A Preliminary Study Of The Similar Words In The Epitaph Of The Tang Dynasty

Focusing on the structures and styles of epitaphs, this article "modulizes" texts of epitaphs, and analyses similar words in them by methods of links and connections in comparison. To be similar, means that there are at least eight characters in them same to other texts. Also, this article explores the related historical phenomena, such as classification, sources and values in bibliography of similar words. The goal of this dissertation is to analyze the epitaphs which have been found as a whole ancient document, in the bibliographical view, and to overcome the disadvantages of existing researches which use only a few epitaphs and their false accounts, by categorizing and comprehending the similar words and their distribution in Sui and Tang Dynasty.The main body of this dissertation consists of three parts. The first chapter contains the modules of epitaphs, and a thorough analysis of each modules. The second chapter establishes and shows the groups of epitaphs which include epitaphs with similar words, in the form of cells. Also, this chapter discusses the characteristics of these groups, including time, geographic information, identity of tomb owner, calligraphy, nationality and so forth. Different groups also share similar allusions and semantics. The sources of similar words are deduced as well, such as same author, family inheritance and same quoting source. The third chapter studies the documental values of similar words in epitaphs, like the usage of collating within and between groups, which is conducive to transcription and comprehension of epitaphs. Another value of these similar words is to distinguish the false epitaphs, and also prove that epitaphs with similar words are relatively authentic, with features of widely mutual copying and unreal recording.Except the "Double Evidence Act", dual attestation between epitaphs and handed-down documents, and the textual criticism and discrimination of false, the researching methods of this dissertation also borrow from other studying fields, such as modulization and analysis of links and connections in comparison.