出土文獻所見「僕臣臺」之「臺」考

Deciphering Chinese Character Tai (a Type of Slave) in the Unearthed Documents

「臺（儓）」作為一種身分低下的奴隸，它在傳世文獻中的用例甚多。但在出土文獻中的用例目前學界考定者只有四例，可謂罕見。相反，與「儓」詞義接近的「臣」、「僕」，它們在出土文獻中的用例很多。這種不對稱現象是否真實的反映了「儓」、「臣」、「僕」三者在出土文獻中的實際用字情況呢？本文認為，在甲骨文、金文中還有一些用作「儓」的文字以往未被準確地考釋出來。通過字形繫聯，辭例比勘，本文對甲骨文、金文中這些文字作了新的考釋，其文字構形中皆包括一個上下兩臣相疊的構件，為它們的基本聲符。此字可釋為「眙」，故相關文字可破讀為「儓」，或是从索眙聲、从子眙聲等，可直接釋為「儓」。它們在相關文例中除去用為人名、地名者外，釋讀為「儓」皆文意允洽。從甲骨文、金文中兩種「儓」字異體的義符（从索或从執）來看，「儓」為奴隸身分的由來，很可能如「羌」、「係」一樣，是由俘虜身分轉化而來。商周時期，奴隸是普遍存在的一種社會身分，本文對甲骨文、金文「儓」字的考釋，為此提供了新的例證，有助於我們了解商周的社會階層。

The Chinese character tai denotes a humble slave, and examples of its use abound in the literatures handed down since ancient times. However, only four examples of such use in the unearthed documents have been deciphered by academia, which may be deemed as a rarity. In contrast to the above, examples of use in respect of the two characters chen and pu, both having similar meanings to tai, are found in large numbers in the unearthed documents. This asymmetry of use, however, does not necessarily reflect how the characters tai, chen and pu were used in the unearthed documents. In this paper, I argue that there are some characters similar in meaning to tai in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions that have not been accurately deciphered. I also attempt to re-decipher such characters in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions through association of character configuration and comparison of contextual relations. Structurally, these characters share the same configuration: a character chen is in pairs and on top of the other. This structure also serves as the basic phonological symbol of these characters. The character tai can be deciphered as chi and characters associated with chi may be pronounced as tai, or even directly deciphered as tai. These characters can be pronounced as tai outside of being used as personal names and place names. Deciphering from the perspective of meaning and form of the two tai variants in the oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions, I argue that tai denoting the status of a slave may have evolved from the status of a captive, as have the characters qiang and xi. Slavery during the Shang and Zhou dynasties was a common social status. By providing new examples of deciphering the character tai in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions, I hope this paper would facilitate further understanding of the social stratification of said dynasties.