It is impossible for the ancients to read a text with even a small weight in one breath, and they definitely need to pause when reading, which requires them to break sentences themselves. "Book of Rites" says: "Enter school the following year, and enter school in middle age. One year, depending on the classics ... "Zheng Xuan of the Eastern Han Dynasty pointed out:" It is absolutely impossible to deviate from the classics. " In the Tang Dynasty, Confucius said: "A scholar has just entered the school for one year, and rural doctors must take an examination of his profession at the end of the year. Stay in the classics, that is, divide the manager and break the chapter. " Tang Han
The more he said, "I don't know what the sentence is, I don't understand, or I don't know what the teacher is, or I don't know what it is." I have never seen it in elementary school. " It can be seen that sentence reading is an important method for ancient people to read. Since ancient times, there have been countless jokes caused by improper reading of sentences. For example, "Han Feizi's foreign reserves tell the left bottom" has the following record: "Lu Aigong asked Confucius:' I heard that there were ancients, but what was the result?' Confucius said,' No, it's not enough. Real people are disgusted and disgusting, and many people don't say hello. Although, it is safe from harm because it trusts it. Everyone said, "Only this one is enough." Not feet, feet. Mourning the public said:' It is enough to judge and consolidate it. "
According to archaeological findings, in the process of writing and copying books in ancient China, some symbols indicating sentence reading were used. For example, 1973, the silk book Laozi unearthed from Mawangdui Han Tomb in Changsha, in Silk Book A, besides the circular black spot at the beginning of the chapter as the chapter number, there is an irregular black spot behind a complete sentence, which should be the sentence reading symbol added by the ancients when copying the book. 1972- 1976, a batch of Han bamboo slips excavated by the Juyan Archaeological Team in Gansu Province included ■, ▓, ●, ∞, ∕. For example, the bamboo slips in the late Western Han Dynasty "swallowed the Northern Tunnel and died in the field ∣ (this is a calligraphy symbol) and were eaten three times in the first month ∽ themselves in the first month. Bamboo slips in the Han and Yuan Dynasties were "flat, out of stock and on fire"; In the 27th exploration team of Broken City, three soldiers died in the 29th tunnel on the right and 30 soldiers died on the right. The two-year bamboo slips "Slip Rong ∠ Wang Yang ∠ Lu Shang ∠ Hanshou □" and so on.
These special symbols in Han bamboo slips have their special uses, and some of them play the role of "later", such as "●"; Some play the role of ",",such as "▲", "∣", ∞ "and so on; Some play the role of a full stop, such as "Yi"; Others play the role of identifying chapter heads, branches and paragraphs, such as "W" and "■" placed at the beginning of the text; Some symbols, such as "∽", "s", "▓", = "and so on. It is still difficult to determine what role they play in writing; Some symbols placed at the end of the text, such as "w", are specially used to express their particularity when copying or writing; Some symbols are used together, such as "W", "S", "M", △ "S" and so on, which is very confusing. At the same time, similar symbols such as comma, period, pause, etc. have appeared in Han bamboo slips, and their functions are similar to those of later generations. This shows that at the latest in the Han Dynasty, people still used some special symbols to express sentence reading when writing or copying books, so as to facilitate people's reading.
The fifth part of Shuo Wen Jie Zi has a symbol "",and Xu Shen explained, "Stop; Knowing it, everything belongs to it. " Scholars of all ages have explained this. Xu Kai, a poet in the Song Dynasty, said, "Learning Chinese can be used for reference." A Qing Duan Yucai said, "This refers to six books. Everything is different, nothing can be done, meaning exists in the Lord, knowing its place. It does not mean that reading is not enough. " Zhu also said: "Today's reading is also a specialty." Yang Shuda, a close friend, said, "That is, a reading point for today" (Interpretation of Ancient Books and Sentences). Everyone is sure that ""is at least a sentence-reading symbol, that is to say, ""is the original word of "reading" and a marker symbol of sentence-breaking.
The word "sentence reading" was first seen in He Xiu's Preface to the Biography and Interpretation of the Spring and Autumn Ram at the end of Han Dynasty. As the saying goes, "if you quote his classics, you will lose your sentence, and if you do nothing, you can laugh." Gaoyou also said in the "Huai Nan Zi Xu": "There are very few self-lurers, and I learned from my old servant Jun Lu and the same county." Therefore, the word reading sentences has appeared for at least two thousand years. Zhan Ran, a shaman in the Tang Dynasty, said in the Record of Fahua Sentences: "Every scripture is called a sentence, and if it is not finished, it is called a reading." In other words, "reading" means that the meaning is endless and needs to be paused, and "sentence" means that the meaning of the word has been exhausted. Liu tui, a native of the Tang Dynasty, said in Wen Zhong Ming: "Fifteen years have passed, and we have got 2,180 pieces of paper. Some have painted B, some have printed letters, some have covered their backs, and some have beads around them. " A Qing Luo Ruhuai explained: "Wai is today's circle, a method that the Tang people have already circled, while the Song people prevailed." (Collected Works of Coco Caotang (volume 16)) This shows that "reading" was expressed by symbols very early, and "sentence" had no corresponding special symbols before the Tang Dynasty. After the Tang Dynasty, China's popular books began to be widely used. As a period.
According to the existing literature, the establishment of the use standard of sentence reading symbols in China should be in the Song Dynasty. Song people said in the Evolution of the Nine Classics and Three Biographies: "None of the books supervised in Shu can be read, which is convenient for scholars to copy the books in the library or add some points from the side. However, this is just reading the scripture sentence by sentence. However, the combination of Zhong Shu and Xingguo will benefit the whole week. " Huang Mao, a scholar in the Song Dynasty, also said in his "Zengyun": "In today's secretarial school, every sentence must be beside the word, and the reading score is slightly in the word." , and. "Become the official symbol of reading and become the source of today's pause and period. Later, when novels published in the Ming Dynasty appeared, two proper nouns began to be added: one was to add a straight line "│" next to the person's name, and the other was to add two straight lines "∨" next to the place name, both of which were added to the right of the straight line. The above two kinds of dots and marks are the earliest punctuation marks in China. In the Yuan Dynasty, Cheng almost determined some basic rules of punctuating sentences when reading in Cheng Jiashu's Chronology of Reading. Cheng's book specifically defines the difference between "sentence" and "reading", and the sentence reading symbols mentioned in the book have been standardized. In the Qing Dynasty, scholars made the greatest efforts to study sentence reading and achieved the most results. In particular, Wang Niansun and Wang and his son added sentence-reading symbols such as Guangzheng and Jingci to their books, creating a precedent for their own books to be self-marked.
The unremitting efforts of ancient scholars in this regard not only provided convenience for future generations to read ancient books, but also laid a solid foundation for the establishment of modern new punctuation marks.