The Descent And The Variance Of The Stone Inscription Of Sui, Tang And Five Dynasties

The stone inscription, which prevails in Qin and Han dynasty, has a long historyin China. Although it has been forbidden in Wei, Jin and Northern & SouthernDynasty, the stone inscription renews and reaches its peak in Sui, Tang and FiveDynasties. The evolution of Chinese characters from zhuanshu to lishu and from lishuto kaishu as well as the typical characteristics of Chinese characters can be preservedby stone inscription. Therefore, the stone inscription is valuable to the research ofChinese characters' history.Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties is an important period of kaihua andstandardization of Chinese characters. There are a lot of writing materials at that times,especially stone inscription, which are of the greatest amount, the widest use, and thebest preserved. The stone inscription can also reflect the situation of social usingwords faithfully and the process of development and evolution of Chinese charactersclearly. But the stone inscription materials of this period are multifarious anddisorderly, it is difficult to carry on an investigation into these stone inscriptionmaterials only by one person, and it is also weak do the systematic research by thedevelopmental viewpoint of kaizi.Based on the problems mentioned above, it is important to do the quantitativeand qualitative study of development and evolution of mediaeval kaizi based on stoneinscription carrier as well as the inheritance and variation of kaizi in various stages tomake up for the development of kaizi. Therefore, based on the stone inscription of Sui,Tang and Five Dynasties as specification, in according to kaizi in the stone inscriptionof Wei, Jin and Northern & Southern Dynasty, this article studies the inheritance andvariation of kaizi in Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties completely. In order to overcomethe difficulties of various stone inscription data, this paper brings about correlationand contrast of mediaeval stone inscription based on corpora of Wei, Jin and Northern& Southern Dynasty and to construct the corpora of Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties,which ensures the scientific accuracy of data analysis.The investigation shows that kaizi in Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties has alreadyreached standardization basically, comparing with the developmental stage of kaishuin Wei, Jin and Northern & Southern Dynasty. In allograph aspects, comparing with stone inscription kaizi in Wei, Jin and Northern & Southern Dynasty, kaizi in Sui,Tang and Five Dynasties has already achieved its standard process, fonts changesreduce greatly, allergenic phenomena shows a declining trend. In zhengzi(整字)aspects, kaizi in Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties is ideographical writing system of weakconfigurational motivation and with the most important mode of combination ofmeaning and sound. Compared with stone inscription kaizi in Wei, Jin and Northern &Southern Dynasty, the standardization of kaizis configuration has already improved.The variations of components and strokes are two main reasons for the new increasedwords. The combination of meaning and sound is the most important mode of newcreated words and about 70% of new created words are the same as songben yupian(宋本玉篇),which proves that most of the new created words in songbenyupian(宋本玉篇)derive from social using words in Sui, Tang and Five Dynasties. In componentaspects, compared with stone inscription kaizi in Wei, Jin and Northern & SouthernDynasty, the systematicity of signifying components is becoming more and moreperfect and the variation of component's configuration and function is declining. Thena batch of component variant appears with periodical symbol. In strokes aspects,compared with stone inscription kaizi in Wei, Jin and Northern & Southern Dynasty,the strokes type of kaishu has been completely stereotyped and strokes system hasbeen consummated basically and maturely.The paper is divided into six chapters and appendixes: The first chaptersummarizes the current research situation of the stone inscription, and introduces thepurposes and the methods of the thesis. In addition, it also explains the procedure ofmaking the stone literature table and the characters table. The second chapterinvestigates the situation of allograph, sums up eight kinds, looks up the reasons andanalyses the distributing rules of them. The third chapter forces on investigating thedescent and the variance of the shapes from the mode of structure, the plane layoutand the grades, especially the neo-emerging character. The forth chapter divides thestyles of the variance into four styles. The fifth chapter aims at discovering thedescent and variance of the stroke and studying the instability. The sixth chaptermakes a summary of Chinese characters' characteristic and later impact and goes intothe reasons for Chinese characters' descent and variance.