Some Attempts at Enhancing Old Chinese Reconstructions Through the Lens of Palaeography

The available reconstruction systems of Old Chinese have proven to be indispensable tools for research in different fields, nevertheless, they remain flawed in many aspects and thus call for continuous refinement. Focusing on Baxter and Sagart’s reconstruction (2014), in this paper I will argue that a more systematic way of incorporating palaeographic data as an integral part of the methodology could enhance the reconstruction outcomes. In particular, the graphic forms preceding the kaishu 楷書 script of many characters and the frequent cases of phonetic borrowing in unearthed texts can provide considerable insightful data. Through some illustrative examples, I will contend that phonetic borrowings in excavated texts can provide insights for a) reconstructing items not included in current reconstructions; b) disentangling rhyme class mergers, and c) questioning and verifying the forms of items included in current reconstructions. A more porous boundary between the fields of palaeography and Chinese historical phonology could thus provide new data for answering many of the still open questions relating to Old Chinese.


1
Palaeographic Material as Sources for Old Chinese Phonology In his 2016 review of the latest reconstruction system of Old Chinese (OC) by Baxter and Sagart (2014) (hereafter, BS), 1 Christoph Harbsmeier (2016,498) concludes that "we need reconstructions, no matter how unreliable these may prove to be".Harbsmeier's words were probably too harsh, since, after almost a decade, the system proposed by BS still remains 'the state of the art', and many of its features have proven to be essentially correct.The case of vowel purity is exemplary: a comparison between BS and other reconstruction systems regarding the medial vowels in rhyming words of the Shijing 詩經 (Book of Odes, eleventh-seventh century BCE) 2 demonstrates significantly superior performance of the former, indicating a much more well-ordered pattern of rhyme schemes than any previously proposed system (List et al. 2017, 1-17).
The methodology underlying BS's reconstruction has been effectively synthesised by Hill (2019, 188-94), and I will largely draw on this schematic and punctual synthesis for many of the instances discussed in this paper.In a nutshell, the methodology goes as follows: it starts from the Middle Chinese reading of a character as given in the rhyme dictionaries and rhyme tables, 3 and projects it back to OC by taking into account both language-internal and language-external data.To the first category belong both philological sources such as the Shijing rhyme patterns, ancient glosses, and the xiesheng 諧 聲 series, 4 but also systematic accounts of Sinitic varieties not descendants of MC (e.g.Min 閩) and word families alternations.The second category mainly includes older layers of loans from OC into I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Laurent Sagart for his helpful feedback on some of the examples discussed in this paper and to the two anonymous reviewers for their many insights and suggestions.Any inaccuracy or error is, of course, entirely mine.
1 In this paper I refer to 'Old Chinese' (hereafter, OC) in broad terms, as the stage of the language going from its first written attestations (fourteenth century BCE) to the early Han 漢 dynasty (late third century BCE).See Baxter, Sagart 2014, 1.
2 The traditional datation of the Odes given in this paper has been questioned.Baxter (1991) shows that different layers of historical phonology can be detected in the language of these compositions.In particular, the textus receptus (i.e. received text) of the Mao tradition clearly embeds some Han (broadly 206 BCE-220 CE) phonological traits.
3 I refer to 'Middle Chinese' (hereafter, MC) in broad terms: as the stage of the language going from the end of the Han dynasty (third century) to the thirteenth century CE circa.The sources here mentioned notably include the rhyme dictionaries Qieyun 切 韻 (Spellings and Rhymes, seventh century CE) and Guangyun 廣韻 (Extended Rhymes, eleventh century CE), and the rhyme tables Yunjing 韻鏡 (Mirror of Rhymes, twelfth century CE) and Qiyinlüe 七音略 (Outline of the Seven Sounds, twelfth century CE).
4 Series of characters sharing the same phonetic elements.See Karlgren 1957;Schuessler 2009.neighbouring languages (e.g.Lakkia and Rục, among others). 5Palaeographic data also play a role in the BS system, although they are not employed systematically.

