A Language Study On The Ancient Actors' Lines In South Fujian Dialect Published Ming Dynasty

Abstract: The rich deposition of ancient Chinese prose is one of the main features of South Fujian dialect to which the experts and scholars doing research on Chinese language history always attach importance. South Fujian area is also a place where Southern Opera originated. It remains there a great number of lists of operas in the Song and Yuan dynasties and a lot of ancient actors' lines written in South Fujian dialect. From the Song Dynasty up to the present, the ancient opera and old style have lasted for several hundred years. Quanzhou is known as "The Historical museum of traditional Chinese Opera". It is an important way to develop new fields and to achieve new results in studying South Fujian dialect and its relation with modern times Chinese and modern Chinese by means of local opera. It not only can push deeper in dialect study, but also can provide Chinese language history with many fresh linguistic materials. Two books were published and printed in 16 century and in the beginning of century. One is "The Republished Complete Works of Actors' lines of the Love Story of Lychee and Mirror"; the other is one of the 3 volumes "Spring Here and There" of "Three Selectted Volumes of South Fujian Opera and Music Published in the Ming Dynasty". They serve as important and precious evidences for early literature in South Fujian dialect. This paper begins initially with the linguistic phenomenon and confirms the belong-to problem of the dialect of the actors' lines published in the said precious books in the Ming Dynasty. Then the paper, applying various approaches, rather all-round discusses the features and their relations with South Fujian dialect reflecting in the aspects of phonetics, writing, vocabulary, and grammar. By means of the analysis of textual research of partial words and expressions and their evolution trails, this paper makes an attempt to disclose the course of history in the grammarization of South Fujian dialect. On this basis, this paper, taking as guidance the theories of phonology, philology, dialectology, and critical interpretation of ancient texts, tries to summarizes some effective principles for emendation and annotation of ancient actors' lines in South Fujian dialect.