̌y ɲɨ̌ wi̯et w̃ün, ʒɤ̌y bi̯î wi̯et xi̯aŋ {在眼曰見, 在耳曰聞, 在鼻嗅香} "in the eyes they (= the Dharmas) are called 'seeing', in the ears they are called 'hearing', in the nose they are called 'smelling'" [Linji-lu 31].
DEHCD 1985: 2101; HYDCD VIII: 714. The monosyllabic verb tʰiŋ1 {聽} is more generally used in the meaning 'to listen'; its bisyllabic extension (literally: 'listen-see') more closely corresponds to the meaning 'to hear'. There are, however, overlaps in usage between the two. The main morpheme is the same in both cases.
Schuessler 1987: 683. The word is not found at all in the physical meaning 'heart (body organ)' during Early Zhou; the only factual evidence that it did have this meaning is the graphic shape of the character (the fact that it is attested in such a meaning during later periods has little, if any, significance, since the semantic development 'soul, mind, feelings > heart (organ)' is typologically normal). There are, however, no other candidates for this meaning.
HYDCD VII: 369. As in Early Zhou, the word is encountered very frequently, but mostly in the figurative meaning ('heart' as 'soul', 'mind', 'character' etc.). Nevertheless, usage in the physical meaning of 'body organ' is common for ritual texts that may be somewhat younger than the early Confucian documents, but may incorporate older usage: cf. the expression ceɕ sǝm {祭心} "sacrifice the heart" as parallel to ceɕ kaːn {祭肝} "sacrifice the liver" and ceɕ pʰaɕ {祭肺} "sacrifice the lungs" in [Li ji 14, 28].
HYDCD VII: 369. No occurrences in the explicit meaning 'heart (= body organ)' are attested in [Linji-lu], but, as is often the case, the word is highly frequent in the abstract meaning 'heart, mind, soul, conscience' etc. It is most likely that the anatomical meaning was also expressed by the same word or, at least, a compound like the modern {心臟}, since no variety of Chinese has ever demonstrated any other etymological root for the term.
DEHCD 1985: 2046; HYDCD VII: 394. The bisyllabic expression is used to denote 'heart' as an anatomic organ; in most colloquial situations, where 'heart' is used in a figurative meaning, the monosyllabic ʆin1 {心} is freely used instead.
Schuessler 1987: 303. Attested many times in Early Zhou monuments; archaic nature of the word is also seen from the simple pictogram denoting it. Clearly distinguished from kʷraːŋ {觥} 'drinking horn' or, rather, 'horn-shaped vessel' [Schuessler 1987: 199].
HYDCD X: 1345. In early Confucian moments the word is only encountered once in the verbal meaning 'to be horned' [Lunyu 6, 6], but it is quite clearly the only general term for this meaning throughout Classical Chinese.
Schuessler 1987: 644. All attempts to properly define the difference between Early Zhou ŋʰaːyʔ and Ła 'I' have failed so far. The most plausible hypothesis is that the original distinction was based around number (in Shang inscriptions, at least, ŋʰaːyʔ seems to be almost exclusively plural; this, however, may be a statistical distortion based on the formulaic nature of the texts involved), with the original plural form 'we' frequently employed instead of the singular form. It is, however, more speculative than firmly grounded in actual evidence. There are also numerous secondary graphic and phonetic variants of these pronouns, all of them listed in [Schuessler 1987]: (a) Łʰǝŋʔ {朕} (already in Shang inscriptions and onwards) and Łǝ {台} (a few times in the Shangshu), probably related to Ła; (b) ŋaːŋ {卬} and ŋan {言} (a few times in the Shijing and the Shangshu), related to ŋʰaːyʔ.
HYDCD III: 200; V: 211. The variant ŋʰaː {吾}, although phonetically "simpler" than ŋʰǎːy {我}, is not attested in Shang or Early Zhou Chinese and only gradually works its way into Late Zhou epigraphic monuments. In the literary documents, however, ŋʰaː is already as common as ŋʰǎːy. Details of usage depend significantly on dialectal and orthographic characteristics of the particular texts; the general tendency, however, is to use ŋʰaː in the position of subject ('I, we') or attribute ('my, our'), but never as object ('me, us'). This suggests the interpretation that ŋʰǎːy is the original "tonic" form, whereas ŋʰaː is a "reduced" (perhaps even "clitical" variant). From a lexicostatistical point of view, the exact difference does not matter, since both lexemes obviously contain the same original root. Secondary synonym: Ła {予} [HYDCD I: 768] 'I, we' should not be taken as an "active" word for the Classical period. Cf. statistics for usage in "Lunyu": 113 cases of ŋʰaː, 53 cases of ŋʰǎːy, 28 cases of Ła, etc. By the time of Confucius, Ła quite clearly functions as a special high-style archaic expression, most frequently used in quotations from the Early Zhou period or cases of intentional stylization. This does not mean that the word was necessarily "extinct" in all dialects: it is much more frequent in some of the "Southern" texts (e. g. Zhuangzi), but, since this wordlist is oriented primarily at the language of early Confucian texts, the word should be excluded from the calculations.
HYDCD III: 200. Used passim in Linji-lu. A few instances of ŋo {吾} are also attested; they are, however, much more sporadic (according to the calculations of I. Gurevich, 60 occasions of ŋɑ̌ contrast with but 8 occurrences of ŋo), and, in any case, etymologically both words represent the same root. The use of the word mɤ̌w-ka˞p {某甲} to denote the 1st person is also attested, but this seems to be a specific usage (the primary meaning of the word is 'someone, so-and-so').
Schuessler 1987: 777. The spelling 余 is generally typical of Shang and Zhou epigraphic inscriptions; the spelling 予 is more characteristic of the canonized orthography of the literary monuments.
Schuessler 1987: 523. Although many stylistic synonyms and euphemisms for the notion of 'kill' are attested even in the Early Zhou period, sraːt is clearly the most statistically frequent and stylistically neutral designation of the process; it also takes both people (sraːt nin {殺人} 'kill people' [Shangshu 29, 10]) and animals (sraːt kaːw laŋ {殺羔羊} 'kill lambs and sheep' [Shijing 154, 8]) as its object, which further confirms the point.
HYDCD VI: 1487. Encountered passim in nearly all of Classical Chinese documents. Several stylistically marked synonyms are also encountered (e. g. ƛǝk {弒} 'to slay' /a high-ranking person/), but none of them are eligible for inclusion on the list.
DEHCD 1985: 2337; HYDCD VI: 1487. Other bisyllabic equivalents in the same meaning are possible as well, e. g. ʂa1-hai4 {殺害} (literally 'kill-harm'), etc. In some contexts, the morpheme ʂa1 disappears and is replaced by ta3 {打} 'to hit', e. g. yòng bù qiāng dǎ sǐ gǒu xióng {用步槍打死狗熊} "to kill a bear with a rifle". It is possible to view ta3-sɨ3 {打死} as a new synonym that is gradually beginning to replace the older lexeme; nevertheless, ʂa1 and its derivatives are still widespread in modern colloquial Chinese.
Li 1988: 87. Attested only in compound formations, e.g. suɛ5-tʰe3 {殺頭} 'to behead'.
Wenchang Hainanese:hai22
Hashimoto 1976: 81. Graphically transcribed as {台+刀} in the source. Possibly the same as Classical Chinese 抬 ~ 笞 chī 'to beat, to thrash (with bamboo sticks, etc.)'.
HYDCD VI: 1367. Not attested in early Confucian monuments, but no other word for 'knee' is encountered in any of them, either, so it can be relatively safely assumed that this is the main word for 'knee' in Classical Chinese (overall, attested quite reliably in pre-Hàn era texts). Cf.: cinh nin nak caŋ kraːy ta sit {進人若將加諸膝} "they promote people as if they wanted to put them down on their knees" [Li ji 4, 156].
DEHCD 1985: 779; HYDCD VI: 1368. Literally: 'knee-cover'. First attested as a compound in Míng-era texts. The main morpheme denoting 'knee' remains the same as in Old Chinese.
Schuessler 1987: 828. This is a very frequent and common equivalent for 'know' in all the literary monuments, but, inexplicably, contexts with this word are extremely rare in Zhou epigraphics, and when they do occur, the graphic shape of the character is usually identified as 智, which in literary monuments normally transcribes the nominal derivate tre-s 'knowledge, wisdom' [Schuessler 1987: 839].
DEHCD 1985: 632. Literally: 'to know the way'. Attested in this composite meaning, both literally (= 'to know the road') and figuratively (= 'to know the right thing to do'), already in Classical Chinese; the transformation of this VP into a compound verb dates to much later times (probably not earlier than Ming dynasty). From a lexicostatistical point of view this does not matter, since the newer compound retains the same principal root morpheme.
Li 1998: 71. Literally: 'get-know'. Cf. also nɛiŋ4-tɛ5-ti̯ɔ4 {認得覂} 'to know (smbd.), be acquainted with' in [Li 1998: 231]. Different equivalent listed in [Huang 1958: 290]: xau2-tɛ4 {曉得}.
Wenchang Hainanese:tai12
Hashimoto 1976: 81. Etymology unclear. Graphically transcribed as {目+戠} in the source, but hardly cognate with Classical Chinese 識 shì (Old Chinese *tǝk) 'to be acquainted with, to know smth.'
HYDCD XI: 421. Cf.: cǔŋ ʂik ʔi̯i lɤy ʰǚ {總識伊來處} "(I) always know the place from which he comes" [Linji-lu 20]. This verb is encountered in the meaning 'to know' all over the text of Linji-lu, almost as frequently as the more archaic ʈi; they are also regularly found together in a single compound, ʈi-ʂik {知識}. The difference between the two is not trivial and requires additional investigation. For the moment, we treat both forms as synonymous.
Schuessler 1987: 724. Polysemy: 'leaf / generation'. Originally written as simply 世, a character later reserved for the derivate s=laɕ (< *s=lap-s) 'generation, epoch, age' [Schuessler 1987: 551].
HYDCD IX: 455. This is the only frequent and neutral equivalent for 'leaf' in all of Classical Chinese, even if the word itself is not found in early Confucian texts.
DEHCD 1985: 889; HYDCD IX: 455. In some contexts, including idiomatic bound ones, the word may still be used in the monosyllabic shape ye4 {葉}, without the nominal suffix -cɨ.
Hashimoto 1976: 80. The first morpheme is 'tree' q.v.
NUMBER:47
WORD:lie
Early Zhou Chinese:
Unclear; at least several equivalents for the stative meaning 'to lie' are possible, but not a single one is directly attested in this meaning: (a) bǝk {伏} [Schuessler 1987: 170] can be clearly interpreted as 'to lie down' (dynamic action), but there are no clear examples in which it is denoting a state; (b) sʰimʔ {寢} [Schuessler 1987: 489] should rather be understood as 'lie down to sleep' than merely denoting the occupation of a horizontal position. (Cf. [Shijing 189], where in one verse this predicate is in direct opposition to hǝŋ {興} 'to rise, stand up' /dynamic/, and in two others forms a causative: sʰimʔ tǝ ʓraŋ {寢之床} "lay him (= put him to sleep) on the bed", sʰimʔ tǝ Łʰayh {寢之地} "lay her (= put her to sleep) on the ground").
