Title: Final Particles and Rhyming in the "Shih-Ching"
Abstract: The collection of lyrics known as the Shih-ching E is the great early work of Chinese poetry. Its influence on later poetry and poetics is seminal; as one of the official classics (ching) it is a text that has contributed to shaping the thought, morals, and politics of China up to modern times. Because it contains lyrics that may date as early as the twelfth century B.C., it is also an important repository of evidence of the early stages of the Chinese language.} Modern scholars have focused on this text to understand the grammar and phonology of Old (or Archaic) Chinese.2 One of the striking linguistic features of the Shih-ching is the extensive use of particles in a number of its lyrics. Particles-words that perform grammatical fimctions and can also carry emotional and modal nuances-are one of the features of Classical as well as Modern Chinese. Thus at first thought the use of particles in the Shih-ching would not appear to raise any questions. It is well known, however, that particles tended to be avoided in later shih i poetry. Perhaps related is the fact that this same later shih poetry is also characterized by strict regularity and brevity. During the T'ang dynasty (618907), for example, the two most popular poetic forms were the four line chuehchu fEt (quatrain) and the eight line lu-shih ffi (regulated poem). In the case of each form, lines were limited to either five or seven syllables (there are rare examples of six syllable meter), among which there were seldom any particles. When certain poets such as HanYu mt (768-824) introduced a more extensive use of particles in their works, it was to deliberately add an archaic
Publication Year: 1996
Publication Date: 1996-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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