Title

Evidence of the Existence of the Fan-qie Doublets in the ‘尤’ – rhyme after the Velar Initials in Middle Chinese

Author

Yu-wen Sun

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Key words

Fan-qie doublets ‘opposition’ phonemic structure

Abstract

      The questions of the Fan-qie doublets have not been got a clear understanding of so far. The overwhelming majority of Chinese philologists have taken the “幽” –rhyme to be the Fan-qie doublets of the “尤” – rhyme in accordance with phonemic complementary distribution, while there did not seem to be the Fan-qie doublets in 尤-rhyme itself. The present author, from archaeological point of view, will prove, in both the serial rhyme dictionaries of the qie-yun system and Li Xian’s The Notation of History of the Eastern Han Dynasty in Middle Chinese, there were two distinctive categories of compound vowel in the “尤” – rhyme itself after the velar initials/K/,/k’/ and /g/. in other words, this distinction in question was the concentrated expression of the Fan-qie doublets in the “尤” – rhyme itself. By the principle of phonetic opposition, the “幽” – rhyme was not one type of the “尤” – rhyme thus, namely the Fan-qie doublets of the “尤” – rhyme. Here the present author will briefly furnish evidence below for you: firstly, in Li Xian’s notation to Biography of Guo, Fu, and Xu, and biography of zheng, Kong and Xun, the pronunciation “繆” was mentioned by Li xian two times, it had two pronunciations, one was “音求”, the other“巨秋反”. “音求” differed from “巨秋反”, so this showed that there was the existence of the Fan-qie doublets in the “尤”– rhyme after the velar initial /g/; Secondly, in the serial rhyme dictionaries of the qie-yun system, “丘,去鳩切” differed from “休,去鳩切”, so this showed the existence of the Fan-qie doublets in the “尤” – rhyme after the velar initial /K’/; Thirdly, in the serial rhyme dictionaries of the qie-yun system had two pronunciations, one was“居求切”, the other “居由切”, so this showed that there was the existence of the Fan-qie doublets in the “尤” – rhyme after the velar initial /K/. Therefore, the present author believes, the “尤 ” – rhyme itself had the Fan-qie doublets besides these rhymes “支”, “脂”, “祭”, “真”, “仙”,“宵”, “侵”, “鹽” etc.