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On the Lexical Differences between South and North as Revealed by Diachronic Substitutions of Commonly Used Body-Part Terms

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Chinese Lexical Semantics (CLSW 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 8229))

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Abstract

This paper is concerning about the Middle Ancient Chinese lexical researches: It is an important task to discover the linguistic differences between the South and the North during the Southern and Northern Dynasties period. Prior discussions have always concentrated on phonological aspects, while lexical studies are nearly entirely absent. In this paper, we propose a systematic methodology to unearth lexical differences. By investigating diachronic substitutions of the commonly used body-part terms, we try to prove that the northerners tended to use the ancient word while the southerners adopted the new word yan in formal writing. This will partly confirms Yan Zhitui’s(顏之推) point: “southerners often use vernacular words while northerners use archaisms.” In the future, more studies of this kind will reveal the overall lexical differences between South and North, and will help us to understand the “Yan Zhitui Puzzle”.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chinese Literature, Tunghai University, Taichung, Taiwan, 40348

    Wen-Hui Chou

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  1. Wen-Hui Chou
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Language Research Institute, Beijing Language and Culture University, No. 15 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, 100083, Beijing, China

    Pengyuan Liu

  2. School of Foreign Languages, Peking University, No. 5, Yiheyuan Road, Haidian District, 100871, Beijing, China

    Qi Su

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Chou, WH. (2013). On the Lexical Differences between South and North as Revealed by Diachronic Substitutions of Commonly Used Body-Part Terms. In: Liu, P., Su, Q. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8229. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45185-0_22

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-45185-0_22

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-45184-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-45185-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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