Song Yuanxiao Speaks Vocabulary Research

Script for story-telling is the earliest literary work written in vernacular language that can be seen at present.lt is one of the valuable materials for studying the lexical history of Chinese. In this paper, we take 40 vernacular novels of Song and Yuan Dynasty as the basic study corpus.Then compare it to the other corpora.From the vertical (history) and horizontal (dialect) comparison,we make a specialized study about the development and evolution of the lexicon of Song-Yuan scripts.This paper consists of three chapters. Introduction and conclusion are at the beginning and at the end.The "Introduction" mainly introduces the object of study?research status?the corpus value of 40 Song-Yuan scripts ,the research content, significance, methods and materials of this paper.The first chapter is devoted to common words.In this part, we probed into five common words,i.e "Sheng-Suo",words with the meaning "every day"(Meiri?Riri?Zhuri?Rizhu?Zhuzhao?Meitian?Tiantian) ,words with the meaning "thing"(Wushi?Dongxi?Wujian)?words with the meaning "beautiful(of facey)"(Jun?Jun qiao?Biao zhi?Qi zheng) ,words with the meaning "bird nest"(Chao?Ke?Wo) .We probed into the diachronic evolution?the difference between the north and the south and synchronic distribution of those words in modern Chinese or in the history of Chinese language development. Through the investigation of these five common words,we find the evolution of common words shows a significant imbalance in regions.The general trend of the evolution of the Chinese language is "The north is new, the south is ancient" ;The differences between the north and the south in the evolution of modern Chinese, especially in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, show strong historical inheritance;The change of the base dialect of mandarin influences the replacement of dominant words.The second chapter is devoted to the regional evolution of words.In this part, we probed into five words,i.e"Housheng","Shiti","Dupi","Shenghuo" with the meaning "work"?"articles for use","Shan" with the meaning "abandon".Through the investigation of these five words,we find :To investigate the regional evolution of a word in the history, we must first establish a correct concept of time. A dialectal component in earlier data is not equal to its counterpart in contemporary dialects;The competition of synonym?ambiguity of meaning?semantic overload are factors which influnce the regional evolution of words;Some modern Chinese dialect words are developed and evolved from the modern chinese words . Those words are both inheritance and innovation in dialect.The third chapter is devoted to the disappearance of words and acceptation,i.e"Shici"?"Dongshi"?"Fae"?"Jiayuan"?"Wairi"?"Fugui" with the meaning "property"?"Cuozhi” with the meaning "raise"?"Xiaohao" with the meaning "information".Through the investigation of these words,we find colloquial words increase in modern Chinese?the development and change of word formation morpheme and ambiguity of meaning are factors which influnce the disappearance of words.The disappearance of acceptation is mainly the result of self-regulation of semantic system.At the end,some problems are summarized which are about the evolution of common words,the regional evolution of words , the disappearance of words and acceptation.