Abstract
The term “Yin-chu Yang-shou” first appeared in the late Ming scholar Shen Chong-Sui’s work entitled Du-Qu Xu-zhi. While a consensus exists that this term was used to describe some phonetic characteristics of the Wu dialect in the late Ming, the actual meaning of these characters has remained a mystery for more than three hundred years. By comparing this term with the famous phenomenon of “voiceless sounds with voiced air stream” in the modern Wu dialects, which has been well studied by the late Professor Yu-Ren Chao, the author suggests that “Yin-chu” and “Yang-shou” must connote “voiceless sounds” and “voiced air stream” respectively. This new reading explains every aspect of the characteristics which Shen Chong-Sui had delineated in his work. The author provides concrete evidence to support this new reading. The classes as well as the values of the tones that Shen described in Du-Qu Xu-zhi are also reconstructed.
Keywords
Du-Qu Xu-zhi, Yin-chu Yang-shou, Yang-chu Yang-shou, voiceless sounds with voiced air stream, Wu dialect
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