Michele Pulini
Through some illustrative examples, I will argue that a further step should be included as an integral part of the whole methodology: the systematic verification of reconstructed items against the numerous cases of phonetic borrowings detectable in pre-Han excavated manuscripts.This claim is far from being unprecedented.Many scholars have long recognised the potential that palaeographic data could hold for phonological reconstructions (e.g.Qiu 1979; Liu 2005; Ye 2017), and the same could be said for the reverse (e.g.see Jacques 2022, 488-91).The significant number of texts unearthed through archaeological discoveries, and unfortunately, also through the occurrence of looting ancient tombs in recent decades, now provides a vast amount of data deserving a major role in research on Old Chinese phonology. 6 To this day, the most remarkable attempts to refine the BS system through the contribution of palaeography have been made by Haeree Park (2016, 31-72).Some attempts at testing rhyme class distinctions in different phonological reconstructions -also including the BS system -through palaeographic evidence also exist in Chineselanguage scholarship (e.g.Yang 2022).Nonetheless, Chinese historical phonology and Chinese palaeography remain by and large two fairly distinct fields with only sporadic interaction between them.
The examples discussed in this brief paper will focus on phonetic borrowings, 7 attempting to show how they can prove to be essential evidence for at least three different questions, namely a.) 5 An overview of the principles underlying Chinese phonological reconstructions is given in Baxter 2015.
6 The ethical problems related to working with looted -or 'unprovenienced' -artefacts have been the object of debate among scholars.There has been advocacy to ignore these materials or to practice self-censorship in order not to contribute to the prestige and market value of these objects through academic scholarship (Goldin 2013;2023).On the other side, many scholars claim that ignoring these sources would result in a significant loss of potentially relevant data and that the costs of such an intransigent position would far outweigh its benefits (e.g.Foster 2017;2024;Smith, Poli 2021, 520;Meyer, Schwartz 2022, 2).I agree with the latter position.As Foster (2024) has pointed out, the practice of ignoring or avoiding citing unprovenienced artefacts entirely may prove to be unattainable.Besides, the decision on whether to work with these types of artefacts should be addressed case by case, establishing a validity threshold based on radiocarbon testing and scholars' expertise.
7 The practice of phonetic borrowings is extremely frequent in early Chinese texts.
The term 'phonetic borrowing' refers to at least two different phenomena: i.e. the practice of employing a given character to represent a word originally lacking a graphic representation ( jiajie 假借), and the practice of employing characters to represent phonetically similar words which have their own graphic representation (tongjia 通假).This paper will focus on cases of tongjia, which are deemed particularly informative when the borrowed character exhibits a different phonophore (i.e.phonetic component Reconstructing this item can prove to be challenging in some ways: the character never appears in the Shijing and all the other items included in the same xiesheng series have no reconstructed form in BS.This means that its MC form retrievable from the Guangyun cannot be projected back to OC. 9 The MC form 'ejH (Guangyun 1958, 375) 10 could possibly go back to different rhymes and different initials in OC: the rhyme -ej 齊 can originate from OC *-ij-s (zhi bu 脂 部), *-it-s (zhi bu 質部) or *-et-s ( ji bu 祭部) and the initial consonant '-影 can go back to OC *q-or *ʔ-.
A significant piece of data for assessing the correct reconstruction comes from the collection of bamboo manuscripts at Anhui University shengfu 聲符).For more details on the phenomenon of phonetic borrowings please refer to Qiu 2013, 174-97. 8 This particle frequently appears in the corpus of Warring States (Zhan guo 戰國, 453-221 BCE) bamboo slips purchased in 2008 from the Hong Kong antiques market by Qinghua University in Beijing.The Qinghua cache contains more than two thousand bamboo slips.Radiocarbon dating has confirmed the authenticity of these artefacts, which can be dated to the late fourth century BCE and attributed to the Chu scribal culture.See Liu 2011, 63. 9 Rhymes in the Shijing are not the sole source for reconstructing OC; many other transmitted texts and excavated materials, such as bronze vessels or bamboo and silk manuscripts, also contain numerous rhymed passages that could equally contribute to the reconstruction of OC forms.Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, a comprehensive and handy compilation of all rhyming passages -especially those found in excavated materials -is currently missing.This absence makes it exceedingly time-consuming for researchers to verify whether a character not rhyming in the Shijing is attested as rhyming elsewhere.
