The Study Of Gujinzhengzi

ZhangJian, the writer of GuJinZhengZi, born in Wucheng town, Beizhou city （Today west ofWucheng town in Shangdong province）, his date of birth and death are unknown. According to theliterature, ZhangJian lived around in the period of Empress Wu and ZhongZong of the early Tang Dynasty,official position was provincial governor of JiangZhou (Today is Jiujiang city, Jiangxi province). ZhangJianwas quite productive on writing during his lifetime. According to the records of Old Tang, ZhangJian wrotethe Main Courtesy of Funeral, total of seven-volume, which is well known by then society. He alsoconcentrated on researching the philology and written several books about Chinese characters andpronunciation, for example KaoShengQieYun, GuJinZhengZi, WenZiDianShuo, WenZiShiYao, JiXun and soon. Unfortunately all of these books themselves were lost in the history. However we can still find lotquotes of these book from ZhengXuYiQieJingYinYi, especially KaoShengQieYun, GuJinZhengZi andWenZiDianShuo, which are the main sources of the meaning and pronunciation interpretation ofZhengXuYiQieJingYinYi.ZhengXuYiQieJingYinYi quotes1655times from GuJinZhengZi; among the quotes some interpret themeanings of characters, some analysis the character structure, some list the different way of writingcharacters. From the analysis of GuJinZhengZi, contrast with other similar age dictionaries, andcomparison with the corpus of the mid-ancient period, we get the summaries of the general picture, content,layout style, feature, values and influence of GuJinZhengZi. The following are the main viewpoints:Firstly, GuJinZhengZi was finished around AD660—AD755, that is after XuanYingYinYi published andbefore AnShi Rebellion. Because of the war and other reasons, GuJinZhengZi was lost gradually. Secondly, GuJinZhengZi belongs to the school of ShuoWenJieZi, which inherits the stylistic rules ofShuoWen and YuPian. First to interpret the meaning of the character, then interpret its structure; meanwhile,GuJinZhengZi quote a lot previous dictionaries and Confucian classic about the character meanings.Thirdly, there are abundant characters in GuJinZhengZi. The writer often notes the character’s variousways such as its variant character, folk character and ancient character before analyzing its structure; itwidely quotes the interpretation of the previous dictionaries and Confucian classic, and pays attention to theancient meaning of the character. Meanwhile, it also includes the popular meaning and the Secondarymeaning of the characters.Fourthly, this paper discusses the position and contribution of GuJinZhengZi on the standard of thecharacters, the research of the dialect, the compilation of dictionary and the study of Chinese characters.In addition, after demonstrating the relationship between GuJinZhengZi and WenZiDianShuo, wethink each book has its emphasis; therefore they are not the same book. However, it has great possibilitythat both of them are unfinished.