Chinese descriptions of Sanskrit: The concept of ‘root’ and puruṣa nominal declension

Chiara Pette

doi:10.13135/1825-263X/11612

Chinese descriptions of Sanskrit: The concept of ‘root’ and puruṣa nominal declension

Authors

Chiara Pette No academic affiliation

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/1825-263X/11612

Abstract

The paper focus on two aspects: the acceptability of some previous interpretations of the term zìtǐ (字體) as 'word root' or 'word stem' in Chinese descriptions of Sanskrit lexemes; and the phonological analysis of the declension of puruṣa 'man', transcribed into Chinese characters by the monk Hui Li (慧立 , 629-665 A.D.). As will be seen, zìtǐ seems to refer to the description of Sanskrit words as they are composed in the writing system (by letter addition), rather than to their grammatical structure. With regard to the declension of puruṣa, it appears that the phonetic reconstructions proposed by Pulleyblank (1991) for the Middle Chinese pronunciation of the characters employed seem to be accurate with respect to the corresponding Sanskrit syllables.

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Author Biography

Chiara Pette, No academic affiliation

After a Master degree in Chinese Language at Sapienza University of Rome, Chiara Pette completed her PhD in Linguistic Studies at the University of Pavia in 2023, defending a thesis on the concept of “root” in Chinese. Her main interests of research regard historical linguistics, etymology, Chinese writing system and lexicography.

Chiara can be contacted at: pette.chiara@gmail.com

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Published

2025-02-20

Issue

Vol. 28 No. 1 (2024): Special Issue on Chinese Studies

Section

Thought and religion

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