10 In this paper I use the critical edition of the Guangyun contained in Zhou 1958.Another instance of phonetic borrowing is found on slip no. 9 of the Shanghai Museum manuscript (SBJ2) Zigao 子羔, 14 where yi 殹 stands for the particle yi 抑 *[ʔ](r)ik.

SBJ2: 殹(抑)亦成(誠)天子也與(歟)?
Yet perhaps they truly were the sons of Heaven?! 15The example in the Anhui University Shijing allows us to opt for the rhyme *-ij-s (zhi bu 脂部) in OC.Yet, to account for the example in the Shanghai Museum manuscript, we could hypothesise a final glottal stop (*-ʔ) in the reconstruction.As for the initial consonant, no contact with k-見, g-群, h-匣, x-曉 or y-以 can be detected in the xiesheng series, suggesting that the MC initial consonant ' 影 should be projected back to the OC initial *ʔ.The character entry yi 殹 can thus be reconstructed as OC *ʔˤi[j](ʔ)-s.
A similar case occurs with the character yan 牪.This character is rather rare: it lacks an entry in the Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Explain the Graphs to Unravel the Written Words, second century CE), 16 never occurs in the Shijing, has no xiesheng series, and no entry in the 11 The corpus of Chu bamboo manuscripts (1167 bamboo slips) preserved at Anhui University (Anhui Daxue 安徽大學) was purchased in 2015.Radiocarbon testing conducted at Peking University (Beijing Daxue 北京大學) has confirmed the authenticity of these artefacts, which can be dated to the fourth century BCE.The publication of the manuscripts is currently still ongoing; two of the expected nine volumes have been published to date.See ADJ1 2019, 1 andLiu et al. 2019, 56-60.12 In this paper I use the ICS concordance system for referencing the Chinese classical works.
13 Transl.by Meyer, Schwartz 2022, 199.14 The corpus of bamboo manuscripts housed at the Shanghai Museum (Shanghai Bowuguan 上海博物館) was purchased on the Hong Kong antiques market in 1994.This collection of unearthed texts comprises more than 1,200 bamboo slips written in the Chu script, which have been published in nine volumes edited by Ma Chengyuan .Radiocarbon testing has confirmed their authenticity and provided a dating to the late fourth-early third centuries BCE.For more details see Liu et al. 2019, 11-16.15 Unless otherwise stated, all translations are by the Author.2385-3042  60, 2024, 239-256   244 Guangyun.This makes its reconstruction quite hard.Its MC reading, though, can be retrieved from the Yupian 玉篇 (Jade Chapters, sixth century CE in Kangxi zidian 康熙字典 2015, 651) where the fanqie 反切 niu juan 牛眷 MC ngjuw kjwenH is given, yielding the MC ngjwenH.
Also The OC reconstruction *[g]ro[n]-s is mine.MC gjwenH 渠卷切.The MC rhyme -jwen 仙 after grave initials can only go back to OC *-ron/r (yuan bu 元部) and initial g-群 is likely to be inherited from OC.A nasal prefix (*N-or *m-) plus velar could also be at the origin of MC g-群.In both cases the matching seems suitable enough to validate this instance of phonetic borrowing.These readings, acceptable with respect to the broader contexts of the pericopes, are both supported by phonological evidence and, at the same time, allow us to enhance our phonological understanding: if yan 牪 here effectively functions as a loan for yuan 願 *[ŋ]o[n]-s or juan 倦 *[g]ron-s, it would mean that it can be rather safely reconstructed as *[ŋ]ro[n]-s. 18 In the absence of a xiesheng series for further investigation, a reconstruction with a nasal prefix -be it *m-or *N -and an uvular as onset could also be possible.As the Yupian glosses the character as related to niu 牛 (ox), 19 we could speculatively opt for a *m-prefix, frequently attested in animal names.However, the reconstruction with *[ŋ] onset remains the most plausible in light of the phonetic borrowing examples detected in the manuscripts.

