From the Sui Dynasty until the use of phonetic symbols and Chinese Pinyin in modern China, China's poetry research has never had a simple and feasible "constructive definition" for the understanding of the term "rhyme". To say that two words rhyme means that they belong to the same rhyme department in a rhyme book (words with the same rhyme are called a rhyme department when put together). In Sui Dynasty, Lu wrote Qieyun, which was the beginning of China's rhyme book. In the last years of Tang Tianbao, it was published as Tang Yun, and later renamed as Guang Yun. One * * * has 206 rhymes, which became the basis for poets to write poems in Tang and Song Dynasties. It was not until the early Yuan Dynasty that there was a relatively simplified "Ping Yun Shui", which reduced the original 206 rhyme to 107 rhyme. This book is the most popular rhyme book since the Yuan Dynasty. [3]
However, according to our understanding of "rhyme" today, "pingyunshui" is still too complicated, and it does not fully conform to the pronunciation of modern Chinese. For example, the rhymes of "One Winter" and "Two Winter" seem unnecessary to be divided into two parts today, because "Winter" and "Winter" are completely homophones now, and there are also "fish" and "fish" and so on. On the other hand, the words in the book belong to the same rhyme, and now we pronounce them with different rhymes, such as "flying" and "sparse".
Through the analysis of the initial consonants and vowels of Chinese pronunciation in the Chinese Pinyin Scheme and the study of ancient Chinese homophones, we have summed up two simplest and feasible rules, so that readers with Chinese Pinyin pronunciation can master the rhyming methods of modern Chinese.
Article 1: If two or more Chinese vowels are exactly the same, they are homophony.
This rule is simple. For those who are familiar with Chinese Pinyin, you can find this homonym at a glance, and those who are unfamiliar only need a small Chinese dictionary of Chinese Pinyin or phonetic symbols. This rule greatly reduces the number of rhymes. But this rule does not put all homophones in the same rhyme, because some homophones may have different compound vowels. Therefore, we have the following rules as a supplement to Article 1.
Article 2: We call vowels "i", "u" and □ "(ㄧ, ㄨ, ㄩ)" semi-vowels ":when they are placed in front of other vowels to form a compound vowel, they can be counted as initials.
The rationality of this rule comes from the spelling rules of Chinese pinyin (not detailed here), which further reduces the number of rhymes, because homophones that do not meet the first rule can be put into rhymes with this rule. For example, the vowels "A" and "ua" of "Sha" and "Hua" are different, but after counting "U" as the initial, the vowel "A" is the same, which is a homonym according to the first rule; Similarly, the vowels of "Ma" and "Jia" are "A" and "ia". After counting "I" as the initial, the vowels are the same.
With these two simple rules, readers can solve all the rhyming problems in modern Chinese poetry writing after skillfully using them, and there is no need to look up any reference books such as rhyming books and rhyming tables, as long as they have a Chinese dictionary with pinyin or phonetic symbols. However, readers who are not familiar with the Chinese Pinyin scheme may sometimes encounter some troubles. For example, the vowels of "read" and "wine" are "u" and "iu" respectively. According to the second rule above, they are homonyms. Why don't they rhyme? This problem comes from the rules made by Chinese Pinyin to simplify spelling, not that our rules are wrong. The word "iu" here is the abbreviation of "iou" when there is an initial in front of it, so "JIU" is actually "Jiu", which is different from "Du" of course, but rhymes with "Shou". In order to let readers who are not familiar with the scheme of Chinese Pinyin use the above rules smoothly without encountering such troubles, we write out such possible problems in the comments below.
Note 1: The vowels "in" and "un" are abbreviations of "ien" and "uen", so the words they produce rhyme with the words produced by "en"; In the same way, the words produced by "ing" and "eng" are homophonic; When there is an initial in front, iou, uei and uen are abbreviated as iu, ui and un respectively. So when there is an initial in front, iu and ou produce homophones, but u, ui and ei don't.
The second note: e and single e in vowels ie and ü e are two different phonemes. The former is actually "Mi" rather than "e" when written alone, and only because the vowel "Mi" is not used alone in Chinese pronunciation, compound vowels "I Mi" and "e" are formed. Therefore, "ie" and "ü e" produce homonyms, but neither of them produces homonyms with "e". This problem is only caused by a symbol, so many people make a mistake and don't know why. For readers who use phonetic symbols, this problem does not exist at all, because they use "ㄜ" for "e" and "ㄝ" for "ㄝ", and there is no trouble caused by symbol omission.
Note 3: Some special initials can make a different vowel sound homophone. For example, "f" and vowel "eng" are combined to read "feng", but it rhymes with the word produced by vowel "ong". Try to read "wind" and "east", which are rhymes. Such examples seem to be rare. The author only noticed this one. If readers find something else, please send it to everyone to share.
