“衖”字音义演变小考

A Research on the Pronunciation Alternation of “Xiang(衖)”

今天一些大型字书或辞书如《汉语大字典》和《汉语大词典》中,"衖"字收有"lòng"一读,释义同"弄",义为"小巷"。查考古代注疏材料可知,唐代以前"衖"字一直被看作"巷"的异体字,没有例外。至晚从元代开始"衖"字在"小巷"这一意义上取得了"弄"字(卢贡切)的读音,并被当做"弄"字使用,明清两代这种用例非常多见。"衖"取得了与之同义的"弄"字的读音,应当看做是一种"训读"。而这种"训读"产生的原因主要有三点:"衖"字使用较少;"衖"字的声符"共"与"弄"音近;分担"弄"字的语义负担。

Nowadays in some large-scale Chinese dictionaries,the character Xiang(衖) has the pronunciation lòng,which possesses the same meaning to Long(弄),indicating an alley.According ancient literatures,before Tang dynasty,Xiang(衖) was always viewed as a variant character of Xiang(巷) without exception.From Yuan dynasty at the latest,Xiang(衖) obtained the pronunciation of Long(弄) when referring to an alley,and was used as the character Long(弄),which was prevailing in Ming dynasty.That Xiang(衖) obtained the pronunciation of its synonym Long(弄) should be viewed as a kind of exegetic reading.The reasons for the pronunciation alternation are as follows:first,the character Xiang(衖) is not used as frequently as Xiang(巷);second,the phonetic symbol of Xiang(衖) is more similar to Long(弄);third,the semantic load of Long(弄) would be shared by Xiang(衖).