“弛”字读音演变考

The Evolution of the Pronunciation of the Character “Chí (弛)”

摘要: 在大多数情况下，汉字的古今读音具有历史继承关系，但“弛”普通话读chí，《广韵》读“施是切”，显然不符合读音演变规律。文章主要根据韵书、字数等记载，采用时间线的方式勾勒出“弛”字读音的演变轨迹和时间序列，研究“弛”字读音从《广韵》到现代普通话的演变情况及音变缘由。指出“弛”字读音在汉语演变过程中主要有四个阶段：音shǐ——另有四重音——shǐ、chí并存——音chí，其旧读音被新起音的替代是现代汉语普通话规范的结果。

Abstract: In most cases, the ancient and modern pronunciations of Chinese characters have historical in heritance. But the word “弛” is pronounced as “chí” in Mandarin, and “Shih’s cut” in Guang-Yun, which is obviously not in line with the evolution of pronunciation. In this paper, the evolution of the pronunciation of the character “弛” and its time sequence are outlined based on the rhyme book and the number of characters, and the evolution of the pronunciation of the character “弛” from Guang-Yun to modern Mandarin and the reasons for the phonetic changes are studied. We can reveal that there are four stages in the evolution of the pronunciation of the character “弛” in Chinese: The sound shǐ - four other sounds - shǐ and chí coexist - the sound chí. The old pronunciation of chí was replaced by the new pronunciation as a result of the modern Mandarin Chinese standardization.