What is the meter of China's classical poems?

The essence of classical meter is to adjust the flat tone to enhance the musical beauty of poetry. There are not many works on the study of the law of leveling, but there are still many problems that must be further discussed in theory, mainly including:

1. What are the essential characteristics of the tone opposition of flat tones? Why can the exchange of flat tones enhance the beauty of music? Why not pay attention to the same catchy ancient poems? What is the difference between the musical beauty of modern poetry and ancient poetry?

2. Can the flat meter enhance the musical beauty of poetry in modern pronunciation? Is it necessary for modern people to follow the flat meter when writing classical meter? How to define the hierarchy and hierarchy division of modern language?

3. Why can we "distinguish 135 and 246"? Why can't it be "246 regardless, 135 clear"? Why must it be two-level and two-level communication, not one-level and one-level communication?

4. What is the exact definition of committing loneliness? Just a hard and fast rule? Or is there a rule to follow? How to treat Sanpingwei and Sancuowei? Why?

5. What is the difference between the musicality of regular sentences and difficult sentences? Why do some places need to be saved and some places can't?

6. What are the essential characteristics of sticking pairs? What's the use of saving each other?

7. What are the similarities between Song Ci and Yuan Qu's modern poetry? What is the difference? What are the specific reasons for the difference?

8. What rules should be adopted for the leveling of couplets?

9. Is it necessary for modern people to reform phonology when writing classical meter? Can the pros and cons give a convincing reason concretely and subtly from phonetics? ……

If the above problems are not clear in theory, we can only be in a situation of knowing what is going on and not knowing why. There is no other way but to blindly follow the rigid rules of the ancients.

This paper attempts to make an exploratory study on these issues. The first section is the essential characteristics of ping and ping.

First, the level and rhythm

Traditional phonology has a serious misunderstanding on the interpretation of the level tone system. One of the biggest drawbacks is "reading literature to create meaning", and the other is swallowing western rhythm theory. Zhang Guan and Dai Li believe that the leveling system can enhance the beauty of rhythm, which is similar to the western rhythm law.

The most representative views are Wang Guangyi and Wang Li:

Wang Guangyi said in China's Poems and Songs: "In terms of quality, a flat voice is stronger than a flat voice. At the beginning of pronunciation, the words with gentle voice are extremely grand and powerful, but they can always maintain their inherent strength when they continue to extend. Therefore, I compared China's flat tone with the stress of western languages and the long tune of ancient Greece, and put forward the theory that flat tone is the cause of China's poetry. " [Note 1]

Wang Li said in the Law of China's Poetry: "According to our idea, the sound is long, and it will not rise or fall; All three notes are short, rising or falling. This naturally falls into two categories. The word' Ping' means neither rising nor falling, and the word' Ping' means' uneven' (such as the danger of a mountain road), that is, rising means falling. The word' up' should mean upward, the word' go' should mean downward, and the word' in' should mean extremely short. The ancients thought that "Ping", "Shang", "Qu" and "Jin" were just representative words and had no meaning. Now it seems that this is not the case. If our idea is good, the use of ping and ping is also the use of long and short, and the use of ping and lifting or upgrading. " "In China's modern poetry,' flat' is the length method, and' flat' is the length method. Of course, China's poetry is different from western poetry, but the principle of their rhythm is the same. " [Note 2]

The above statement is purely the author's conjecture and does not hold water at all.

First of all, the experimental study of modern Chinese tones has confirmed: "The phonetics study of tones mainly involves three parameters of tones: pitch, duration and intensity. ..... Research shows that there is no significant difference in the intensity curves of the four tones of Putonghua: the tone, flat tone and falling tone are mainly' pre-strong' and' medium-strong', and the upper tone is mostly' double peaks'. " [Note 3] "The average values of flat tone, rising tone, rising tone, falling tone and light tone are 245ms, 265ms, 252ms, 238ms and 188ms respectively. The upper tone is the longest, except for the light tone, which is only about 7 1% of the upper tone. Feng Long's research shows that the duration of different tones in a sentence is obviously different from that at the end of the sentence. Yangping is the longest in the sentence, and the other three tones are basically the same. The voice at the end of the sentence is the longest, followed by the rising tone, the flat tone is shorter and the voice is the shortest. " [Note 4]

It can be seen that there is no normal distribution between levels, and the theory of light and heavy law and long and short law is untenable.

Only the theory that "the contrast between flat tone and rising and falling tone causes the beauty of rhythm" seems reasonable, but it is completely untenable in the face of the reality of modern language.

