论“以音考字”

The exposition of study knotty Chinese character by its pronunciation

历代字书存留下来了成千上万的疑难字,为了大型字典的编纂、大型字库的建设、汉字字种数的统计、汉字谱系的建立以及全汉字的规范与整理,这些疑难字亟须作出考释。考释疑难字需要多方面的知识,需要科学的方法。关于考字方法,清代学者曾提出“形音义三者互相求”及“以经考字”的学说,应该说这些考字方法并不过时。但是,由于疑难字在字书中保存下来的形音义信息并不平衡,加上音义信息由于传抄失误或编纂失误而存在各种各样的问题,因此具体考释疑难字时,往往要倚重一头而兼顾其它。主要利用字书保存的字音信息并参考字形、字义信息从事疑难字的考释,本文称作“以音考字”。

The scholar of Qing dynasty has put forward the theory of using the form, pronunciation and meaning of knotty Chinese Character comprehensively. This theory is not outdated. It is known to us that form pronunciation and meaning are the three basic elements of Chinese character. The information, related to the three elements, is not equal. At the same time various errors, caused by transcribing and compiling, are kept in the dictionaries. So, the study of knotty Chinese character has to rely on one of the three elements and give attentions to the other two. One of the study methods is basing on the information of pronunciation and refering to the information of other two elements at the same time. We call it the study of knotty Chinese character by its pronunciation.