小議量詞“匹”和“疋”

Abstract

"疋" appeared in the shell and bone inscriptions; "匹" was first discovered in the bronze inscriptions; both are different in glyph，and in《説文解字》(Paraphrasing Texts and Words) their definitions are also different. But at least in the Han Dynasty, both "匹”and "疋" had been mix-used in measuring “horse” and “cloth” as quantifiers. It is worthwhile to probe into the following questions: how these usages were evolved from their original meanings? What are the characteristics of these usages? Do the differences between them in different times reflect their evolvement? Using CCL ancient Chinese Corpus online, Chinese books electronic database, photocopied ancient books data network and 《老乞大》(Laoqida) series as data sources, according to our studies and analyses, we found that in the process of changing into 隷calligraphy both became similar to each other in glyph, this is the original reason why both were compatible. And we also found that both could be interchanged, that is, "匹" could be used as "疋" , and vice versa. Thereby we infer that it is not accurate to say "匹" is the original while "疋" is a variant of it. In addition, through the examination of historical documents , the shell and bone inscriptions and the bronze inscriptions, it is confirmed that the interpretation of "匹" in 《説文解字》is wrong, and the source of“匹/疋”as quantifiers of “horse and cloth” is explored. Finally, we investigate thirteen books reflecting the characteristics of The Times from 《漢書》(Hanshu ) to 《清史稿》(Draft of Qing History ), and get the diachronic characteristics of “疋”as a quantifier .