3
Disentangling Rhymes that Have Merged In the centuries separating the language of Mengzi 孟子 (fourththird century BCE) from the language of the Qieyun 切韻 (601 CE) many rhymes coalesced.Our current understanding of the phonological developments of Chinese allows us to disentangle many of these cases when projecting MC readings back to OC.However, in some cases such disentangling is subject to more reservations.In this respect, the phonological data encoded in the early script attested on the unearthed texts can once again prove to be extremely valuable.This is the case of the rhymes *-at and *-et (yue bu 月部) which have the same reflexes in MC division III after acute initials, making them difficult to disentangle when reconstructing OC (Schuessler 2009, 225).I take the character shi 筮 MC dzyejH (achillea stalk, divination by achillea), reconstructed as *[d][e][t]-s by BS, as an example.
This character appears twice in the Shijing but it does not rhyme (Baxter 1992). 20Fortunately, it is attested on many unearthed manuscripts from the Chu region where it functions as a phonetic borrowing.One of its best-known occurrences is in the Mawangdui  2014,42,206). 21The retrieval of different excavated versions of the Laozi allows us to make a deeper survey of the ways this word was written in early manuscripts: the bamboo manuscript preserved at Peking University (second-first century BCE) (hereafter, BD2) writes the character di 慸 (lofty, extreme), 22 which is likely to function as a phonetic loan as well (BD2 2012, 156). 23Its phonophore dai 帶 is reconstructed as *C.tˤa[t]-s, making it a good candidate for phonetic borrowing.Highly informative is also the graph attested on slip no.22 of the Laozi bamboo manuscript A (late fourth century BCE) found at Guodian 郭店 (hereafter, GD): 24 , usually transcribed as .At the time of its first attestations, this complex graph sparked a heated debate among palaeographers and philologists both on its transcription and on its reading.Some scholars suggested the character stood for a lexical variant in the line of the Laozi, while others suggested it merely represented a phonetic borrowing for the reading shi 逝 of the received version. 25 The debate on how to appropriately read it seems to be settled: the character frequently appears in later discovered caches of bamboo manuscripts where it usually stands for the reading shi 逝, confirming that the Guodian version of the Laozi did not show any lexical variation or innovation with respect to the received text.As for its transcription, I hypothesise that its phonophore should be identified in the component , which is the most stable part of all attested graphic variants. 26He Linyi (1999,(196)(197)(198)(199)(200)(201)(202)(203)(204) and Liao Mingchun 21 The discovery of over three thousand artefacts including silk manuscripts, paintings, bamboo slips, lacquered objects, weapons etc. from tomb nos. 1 and 3 at the Mawangdui site (Changsha, Hunan 湖南 Province) in 1973 is arguably one of the most famous Chinese archaeological discoveries of the last century.Various elements indicate that burial no. 3 -where the silk manuscripts were retrieved -can be dated back to the year 168 BCE (Western Han Xi Han 西漢 206 BCE-9 CE).For more details see Liu et al. 2019, 640-756. 22 This character is glossed as Gao ye.Yi yue ji ye 高也。 一曰極也 (Lofty.One opinion reads this as extreme; Author's transl.) in the Shuowen jiezi 1983, 504.This meaning -compatible with the broader meaning of the stanza -makes it suitable to be read ad litteram.The reading as a phonetic loan, though, is better supported by the other attestations, all pointing to the reading shi 逝.The evidence coming from the Laozi manuscripts seems to suggest that reconstruction in *-at for the character shi 筮 could possibly be more felicitous. 28  4 Verifying Reconstructed Items Another common case in which palaeography turns out to be a valuable tool for questioning or verifying phonological reconstructions is when we come across some 'mismatches' between the reconstructed form and the phonetic information encoded in the ancient graphs, or when the ancient graphs highlight some phonological -and sometimes even etymological -connections no longer visible in the kaishu 楷書 script.The instance of feng 風 (wind) and fan 凡 (all) is exemplary.Though uneasy to tell by simply looking at their kaishu forms, both graphs actually share the same phonophore, as also confirmed by Xu Shen 許 慎's gloss of the entry feng 風 in the Shuowen jiezi. 29This is extremely evident when it comes to the Chu script, where feng 風 is generally written as , while fan 凡 is usually written as .However, Baxter and Sagart reconstruct the two items with different rhymes: feng 風 *prəm and fan 凡 *[b]rom.This 'mismatch' seems problematic, since 28 One of the two anonymous reviewers kindly informs me that they are not sure whether the entry shi 逝 should be reconstructed as *-at.The character shi 逝 is found rhyming in different lines of the Shijing (see Baxter 1991, 788) and BS reconstruction does not seem to question the reconstruction of its nuclear vowel.Therefore, I keep the idea of reconstructing it as *-at.Whether the nuclear vowel of both shi 逝 and shi 筮 should be reconstructed as *-at or *-et, these many examples of phonetic borrowings strongly suggest that both entries shared the same rhyme.
