Yùn bǔ 韻補
Supplements to the Rhyme-book by 吳棫 (Wú Yù, zì Cáilǎo 才老, fl. 1124 – c. 1154)
About the work
The earliest surviving Sòng-period book devoted to the phonology of Old Chinese (gǔyīn 古音) — i.e., the phonology of the Shījīng, Yì, Chǔcí and other pre-Qín texts — and the foundational work of all subsequent gǔyīnxué down through Gù Yánwǔ 顧炎武 (1613–1682) and Duàn Yùcái 段玉裁 (1735–1815). 5 juàn, organised by the Guǎngyùn rhyme-classes, but documenting which characters in those classes admit “alternative” Old-period readings on the evidence of Shījīng / Chǔcí / pre-Qín rhyming. Wú Yù’s procedure was the first systematic attempt to recognise that the orthodox Sòng-period rhyme-book underdescribes the phonology of the pre-Qín Classics (the rhymes don’t always work) and to read this discrepancy as evidence of phonological change. The Sìkù tíyào — though severely critical of the work’s individual readings (many forced, many unsupported) and its anomalous rhyme-merger lists — concedes that “since the Sòng, the writing of a dedicated book on Old phonology begins from Wú Yù: although errors are myriad, all later Old-phonology writers extend and refine from this beginning”. The work transmits the Old-Chinese practice of “xiéyùn 叶韻” — the assumption that anomalous rhymes signalled an originally-different reading; this assumption was over-turned only by Gù Yánwǔ’s Yīnlùn KR1j0078 (1667), which replaced xiéyùn with the modern conception of gǔyīn as a distinct phonological system.
Tiyao
The Yùn bǔ in 5 juàn. Composed by Wú Yù of the Sòng. Yù, zì Cáilǎo, of Wǔyí. The preface by Xú Chǎn says: “of his ancestral home, the family later moved to Tóngān.” Wáng Míngqīng’s Huīzhǔ sānlù gives him as a Shūzhōu man — possibly Wáng’s mistake. He passed the jìnshì in Xuānhé 6 (1124); declined the Guǎnzhí examination; under Shàoxīng he was Tàichángchéng; in the cǎobiǎo affair of Mèng Rénzhòng he offended Qín Huì and was demoted to Tōngzhōu tōngpàn where he died. Xú Chǎn’s preface lists his five works: Shū bìzhuàn, Shī bǔyīn, Lùnyǔ zhǐzhǎng kǎoyì xùjiě, Chǔcí shìyīn, Yùn bǔ — five in all. Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí under “Shī” lists “Wú Yù Máoshī bǔyīn 10 juàn”, noting “Yù further has a separate Yùn bǔ not specifically for the Shī”; under “Xiǎoxué” lists “Wú Yù Yùn bǔzhù 5 juàn”, noting “Yù also has a Máoshī bǔyīn — see under Shī”. The Bǔyīn is now lost; only this work survives. Since Chén Zhènsūn says Zhū Xī’s Shīzhù used Wú Yù’s readings, Zhū Yízūn in his Jīngyì kǎo — not having checked that this work is only 5 juàn — entered “cún (extant)” under the 10-juàn Bǔyīn entry, and the world has henceforth assumed Zhū Xī used this book and not dared to disagree. But examining the Shī jízhuàn: e.g. Háng lù has 二家 with one yīn 谷 and one yīn “五紅 reverse”; Zōu yú has 二虞 with one yīn 牙 and one yīn “五紅 reverse”; Hàn guǎng has 廣 yīn “古曠 reverse” and 泳 yīn “於誑 reverse”; Lǜ yī has 風 yīn “為愔 reverse” — and so forth — none of these readings is in this book. Tù jū gives 仇 yīn “渠之 reverse” rhyming with 逵; this book on the contrary cites the Hán shī tradition, where 逵 is written 馗 with reading “渠尤 reverse” rhyming with 仇 — a direct contradiction. Zhū Xī’s Yǔlù notes that Wú reads 務 as 蒙 and 嚴 as 莊; this book has 務 but not 嚴. Zhōu Mì’s Qídōng yěyǔ notes that Zhū Xī follows Wú Yù in reading 艱 as 巾 and 替 as 天; this book has 艱 but not 替. So Zhū Xī’s Shī-readings are not derived from this book — clearly. Wú Yù’s reading-projects on the Shī and on the Chǔcí both worked from the actual texts, comparing internal evidence to derive Old readings; Zhū Xī therefore drew on those works. But the present Yùn bǔ, drawing widely from a heterogeneous corpus (50 source-texts, ranging down through Ōuyáng Xiū, Sū Shì, Sū Zhé, the spurious Sānlüè of Zhāng Shāngyīng, even Huángtíngjīng