論文例求義法

The Method of Searching for Meaning via Wenli

Abstract

LANGUAGE NOTE | Document text in Chinese; abstract also in English.

文例指同樣或同類的詞句在不同語境中有規律地重複出現的語言現系。孤立地考索一個句子中的詞語，不容易把握其含義，不容易發現問題，但如果聯繫詞句使用的慣例來考索詞義，將詞語納入慣例的範圍之內，就容易看清其確切含義，容易發現流傳過程中出現的差錯。這種根據文例考求詞義的方法就是文例求義法。文例可從不同的角度分類。根據文例出現的語言單位的不同，可分為詞語文例、句式文例、段落文例三類；根據文例適用範圓的大小，可分為個體文例和通行文例兩類。文中利用文例考釋了許多疑難詞語，訂正了不少前人的誤訓。

The term wenli refers to the linguistic phenomenon of the same word, phrase, or expression repeatedly occuring in different contexts but with certain consistent features. It is hard to venture on the meaning of a given phrase and to identify a problem if it is examined without context. It would be much easier to determine its exact meaning and to discover its variations and errors during its transmission if one considers its customary usages summed up in statistics. This method is termed “searching for meaning via wenli.” There are different methods of wenli categorization. Divided by the unit of language, there are: phrasal wenli, sentence pattern wenli, and paragraph wenli. Divided by the coverage of practical use, there are individual wenli and general wenli. In this essay, the author makes use of wenli to examine a number of difficult phrases and is successful in correcting many mistakes of past exegistic work.