Baxter transcribes the MC readings of the two characters as pjuwng and bjom.The transcription of the latter, however, could eventually be questioned: fan 凡 is given the fanqie fu fan 符䒦 MC bju phjomH in the Guangyun (1958,233), but the character fan 䒦 -indicating its rhyme -is actually spelled with the fanqie fu fan 孚梵 MC phju bjomH or phju bjuwng (Guangyun 1958, 548).Interestingly, the second reading of the character fan 梵 matches the rhyme of feng 風 (-juwng 東) and would thus allow to reconstruct the same rhyme also in OC.
The -juwng 東 rhyme after labial initials either goes back to an OC rounded vowel or is reconstructed as OC *-əŋ (zheng bu 蒸部).Consequently, the two words could possibly be reconstructed as *p[o, u] ŋ and *b[o, u]ŋ or as *pəŋ and *bəŋ, which seem to better match the way they were once written on bamboo texts.However, this is not supported by the rhyming patterns of the Shijing, where the character feng 風 is clearly found as rhyming in *-əm.It is thus likely, that in this case the same phonophore was used to represent two non-perfectly identical syllable types, in the lack of a better choice (see Baxter, Sagart 2014, 66). 30Furthermore, though it is true that the fanqie spellers can sometimes seem ambiguous as having themselves multiple readings, it is also true that each fanqie speller is generally only employed with its more frequent and basic reading (Pulini, List 2024).
Cases of 'mismatches' between reconstruction and phonetic borrowings in early texts can also prove helpful for reconstructing OC pre-syllables: it is the case of shan 善 *[g]e[n]ʔ (to be good), which, though being a core term in many early Chinese texts, never rhymes in the Shijing.Baxter and Sagart (2014, 78) have identified some evidence for reconstructing a velar initial.However, this reconstruction can be questioned on the grounds of a phonetic loan in the Cao Mo zhi zhen manuscripts (ADJ2 slip no.11; SBJ4 slip no.18) where the character chan 纏 *[d]ra[n] clearly functions as a loan for the verb shan 繕 (to repair), which takes shan 善 as its phonophore.e.g.ADJ slip no.11: 纏(繕) (甲)利兵 e.g.SBJ slip no.18: 纏(繕) (甲)利兵 Maintain armours and weapons in good conditions. 3130 A full grid of phonophores -both in the standardised Chinese script and in excavated materials -with their phonetic values according to BS system is currently missing.Such a tool could prove to be helpful for further supporting or discarding this claim.
31 The same pericope also appears on ADJ slip no.34 and SBJ slip no.51 of the two Cao Mo zhi zhen manuscripts.This example could possibly be explained by reconstructing shan 善 with a *k-pre-initial before a *d-onset. 32This would account both for the evidence found by Baxter and Sagart for reconstructing a velar in the onset and for the suitability of the character chan 纏 to function as a loanword for shan 繕 in excavated texts.Some further data, also coming from neighbouring languages, could prove useful for further validating this hypothesis.