Classical Chinese:
Unclear. Very few, if any, contexts in Classical Chinese unequivocally allow to extract the desired stative meaning 'to lie'. The two main words that could somehow pretend to this function are (a) sʰǐm {寢} [HYDCD III: 1604] and (b) ŋʰu̯aːyh {臥} [HYDCD VIII: 722]. However, the former, in those contexts that are unambiguous, is better understood as a dynamic verb: 'to lie down (to sleep)', whereas the latter generally better corresponds to the meaning 'sleep' q.v. than 'lie'. To avoid unnecessary complex speculation, it is better to leave the slot empty for now.
HYDCD VIII: 722. Cf.: ɖaŋ ʒu̯ɑ̌ pǝw ŋu̯ɑ̂ {長坐不臥} "(they) always sit and do not lie (down)" [Linji-lu 82] (said of ascetics). Although the meaning of the verb, both within this and a few other examples, can be defined as dynamic ('to lie down'), there is no evidence that dynamic 'to lie down' and static 'to be lying' were opposed in Middle Chinese.
DEHCD 1985: 875; HYDCD X: 711. A very late colloquial word, appearing in texts in the basic meaning 'to lie' no earlier than mid-Míng (XVIth century). The old morpheme wo4 {臥} mainly remains today as a part of several idiomatic expressions with specialized meanings, e. g. cʰɤ4-wo4 {側臥} 'to lie on one side', etc.
HYDCD VI: 1167. The word is relatively late, not attested in early Confucian texts (first occurrence seems to be in Zhuangzi: ku̯aːɕ nin kaːn nǝ paː tǝ {膾人肝而餔之} "he was mincing people's livers and feeding on them" [Zhuangzi 3, 7, 1]). However, no alternate equivalent for this meaning is known in either earlier or later texts, so the slot can be filled with relative reliability.
DEHCD 1985: 1440; HYDCD VI: 1167. Also encountered as a bisyllabic compound: kan1-caŋ4 {肝臟}, literally 'liver-viscera', where the second component is the same as in the anatomical term for 'heart' q.v.
Not attested, although external parallels clearly suggest that srit {蝨} must have been the main word with this meaning in Early as well as Classical Chinese.
HYDCD VIII: 937. Not attested in early Confucian texts, but the word is the only known equivalent for 'louse' in all known Classical Chinese documents.
Schuessler 1987: 169. Not an entirely secure choice. Obvious competition comes in the form of nǝːm {男} [Schuessler 1987: 436], certainly the default word for the designation of a 'male person' already in the Classic period. However, in Early Zhou, nǝːm is encountered infrequently, most often to denote a specific feudal title ('nan, baron'); more basic usage is generally confined to the noun phrase nǝːm cǝʔ {男子} '(male) son', used to specify the gender of the descendant (and thus opposed to nraʔ cǝʔ {女子} '(female) daughter'. Schuessler also adduces several epigraphic examples in which nǝːm means 'male descendant, son' all by itself and may thus be an abbreviation of nǝːm cǝʔ (e. g. ŋʰaːyʔ gʰoːʔ nǝːm {我後男} 'my (future) male descendants' [1381 Xuan]). On the other hand, pa is statistically far more frequent, and in most contexts, applied to human beings that are male by default (soldiers, farmers, etc.) or expressly meaning 'husband'. It is interesting that in the sole known early literary context in which we encounter the noun phrase pa nin {夫人} [Shangshu 42, 9], it clearly refers to 'man' or 'men', whereas already in the Classic period the term pa-nin is more commonly used to denote the wife, i. e. 'man's person' rather than 'man-person'. All of this speaks in favor of a gradual transition from pa to nǝːm, with pa still functioning as the main word for 'male person' in Early Zhou. Apart from this, cf. also the usage of ʓrǝʔ {士} [Schuessler 1987: 550], glossed by Schuessler as 'male person, man; retainer, servant' and several times attested within the compound ʓrǝʔ nraʔ {士女} 'men and women'. It is dubious, however, that for this word the semantics of 'male (human being)' is primary; it functions much more frequently as a 'social' term, so its referring to 'men' may be simply an example of courteous usage.
HYDCD VII: 1304. This word is not encountered in Lunyu at all; in Mengzi, it is attested several times, always paired with nrǎ {女} 'woman' q.v., cf.: srǝ̌ gǝ cǝ̌ ku̯ǝ̌ nǝːm ʒrǝh tǝ, niɕ nrǎ nrah ʔan {使其子九男事之, 二女女焉} "he (Yao) made his children, nine males, serve him, two females, marry him (Shun)" [Mencius 10, 15]. This begs the question of whether this word, just as it is judged for Early Zhou Chinese, should not be analyzed as 'male'. However, its only possible competition, the word pa {夫}, already in the earliest Classical period texts is clearly employed in a "socially marked" manner, either in the derived meaning 'teacher, master' (usually within the compound pa cǝ̌ {夫子}), or in the meaning "husband" (often within the antonymous pair pa bǝ̌ {夫婦} "husband(s) and wife (wives)". It may be rather safely assumed that, already by the 5th century B.C., the old word for 'man' was more or less replaced by the originally "peripheral" term for 'male'.
DEHCD 1985: 998; HYDCD VII: 1304. The monosyllabic nan2 is still frequently encountered in idiomatic compounds (as well as in the adjectival form nan2-tɨ {男的} 'male'); the autonomous word for 'man (male)' is a compound with ɻen2 'person (human)'.
Li 1998: 185. The second component is neiŋ3 'person' q.v. Different equivalent listed in [Huang 1958: 285]: ti̯ɔŋ7-mu2-nɛiŋ5 {桾嗎藭芑 = Standard Chinese zhàng-fū-rén 'husband'.
Wenchang Hainanese:koŋ2-ɗe13
Hashimoto 1976: 80. The second component is graphically transcribed as 爹 = Standard Chinese (colloquial) diē 'dad, father'. The first morpheme is etymologically obscure.
DEHCD 1985: 973; HYDCD III: 1174. The monosyllabic variant is rarely used by itself in colloquial speech, almost always requiring a second supporting syllable; most frequent variants are ʆü3-tu̯o1 {許多}, where ʆü3 = 'a certain number / quantity' and hen3-tu̯o1 {很多} 'a lot, very much'. The main invariant of all these expressions, however, steadily remains as tu̯o1.
Schuessler 1987: 513. The fact that this is the default word for 'meat' in Early Zhou is only supported by indirect arguments, such as the simple, pictographic nature of the character, its occurrence in a very limited handful of contexts (never in the Shijing or Shangshu), and its inarguable basic status in later periods. Problematically, most of the references to 'meat' in literary and epigraphic texts usually refer to special varieties (e. g. 'sacrificial meat') or preparation styles (e. g. ɕrǝ-s {胾} 'sliced meat' [Schuessler 1987: 865]; paʔ {脯} 'dried meat' [Schuessler 1987: 178]) of the substance.
HYDCD VIII: 1059. Cf.: bruː wʰǝ̌ bǝy nʰuk {庖有肥肉} "in the kitchen there is fat meat" [Mencius 1, 4]. Various words designating different kinds of raw and cooked meat are found in Classical Chinese, but there are no reasons to doubt the traditional understanding of nʰuk as the main neutral word for 'meat' in general.
DEHCD 1985: 903; HYDCD VI: 1130. Literally: 'moon-light' (the compound may have originally denoted the "bright side of the moon"). As a compound, first attested in Táng-era poetry, but basic colloquial usage acknowledged only in the Qíng epoch. The main morpheme remains, however, unchanged since Old Chinese times.
Schuessler 1987: 524. A variety of terms (often stylistically marked) is available to denote various heights, peaks, etc. already in Early Zhou, but sraːn is clearly the most statistically frequent and basic designation of 'mountain' (as is also evidenced by the simple pictographic shape of the character).
HYDCD III: 766. Cf.: kaːh ku̯ǝːk pǝ lǝ̌ sraːn kʰeː tǝ hrǎm {固國不以山谿之險} "to strengthen a state, one does not rely on the impenetrability of mountains and streams" [Mencius 4, 10].
HYDCD III: 1. Cf.: kʰǝ̌y wiy kʰǒː puk wʰǝ̌ krǝy kʰaːt tǝ gʰaːɕ {豈惟口腹有飢渴之害} "is it only the mouth and the belly that suffer from hunger and thirst?" [Mencius 13, 27].
DEHCD 1985: 1970; HYDCD III: 517. The original meaning of this word (initially written with the simpler character 觜) was 'beak'; the semantic transition to 'mouth' is a very late jargonism (apparently, no earlier than the late Qíng period). The old word kʰou3 {口} is still widely used in bound idiomatic expressions, but no longer serves as the main colloquial equivalent for 'mouth'.
Schuessler 1987: 422. In Early Zhou, mostly attested in the verbal meaning ('to name'), but there is no reason to think that the noun 'name' was etymologically different.
HYDCD III: 162. Cf.: taːy tǝk ʔa tǐːw tuh sʰǔː mʰoːk tǝ mʰeŋ {多識於鳥獸草木之名} "it (poetry) contains much information about the names of birds, beasts, and plants" [Lunyu 17, 9].
DEHCD 1985: 679; HYDCD III: 168. A compound: miŋ2 'name (given at birth)' + cɨ4 'cognomen (given upon reaching adulthood)'. It is not quite clear during which particular period the component cɨ4 became desemanticized. The main morpheme miŋ2, however, has remained unchanged since Old Chinese times.
Li 1998: 12 (transcription only). Phrasal examples in [Li 1998: 23] show that this is indeed the basic equivalent for 'name', e.g.: 你名字吼孰事? "'what is your name?".
Schuessler 1987: 388. The word is encountered thrice in the Shijing (in descriptions, respectively, of a woman, horses, and birds) and, although the contexts may be ambiguous on their own, there is little incentive to doubt the traditional analysis as 'neck'. A. Schuessler also gives the nominal meaning 'neck' to the word groːŋ {項} [Schuessler 1987: 675], but it is only encountered once in the Shijing in a clearly verbal position (actually, within the phrase groːŋ rʰeŋʔ 'to stretch the neck'). No other words with the potential meaning of 'neck' are known for this period.
HYDCD XII: 279. Cf.: min krǝːy Łǐn rʰěŋ nǝ maŋh tǝ {民皆引領而望之} "all the people will stretch out their necks and look at him from afar" [Mencius 1, 6]. This is the only unambiguous instance of the word 'neck' in an early Confucian text, but a very indicative one. Later on, the word begins to be gradually replaced in all sorts of texts by groːŋ {項} [HYDCD XII: 229], which can be used either separately or as a compound with rʰěŋ; by the times of early Hàn, the replacement is practically complete. Another occasional synonym is dʰoːh {脰} [HYDCD VI: 1279], always translated as 'neck'; in about 90% of its occurrences in texts, it is used as the object of 'breaking' or 'cutting', implying immediate death, so it is possible that a more exact meaning is something like 'neck vertebra'. In any case, it is a statistically infrequent and contextually bound word. Since the list is primarily relying on Lunyu and Mencius, we include rʰěŋ as the primary choice.
