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Historical Linguistics HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS NICHOLAS CLEAVELAND BODMAN I. INTRODUCTION The literature on Chinese historical linguistics is already very large, and indeed unti very recently at least, the history of the language and its writing system has been the major focus of attention for scholars writing on the Chinese language. These writings are now becoming more and more voluminous, and many of them deserve more than ever before to be characterized as having real linguistic value, in the modern sense of the term, whereas the earlier writings in this field pertain more to a traditional philological or sinological approach.1 The native Chinese tradition of phonological studies had, in particular, reached a high degree of sophistication during the Ch'ing dynasty. This discipline2 has in fact made a generally happy marriage with modern Western linguistics. In surveying the major developments from the time of the Second World War to the present, I shall attempt to cover the most important current trends in the fields of historical phonology, morphology and syntax in writings dealing with the history of the Chinese language only,3 excepting where I touch upon comparative linguistic studies which would relate Chinese to other linguistic groups. The many works of a purely philological or text-critical nature and those having to do with semantic problems are not dealt with here. Important and numerous as they are, historical studies of lexical items are not treated here unless they are significant in a broader way or deal with matters having some phonological, morphological, or syntactic import. Similarly, I have not attempted any coverage of the large and important 1 The most important studies of the past twenty-five years are listed alphabetically by author in the Selected Bibliography at the end of this chapter. All references by short title with date of public- ation appearing in the footnotes refer to this bibliography. All of the items in the Selected Biblio- graphy, and any other publications referred to in the text and footnotes, are also incorporated in the comprehensive Bibliography of Chinese Linguistics, Chapter 7. 2 Including yin-yiin-hsiieh, 'traditional phonology', ku-yin-hsiieh, 'studies of ancient sounds', teng-yiin-hsueh, 'study of the rhyme tables'. The very recent article by G. B. Downer, "Traditional Chinese phonology", Transactions of the Philological Society, pp. 127-42 (1963), deals particularly with different systems of fan-ch'ieh spellings. 3 The content of this chapter departs in this respect from that of most of the articles in Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol. 1. No mention is made here of writings by Chinese linguists on general historical linguistics or on the historical linguistics of languages other than Chinese. Such writings form only a minuscule proportion of what Chinese linguists have written. 4 NICHOLAS CLEAVELAND BODMAN body of writings on paleography and epigraphy since this study is in itself not strictly relevant to a discussion of the language.4 It is natural that the modern linguistic approach to the study of Chinese should initially have come in the main through the work of Western scholars. The situation nowadays is different. Western linguistic techniques have been well assimilated by the best of the Chinese scholars, and this fact is in itself an instance of a very important trend in the Chinese linguistics of today. However, the contribution to Chinese linguistics by writers from Japan, Europe, and America is very notable indeed and this survey must give due weight to the large number of writings done by such foreign scholars.5 For many years the name of the eminent Swedish sinologist, Bernhard Karlgren, overshadowed all others in the field of Chinese historical linguistics. His influence was paramount in China as in the scholarly world at large, for it was chiefly through his writings that the techniques of Western historical linguistics (as developed to about 1920) were applied to the study of Chinese, and it was mainly the stimulus of his work that has led to the present great resurgence of interest and new developments in this field. The contributions of this one man have been enormous, and if some of his work now begins to be outdated, or is controverted in part by newer studies based on more modern approaches, one cannot fail to give him a large share of the credit for our present systematic knowledge of the older stages of Chinese; certainly it is chiefly through his writings that the Western scholarly world has been made aware of the fascinating and intricate problems in Chinese historical linguistics. Karlgren's work still stands as a generally firm foundation upon which new studies can be based. His notation for Ancient Chinese (600 A.D.) and Archaic Chinese (about 800 B.C.)6 is in common use, and he himself remains an extraordinarily pro- ductive scholar to this day. Starting from the early nineteen-forties, there has been a steadily increasing number of works whose authors have in one way or another taken issue with Karl- gren. He is no longer universally considered the absolute authority on historical phonology, but the swing away from him has been a gradual process involving not only the discovery and dissemination of new phonetic data, but also a strongly growing tendency to interpret the data within a phonemic frame of reference. While some scholars still follow Karlgren closely in his avowedly nonphonemic presenta- tion of the Ancient Chinese forms, others would substitute new phonetic interpre- tations; yet others have worked along phonemic lines while generally accepting Karlgren's phonetic analysis. Most recently, there have appeared studies which would not only revise details of the phonetic data, but which would treat the new 4 References to recent works on philological or paleographic matters may be found in the general bibliographical references given at the beginning of Selected Bibliography at the end of this chapter. 5 The inclusion here of works by foreign authors is another departure from the procedure generally followed in Volume 1 of this series. 6 As registered for both periods in the standard reference work, Grammata Serica Recensa, Karl- gren, 1957. HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS 5 findings in terms of a phonemic systematization. All these newly developed appro- aches will be described in some detail below, but the point at issue here is that the focus has now largely shifted away from Karlgren, and the present trend is character- ized by diversity and great vitality. It is a time when major breakthroughs can be expected; it is the beginning of a new era in Chinese linguistics. One can no longer speak of the 'Karlgren age' since this new period has many spokesmen. Evidence of the lively new spirit is reflected in the title of Paul B. Denlinger's eloquent and important article: 'Chinese historical linguistics: The road ahead'.7 2. GENERAL Rather than following a strictly chronological order of presentation in recounting the developments of the past twenty-five years, it is more convenient to deal in sequence with the major topical fields, subdividing these where necessary according to the significant historical stages of the language. The major emphasis is on phono- logical research because of its primary importance and the large number of con- tributions on the subject. In dealing with Archaic Chinese, it will be more con- venient to include studies on morphology with phonological work since morpho- logical alternations have been important in contributing to the phonological analysis. New studies on syntax are mostly on the classical language, and will be discussed separately. In consonance with the principle that the further back we go in time the less data we have and that these data also become increasingly hard to interpret, this account will mostly be set down in an inverse chronological order of the historical periods. Dealing first with the more recent stages of the language is a procedure that emphasizes our dependence on knowledge of the data of one period for our generally, lesser knowledge of earlier periods. The methods of recovering information on the various older periods of Chinese are perforce very different from those used for languages that have old records in an alphabetic script. In order to make this matter clear to the non-specialist, I have found it necessary to go into considerable detail and at times to present the back- ground of a problem in my own terms. I have tried to do this objectively, but may not always have been successful in repressing my personal views and preferences. Before treating the various subjects in detail, it may be helpful at this point to say a few words of a general nature, making some mention of the chief scholars and their particular specializations as well as listing the main works of a general nature that either cover the history of the language as a whole or that concern themselves with more than one of the major topics that we take up in more detail in subsequent sections. The three most famous linguists in China before 1939 were Chao Yuan-jen (Yuen-Ren Chao), Lo Ch'ang-p'ei, and Li Fang-Kuei, all members of Academia 7 Denlinger, 1961. 6 NICHOLAS CLEAVELAND BODMAN Sinica. Their influence on younger scholars through their writings and teaching has been very great. Among the latter, Wang Li, Chou Tsu-mo, Chou Fa-kao, and Tung T'ung-ho have with Chao, Lo, and Li all been leaders in Chinese linguistics. We must also add the name of Lu Chih-wei, who has contributed much of value in his linguistic studies. Chao has written very widely in linguistics. His most important article on historical phonology is "Distinctions within Ancient Chinese" ;8 but he has concentrated on descriptive studies of Chinese dialects and present-day Mandarin.
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