Michele Pulini
The last instance of 'mismatch' to be explored in this paper is linked to a person's name: Cao Mo 曹沫, a general of the State of Lu 魯 active in the seventh century BCE, after whom the two aforementioned Cao Mo zhi zhen manuscripts from the collections of the Shanghai Museum and Anhui University are named.
The case of Cao Mo is particularly interesting since both the manuscripts and the transmitted sources show a remarkable degree of graphic variation in relation to this name.In the transmitted literature, the general of Lu is called Cao Mo (either written as 曹沫 or 曹 昩), Cao Gui 曹劌 or Cao Hui 曹翽. 33These different graphic variants all seem to point to the meaning of something 'obscure', 'indistinct', 'blind'.This meaning is shared by the characters mo 昩 and gui 劌, 34 of which the characters mo 沫 and hui 翽 are likely to be allographs.Furthermore, apart from being semantically related, the two variants of the name of the Lu general attested in the transmitted literature also share the same rhyme (dieyun 疊韻) *-at (yue bu 月部).
Conversely, the manuscripts show the graphic variants and for the first character and the graphs , , , and for the second one.By looking at the different graphic variants we can isolate two different phonophores for the first character: cao 曹 *N-tsˤu and gao 告 *kˤuk-s; and four phonophores for the second one: mo 末 *mˤat, sui 歲 *s-qʷʰat-s, mie 蔑 *mˤet and wan 萬 *C.ma[n]-s.A glimpse through the reconstructions in BS clearly reveals a rather complex picture alternating several different rhymes for one single person's name.This requires further investigation.
It is likely that the phonophore in the graphs and attested on the Cao Mo zhi zhen bamboo slips is not solely the component gao 告, but rather .The latter could possibly be identified as an allograph As for the second character Mo, the picture is much more complicated: the spelling with the phonophore sui 歲 *s-qʷʰat-s could be subsequent to the evolution of the cluster *k.m into kw, a phenomenon attested in the evolution of other words from OC to the MC stage: e.g.袂 *k.mˤet > MC kwet (Sagart, Baxter, Beaudouin 2022).This usage suggests a late datation of this spelling and accounts for its absence in the Cao Mo zhi zhen manuscripts.
The manuscript version of the Sunzi bingfa 孫子兵法 (Master Sun's Art of War) excavated at Yinqueshan 銀雀山 (hereafter, YQS) helps us in dating this evolution to have taken place at least by the early second century BCE (terminus ante quem). 37General Cao Mo is in fact mentioned in Sunzi A11/12/5 and his name is attested on YQS slips written with the phonophore sui 歲 *s-qʷʰat-s (YQS 1985, 21).
As for the character mie 蔑 (tiny, discard, reject, poor sighted), it cannot be associated with an *-at rhyme if we base our investigation uniquely on its Guangyun spelling (i.e.met) (Guangyun 1958, 496).Nonetheless, it is interesting to notice that some characters within the same string of homophones of mo 末 MC mat given in the Guangyun actually share mie 蔑 as phonophore: mie , mo , mo 瀎, mie (Guangyun 1958, 497).This implies that indeed these entries can be reconstructed with an OC *-at rhyme.Furthermore, a gloss preserved in the Xiao Erya 小爾雅 (Little Erya late third century BCE) and a gloss by Duan Yucai to the Shuowen jiezi might provide a clue.The entry mie 蔑 is said to be "the same as mo 末" (mo ye 末也) in the Xiao Erya (in Kangxi zidian 2015, 1410), while Duan Yucai states that this is "an allograph of mo 眜" (tong zuo mo 通作眜 Shuowen jiezi 1983, 145), another character meaning 'to be poor-eyed'.
These glosses, along with the usage attested in the manuscripts, suggest that the character mie 蔑 once also had a reading *mˤat, which had already been lost by the time of composition of the Qieyun, but was retained in some characters which take it as their phonophore.