Hashimoto 1976: 81. Also ɗau1-ki̯an1 id. The syllables are left without graphic transcription in the source, but it is rather safe to etymologize the first syllable as equal to Middle Chinese dɤ̀w {脰} 'neck' (dial.).
HYDCD VI: 1065. The word is only attested in the compound si̯in vǝ̌w ci̯ǐ {新婦子} "new (i. e. young) wife" in two different passages in Linji-lu; this context per se is not diagnostic. There is, however, little reason to suggest a possible replacement in Middle Chinese, since this word is highly stable in all varieties of Chinese.
Schuessler 1987: 723. The word is most often encountered in the idiom suk li̯as {夙夜}, literally '(from) dawn (till) night' = 'all the time, constantly, without a break'; in some contexts, it is visibly antonymous to nit {日} 'day'. The only possible competition comes from lʰi̯ak {夕} [Schuessler 1987: 661] (there is a certain chance that both words are etymologically related, but this is not certain). The latter, however, is more likely to denote 'evening' (i. e. the time when it is getting dark), since the typical idiom for it is traw lʰi̯ak {朝夕} '(from) morning (till) evening', where traw has the undeniable meaning of 'morning hours' (during which court sessions are conducted) [Schuessler 1987: 817].
HYDCD II: 356. Cf.: pǝ ƛi̯ǎ triwh li̯ah {不舍晝夜} "it does not stop, be it day or night" [Lunyu 9, 17]. The word is sometimes found in opposition to triwh {晝} 'daytime' and sometimes in opposition to nit {日} 'daylight'; it is the most frequent and neutral designation of 'night' as both 'darkness' and 'time period'.
Schuessler 1987: 22. The earliest Chinese word for 'nose' could have been ʒiɕ {自}, since the corresponding character, depicting a nose, is well attested already in Shang inscriptions and would later serve as the radical element in the phonoideogram bʰiɕ {鼻} 'nose'. However, even in Shang inscriptions it is very rarely, if ever, attested in the meaning 'nose'; instead, the character serves to transcribe the homonymous reflexive person ʒiɕ 'self' and the auxiliary verb ʒiɕ '(to depart) from, out of' [Schuessler 1987: 863-64]. The same situation is typical of Early Zhou. On the other hand, there is very little significant evidence as to which word actually did carry the meaning of 'nose' in these dialects. The character 自 is at least occasionally encountered in Shang times in this meaning, with Schuessler quoting the following context: wʰǝʔ ʓit ʒiɕ {有疾自} 'there will be an ailing nose'; for unknown reasons, he interprets the character here as an early (simple) form of later bʰiɕ {鼻}. In Early Zhou, neither bʰiɕ nor ʒiɕ are encountered at all (bʰiɕ is present in the description of one Yijing hexagram, but it is not clear whether the context can be trusted chronologically); ironically, the verb ŋiɕ {劓} 'to cut off the nose' is attested quite frequently in the Shangshu (note that 鼻, not 自, serves as one of the two semantic components). On the whole, it is likely that the word for 'nose' was, from the very beginning, different in Shang and Zhou dialects: ʒiɕ in the former, bʰiɕ in the latter, and the former managed to survive only as a grapheme rather than an actual word.
HYDCD XII: 1415. Cf.: bʰiɕ tǝ ʔa kʰiwh lʰi̯ǎy {鼻之於臭也} "the nose being related to smell" [Mencius 14, 70]. The default (and only) equivalent for 'nose' in all of Classical Chinese.
HYDCD XII: 1415. Cf.: ʒɤ̌y ŋǎ˞n wi̯et kîen, ʒɤ̌y ɲɨ̌ wi̯et w̃ün, ʒɤ̌y bi̯î wi̯et xi̯aŋ {在眼曰見, 在耳曰聞, 在鼻嗅香} "in the eyes they (= the Dharmas) are called 'seeing', in the ears they are called 'hearing', in the nose they are called 'smelling'" [Linji-lu 31].
Schuessler 1987: 48. Distinct from the prohibitive mǝ {毋}. The exact difference between this negative particle and pǝt {弗} [Schuessler 1987: 175] in Shang and Early Zhou contexts remains obscure, despite several possible hypotheses (e. g., Schuessler assigns a "volitional" semantic component to pǝt, not really supported by actual data); from the lexicostatistical point of view, however, this issue is irrelevant, since pǝt is clearly a suffixal extension of the same root pǝ.
HYDCD I: 394. Encountered passim all over Classical Chinese; distinct from the prohibitive ma {無} or mǝ {毋}. The variant pǝt {弗} [HYDCD IV: 101] is usually analyzed (for the Classical Chinese period, not Early Zhou) as the result of phonetic contraction: pǝ 'not' + tǝ {之} '3rd p. object pronoun'. The real situation is more complex, since in many orthographic sub-traditions the character 不 itself is used for the contraction pǝt, and, furthermore, modern dialectal data indicates the existence of an independent, non-contracted negation pǝt as well (probably continuing the Early Zhou usage). In any case, none of this has any lexicostatistical significance, since all instances of pǝt still feature the original root morpheme *pǝ (regardless of whether -t is a contracted personal pronoun or some sort of archaic emphatic, non-pronominal particle).
DEHCD 1985: 1084; HYDCD I: 394. Etymologically, modern Chinese pu4 is not directly inherited from Middle Chinese pǝw (which should have yielded modern fou1), but rather reflects an irregular colloquial variant of *püt {弗} (confirmed by non-Mandarin dialects, many of which also directly reflect a syllable-final consonant). This has no lexicostatistical significance, however, since the original root morpheme *pǝ is the same in all these variants.
Jian'ou Chinese:eiŋ1 {伓}2
Li 1998: 238. Quoted as ɛiŋ8 {伓} in [Huang 1958: 291].
Wenchang Hainanese:
Not attested. The equivalent bo2-ti5 {無是}, listed in [Hashimoto 1976: 80] as 'not', is actually 'no' (i. e. a negative predicate) rather than the required particle.
HYDCD I: 1032. Encountered passim all over Classical Chinese documents. Polysemy: 'person / someone / anyone' (i. e. frequently used as an indefinite pronoun or valency filler; e. g., sraːt nin {殺人} is simply 'to kill', not specifically 'to kill people').
Hashimoto 1976: 80. Marked as non-cognate with Standard Chinese ɻen2 {人} by the author (hence the different graphic transcription), but this is debatable.
HYDCD XI: 610. Cf.: sʰit preːt ŋu̯at tǝ kreːn wʰǎ ʒǝp {七八月之閒雨集} "rain is abundant in between the seventh and eighth months" [Mencius 8, 46]. The same character is used to transcribe both the noun wʰǎ 'rain' and the derived verb wʰa-h 'to rain'.
Schuessler 1987: 79. This is clearly the most frequent and stylistically neutral word in this meaning (see 'black' for a definitive example of usage). Much more rare in Early Zhous is to {朱} [Schuessler 1987: 850], often defined as 'bright red, scarlet', and several other quasi-synonyms are encountered so rarely that they are probably not worth mentioning.
HYDCD IX: 1156. The word is not attested in early Confucian texts other than in the context of occasional idiomatic expressions (e. g. kʰi̯ak cǝ̌ {赤子} 'baby', literally 'red child'), but no other candidate for 'red' in these texts crops up anyway, and kʰi̯ak is clearly the most frequent equivalent for 'red' throughout the rest of the Classical period, with such words as to {朱} 'bright red, vermillion (?)' and gʰoːŋ {紅} '(a particular shade of) red' lagging far behind. It should be noted, however, that the neutral color term 'red', overall, tends to be mentioned rather sporadically in Old Chinese texts next to such color terms as 'white', 'black', and 'yellow'.
HYDCD IX: 1156. Cf.: pǎ˞ ŋɑ̌ ʈak tǐey ʔi̯i, ɲîn cʰieŋ ɣu̯ɑŋ ʰek ba˞ik {把我著底衣, 認青黃赤白} "he seizes the clothes that I wear, considers them to be blue, yellow, red, white" [Linji-lu 75]. This is the principal term for 'red' in [Linji-lu].
DEHCD 1985: 826; HYDCD IX: 702. The word itself is quite old, having denoted a particular (light?) shade of red already in Classical Chinese. It is not easy to establish at which point it managed to replace the old basic term ʰɨ4 {赤} 'red', but, at the very least, it seems to post-date the Middle Chinese interval.
Schuessler 1987: 115. In Early Zhou, this is the most statistically frequent word denoting the idea of 'road' without any further connotations. It also serves as the basis for the derived verb lʰuː-s {導} 'to lead, conduct (along the way)' [Schuessler 1987: 116]. The word raːh {路} 'road' [Schuessler 1987: 395], in comparison, is encountered only in a tiny handful of contexts, most often, within the noun phrase raːh kla {路車} 'grand chariot', where it is not even certain that the raːh in question represents the same 'word'. It is likely that the gradual replacement of lʰuːʔ with raːh did not really start until the Classical period, possibly caused by the expanding polysemy of the former ('road / way / manner / habit / Tao', etc.).
HYDCD X: 473. The situation is very complicated here. In early Confucian texts, there are three equivalents of the general meaning 'road' (as a physical object) or 'road, way' (as an abstract designation of an artificial line connecting two points): (a) raːh {路}, encountered only in Mencius, cf.: ʒǝːy Łʰǝːŋ tǝ raːh pǝ way gǝ̌n hǝ̌ {齊滕之路不為近矣} "the road from Qi to Teng is not short" [Mencius 4, 15]; sraːn keːŋh tǝ gʰeː kreːn, kreːɕ loŋh tǝ nǝ deŋ raːh {山徑之蹊閒, 介然用之而成路} "the small footpaths along the mountains, use them increasingly and they will become roads" [Mencius 14, 67]; (b) the compound form lʰǔː raːh {道路}, encountered a few times both in Lunyu and Mencius, cf.: Ła sǐy ʔa lʰǔː raːh waː {予死於道路乎} "shall I die upon the road?" [Lunyu 9, 12]; (c) an entirely different stem, Łʰaː {塗}, cf.: graːŋ rǎ krǝːy lʰok tʰu̯ǝt ʔa wʰaŋ tǝ Łʰaː {行旅皆欲出於王之塗} "all the travelers will want to find themselves on the King's roads" [Mencius 1, 7].
Of these three variants, Łʰaː {塗} is homonymous with and, quite possibly, etymologically identical with Łʰaː 'dirt; clay', implying that the actual meaning may have specifically been 'dirt road', 'country road' (as opposed to 'paved road', 'large road connecting cities or states'). Although it is relatively frequent in Classical Chinese all the way up to Hàn times (in which it acquires another graphic equivalent, 途, to distinguish it from 塗 in the meaning 'dirt; clay'), it is safe to exclude it from lexicostatistical calculations, since it never completely replaces the other, more stable synonyms.
