金文“严在上,异在下”与“敬乃夙夜”试解

Trial Explanations of the Two idioms "严在上, 异在下" and "敬乃夙夜" in the Epigraph of West Zhou Dynasty

(一)金文程式语“严在上,异在下”字面意思是“多多美言在上,休美在下”,前半句是对先人的祈求,后半句是先人“严在上”的目的及效用。(二)“敬乃夙夜”句法结构同“敬夙夜”,为“中心语+状语”短语,其中“乃”是一个起衬音作用的音节助词。

Two formula idioms in the epigraph of West Zhou Dynasty are explained and analyzed in the article. 1) The literal meaning of the '严在上,异在下' is 'Ancestors say their prayers in the heaven and their descendants get the blessings in the man'world'. The former part of the idioms is the aim and the latter part is the result. 2) The grammatical structure of the idiom '敬乃夙夜' is equal to '敬夙夜'. The pattern is 'central words + adverbial modifier'. The word '75' in the idiom is a syllabic auxiliary word.