As for the character wan 萬 (ten-thousands), -which also has a mo reading in Mandarin, generally employed in surnames (e.g.Moqi 万 俟) -it matches the OC *-at rhyme of the other three phonophores only in the medial vowel, but not in the final consonant, though both *-n and *-t are acute codas.The phonophore wan/mo 萬 is thus in a dui zhuan 對轉 relation with the other three phonophores employed for the name of the Lu general. 38Yet there are some characters within BS reconstruction that though having wan/mo 萬 as a phonophore, are reconstructed as *-at: e.g.mai 邁 *mˤrat-s.
Interestingly, the very well-known allograph wan 万 is usually written in the manuscripts as mian 丏 , which is glossed as bu jian 不見 (to be blind, unable to see) in the Shuowen jiezi (1983,423), resembling closely the meaning given for the entries mie 蔑 and mo 眜, both indicating a poor sight.Regardless of the scenario, the use of mie 蔑 and wan/mo 萬 as phonophores for a *mat syllable type continues to serve as compelling evidence that requires careful examination.This intriguing instance of phonetic borrowing undoubtedly merits further investigation and discussion.Conclusive Remarks By looking at some informative examples, this paper has tried to explore the potential of systematically including palaeographic sources as an integral part of the methodology underlying current reconstructions of OC focusing on the phenomenon of phonetic borrowing, which is extremely frequent in early texts.
As the examples discussed have shown, the phonetic loans attested in early manuscripts can sometimes prove to be an essential tool both for reconstructing items ex novo, as well as for questioning and verifying some OC forms currently included in phonological reconstructions.On the other hand, a deep understanding of OC phonology turns out to be an irreplaceable tool for palaeographers and philologists to correctly transcribe and read early sources.A more porous boundary between these fields is clearly needed.This paper has tried to take a modest step in this direction.

Bibliography
Primary Sources (excavated) in this case, two instances of phonetic borrowings in the manuscripts can help us test what has been proposed so far: the character yan 牪 appears in two pericopes of the two manuscript versions of Cao Mo zhi zhen 曹沫之陳 (Cao Mo's Battle Formations) from the collections of the Shanghai Museum and Anhui University.The editors of the Anhui University manuscript have interpreted the character as a phonetic borrowing for the words yuan 願 *[ŋ]o[n]-s (to desire) and juan 倦 *[g]ro[n]-s (fatigued) (ADJ2 2022, 53, 66), while the editors of the Shanghai Museum manuscript (hereafter, SBJ4) only agree on the second reading (SBJ4 2004, 267-8): 17 ADJ2 slip no.3: 牪(願)尔正 (功) SBJ4 slip no.37: 牪(願)尔正 (功) May you want to rightly apportion merits.ADJ2 slip no.24: 不可田(使)牪(倦) = (倦)則不行 SBJ4 slip no.38: 不可思(使)牪(倦) = (倦)則不行 Do not let [those in command of the army] get fatigued or they will no longer be able to march.17The editors of SBJ read the first occurrence of the graph yan 牪 as an allograph of ben 奔 MC pwon OC *pˤur (to run, to flee), based on the well-known graphic variant ben 犇 (奔).As the entry in the Yupian seems to suggest, the characters yan 牪 and ben 犇 should be distinguished.The solution proposed by the editors of ADJ fits better the general meaning of the passage.Besides, the character yan 牪 also appears in another pericope of Cao Mo zhi zhen where it can be arguably read as a loan for juan 倦 (fatigued), the whole passage dealing with the qi 氣 (vital energy) of the soldiers.For these reasons, I believe that the reading ben 奔 should be rejected.A reading yi 疑 *[ŋ](r)ə (doubt) has also been proposed by some scholars (e.g.Yu, Zhang 2019, 274).I find this proposal not convincing: the word yi 疑 appears on ADJ2 slips nos.19, 28, 35, 42 and SBJ4 slips nos.33, 44, 52  and is consistently written as yi (ADJ) or 矣 (SBJ).As for the expression zheng gong 正 , the editors of ADJ propose to read it as zheng gong 爭功 (to compete for merits).I read it as zheng gong 正功 (to rightly apportion merits) as in Zhouyi 周易 (The Zhou Changes) 7/11/5 Da jun you ming, yi zheng gong ye 大君有命, 以正功也 "The great ruler delivers his charges: thereby he rightly apportions merit" (Transl.byLegge 1882, 276).This parallel had already been noted by Wang Ning (in Sun 2023, 87).