As for the other two candidates, the important thing to note is that in the Classical period, the simple word lʰǔː {道} is very rarely employed to denote a physical 'road' by itself; most of the time, it only appears within the abovementioned compound. This is, without a doubt, due to its polysemy, and ever-increasing usage in the abstract, philosophical sense ('The Way', 'The Righteous Way', Tao). On the other hand, raːh {路} is very common as 'road' on its own, quite unlike its functions in the Early Zhou period. This fairly transparent shift in usage, in our opinion, may easily count as a lexical replacement, with the orinigal lʰuːʔ ceding its "basic" functions to raːh.
DEHCD 1985: 454; HYDCD X: 1080. This is the regular bisyllabic equivalent for the meaning 'road', but in a large number of contexts and idiomatic expressions, the monosyllabic lu4 {路} is used instead (cf. particularly such compounds as ʂu̯ei3-lu4 {水路} 'water route', ʂan1-lu4 {山路} 'mountain road', etc.). Because of this, it makes sense to view the bisyllabic equivalent as the lexical continuation of Classical Chinese raːh, but not to score it together with Early Zhou lʰuːʔ.
Schuessler 1987: 20. Although the absolute majority of contexts in which this word is encountered in Early Zhou are metaphorical ('root' as 'foundation', etc.), at least one context [Shijing 255, 8] clearly refers to pǝːrʔ as 'tree root', opposed to ke {枝} 'branches' and 葉 lʰap 'leaves'. The simple pictographic nature of the character also hints at the original semantics of 'tree root'. No other words with this meaning are found in Early Zhou.
HYDCD IV: 1012. Overall, it cannot be doubted that, by the end of the Classical period, the word kǝːn {根} had completely replaced the earlier pǝ̌ːn {本} in the basic meaning 'root (of trees and other plants)', with pǝ̌ːn preserved in a wide range of figurative meanings ('root' as 'origin', 'foundation', 'essentials', etc.). In the Shuowen jiezi, for instance, all of the references to roots of plants always comprise kǝːn, whereas pǝ̌ːn is reserved for the more abstract meaning 'foundation'. The difficult problem is to determine the approximate period during which the replacement actually took place. Early Confucian texts offer little help in this matter, since the word 'root' is only encountered in them in figurative meanings ('origin', most of the time), thus, only pǝ̌ːn is attested, but none of the attestations are diagnostic. Cf., however, a diagnostic context in Zhuangzi: pǒ nǝ keːnh gǝ dʰaːɕ kǝːn {俯而見其大根} "he looked down and saw its (the tree's) big root" [Zhuangzi 1, 4, 6], a document of comparable antiquity. In the light of all available evidence, we prefer to fill the slot with kǝːn.
HYDCD III: 359. Not attested in early Confucian monuments in adjectival usage, but found in Mencius within the idiomatic expression paŋ wran {方員} "squares and circles" [Mencius 7, 1], and amply attested in the required adjectival usage in other Classical Chinese documents (also frequently as an antonym to paŋ 'square (adj.)').
DEHCD 1985: 840; HYDCD III: 654. Same word as Classical Chinese wran {員} (the new graphic variant 圓 for earlier 員 is actually quite old in origin, but has been more or less consistently observed only in recent times).
HYDCD V: 949. Not attested in early Confucian monuments, but amply attested in other Classical Chinese texts, with no other known word in the meaning 'sand' whatsoever.
DEHCD 1985: 1436; HYDCD V: 949. Used either by itself (as a monosyllabic word), or in such compounds as ʂa1-tʰu3 {沙土} 'sandy ground, sand' or ʂa1-cɨ {沙子} (with a standard nominal suffix).
Schuessler 1987: 795. Included here with certain reservations, since, in most cases, this word functions in Early Zhou as the marker of direct speech (or as the passive verb 'to be called, to be named'); it can never ever take an indirect object, as in 'said to him', etc. Nevertheless, the word must have had a freer distribution in Early Zhou than in Classical Chinese, cf. such contexts as kǝm nʰaʔ gǝ wat {今汝其曰} "now you might say..." [Shujing 10, 3] (in the Classical language the 2nd person pr. subject in this position is unthinkable). Concerning potential competition, Early Zhou verbs ŋaʔ {語} [Schuessler 1987: 781] and ŋan {言} [Schuessler 1987: 711] practically never take an object, i. e. mean 'speak' rather than 'say'.
HYDCD V: 556. Somewhat dubious. In Classical Chinese, wat essentially serves as a marker of direct speech (although formally, it is still a verb), and its usage is therefore "bound". On the other hand, there is hardly any serious competition, since all other verbs of speech have more complex meanings than just 'say': e. g., ŋǎ {語} 'to converse, talk (usually about smth.)', kuːh {告} 'to tell, to report', wǝɕ {謂} 'to mean, to signify', ƛu̯at {說} 'to explain' etc. Only ŋan {言} may have had a more neutral meaning, but it is most frequently used as a noun ('words', 'speech'); neutral verbal meaning seems to be more characteristic of late (Hàn) times.
HYDCD II: 829. Cf.: ʂi ᶚǎŋ dɑŋ ɦün {師上堂云} "the Teacher ascended into the Hall and said", etc. [Linji-lu 7]. This is the main predicate to introduce direct speech in the Linji-lu.
DEHCD 1985: 2065; HYDCD XI: 239. This is the main basic term that introduces direct or indirect speech in modern Chinese. A less eligible term is kao4-su4 {告訴} 'to say, to tell', whose general semantics has more to do with imparting specific information on a subject to the addressee (historically, the literal meaning of this compound is 'to report-complain').
Schuessler 1987: 296. Schuessler adds the meaning 'to look at', but it is clearly marginal and figurative (e. g. keːn-s ta {見書} [Shujing 26, 9] "Look at the writing" = "See the writing"); the default verb for 'to look' is giyʔ {視} [Schuessler 1987: 554].
HYDCD X: 311. Cf.: ʒɤ̌y ŋǎ˞n wi̯et kîen, ʒɤ̌y ɲɨ̌ wi̯et w̃ün, ʒɤ̌y bi̯î wi̯et xi̯aŋ {在眼曰見, 在耳曰聞, 在鼻嗅香} "in the eyes they (= the Dharmas) are called 'seeing', in the ears they are called 'hearing', in the nose they are called 'smelling'" [Linji-lu 31].
DEHCD 1985: 181; HYDCD X: 311. This monosyllabic equivalent is used quite frequently, as well as its bisyllabic counterpart kʰan4-ɕi̯än4 {看見}, literally 'to look-see'. No lexicostatistical replacement since Old Chinese times.
Schuessler 1987: 846. Nominal stem, with a further verbal derivate toŋ-s [ibid.: 847]. This is most likely the default Early Zhou word for 'seed', at least that of a cultural plant (cereal).
HYDCD VIII: 107. Cf.: paːnh tǒŋ nǝ ʔu tǝ {播種而耰之} "scatter the seeds and rake them" [Mencius 11, 7]. Very rarely encountered in early Confucian texts, but the word is clearly the main equivalent for 'seed' throughout all of Classical Chinese.
DEHCD 1985: 2042ː HYDCD VIII: 107. This is the main term for 'seed' (of cultivated plants) in modern Chinese; final -cɨ is a standard nominal suffix, usually appended for homonymy reduction purposes, but in this case, semantically coherent, since its original meaning is 'child, progeny'. A secondary synonym, etymologically related to -cɨ {子}, is cɨ1 {籽} ~ cɨ1-ɻ {籽兒} 'seed, grain, pip'.
Schuessler 1987: 874. Somewhat dubious. Although the character superficially looks like an archaic ideogram expressly designed for the meaning 'to sit' (two people /人/ on the ground /土/), it is only attested in this specific meaning, at best, once or twice in Early Zhou, cf.: beːŋʔ ʓʰoːyʔ kaːʔ srit {並坐鼓瑟} "(we) sit together and play the zithers" [Shijing 126, 2], and even then it may be questioned whether we are indeed dealing here with the default, basic word for 'sit' or some specific meaning/usage. This doubt is meaningful in the light of possible competition on the part of Early Zhou ka {居}, usually glossed as 'to stay, dwell, reside' [Schuessler 1987: 329]. The character is a phonoideogram whose radical (尸) originally depicted a sitting person, and such contexts as wiy kru ka tǝ {維鳩居之} "it is the jiu-bird that dwells (sits?) there (= in another bird's nest)" [Shijing 12, 1] hint at the possibility of the original polysemy 'to dwell, stay, live / to sit', very widespread typologically. It should also be noted that, in the Shijing, the character 居 frequently rhymes in the falling tone (including the very line quoted above, which rhymes with 御 *ŋraː-h 'to meet'), betraying an old reading of *ka-h = Classical Chinese 踞 ka-h 'to squat'; this would suggest a possible old morphological opposition between *ka 'to stay, dwell, reside' and *ka-h 'to sit, be sitting'. However, as long as all of this is only indirect evidence, we have little choice but to go along with ʓʰoːyʔ as our primary choice.
Schuessler 1987: 169. Cf.: pra na ŋǝŋ kiy {膚如凝脂} "(her) skin is like like congealed fat' [Shijing 57, 2]. The word bʰay {皮} [Schuessler 1987: 457] is much more frequent than pra in Early Zhou. However, there is not a single context in which it would apply to the human skin; on the contrary, it can be seen quite explicitly that it always refers to 'hide', 'fur' of animals or to materials (clothes, covers, etc.) made of these hides.
HYDCD VI: 1369. Cf.: ma tʰi̯ak sʰwǝːnh tǝ pra pǝ ʔǝːɕ ʔan {無尺寸之膚不愛焉} "there is not an inch of (his) skin that he does not begrudge [Mencius 11, 14]: a very good example on the basic usage of the word pra in the meaning 'human skin'. As in Early Zhou Chinese, bʰay {皮} primarily means 'animal skin, hide, leather'. By Hàn times, however, usage of bʰay as 'human skin' (more often, as part of the compound bʰay pra {皮膚}) becomes common.
Late Middle Chinese:
Not properly attested in the text of Linji-lu. In one context, the word bi {皮} is used to refer to 'animal skin' or 'hide'.
DEHCD 1985: 776; HYDCD VIII: 522. A compound that consists of the old word for 'human skin' (fu1 = Old Chinese *pra, etc.), "prefixed" with the old word for 'animal skin, hide' (pʰi2). The meaning 'animal skin, hide' itself is expressed in the modern language with either the monosyllabic equivalent pʰi2 {皮} or the bisyllabic pʰi2-kɤ1 {皮革}, where kɤ1 = 'leather'. Since the presence of the component fu1 is still essential in the modern language to distinguish 'human skin' from 'animal skin', we count no lexical replacement from Old Chinese to Modern Chinese.
Jian'ou Chinese:
Not quite clear. The word pʰü̯ɛ4 {皮} 'skin' is attested only in compound formations; the exact equivalent for 'human skin' is not explicitly indicated in existing sources.
Schuessler 1987: 409. Unquestionably the most frequent and basic designation for 'sleep' in Early Zhou, illustrated by numerous contexts in the Shijing in particular. On the ineligibility of sʰimʔ {寢} 'to lie down; to lay down (to sleep)', which A. Schuessler glosses as 'to lie down; sleep' [Schuessler 1987: 489], see under 'lie'.
