The rule of surname exogamy, which has been an important feature of Chinese social organization down to recent times, seems to have originated with the Zhou dynasty. Its importance is symbolized in the myth of Jiang Yuan姜媚 or 姜原, the mother of Hou Ji后稷, Lord Millet, the ancestor of the Zhou kings, whose surname was Ji姬. Contrary to a view that has become popular, it is argued that Ji and Jiang could not have been the names of two originally separate peoples with different geographical origins that came together and formed an intermarrying alliance but were the names of the two leading, intermarrying, clans of a single people. After the Zhou conquest of Shang, marriage politics, which required the rulers of originally non-Chinese states to have clan names of the same kind, played an important part in gradually incorporating such states into the Zhou, Hua-Xia華夏, polity. The fact that the surnames Ji and Jiang were also found among peoples known as Rong 戎 who were not recognized as Hua-Xia but were probably also Sino-Tibetan in language seems to be consistent with traditional accounts of Zhou's northwestern origins. The words Ji and Jiang are probably etymologically related and although yang羊 “sheep” plays a phonetic role in the graphs of both the surname Jiang and the ethnic name Qiang 羌, Jiang and Qiang are two separate words and need not have anything to do with one another.

Since the Jin Hou Su chime-bells from the cemetery of the Jin lords at Tianma-Qucun, Shanxi, became known to the scholarly world, the problem of the dates contained in its inscription has attracted the attention of scholars both in and outside of China. In this article we discuss two aspects of this problem. First, while the “thirty-third year” date of the inscription must certainly refer to King Xuan's reign, which is to say 795 B.C., the four full date notations of the inscription are incompatible with this year, but are instead compatible with the following year, 794 B.C. This article suggests two ways to reconcile this discrepancy. Second, while there can be no doubt that Jin Hou Su is Jin Xian Hou, the “Jin shijia” chapter of the Shi ji gives his dates of reign as 822 to 812 B.C., which is in turn incompatible with either 795 or 794 B.C. However, in the Shi ji's genealogy of Jin lords, the son of Xian Hou is Mu Hou and the grandson of Mu Hou is Zhao Hou, which contradicts the zhao-mu structure of the Zhou ancestral system. Therefore, we propose that the Shiji has reversed the order of Xian Hou and Mu Hou, such that Xian Hou's reign actually extended from King Xuan's thirty-third year through his forty-third year (795-785 B.C.). Not only does this simple change in the genealogy of the Jin lords resolve the problem of the dates in the Jin Hou Su bells inscription, but it also serves to explain an entire array of problems in the chronology of early China.

Focused on a detailed philological analysis of the sacrificial hymn “Chu ci” in the Shijing, the present study aims to reconstruct the dramatic multi-vocal structure of an exemplary early Chinese performance text. Examining the interrelation between performance and commemoration from anthropological, art historical, and linguistic perspectives, the study in its first part outlines major characteristics of early Chinese ritual culture in terms of ritual self-reference, aesthetic expression, cultural memory, and the performative act of constituting ritual reality. After these historical and theoretical considerations, a fully annotated translation of “Chu ci” is offered, with the text presented in its multi-vocal structure. This structure of multiple voices and changing perspectives is then discussed through a close analysis of linguistic features such as rhyme shifts, the distribution of pronouns and formal designations for the ritual participants, and the use of formulaic prayer sequences. It is argued that these features are directly interrelated and, if seen together, allow us to reconstruct “Chu ci” as an actual performance text that can be related to specific practices and situations of early Chinese ritual culture. It is concluded that only such a reconstruction renders the text fully intelligible, integrating all its otherwise unruly linguistic elements into a coherent reading. In view of the evidence from “Chu ci,” it is suggested that its multi-vocal structure is not a singular phenomenon but reflects a principle of composition that might also apply to other early Chinese ritual texts.

This article discusses the several previously unknown Confucian texts discovered in 1993 in a Warring States tomb at Guodian, near Jingmen, Hubei Province. I believe that these works should be understood as doctrinal material deriving from a single tradition of Confucianism and datable to around 300 B.C. Of the surviving literature from the same period, they are closer to the Xunzi than to any other text, and anticipate several characteristic themes in Xunzi's philosophy. These are: the notion of human nature (xing 性),and the controversy over whether the source of morality is internar or “external”; the role of learning (xue 學)and habitual practice (xi 習) in moral development; the content and origin of ritual (li 禮), by which human beings accord with the Way; the conception of the ruler as the mind (xin 心) of the state; and the psychological utility of music (yue 樂) in inculcating proper values.

It is especially important for scholars to take note of these connections with Xunzi, in view of the emerging trend to associate the Guodian manuscripts with Zisi, the famous grandson of Confucius, whom Xunzi bitterly criticized.

This article defends three theses concerning the semantics of nouns in classical Chinese. First, they are all free to function as mass nouns. Second, though many of them can also function as count nouns, they do not do so as frequently as do corresponding English nouns. Third, unlike English nouns, nouns in classical Chinese do not need to be classified as count nouns and mass nouns in order to explain their behavior in particular contexts. I argue that classical Chinese nouns function as count nouns only when specific elements of the syntactic context force them to do so, including numbers, some quantifiers, and some adjectives. Because classical Chinese nouns usually occur without such elements, they function more often as mass nouns. I develop this argument in opposition to an alternative analysis defended by Christoph Harbsmeier, according to which classical Chinese nouns divide into three classes: count nouns, mass nouns, and generic nouns. I show that the syntactic and semantic distinctions Harbsmeier draws in support of his analysis do not illuminate the behavior of classical Chinese nouns. The article also briefly addresses the ontological issues that have seemed to some linguists and philosophers to be related to the count/mass distinction.