First, the tones of modern dialects have changed greatly. First, many dialects are divided into five to nine tones. Second, the actual phonetic value has changed, because the phonetic name is "name" and the phonetic value (that is, the actual pronunciation) is "real". In modern dialects, the tones named "Yin Ping" and "rising tone" are not necessarily flat tones, and those named "Shangsheng", "Desheng" and "Rusheng" do not necessarily have rising or falling tones. Some "entering tone" is no longer "rising tone", and the ending of vowels without stops becomes a sigh tone. According to Wang Li's definition that "flat tone" is "flat tone" and "flat tone" is "rising or falling or short tone", the division of flat tone in all modern dialects must be completely adjusted, the real "flat tone" must be classified as "flat tone", and the real "rising or falling or short tone" must be classified as "flat tone" and must be based on this name. Take two typical dialects as examples:

1, a new Putonghua proficiency test system:

True leveling: leveling, Gao Pingtiao [55];

Real tone: rising tone [35]; Upper voice, semi-low falling and rising tone [214]; De-voiced, full tone [5 1].

2. The new leveling system of Changsha dialect;

Real leveling: leveling and middle leveling [33]; Yin to low position [11]; Yang [55];

Real tone: upper tone, low upper tone, [13]; On the voice, half high and half falling, [42]; Entering tone, semi-low rising tone [24].

[Press: Changsha dialect enters a soft tone. 〕

According to this principle, you can readjust the level and division of your hometown dialect. 〕

Secondly, if it is the law that "the contrast between flat and rising and falling tones can produce rhythm", it should be equally effective in modern pronunciation; If it is invalid, it proves that this "law" is simply untenable. Therefore, according to Wang Li's theory, judging the rhythm or rhyme beauty of the new "metrical sentences" of flat and even lines according to the new "flat and even lines" system is obviously beyond the new "awkward sentences".

That was not the case. Let's take Putonghua, which everyone is familiar with, as an example:

1, the following sentences should be regular sentences according to the new leveling system:

The cold ape wailed that the Yellow River came from the horizon [Yang Yang Yin and Yang, the adjustment value is: 35, 35, 55, 55, 35 = average].

Flowers bloom in the morning, and the ape cries [Yin, Yang, Yin, Yang, adjustable values: 55, 55, 35, 35, 55 = average],

According to the new hierarchy, the following sentence should be awkward:

A fishing boat leans beside the waterfall, and few pilgrims venture to climb such a desolate temple [to Yang Yang, adjust the values: 21,5 1, 35, 35, 2 14 = cen cen].

Back in Yue Ming, I thought of Jia Yi, who taught here and died in the sea [go to Yang Yang, adjust the values: 2 1 1, 5 1, 35, 35, 5 1 = yeah].

A pillow full of spring dreams, that is, flowing to Gao Temple [to Yang Yang, the adjustment value is: 52,211,35,35,51= round circle].

Come back here, just this month, your messenger from the south will never arrive [Yang Yang went to Shangyang, adjusted values: 35, 35, 52, 2 1 1, 35 = 20].

There are still shadowy birds flying slowly, passing by this pavilion where I get my wine [Yang Yang went to Shangyang, and the adjustment values are: 35, 35, 2 1 1, 5 1, 35 = 20].

[Press: Of all tones, only Gao Pingtiao [55], semi-Gao Pingtiao [44], middle level tone [33], semi-low level tone [22] and low level tone [1 1] are flat tones, and only these five tones are flat tones defined by Wang Li; Other tone values marked with different numbers [e.g. 24, 35, 42, 53, 32, 2 1 1, 2 14, etc.]. ] are all rising and falling tones, and they are all different tones defined by Wang Li. 〕

As long as the sense of hearing is not too dull to the beauty of music, reading and comparing these poems repeatedly will surely find that the latter is more beautiful in melody, and it will never be the former.

I have made a similar comparison in Changsha dialect and the conclusion is the same. You can make the same comparison in your hometown dialect.

Some people think that the rising and falling range of desensitization is not large (no more than 2 degrees) and close to the level tone, so it belongs to the level tone, and the rising and falling range of desensitization is very large, so it belongs to desensitization. This statement is also untenable.