HYDCD VIII: 722. The choice is dubious, since in most contexts this word may be translated ambiguously, as either 'sleep' or 'lie (down)'. Cf., however, the following diagnostic passage in which the meaning 'lie' is impossible: ʔǝnh krǝ̌y nǝ ŋʰu̯aːyh {隱几而臥} "he leant upon the table and (began to) sleep" [Mencius 4, 20] (said of Mencius expressing contempt for a visitor). Another such context, although taken from an allegedly later document, is also quite telling: ŋʰaː ... ƛeːŋ kǎː ŋraːuk, cǝːk wiy kʰǒŋ ŋʰu̯aːyh {吾...聽古樂則唯恐臥} "when I... listen to ancient music, I only fear I will fall asleep" [Li ji 19, 42] (obviously not "I fear I will lie down"). The major competition for this item is on behalf of the synonym sʰǐm {寢}, which, in most contexts, can be analyzed as dynamic action ('to lie down to sleep', 'to go to sleep') rather than the required static verb ('to sleep'), but there is really no telling, cf.: cǝ̌ː Ła triwh sʰǐm {宰予晝寢} "Zai Yu slept during the day" [Lunyu 5, 10] (should that be really interpreted as "Zai Yu went to sleep in the daytime"?). For the moment (prior to a much more thorough examination of available contexts), we prefer to treat both words as technical synonyms.
HYDCD VII: 1230. Cf.: ʂi ʒɤ̂y dɑŋ ʈüŋ ᶚu̯î {師在堂中睡} "the teacher was sleeping in the hall" [Linji-lu 130]. In this text, the quasi-synonym ŋu̯ɑ̂ {臥}, contrary to the situation in Classical Chinese, generally corresponds to the related meaning 'to lie' (q.v.) rather than properly 'to sleep'.
Schuessler 1987: 678. This is clearly the main word for the concept already since Shang times, and it is of little use to list the numerous stylistically marked quasi-synonyms (often with very dubious glossing) found in the literary monuments of Early Zhou.
HYDCD II: 1585. Within Linji-lu, encountered only in bound expressions (such as si̯ěw ɲi {小兒} 'little boy', etc.), but, considering the overall stability of this item in Chinese, there is little reason to suggest that any different synonym could occupy this spot in Middle Chinese.
Schuessler 1987: 704. This word, only encountered thrice in the Shijing, is usually glossed as a verb, cf. the meanings 'to make smoke; befumed' in [Schuessler 1987]. However, in at least one of these contexts the word may be understood nominally: ʔu sǝm na hun {憂心如熏} "(our) grieved hearts are like smoke" (not "smoking") [Shijing 258, 5]. In another context, it behaves like a transitive predicate: hun ƛʰaʔ {熏鼠} "(we) smoke out the rats" [Shijing 154, 5]. Juxtaposition of even these two contexts makes it clear that the uniting link can only be an original noun with the meaning 'smoke'. Additionally, the character is a complex pictogram that bears a non-coincidental resemblance to the one used for s=mǝːk {黑} 'black' q.v.; and no other word that could, even in one context, be unambiguously translated as 'smoke', is known for the Early Zhou period.
HYDCD VII: 222. Dubious. The word is never encountered in early Confucian documents, and by Hàn times it seems to have been completely superseded by ʔiːn {煙} [HYDCD VII: 173]. Still, ʔiːn makes its regular appearance in texts normally dated to the 3rd century B.C. (Xunzi, Han Feizi, etc.), whereas allegedly slightly earlier texts (Mozi, Zhuangzi) have a few instances of hun. It is relatively safe to assume that the lexicostatistical shift happened a little after the concerned time period.
Hashimoto 1976: 81. The word is tentatively (with a question mark) equated with Middle Chinese *xon, Standard Chinese hūn {昏} '(to be) dark' in the source, but the phonetic match with Middle Chinese *xün {熏} is just as strong, and the semantic match is better (the word means 'smoke' as late as in Classical Chinese).
Schuessler 1987: 377. The word is an "exoactive" predicate, freely used in both intransitive ('to be standing') and causative/transitive ('to make to stand; to set up, raise') functions in Early Zhou. Most known contexts of intransitive usage refer to stative rather than dynamic ('to stand up') action (the latter aspect is usually expressed through hǝŋ {興} [Schuessler 1987: 686]).
HYDCD VIII: 371. Cf.: ʂǝ̌w ʒu̯ɑ̂ ᶚî li̯ip {首座侍立} "the chief priest was standing in attendance" [Linji-lu 129]. The verb is only encountered in bound expressions, but no other candidates for the meaning 'to stand' have been attested in the text.
DEHCD 1985: 2203; HYDCD VIII: 379. The older meaning of this word is 'to stop somewhere; to occupy a place', originally written as {佔}. The word gradually replaces the older li4 {立} in the basic meaning 'to stand, be standing' over the Míng-Qíng period.
Jian'ou Chinese:kü̯ɛ6 {徛}3
Li 1998: 91. Quoted as küɛ8 {企} in [Huang 1958: 292].
HYDCD V: 669. Cf.: ka gǝ srǎ nǝ tuŋh sʰeːŋ goŋh tǝ {居其所而眾星共之} "it (the Polar star) is fixed in its place, and all the stars surround it" [Lunyu 2, 1].
Schuessler 1987: 546. The word is very frequent in Early Zhou, and both this frequency and apparent stylistic neutrality of usage as well as the simple pictographic nature of the character confirm its basic status.
HYDCD VII: 979. Only attested in one non-diagnostic context in early Confucian texts (lǎ mʰoːk di̯ak ka {與木石居} "he dwelt among trees and rocks" [Mencius 13, 16]), but amply attested throughout Classical Chinese, with no reason to suspect any other word in this basic meaning.
HYDCD VII: 979. In Linji-lu, the word is encountered only in bound usage (e. g. ᶚek xu̯ɑ̌ {石火} "a spark from off a stone", literally "stone-fire" [Linji-lu 149], etc.), but there is no reason to suggest a different word for 'stone' in Middle Chinese (at most, it could already have been ᶚek-dɤw {石頭} with one of the standard productive nominal suffixes, as it is in the modern language; first attestation of such a compound usage dates back to Táng times [HYDCD VII: 1000]).
DEHCD 1985: 727; HYDCD VII: 979. Final -tʰou is a formerly productive nominal suffix (a desemanticized variant of the word 'head'), appended for homonymy reduction purposes (cf. also 'tongue' q.v.). The old monosyllabic variant ʂɨ2 is still encountered in various bound expressions.
DEHCD 1985: 2135; HYDCD II: 1472. Literally: 'the extreme Yang', i. e. 'sun' as the object in which the highest amount of yang-qi is concentrated, as opposed to tʰai4=yin1 {太陰} 'the extreme Yin', i. e. 'moon'. Both metaphors are quite old, well attested since at least Hàn times (III B.C. - III A.D.); however, only the equivalent for 'sun' has managed to eventually replace the old term for this object in Modern Chinese. It is not quite clear when this happened, but the replacement definitely postdates the Middle Chinese period. The old word ɻɨ4 {日} is still found in bound expressions (cf.: ɻɨ4 ʰu1 {日出} 'the sun comes out; sunrise', ɻɨ4 lu̯o4 {日落} 'the sun comes down; sunset', etc.), as well as in the meaning 'day' (of the week, etc.), but is no longer the colloquial equivalent for 'sun' as such.
Schuessler 1987: 767. Cf.: nak lu dʰaːɕ slun {若游大川} 'as if swimming in a great stream' [Shangshu 36, 16]. The word is somewhat problematic. First, it is also frequently encountered in such meanings as 'wander, roam, walk about' (either in the same graphic form or as 遊); second, it is sometimes paired with wraŋh {泳} [Schuessler 1987: 762], and the difference in meaning between the two is not certain. Decisive, unambiguous contexts do not exist; traditionally, however, wraŋh is understood as 'to wade', 'walk on / under the water', and lu as 'swim'.
HYDCD V: 1496. Not attested in early Confucian documents, but the word functions as the primary equivalent for 'swim' throughout most other Classical Chinese texts (particularly frequent in Zhuangzi, where it is applied both to people and fish).
HYDCD V: 1496. Cf.: yǝw ŋi̯ü ɣɑ tɤk miey {遊魚何得迷} "how did the swimming fish lose their way?" [Linji-lu 149]. Dubious, since (a) the word is only attested once in the text; (b) it is applied to fish rather than humans; (c) the expression may be idiomatic. Nevertheless, there are no other candidates.
HYDCD IV: 13. Not attested in early Confucian texts, bu functions as the only basic equivalent for 'tail' throughout all of the Classical Chinese period anyway.
DEHCD 1985: 2463; HYDCD IV: 14. Final -pa1 is a non-productive suffix appearing in "protruding body parts" (cf. colloquial cu̯ei3-pa1 {嘴巴} 'mouth', etc.); the word for 'tail' is attested in this form since Qíng times.
Schuessler 1987: 22. This is the only pronominal stem that, in Early Zhou, expresses the idea of far deixis. It is frequently met in syntactic opposition with ɕʰeyʔ {此} and, more rarely, cǝ {玆} 'this' q.v.
HYDCD III: 939. For the basic opposition between far and near deixis in Classical Chinese, cf.: pǎy ʔit dǝ, cʰě ʔit dǝ lʰi̯ay {彼一時, 此一時也} "that was one time, and this is another time" [Mencius 4, 22].
Late Middle Chinese:
Not attested. Throughout the text of Linji-lu, the old stem pǐ {彼} is almost always used only in an adverbial sense ('there', 'in that place'), and it is not clear whether it could function as the basic adjectival stem to denote faraway objects. On the other hand, the newer stem nɑ̂ {那}, which I. Gurevich [Gurevich 2001: 227] states as already existing in various texts of the yu-lu genre, is completely lacking in the text of Linji-lu. For the moment, to avoid incorrect statistics, we prefer to leave this slot empty.
DEHCD 1985: 2292; HYDCD X: 597. The word is definitely established as the main, or one of the main, equivalents for 'that' since Sòng-era vernacular literary monuments. The reading na4 represents the literary standard, but the usual colloquial pronunciation is nei4. Used almost exclusively with a following classifier.
Jian'ou Chinese:u5 {兀}3
Li 1998: 29.
Wenchang Hainanese:ɦo4-mo74
Hashimoto 1976: 80. Final -mo7 is a suffixal component, also attested in 'this' q.v.
Schuessler 1987: 97. The distribution between Early Zhou ɕʰeyʔ and cǝ is complicated. In Shang inscriptions, cǝ is the principal demonstrative pronoun, and no clear opposition between near and far deixis can be established. Of the Zhou literary monuments, cǝ is almost universally employed in the Shangshu, but comparably quite rare in the Shijing, where ɕʰeyʔ is the statistical norm. Correspondingly, the opposition 'this (near)' : 'that (farther away)' is consistently expressed in Shijing as ɕʰeyʔ : payʔ, and only once as cǝ : payʔ. It cannot be excluded that, in an abstract, "default" variant of early Chinese, all three pronouns could be active, with cǝ as "neutral" deixis and ɕʰeyʔ : payʔ taking on the antonymous functions of "near" and "far" deixis. In this situation, ɕʰeyʔ would be better "eligible" for this wordlist. However, this is a speculative suggestion, so we list both forms as synonyms.
