This dissertation studies the phenomenon of interchangeable usage of the radical components related to “Ren” (Humans). To observe if each pair of characters can be used interchangeably, this research chooses twenty characters as study cases. By analyzing the meanings of characters, comparing the examples of phrases and counting the frequencies, this dissertation displays the study results in three parts, as follows:
First, among the twenty chosen cases, there are three different outcomes. Five characters cannot be used interchangeably, Ji, Guei, Shiung, Jian, Tuo and Yin. Two cases are tentatively judged as interchangeable usages such as Jing and Man. Thirteen characters are explicitly interchangeable, such as Yu , Mie , Jia , Jian , Meng , De , Tsai , Cheng , Gu , Shi , Ni , Gou .With this conclusion, this study defines synonymous pictographic components as “the meanings of compared radical components should have an intersection and the variant characters derived from the radical components should match the creation of meanings of words, the literature, and the time.” The interchangeable usage should be defined under strict rules instead of random use.
Second, after counting the frequencies to sort out the condition of use of characters in different periods during the Shang dynasty, this study discovers that oracle bone scripts did carry some standard. Though the conditions of different periods may be different, the standard still exists. For example, characters in the first period of the Wu Ding reign are arranged neatly, with the fewest variant characters of all. In the second and the fourth period there are more variant characters. In the fifth period, there are only a few variant characters with the feature that the representative characters are different from those in the early period. Moreover, the standard of word use of the inscriptions for king’s family is looser than those for the king in the same period. This conclusion meets the description and research findings DONG Zuobin and HSU Chin-hsiung have made on characters and inscriptions in a different period, and it helps the periodic classification. This part attempts to argue that there are two implied ideas of ziyang (the formation of characters) in oracle bone scripts: matching the environment and the ethic of using words.
Lastly, the study tries applying the implication of characters in oracle bone scripts to the periodic classification. Besides observing the forms of characters, the relationship between the representative words in different periods and their variant characters should be discussed as well. From the perspective of ziyang, the characters in the first period are neat, but the inscriptions of the king’s family are full of variant characters, and in Huadong Inscriptions, most characters are in the forms of those in the later period, which is contradictory. Furthermore, the scope of Wu Ding’s political disciplines is vast. Thus, the inscriptions of the king’s family and Huadong Inscriptions should not belong to the first period. Instead, they are more likely to be the creations of the later periods.