It should be noted that the whole [2 14] will only be read when the voice is read alone or at the end of the sentence. When reading sentences continuously, due to physiological limitations, the pronunciation will change, and the upper pronunciation before the non-upper pronunciation will become a semi-low falling tone [2 1 1], such as the word "pillow" in A Pillow; The rising tone before the rising tone becomes a rising tone [34], such as the word "hand" in "finger". In this way, the rising and falling amplitude of the rising tone in the sentence is smaller than that of the falling tone, which should be regarded as a flat tone, so the falling tone can only be eliminated. Accordingly, most of the examples in the above 2 should still be awkward sentences with beautiful melody:

A pillow full of spring dreams, that is, flowing to Gaomiao [to Yang Yang, the adjustment value is: 52,211,35,35,51= flat].

Come back here, just this month, your messenger from the south will never arrive [Yang Yang went to Shangyang, adjusted values: 35, 35, 52, 2 1 1, 35 = flat].

The following sentence patterns should also be awkward:

Living on the edge of the island for a long time [Yin and Yang ascending, with adjustment values of 35, 55, 34, 2 1 1, 55 = average]

Buy a whip in Dongcheng [Yin and Yang rise and Yin rise, with adjustment values of 55, 35, 34, 2 1 1, 55 = average]

The phonological effect of actual reading is not in line with the facts at all, and it is still the kind of law and sentence style.

If we think that modern Putonghua and dialects are not equal to ancient phonetics and are not acceptable enough, we can also use a reduction to absurdity to prove that, regardless of ancient and modern times, Pinglv has absolutely nothing to do with the rhythm of Chinese poetry. The reduction to absurdity is as follows:

Premise:

We might as well assume that in ancient Chinese and some modern dialects:

Flat voice-flat, heavy and long. Represented by "▄ ▄".

Prompt tone-tortuous, light and short. Represented by "~".

Parameters:

If the rhythm of China's poems is light, long and short, or "flat music", then the rhythm of the so-called orthographic sentences in the following body should be the strongest and most harmonious:

| ▄ ▄ ▄| ~| ▄ ▄ | ~, | ~ | ▄ ▄ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |

| ~ | ▄ ▄ ▄ | ▄ ~ |, | ▄ ▄ ▄ | ~ | ~ | ▄ ▄ ▄ |

The "heavy, flat and long" step in figure 1 is a strict change from the "light, tortuous and short" step, which is obviously a contrast and should be the most harmonious.

In Figure 2, the contrast of the first two-step is still obvious, while the contrast of the second three-step has been weakened.

But Mr. Wang Li also found that the most harmonious sentence is not only this kind of "metrical sentence", but also what they call "difficult sentence", especially this kind of sentence:

| ~ ▄ ▄| ▄ | ~ ▄ | ~, | ▄ ~ | ~ ▄ | | ▄ | | ▄ ▄ ▄ ~ | | ▄ ▄ ~

| ▄ ▄ ~ | ~ ▄ | ▄ ~ | ~ ▄ | ▄ | ▄ ~ | ~ ▄ ▄ ▄ | | | ▄ ▄ ▄ ▄ |

Mr. Wang Li commented: "This kind of difficult-to-save sentence is very harmonious as opposed to the flat and even words in the antithetical sentence. Ancient poets like to use it most, and there are countless examples. " "In application, the latter is not more rare than the former, or even more common than the former. Especially after the middle and late Tang Dynasty, the latter almost became a fashion (Xu Hun attached great importance to it). If you follow this statement, you don't have to think of it as' awkward'. " [Note 5]

In Figure 3 and Figure 4, the contrast between the length and the short, the lightness and the heaviness, and the flatness and the curvature between the two word steps completely disappears, but the order of flatness and curvature is different. But they are all sentences with very harmonious tone, even exceeding the regular sentences with strong contrast in length and weight, which is very telling.

I have seen such classical poems in many modern dialects and Putonghua before, and I have the same experience. Readers can also read and compare in their own dialects to gain perceptual experience.

Inference:

Awkward sentences that completely lack the contrast of length, lightness and flatness are more harmonious than regular sentences with obvious contrast of length, lightness and flatness, which fully shows that the argument that the contrast of parallelism and flatness constitutes the "lightness and lightness law" or "length law" or "flatness law" of poetry is completely untenable.

In other words, light, long and flat are not the essential characteristics of leveling system at all.

Complete the certificate.

In addition, many people point out that Pingping's unchanging ancient poems are equally catchy, and their sense of rhythm is no less than that of modern poems. As long as you look at many comparisons, you will come to the same conclusion.

In a word, the opposition between ping and ping has nothing to do with the rhythmic beauty of poetry.