HYDCD V: 330. For the basic opposition between far and near deixis in Classical Chinese, cf.: pǎy ʔit dǝ, cʰě ʔit dǝ lʰi̯ay {彼一時, 此一時也} "that was one time, and this is another time" [Mencius 4, 22]. Of the other deictic pronouns, Early Zhou cǝ {玆} is met very occasionally, usually as an archaism; and dě {是}, although very frequent, does not form part of any deictic opposition and has specific marked functions (either occurring in bound idioms or in statements of fact where it has the function of "this means...", etc.).
HYDCD V: 330. Used passim in Linji-lu; however, there are also numerous instances of the newer synonym ǎ {這}, and it is difficult to ascertain the difference between the two. The latter generally seems to be more colloquial, but cʰi̯í is so frequent that it cannot be considered a stylistic archaism; more likely is a situation of "transit synonymity".
DEHCD 1985: 2612; HYDCD X: 917. The old word cʰɨ3 {此}, still frequently used in Middle Chinese, in the modern language has been completely relegated to literary usage. The main (and only) colloquial expression is e4 'this', antonymous to nei4 'that' q.v. Used almost exclusively with a following classifier.
Jian'ou Chinese:i̯ɔŋ53
Li 1998: 226. Transcribed as {口+樣} (no graphic equivalent in Standard Chinese).
Wenchang Hainanese:zo4-mo7 ~ za4-mo74
Hashimoto 1976: 80. Final -mo7 is a suffixal component, also attested in 'this' q.v.
Schuessler 1987: 515. Originally transcribed as a simple borrowed character (女), with traces of such an orthography still evident even in the canonized version of the Shijing. The special possessive form of this pronoun is nʰǝːʔ {乃} [Schuessler 1987: 435], attested in this syntactic usage already in Shang-era oracle bone inscriptions. A third form, nʰeyʔ {爾} [Schuessler 1987: 147], does not appear in early epigraphic monuments, but is randomly encountered in both Shangshu and Shijing in both the nominal and the possessive functions. It may have been a later restructuring by analogy with the 1st p. pr. ŋʰaːyʔ {我} q.v., or, alternately, an old plural form ('you pl.') that had occasionally started to expand onto singulative functions as well. In any case, all of these forms clearly go back to the same root with an old initial dental nasal (possibly aspirated).
HYDCD I: 574. Cf.: nʰě way nʰě, ŋʰǎːy way ŋʰǎːy {爾為爾, 我為我} "you are you, I am me" [Mencius 3, 9]. The morphological and syntactical variation between the two principal forms of this pronoun in Classical Chinese, nʰě and nʰǎ, is unclear and, to a large extent, depends on individual peculiarities of each text. (For instance, in Mencius nʰě is almost exclusively used, whereas nʰǎ is generally relegated to archaic or archaicized quotations; but this does not seem to be the case in Lunyu, where distribution of the forms employed is more even). In any case, the solution of this problem will have no bearing on lexicostatistical calculations, since both forms are phonetic and/or morphological variants of the exact same pronominal stem.
HYDCD I: 574. Both forms are used passim in [Linji-lu]. According to I. Gurevich [Gurevich 2001: 222], within the text ɲǐ is used more frequently to denote the pl. number ('you'), and ɲǚ is more typical of the sg. number ('thou'), except for the compound form ɲǚ-tɤ̌ŋ {汝等}. This correlation is occasionally violated, but seems to be confirmed statistically. In any case, both variants stem from the same root, and the selection of any single variant does not affect the lexicostatistical calculations.
DEHCD 1985: 2328; HYDCD I: 1275. The graphic variant 你 to denote the 2nd p. pr. appears somewhere around the Xth century. The phonetic form ni3 is etymologically related to all the other forms of this pronoun in Old and Middle Chinese times, but is not regularly traceable to any particular variant, representing an idiosyncratic colloquial variant. Nevertheless, the root, characterized by the features "initial coronal nasal + front vowel", is clearly the same, and we postulate no lexical replacement.
Hashimoto 1976: 80. Graphically transcribed as {汝} by the author, but this would give the impression of etymological descent from Old Chinese *nʰaʔ {汝}, which is hardly possible from the phonetic point of view.
HYDCD VIII: 1081. Not attested in early Confucian texts except for one or two non-diagnostic proverbs/idioms, but this fact is incidental, since no other word for 'tongue' is known throughout the entire Classical Chinese period.
HYDCD VIII: 1081. Encountered in this form in one obscure passage in Linji-lu (yǐ ɣɤ̂w ʒu̯ɑ̌ kʰi̯ak tʰien ɣǎ˞ ɲin ʐet-dɤw kʰi̯ǚ ʒɤ̂y {已後坐卻天下人舌頭去在} "afterwards (you will) set back the tongues of all the people under Heaven" [Linji-lu 137]. Also encountered a few times in the shorter form ʐet {舌}, but, considering that the extended suffixal variant already coincides with the modern form of the word, it is quite probable that the bisyllabic compound had already turned into the basic colloquial equivalent for 'tongue' by the times of Late Middle Chinese.
DEHCD 1985: 2622; HYDCD VIII: 1081. Final -tʰou is a formerly productive nominal suffix (a desemanticized variant of the word 'head'), appended for homonymy reduction purposes (cf. also 'stone' q.v.). The old monosyllabic variant ʂɤ2 is still encountered in various bound expressions.
Schuessler 1987: 77. This word is commonly encountered already in Shang-era oracle bone inscriptions and is frequently encountered in Shijing as well, applied to humans (ŋe tʰǝʔ {兒齒} 'children's teeth' [Shijing 300, 7]) as well as animals (ƛʰaʔ wʰǝʔ tʰǝʔ {鼠有齒} 'the rat has teeth' [Shijing 52, 2]). Its only possible competition may be ŋraː {牙} [Schuessler 1987: 708], but the latter is applied exclusively to animals, e. g. rats, pigs, and possibly tigers (based on the idiom ɕruːʔ ŋraː {爪牙} [Shijing 185, 1] 'claws and teeth', i. e. 'defenders'). Appropriately, the original pictogram for tʰǝʔ {齒} depicts a set of human teeth, whereas the original pictogram for ŋraː {牙} looks more like a pair of tusks.
HYDCD XII: 1444. Polysemy: 'teeth / age' (< 'state of the teeth'). In the early Confucian texts, only attested in this second figurative meaning, but, in general, this is the main (and only) equivalent for 'tooth' (pl. and sg.) throughout all of Classical Chinese. Very occasionally, the compound form tʰǝ̌ ŋraː {齒牙}, literally 'teeth-tusks', is attested, but the monosyllabic word ŋraː itself, like in Early Zhou Chinese, is usually applied to animals' teeth rather than human ones.
HYDCD XII: 1444. Cf.: fu̯ǝt mɑw ǎ˞w ʰǐ {髮毛爪齒} "head hair, body hair, nails, and teeth" [Linji-lu 66]. The word is also encountered in the compound ŋa˞ ʰǐ {牙齒}, literally 'tusks-teeth' (cf. the earlier 齒牙 in Classical Chinese), but the first example gives some evidence for ʰǐ, rather than ŋa˞, still functioning as the default word for 'teeth' in Middle Chinese.
DEHCD 1985: 638; HYDCD V: 274. A somewhat complex case. The old word ʰɨ3 {齒} 'tooth' is no longer in modern colloquial usage all by itself; however, it is still a part of the frequently encountered bisyllabic compound ya2-ʰɨ3 {牙齒}, originally 'tusks-(and)-teeth'. Technically, this should lead to treating both morphemes as synonymous and, consequently, postulating no lexical replacement from Old Chinese times. Cf., however, such contexts (quoted in [DEHCD 1985] and elsewhere) as: shuā yá {刷牙} "to brush one's teeth", or tā diàole yī kē yá {他掉了一顆牙} "he lost a tooth", indicating that in the standard colloquial situation, the monosyllabic ya2 is the most expected equivalent. On the contrary, the bisyllabic equivalent is more frequently encountered in specific contexts, depicting various kinds of (collective) teeth: xīshū-de yá-chǐ {稀疏的牙齒} 'sparse teeth', etc. For this reason, we tentatively postulate lexical replacement in Modern Chinese, to emphasize the fact that ya2 {牙}, originally a "marginal" term, denoting specific kinds of (animal) teeth, has eventually broadened its sphere of usage to denote any kinds of teeth.
Li 1998: 57. The morpheme ŋa3 is also frequently attested in various compounds having to deal with the meaning 'tooth'; -cʰi2 is here reduced to the function of a "supporting" morpheme, as in Standard Chinese.
Hashimoto 1976: 81. Additionally, cf. fa2-li1 'human tooth' [ibid.]; it is not clear whether this is already the default equivalent for this meaning or an additional specialized (vulgar?) synonym.
HYDCD IV: 659. Cf.: koːŋ sriy gu dʰaːɕ mʰoːk {工師求大木} "the head workman will look for big trees" [Mencius 2, 16]. By Hàn times, the compound form dʰǒ mʰoːk {樹木}, literally "(vertically) planted tree" or "(vertically) standing / upright tree" becomes very common, so as to distinguish 'standing trees' from 'felled trees' ('wood'), simply mʰoːk {木}; this eventually led to the lexical replacement of mʰoːk by dʰǒ.
HYDCD IV: 1299. Cf.: ᶚeŋ ʔi̯it ʈü dɑ̂y ᶚǚ {成一株大樹} "he will become a big tree" [Linji-lu 174]. The older word muk {木} is used only to denote 'wood' (as material) or in bound expressions.
DEHCD 1985: 407; HYDCD IV: 1299. Monosyllabic ʂu4 is the default equivalent for the meaning 'tree' in modern colloquial speech, but in certain contexts the bisyllabic compound ʂu4-mu4 {樹木}, combining both the old and the new words for 'tree', may be used. Nevertheless, we still postulate a lexical replacement from Old Chinese to Modern Chinese, since the main accent has clearly shifted from the non-obligatory mu4 to ʂu4 (actually, mu4 {木} on its own, or with the suffixal extension mu4-tʰou {木頭}, denotes 'wood (material)' rather than 'tree').
HYDCD I: 115. Encountered passim in all Classical Chinese texts. The quasi-synonymous word rʰǎŋ {兩} [HYDCD I: 554] in early classical texts always has the meaning '(a) pair (of)', 'the two (of)', 'both', being applied to paired objects (rʰǎŋ ƛʰǔ {兩手} "two hands", rʰǎŋ mrǎː {兩馬} "two horses (in a two-horse chariot)", etc.); by Hàn times, however, it starts to seriously replace niɕ in all sorts of contexts, with the exception of counting series.