So far, our method of dealing with flat tones and rhymes can be said to be very simple and feasible. According to these simple principles, together with the five-word or seven-word law we will talk about next time, you can ensure that your poem meets the requirements of the law. But what we want to emphasize is that you can't judge other people's works as unqualified just because their poems (especially those of the ancients) don't conform to the principles given by us. Because the ancients, even many people who write old-style poems now, still use the ancient sounds of some words, which are different from their rhymes in modern Chinese.
Now let's take a look at two known rules of rhyme in metrical poems, so as to prepare some perceptual knowledge for the next discussion on the rules of metrical poems.
Example 1. Observe the last word of each sentence in the following five-character poems to see which words are homophonic; For words with the same rhyme, let's see if they are at the same level.
1. Quiet Night Thinking (Li Bai)
The foot of my bed is shining so brightly. Is there frost already? I looked up at the moon and looked down, feeling nostalgic.
2. Nanpu Bie (Bai Juyi)
In the bleak drudgery of Nanpu, the autumn wind is bleak. Turn back immediately, my heart is broken, so I can leave and don't look back.
3. Guan Shanyue (Li Bai)
A bright moon rises from Qilian Mountain and crosses the vast sea of clouds. The mighty wind blew Wan Li and crossed Yumen Pass.
4. In mountainous areas (Wang Bo)
The sorrow of the Yangtze River has stagnated, and Wan Li's thoughts will return. The night is high and windy, and the mountains fly.
The first song, wide, cool and fragrant, has the same rhyme (according to the two laws), all of which are read flat;
The second song, the rhyme of autumn and head (according to the first note of the two rules), is read flat;
In the third song, the words "mountain, stream and pass" have the same rhyme (according to the two rules), and they are all read flat;
The fourth song, the rhyme of Gui and Fei (according to the two laws and one note), is read flat.
Example 2. Do the same exercise for the following seven-character poem.
1. Return to China to write a book (What)
Young people leave home, old people return, and the local accent has not changed.
When children meet strangers, they will smile and ask where the guests are from.
2. Sanqinggong Ci (1) (Li Bai)
Beautiful people who see the bright clouds, think of their clothes and see flowers come to see them.
If Yushan didn't see her, it would be Yaochi meeting under the moon.
In the first song, the words handsome and lai rhyme (according to two laws), and they are all read flat. However, the ancient pronunciation of Hui is Hui, so it is also homophonic and flat;
In the second song, Rong, Nong and Feng have the same rhyme (according to two rules and three notes), all of which are flat.
Exercise: imitate the above two examples and practice the following five-character poems and seven-character poems.
1. Du Shaofu was appointed as Ren Shuchuan (Wang Bo).
Across the wall of Sanqin, across a layer of fog, across a river. We said goodbye sadly, and our two officials went in opposite directions.
Know yourself in the sea, and heaven is still our neighbor. Why are you wandering at the fork in the road? The child is holding a towel.
2. Send Liang out of Dongting Mountain (Zhang said)
As soon as Baling looks at the cave in autumn, the solitary peak rises day by day.
I heard that immortals can't meet, and their hearts are lingering with the lake.
note:
[1] The "One East" Department of Melody Enlightenment;
[2] Xun Meng Pian Sentence and Yidong Department;
[3] Gu: Five books on phonology;
Reference answer for the last exercise:
1. Sitting alone in Jingting Mountain (Li Bai)
Birds fly high, lonely clouds go alone [note 1] You look at me, I look at you, and between each other, there are only my eyes and Jingtingshan's.
horizontal organization
Flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat.
2. Answer people (too reclusive)
Occasionally come to sleep under a pine tree with a high pillow and a stone [Note 3]. There is no calendar day in the mountains, and the cold does not know the year [Note 4].
horizontal organization
Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping Pingping.
3. Wuyi Lane (Liu Yuxi)
There are some weeds blooming by the Suzaku Bridge, and there is only sunset at the corner of Wuyi Lane.
Swallows under the eaves of Wang Dao and Xie An have now flown into the homes of ordinary people.
horizontal organization
Flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat.
Flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat flat.
[Note 1] The word "du" is an entering tone word in ancient Chinese, which belongs to Nuo sound;
[Note 2] There are two ways to pronounce the word "Kan". Here, read the first one.
[Note 3] The word "stone" is an entering tone word in ancient Chinese, which belongs to Nuo sound;
[Note 4] The word "Zhi" is an entering tone word in ancient Chinese, which belongs to Nuo sound.
[Note 5] The word "Xi" was pronounced in ancient times; The second sound pronounced as "Xia".
Observing the flat structure of the above three poems, we can see that in the first and third poems, their first and second sentences and their third and fourth sentences are relative; The second sentence and the third sentence are sticky. In the second poem, any two adjacent sentences are relative.