Studies On The Inner Structure Of Maya Hieroglyphs

Maya hieroglyphs,dating back to 3rd century BCE,are one of the most ancient Mesoamerican writing systems.It is also one of the four major logo-syllabic writing systems in the world.This thesis claims that it is a good comparative grammatology researching method to apply Chinese character researching theories to the study of Maya hieroglyphs,thanks to their common feature of being logo-syllabic writing systems.Under such theory,there are lots of comparative researches of Maya hieroglyphs and Chinese characters.Thus,there is a lack of independent study of Maya hieroglyphs.Therefore,this essay,using the researching theory applied to Chinese characters,with the rich materials of both dictionaries and hieroglyphic inscriptions as well as the guide of hieroglyphic units,seeks to bring the research of the inner structure of Maya hieroglyphs to a further level.This essay is composed of 6 chapters.The first chapter is an introduction of the research purpose,methods,materials and quotation system.The second chapter consists in the literature review.The first part provides an overview of the structures and collections of Maya inscriptions materials.The second section introduces common grammatical affixes of classic Mayan language.The third paragraph presents a review on the studies of Maya graphic structures,which include the classification of structural units and specific researches of single structural units.The fourth part based on the previous paragraphs,aims at establishing the theory structure of this thesis.The third chapter,based on the study of glyphs,collects 273 groups of glyphs,of which nearly every group has more than one allograph.On this basis,it is testified that there are seven different structure modes in glyphs: semantic determinative-syllabic,pictograph-syllabic,semantic sign-syllabic,multi-syllabic,semantic determinative-semantic sign,two or more pictographs compound character and fully-functional single character.This chapter proves also that there are two types of allograph in Maya hieroglyphs: different-wrote variant and heterogeneous variant.The different-wrote variant refers to agroup of glyphs with same meaning and sound value,but which were wrote in different ways,namely difference in shape,stroke,direction,decoration,position.Finally,the heterogeneous variant refers to a group of glyphs having the same meaning and sound value,with different structure modes,which were caused by adding or deleting signs and using loan phonetic of logograms.The fourth chapter,based on the study of compound graphs,collects 160 examples from Maya hieroglyphic dictionary.On this basis,the researcher developed a clear definition method of Maya compound graphs.Moreover,the author analyzed the types of meaning,structures,allographs and causes of compound graphs.There are four types of meaning including names(titles),relationship glyphs,ritual verbs and calendar glyphs.There are five types of structures including affixation,infixation,conflation,superimposition and special structures.There exist five types of compound graph allographs,including: the use of different glyphs,of different structural modes to build the same glyphs,different positions of glyphs.There are two main causes of compound graphs,namely the thinking pattern of people who use the logo-syllabic writing systems and the features and limitations of stela materials.The fifth chapter,based on the research of glyph block,analyzes a study on the doubled components in the glyph block of Maya hieroglyphs and its substitution patterns.There are many duplicative components in the glyph blocks of Maya hieroglyphs.Some of them are used to double the meaning or sound value of the original components.Some of them are just the aesthetic consideration of scribal,which does not affect the meaning of the original components.This phenomenon,which was discovered by earlier Maya epigraphers,still needs further researches on its causes and substitution patterns.This essay discusses these two issues,focusing on the rearrangement of the glyph blocks containing duplicative components.From the perspective of graphic structure,the doubling phenomenon existed in both syllabic signs and glyphs.There are two reasons behind the doubling phenomenon: the redundancy and simplify of signs of lead to the sign-internal duplication;the unique spelling rule of Mayan language lead to the repeated of the syllabic signs.From the perspective of glyphs,the doubling phenomenon existed in both compound graphs and couplets,which are generated by the recombination of glyphs.The substitution patterns of these phenomenon are the use of doubling signs,underspell,choice of different variants of the same syllabic sign and sharing components.All four substitution patterns can function for both the glyph-internal and between different glyphs.The sixth chapter is a summary of this essay.Also,it illustrates three aspects that need further research.Finally,the last section of this thesis is the appendix,which includes the chart of glyph and the chart of compound graphs.