HYDCD I: 554. Cf.: yǚ ɲǐ li̯ǎŋ w̃ün ʒi̯en {與爾兩文錢} "I give you two coins" [Linji-lu 110]. This is one of several examples from which it becomes obvious that, at least in this particular dialect of Late Middle Chinese, the usage of li̯ǎŋ as the default equivalent for 'two' was already comparable with the situation in the modern language. The earlier numeral ɲî {二} is, for the most part, used in: (a) complex numerals ('12', '22', etc.); (b) the ordinal number 'second' (dîey ɲî {第二}); (c) several idiomatic expressions that reflect terminology inherited from older sources. The most important observation is that, in comparison with classical usage, li̯ǎŋ is no longer exclusively associated with paired objects.
DEHCD 1985: 387; HYDCD I: 554. The opposition between li̯aŋ3 {兩} and ɑɻ4 {二} 'two' in Modern Chinese is not different from the situation that had already stabilized by Middle Chinese times (see notes on Late Middle Chinese).
Schuessler 1987: 626. Of the many verbs of movement found in Early Zhou, this one is the most statistically frequent in the assumed meaning 'go (out of one place)' (in the literary texts at least) and also the only one that forms part of a common antonymous pair, waŋʔ rǝː {往來} 'come and go'. Partial synonyms include: (a) wa {于} [Schuessler 1987: 775], used primarily as an auxiliary predicate with preposition functions ('in, at, to') but still encountered in the archaic meaning 'go' in several contexts; waŋʔ {往} may in fact be a suffixal extension of this stem; (b) tǝ {之} 'to go, proceed' [Schuessler 1987: 829]: clearly archaic in usage, but without references to the original point of departure (so that an idiom like *tǝ rǝː {之來} would be impossible); (c) graːŋ {行} [Schuessler 1987: 687], rather 'to walk, march', does not take points of departure or destination as its objects (so something like ŋʰaːyʔ graːŋ gǝ li̯aʔ {我行其野} is rather 'I walk through (across) those fields' than 'I am going towards these fields').
HYDCD III: 935. Cf.: Bǝt Xrǝt drawh, cǝ̌ lʰok wǎŋ {佛肸召子欲往} "Fo Xi called him, and the Master wished to go" [Lunyu 17, 7]. This is, however, far from the only word denoting movement from one place to another in Classical Chinese, and even confining ourselves to early Confucian texts, it is somewhat hard to make a single choice. Most common synonyms include: (a) tek {適}, usually said of travelling to another country, cf.: cǝ̌ tek wraɕ {子適衛} "The Master went (travelled) to the state of Wei" [Lunyu 13, 9], but also encountered in idiomatic expressions such as tek dʰǝ̌ {適市} "go to town (go to the market)"; (b) tǝ {之}, usually also in conjunction with specific toponyms as destinations (tǝ Sʰrǎ {之楚} "go to the state of Chu"), and also in the frequent interrogative construction gʰaːy tǝ {何之} "where are you / is he going?"; (c) finally, graːŋ {行} "to move, walk" is also sometimes found in the meaning 'to go'. Nevertheless, in the early Confucian texts at least the word wǎŋ {往} is still both the most frequent equivalent and the least contextually bound one; texts dating to later periods must be subjected to further research.
HYDCD II: 832. Cf.: ʂi bi̯ên kʰi̯ǚ w̃ü̂n {師便去問} "the teacher then went to ask (about it)" [Linji-lu 120]. Used passim in the text of Linji-lu as the default verb to express directed movement away from one point, functioning as the antonym of lɤy {來} 'to come' q.v.
DEHCD 1985: 647; HYDCD II: 832. As in Middle Chinese, in the modern colloquial language this is the most basic word, antonymous to lai2 {來} 'to come'. Not to be confused with cou3 {走}, whose semantics is dominated by two different aspects: (a) 'to walk' (without specific indication of direction), as in tā zǒu de hěn kuài {他走得很快} "he walks very fast"; (b) 'to go away' (from the speaker, but also without any specific direction), as in qǐng zǒu {請走} "please go away".
Schuessler 1987: 505. Cf.: duy nǝː tip ŋet {誰能執熱} 'who can grasp anything hot?' [Shijing 257, 5]. Probably lexically distinct from 'warm', which may have been ʔuːn {溫} [Schuessler 1987: 641], although all the Early Zhou examples feature figurative meanings ('mild', 'meek', etc.).
HYDCD VII: 232. Cf.: na m̥ǝ̌ːy ek ŋet {如火益熱} "if the fire becomes more hot" [Mencius 2, 17]. Very rarely attested in early Confucian texts, but the word is unquestionably the default equivalent for 'hot' throughout Classical Chinese.
HYDCD VII: 232. Attested in the idiomatic expression ɲet tʰiet ɣu̯ɑn {熱鐵丸} "pills of hot (heated) iron" [Linji-lu 32]: not a truly diagnostic context, but the word is acceptable based on lack of other candidates and overall stability from Classical to Modern Chinese.
DEHCD 1985: 358; HYDCD VII: 232. This is the basic equivalent for 'hot'; the meaning 'warm' is expressed in the modern language by two different equivalents - wen1 {溫} (applied to objects, e. g. water) and nu̯an3-he2 {暖和} (applied to weather).
Hashimoto 1976: 82. Applicable to objects; distinct from zu̯a7 {熱}, normally applied to weather [ibid.]. Both words are marked with the same character {熱}, but it is not highly likely that they are related.
HYDCD III: 200; V: 211. See 'I' for notes on the alternating variants. Like all other historical varieties of Chinese, Classical Chinese does not have any special stems for the 1st p. pl. pronoun. However, unlike Early Zhou, in contexts where it is important to emphasize plural number, the pronoun may be used in conjunction with an auxiliary pluralizing morpheme, which differs significantly depending on the particular dialect and chronological stratum. In Lunyu one such frequently used form, for instance, is ŋʰaː tǎːŋ {吾黨} 'we', literally "our group". This practice becomes even more common in Hàn times, with a variety of different "pluralizers" employed by Sīmǎ Qiān and others; the root morpheme, however, is always the same, making this variation irrelevant for lexicostatistical purposes.
HYDCD V: 211. Slightly dubious. The word is not actually attested in Linji-lu in the precise meaning 'we', except for several ambiguous contexts (e. g. ŋɑ̌ gü̂ŋ ɲǐ {我共爾} 'we', literally = 'me and you', etc.). There are, however, no alternatives, nor is there any reason to suggest that the word for 'we' in this particular dialect could have been expressed by any other morpheme, considering its ubiquitous character in all the stages and forms of Chinese (at worst, it could have been a suffixal extension: ŋɑ̌-tɤ̌ŋ {我等}, cf. the actually attested form ɲǚ-tɤ̌ŋ {汝等} 'you (pl.)').
DEHCD 1985: 1005. The word consists of the old 1st p. pronoun + the new plural suffix -men {們}; attested as such already in certain vernacular texts of the Sòng (XI-XIIIth centuries) epoch. The same period also introduces the pronominal form ca2 {咱} ~ ca2-men {咱們}; the bisyllabic variant is still in heavy colloquial usage as a particular "exclusive" form of the 1st p. pl. ('we, our company, us together, all of us, etc.'). However, this usage is still somewhat marginal compared to the regular wo3-men, and it cannot be said that "clusivity" as such is a grammatical parameter in modern Chinese; we prefer not to include this pronoun in our calculations.
Li 1998: 89. The second component is neiŋ3 'person / people' q.v., functioning here as a plural marker. Also attested in the more complex variant u̯ɛ6-xu̯a3-neiŋ3 {我伙人} [ibid.], which is further quoted as uɛ8-xuɛ7-nɛiŋ5 in [Huang 1958: 289].
Schuessler 1987: 227. Cf.: baʔ mǝːʔ gʰaːy lǝk {父母何食} 'what will the parents eat?' [Shijing 121, 227]; contexts like these clearly confirm that gʰaːy is the principal Early Zhou interrogative inanimate pronoun for the object position (inanimate interrogatives are prohibited in the position of subject). It is opposed to gʰaːt {曷} [Schuessler 1987: 228] which, in contrast, is almost always encountered in the attributive position, translated as 'how?', 'why?', etc. (a minor number of contradicting examples are statistically insignificant and can be explained away as side effects of scribal confusion).
HYDCD I: 1225. Encountered passim throughout Classical Chinese; this is the default lexeme to occupy the position of syntactic object. In certain texts (particularly frequent in Hàn times) the interrogative gʰaː {胡} [HYDCD VI: 1206] may be used in some contexts instead, but, from the lexicostatistical point of view, this is not a problem, since the root is the same in both lexemes.
HYDCD I: 1102. Cf.: cɑk ᶚimmu̯ɑ {作什麼} "what are you doing?" [Linji-lu 91] and many other examples in the same text. A compound stem, in which -mu̯a {麼} is a suffixal component, attached to various pronominal stems, and the root ᶚim- may historically be the product of assimilation (< Early Middle Chinese *ʓiC, where *-C = any nasal or stop). The archaic interrogative pronoun ɣɑ {何} is, in comparison, attested quite rarely in Linji-lu, and is clearly not the basic equivalent for 'who?' in the live language of that time.
DEHCD 1985: 2535; HYDCD I: 1102. See notes on Late Middle Chinese; in the modern language, this interrogative pronoun's behavior is more or less the same.
Li 1998: 23. The first morpheme here is a general interrogative stem, participating in different compound formations (e.g. 'who' q.v. = a concatenation with 'person' q.v.); cf. also su4-mu1 {孰麼} 'what?, which?' (adjectival). The second morpheme etymologically = Old Chinese ʓrǝs, Standard Chinese shì {事} 'affair'.
Schuessler 1987: 7. Archaic, statistically frequent and completely neutral designation of the white color, as opposed to stylistic quasi-synonyms, e. g. saːh {素} 'white = plain, uncolored (as silk)' [Schuessler 1987: 588], and various ultra-rare words like baːr {皤} [Schuessler 1987: 463], etc., whose exact meaning and usage cannot be established with certainty.
HYDCD VIII: 163. Cf.: braːk wrǎ tǝ braːk lʰi̯ǎy, lu braːk su̯at tǝ braːk {白羽之白也猶白雪之白} "The whiteness of white feathers is like the whiteness of white snow" [Mencius 11, 3].
HYDCD XI: 285. The only other equivalent for the animate interrogative pronoun in Classical Chinese is the special distributive form duk {孰} [HYDCD IV: 236] "who (of several...)", which in some texts shows up even more frequently than du̯ǝy. Since, however, both share the same etymological root, this has no bearing on lexicostatistics.
HYDCD XI: 285. Cf.: cuŋ füŋ si̯î ʔɑ=ᶚu̯i {宗風嗣阿誰} "whom does the style of (your) school follow?" [Linji-lu 9]. This interrogative pronoun is clearly the basic equivalent for 'who?' in the entire text of Linji-lu. The free variant ʔɑ=ᶚu̯i includes the standard nominal prefix ʔɑ=, typical for names of people (e. g. ʔɑ=ʂi {阿師} 'teacher', etc.).