Daoist hymns), has no critical principle of selection — its rhyme-mergers are aberrant: shàngpíng 文/殷/元/魂/痕 with 真; 寒/桓/刪/山 with 先; xiàpíng 侵 with 真, 覃/談/咸/銜 with 刪, 鹽/沾/嚴/凡 with 先; shàngshēng 梗/耿/靜/迥/拯 (six rhymes) with 軫; 寢 also with 軫; 感/敢/琰/忝/豏/檻/儼/范 with 銑; qùshēng 問/焮 with 震 but 願/慁/憾 stand alone; 諫/襇 with 霰 but 翰/換 stand alone; 勘/闞 with 翰; 豔/㮇/斂 with 霰; 陷/覽/梵 with 諫 — three new groups; rùshēng 勿/迄/職/德/緝 with 質; 曷/末/黠/戛/屑/薛/葉/帖/業/乏 with 月 — these are conjectural impositions found in no earlier source. Yet the world’s scholars do not check, and have used this book to charge Zhū Xī falsely. Even so, the writing of a dedicated work elucidating Old phonology since the Sòng began begins with Wú Yù; Chéng Jiǒng’s Yùn shì followed (Chéng’s book — using “three-tone tōngyòng” and “two-initial hùzhuǎn” — was rather better-grounded but is now lost). Wú’s book has a hundred contradictions, but later students of Old phonology have all extended from here, refining further. So we record his errors and yet preserve his book — to honour the labour of the path-breaker. Presented Qiánlóng 46 / 10 (1781). General Editors Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.
Abstract
The Yùn bǔ is the founding text of Chinese Old-phonology (gǔyīnxué) studies — a Southern-Sòng work that for the first time attempts to systematically describe the rhyme-evidence of pre-Qín texts as a body distinct from the orthodox Sòng-period rhyme-classification of the Guǎngyùn. Wú Yù’s Yùn bǔ, datable to his middle-and-late career (Xuānhé 1124 jìnshì through to his demotion-and-death c. 1154 — used here as the notBefore / notAfter bracket), draws Old-period readings from a corpus of 50 sources and notes anomalous rhymes in the Guǎngyùn framework. Its theoretical commitment is to the xiéyùn 叶韻 doctrine: the assumption that anomalous Shī-rhymes reflect a different (i.e., Old-period) reading of the same characters. The Sìkù tíyào documents that Zhū Xī, contrary to the standard scholarly assumption (descending from Chén Zhènsūn through Zhū Yízūn), drew on Wú Yù’s Shī bǔyīn (now lost) rather than on this surviving Yùn bǔ — a non-trivial textual-critical correction. The book’s flaws — the heterogeneous source-base, the conjectural rhyme-mergers — are catalogued in the tíyào, but the work’s historical importance as the first systematic Old-phonology project is acknowledged. From Gù Yánwǔ’s Yīnlùn KR1j0078 (1667) onward, Qīng gǔyīnxué both critiqued and built on Wú Yù: Gù replaced xiéyùn with the systematic insight that pre-Qín phonology is a different system. Catalog meta dates the work to “1124” — the year of Wú’s jìnshì; the bracket here extends to c. 1154 to cover the actual composition window.
Translations and research
- Lú Wén-shū 盧文弨. Yùn bǔ jiào-zhèng 韻補校正. Qīng-period collation, included in the Bào-jīng-táng cóng-shū.
- Yáo Wén-tián 姚文田. 1817. Gǔ-yīn xié-yùn 古音諧韻. — Critique and extension of Wú Yù.
- Wáng Lì 王力. 1985. Hàn-yǔ yǔ-yīn shǐ 漢語語音史. Beijing: Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chū-bǎn-shè. — Standard modern history of Chinese phonology, surveys Wú Yù’s place at the origin of gǔ-yīn-xué.
- Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 1962. The Consonantal System of Old Chinese. Asia Major, n.s. 9. — Treats the xié-yùn tradition; situates Wú Yù as initiator.
Other points of interest
The Sìkù tíyào’s identification of Zhū Xī’s actual source as the lost Shī bǔyīn rather than the extant Yùn bǔ is notable for its principled philological method: the editors compare specific Shī jízhuàn readings against the Yùn bǔ and document non-overlap, then note Zhōu Mì’s and the Yǔlù’s direct attestation of Wú Yù readings used by Zhū Xī that are also missing from the present text. This is a model of textual-critical reasoning under the Sìkù program.