莊荀詁釋四題

Four Theses in the Zhuangzi and Xunzi: Some Explanatory Notes

梅廣教授認為：雖然傳統建基於文字學、聲韻學和訓詁學的語文學對研究古典是必要的，但這並沒有發展出一套語法或文法的理論，故對古書的詮釋實有不足之處。其中問題包括：讀古書或因不明詞義，不知通假之理，不悟音義之變，或於文理不審，或於古代文化知識有所不足，都會造成誤讀。這些問題不涉及語法，這裡可以不談。而誤讀與語法有關的，則是句讀、結構多義和虛詞三種。此文主要就《莊子》和《荀子》二書中涉及句讀、結構多義和虛詞有關的語法問題，提出一些論題加以探討，並嘗試對有關論題的語意提供一些較合理和融貫的解釋。

As pointed out by Professor Mei Kuang 梅廣, the traditional field of Chinese philology 語文學 is based on the studies of wenzixue 文字學 (traditional Chinese etymology or study of characters), shengyunxue 聲韻學 (traditional Chinese phonetics or phonology) and xunguxue 訓詁學 (text-based semantics or historical semantics). Although it is necessary for reading and understanding ancient texts, it is not sufficient. The related problems are: In reading classical books, if one does not understand the meaning of a word, does not know the principle of tongjia 通假 [interchangeable words with similar or related speech sounds], or does not examine the linguistic context, or does not have sufficient knowledge of the ancient culture, it would lead to misreading. These questions are not related to syntax, so we may leave here. However, if the misreading is related to syntax, there are three kinds of problem, i.e., about sentence reading, polysemy of structure, and [different uses of] function words. This paper aims at investigating the problems of sentence reading, polysemy of structure, and [different uses of] function words in the Zhuangzi and the Xunzi and it also tries to provide a reasonable and coherent semantic explication for the relevant topics in these two ancient texts.