DEHCD 1985: 847; HYDCD XI: 285. The colloquial pronunciation ʂei2 goes against regular Chinese phonotactics, reflecting contracted articulation, probably due to the frequent use of the word; the "correct" literary pronunciation, still reflected in the official pinyin transcription shuí, is ʂu̯ei2.
Schuessler 1987: 446. Polysemy: 'woman / wife / girl / daughter' (in the meaning 'daughter' it is likely to be an elliptical form of nraʔ cǝʔ {女子}, lit. 'woman-child').
HYDCD IV: 255. Cf.: nuːŋ wʰǝ̌ Ła sʰok, nrǎ wʰǝ̌ Ła paːh {農有餘粟女有餘布} "husbandmen will have extra grain, women will have extra cloth" [Mencius 6, 9]. The word is not as frequently encountered in early Confucian texts as could be expected, because 'women' in general tend to be referred to politely as bǝ̌ {婦} 'wives', 'spouses'; there is little doubt, however, about the more general, all-inclusive, completely neutral term being nrǎ rather than bǝ̌.
HYDCD IV: 255. Attested only once within the text of Linji-lu, in the compound nɤm-ɳǚ {男女} "man and woman"; thus, somewhat dubious. However, considering the overall stability of this item from Classical to Modern Chinese, it is highly unlikely that the dialect of Linji-lu used any other equivalent for the basic meaning 'woman'.
DEHCD 1985: 498; HYDCD IV: 255. The monosyllabic nü3 is still frequently encountered in idiomatic compounds (as well as in the adjectival form nü3-tɨ {女的} 'female'); the autonomous word for 'woman (female)' is a compound with ɻen2 'person (human)'.
Li 1998: 58. Quoted as a1=ni̯ɔŋ5-nɛiŋ5 {陝矓�} in [Huang 1958: 285]. The first morpheme is a honorific prefix for people; the third morpheme is 'person' q.v.
Wenchang Hainanese:fo2-ni̯an33
Hashimoto 1976: 80. Internal structure is unclear.
Schuessler 1987: 249. This colour word marks both 'yellow' and 'brown' colours, as pointed out by Schuessler (among other objects, it characterizes cattle and bears).
HYDCD XII: 967. In early Confucian texts, encountered only a few times within idiomatic expressions, but in general, the word is clearly the main equivalent for 'yellow' in all of Classical Chinese.
HYDCD X: 1120. Cf.: miek ʈak ʈu̯ěn wi̯ěn {覓著轉遠} "look for him and he moves far away" [Linji-lu 43]. All attested contexts represent bound expressions, but, considering the stability of the item from Classical to Modern Chinese, it is quite likely that this was the basic equivalent for 'far' in Late Middle Chinese as well.
Schuessler 1987: 846. This word is not attested in its literal meaning in any Early Zhou contexts, but is featured prominently in a variety of figurative meanings (e. g.: dʰroŋʔ ŋʰaːyʔ min {重我民} 'he considered our people important' [Shangshu 16, 2], etc.) that are mostly the same as in the Classic period. No alternative word with the meaning 'heavy' is attested for the Early Zhou period.
Schuessler 1987: 147. In Early Zhou, there is a very prominent distinction between the stative "to be near" (neyʔ, directly opposed to wʰanʔ "to be far" q.v.) and the directive "to go/come near, approach" (gǝrʔ {近} [Schuessler 1987: 317]); only the former is eligible in this position.
HYDCD X: 730. Cf.: gǝ̌n ti̯ǎ Łu̯at, wʰǎn ti̯ǎ rǝː {近者說遠者來} "those who are near are glad, those who are far away are coming" [Lunyu 13, 16]. The Early Zhou verb ně {邇} is encountered only twice in early Confucian texts, both times in a figurative meaning; at best, the word could only have been a high-style archaism at that point.
HYDCD X: 730. Within the text of Linji-lu, attested only in the dynamic verbal meaning 'to get near (smbd.), approach'; therefore, somewhat dubious, included mainly because the word functions as the main equivalent for the adjectival/static meaning 'near / be near' both in Classical and Modern Chinese.
DEHCD 1985: 104; HYDCD X: 730. In some contexts, the bisyllabic compound fu4-ɕin4 {附近} may be used instead (where fu4 {附} = 'adjacent; next to'), but the main morpheme always remains the same (and unchanged since Classical Chinese times).
Schuessler 1987: 710. The situation here is rather complex. All of the words for 'salt' or 'salty' in Early Zhou or later are formed with the simple radical 鹵, read as rʰaːʔ and most likely depicting a bag of salt. The word itself, however, is only met in Early Zhou in one epigraphic context [Schuessler 1987: 394]; later on, since the Classic period, it is more generally encountered in the meaning 'salt-marsh'. It may be assumed, therefore, that already in Early Zhou times the principal word for 'salt' was lam, encountered several times in the Shangshu. Another possible synonym is grǝːm {鹹} [Schuessler 1987: 667], but analysis of attested contexts shows that in all cases it either should or easily can be understood as a qualitative predicate with the meaning '(to be) salty'. Cf.: nunh gʰraːʔ ɕaːk grǝːm {潤下作鹹} 'when it soaks under, it makes salt' [Shangshu 24, 5], but further analysis of the excerpt shows that the word here parallels kʰaːʔ {苦} 'bitter', soːr {酸} 'sour', etc., so the correct translation is not 'it makes salt' but rather 'it produces a salty taste'.
HYDCD VII: 1478. Cf.: Kriːw Reːk kǎ ʔa ŋʰa lam tǝ truŋ {膠鬲舉於魚鹽之中} "Jiao Ge was raised (to office) from his fish and salt" [Mencius 12, 35]. This is the most frequent equivalent for 'salt' in all of Classical Chinese.
Schuessler 1987: 529. Only attested once in the Shijing [189, 6]: wiy sŋuyʔ wiy li̯ay {維虺維蛇} 'it is about snake-broods, it is about snakes' (said of an auspicious dream). The context does not make it clear whether it refers to snakes in general or a particular type of snakes; however, in the light of later period usage and the simple pictographic nature of the character (originally written simply as 它), there is little reason to doubt the generic meaning 'snake'.
HYDCD VIII: 878. Cf.: li̯ay roŋ ka tǝ {蛇龍居之} "snakes and dragons lived there" [Mencius 6, 14]. Only encountered once in this particular passage in the early Confucian texts, but the word is unquestionably the principal generic term for 'snake' throughout all of Classical Chinese.
DEHCD 1985: 631; HYDCD VIII: 878. Curiously, this word has no "common" bisyllabic extended variant in the modern language, remaining morphemically unchanged since ancient times.
Schuessler 1987: 41. Cf.: na riyʔ baːk prǝŋ {如履薄冰} 'as if treading on thin ice' [Shijing 195, 6]. The word is rare, and it is not excluded that Early Zhou Chinese distinguished between baːk '2-D thin' and sam {纖} '1-D thin' [Schuessler 1987: 665] (the latter word is only applied to silk threads, hence Schuessler translation of 'fine-textured silk', obviously incorrect since the word behaves as an attribute to particular silk terms). There is, however, not enough evidence to ascertain this.
DEHCD 1985: 2286; HYDCD IX: 780. This adjective, itself quite old in origin (originally = 'very small, tiny'), has in the modern language more or less superseded the older pao2 {薄}, although the latter is still applicable to a few objects in the meaning 'thin' (e. g. pao2 ɨ3 {薄紙} 'thin paper').
HYDCD VIII: 871, 959. Cf.: ba Łǝ̌n dǎŋ lǝk kʰǎːw nǎŋ, gʰrǎː ʔǝ̌m gʰʷaːŋ ʒu̯an {夫蚓上食槁壤下飲黃泉} "Now an earthworm on above eats of dry soil, down below drinks of the Yellow Spring" [Mencius 6, 15]. This is the only occurrence of this word in early Confucian texts, but it is encountered more often in later texts from the Classical period, in one of the two listed spelling variants.
DEHCD 1985: 2519; HYDCD VIII: 876. This bisyllabic word is attested already in Hàn-era texts; it cannot be determined at which particular point it replaces the original monosyllabic yin3 as the default colloquial expression (could even be as early as Hàn itself). The main morpheme is yin3 {蚓}, directly continuing Classical Chinese Łǝ̌n q.v. As for the first syllable, ɕʰi̯ou1 {蚯} is most likely just a graphic variant of ɕʰi̯ou1 {丘} 'hill, mound', i.e. the whole expression is 'mound-worm'.
Jian'ou Chinese:ka3=liu4-xüiŋ22
Li 1998: 55. Graphically transcribed as {加流}+{虫+憲}. Quoted as liu7-xüiŋ3 in [Huang 1958: 288], without the prefix.
Wenchang Hainanese:
Not attested. The word haŋ2 {蟲} 'worm' in [Hashimoto 1976: 82] most likely refers to the generic 'worm, grub, larva, insect' rather than the required meaning 'earthworm'.
Schuessler 1987: 441. The situation with the two main synonyms for 'year' is quite complex for most stages of Chinese. In the Shang dialect (pre-Early Zhou oracle bone inscriptions) the principal word for 'year' is clearly swʰaɕ {歲}, whereas nʰiːn {年} is exclusively used in the meaning 'harvest' (further confirmed by the writing of the character, consisting of 'cereal' above 'person'; the value of 'person', nin {人}, may also be phonetic, but analysis of such a basic and common character as an early phonoideogram is dubious). In Early Zhou, however, nʰiːn, while still occasionally used in the meaning 'harvest', is comparable, if not surpassing, in frequency next to swʰaɕ. It is hard to treat the distinction as anything other than dialectal, sometimes on the "micro"-level, where both words co-inhabit any given dialect, but significantly differ in stylistic and syntactic usage in various ways depending on the particular idiom. In this situation, it cannot even be argued that the meaning 'year' for nʰiːn is chronologically a post-Shang innovation, since the particular type of semantic differentiation between the two words that we see in the Shang dialect may simply reflect a particular idiosyncrasy of one type of speech. Without attempting to offer a more definite scenario, we treat both words as synonyms for the Early Zhou dialectal continuum.
HYDCD I: 647. Cf.: ŋ̥oŋ nʰiːn kǝy sw̥aɕ {凶年饑歲} "in years of calamities and seasons (years) of hunger" [Mencius 4, 13], a perfect illustration to the ongoing use of both words as hard-to-separate synonyms in Classical Chinese. That said, nʰiːn, during this period, is unquestionably the more frequent term of the two.
HYDCD I: 647. Used passim in the text of Linji-lu, but mainly in conjunction with numerals, i. e. 'year' as a countable time interval. The synonymous word si̯u̯êy {歲} is only encountered once, in conjunction with nien: ᶚip nien ŋǒ si̯u̯êy {十年五歲} "ten years-nien and five years-si̯u̯êy", idiomatically denoting an approximate time period. It is, therefore, hardly eligible for inclusion.
DEHCD 1985: 344; HYDCD I: 647. The quasi-synonymous word su̯ei4 {歲} only means 'year' in referring to age (e. g. in ɕi3 su̯ei4 {幾歲} 'how many years? = how old?', etc.).
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