Some Attempts at Enhancing Old Chinese Reconstructions Through the Lens of Palaeography e-ISSN 2385-3042 60, 2024, 239-256 Michele Pulini Some Attempts at Enhancing Old Chinese Reconstructions Through the Lens of Palaeography 245 馬王 堆 silk manuscripts (hereafter, MWD4) of the Laozi 老子 (late third century -early second century BCE) where it functions as a phonetic loan for the word shi 逝 *[d]at-s (to leave, to go afar) in a line which has a parallel in the stanza no. 25 of the received edition (MWD4 18 This reconstruction is also supported by the character (phonophore yuan 元 *[ŋ]o[r]) functioning as a phonetic loan for yuan 願 in Qinghua *Zichan 子產 slip no. 21.As many other examples show, the coda *-r had already shifted to *-n in the phonology of the Chu manuscripts.19 Niu jian ye 牛件也 (Kangxi zidian 2015, 903).20 I.e.Shijing 58/27/13; 169/76/12.For a practical tool for checking Shijing rhymes see List 2016.e-ISSN 2385-3042 60, 2024, 239-256 246

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The Laozi manuscript preserved at Peking University is part of a larger collection of over 3000 bamboo slips donated to the university by an anonymous collector in 2009.These slips are generally dated to the reign of Han Wudi 漢武帝 (141-87 BCE).For further details, refer toLiu et al. 2019, 48-52.Regarding the authenticity of these slips, see Foster 2017.24 The Guodian cache comprises almost eight hundred bamboo slips, which were excavated in 1993 in the Jingmen 荊門 area (Hubei 湖北 Province), ancient Chu polity.The Guodian corpus also dates back to the late fourth century BCE.See Liu et al. 2019, 7-11.25 For a detailed account of the different proposals see Andreini 2005, 85-96.26 The character appears with some slight variations in the Qinghua manuscripts *Fu Yue zhi ming 傅說之命 (The Command to Fu Yue) slip no.5; *Liang Chen 良臣 (Good Ministers) slip no.10; *Zichan 子產 slip no.21; *Ziyi 子儀 slip no.18; *Chi bang zhi dao 治邦之 道 (The Way of Governing the Country) slip no.22; *Yin Tu 音圖 (Table of Sounds) slip no.222) identify the phonophore as xue 辥 *s.ŋat.The substitution with the phonophore zhe 折 *N-tet is only visible in Han dynasty documents (see Li 2012, 115).Receptus: 大曰逝 *[d]at-s GD: 大曰 (辥 *s.ŋat ?)MWD4: 大曰筮 *[d][e][t]-s BD2: 大曰慸 *C.tˤa[t]-sWhat is great goes afar.27 21 and in the Anhui University Shijing manuscript slips nos.43, 59, 81, 82, 83, 101these graphs are glossed as shi 逝 (in most of the examples), shi 噬 or shi 澨 by the editors.The latter two -found in *Ziyi 子儀 and *Chi bang zhi dao 治邦之道 -show all the components found in the character of Guodian Laozi A. However, they should be read as shi 澨 (shore).27Transl.by Ryden 2008, 53.

Michele Pulini Some Attempts at Enhancing Old Chinese Reconstructions Through the Lens of Palaeography 243 (hereafter
, ADJ1 or ADJ2 in relation to the edited volume): on slip no.40 of the Anhui University Shijing manuscript, 11 there is a line which has a perfect match in the transmitted text of Shijing 24/11/18. 12In this line the character yi 殹 clearly functions as a loan for the particle yi 伊 *ʔij (zhi bu 脂部):