<table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" border="0" ><tr><td valign="top" style="font: inherit;">From my 1960's <i>Han-Han Dae Sajeon</i>, rhyming character, chart, FYI.<br><br><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div id="RTEContent"><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://koreanpoems.blogspot.com/">Dr. Edward D. Rockstein </a><br></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br>ed4linda@yahoo.com <br><br><em>Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public purse</em>--Adlai Stevenson<br></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><br><br>--- On <b>Fri, 8/10/12, gkl1@columbia.edu <i><gkl1@columbia.edu></i></b> wrote:<br><blockquote style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"><br>From: gkl1@columbia.edu
<gkl1@columbia.edu><br>Subject: Re: [KS] Use of tones and rhyme scheme in hansi poetry<br>To: Koreanstudies@koreaweb.ws<br>Cc: "Andrew" <zatouichi@gmail.com><br>Date: Friday, August 10, 2012, 11:56 PM<br><br><div class="plainMail">Quoting Andrew <<a ymailto="mailto:zatouichi@gmail.com" href="/mc/compose?to=zatouichi@gmail.com">zatouichi@gmail.com</a>>:<br><br>> Dear all,<br>><br>> I want to ask if anyone knows of, or could offer, a clear guide or<br>> explanation of the tonal rhyme scheme used in Korean hansi (Chinese poems)<br>> quatrains. The most comprehensive explanation I've found so far is in <漢詩의<br>> 理解> by Jo Du-hyeon (조두현). I currently understand that the rhyming<br>> technique was known as apunbeop 押韻法 (압운법), that it utilizes the four tones<br>> (平聲 ,上聲 ,去聲,入聲) and that the basic rhyme comes on the last character of the<br>> second and
fourth line (and sometimes the first). Below are four specific<br>> areas I'm most curious about.<br>><br>> 1.) Is there any knowledge of how hansi were recited out loud during the<br>> late Joseon period? It's sometimes mentioned in sources how a scholar<br>> would recite poems so much that everyone in the household learnt them too,<br>> so what was he singing? Was there a set melody? Were the tones and their<br>> rhymes distinguishable?<br>><br><br>All I can recall from the early 1950s, when I had not yet started my<br>Chinese studies, was that whether it was a hansi or a Korean poem it<br>was the passion that always moved me. Later, after I had studied<br>classical Chinese for six or seven years, I was struck by the fact<br>that there was no reflection of Chinese tones (at least as in<br>Mandarin) when spoken or sung out loud by a Korean, even those who<br>were practiced Hanmun readers and enjoyed
Chinese poetry.<br><br><br>> 2.) There were also meant to have been manuals of rhymes to help less<br>> talented poets compose: do any of these still exist? Were they Chinese or<br>> Korean authored?<br>><br>I don’t know about Korean manuals specifically dedicated to Chinese<br>poetry, but I’m sure that Korean poets of the Silla and KoryO periods<br>were acquainted with Chinese riming dictionaries, or yunshu (unsO 韻書).<br>At least from the mid-late KoryO period on, those would have been the<br>Libu yunlyue (K. Yebu ullyak 禮部韻略) or the Wuyin jiyun (K. oUm chib’un<br>(五音集韻), which were the most popular among poets, Chinese as well as<br>Korean. These are organized by rime in the traditional order and were<br>well known for their literary selections. In Sejong’s time Koreans<br>developed their own rime books but created a new format. Whereas the<br>Chinese rime books listed first all the words according to
rime,<br>starting with the Level tone (平聲), followed by the Rising (上),<br>Departing (去 ), and Entering (入), the Koreans arranged their rime<br>books by their non-tonal pronunciation of the characters, listing all <br>the words of a single class of pronunciations, with all four tones <br>listed together<br>for that class. One can see that, for the Chinese, who knew which tone <br>or tones<br>went with what words, they could more rapidly find them in a listing<br>arranged by rime, whereas for the Koreans, the problem was more likely<br>to be that they knew the Korean pronunciation of the character but not<br>the Chinese tone. Yet they knew that in order to write an acceptable<br>poem there had to be a certain tonal interplay, and that they could not<br>afford to get them wrong<br><br>> 3.) In modern Korean hanja dictionaries, if you look up a character it<br>> also gives the associated tone (平,上,去 or 入) and
beside that another<br>> character which possesses the same tone. For each of the four tones, there<br>> are up to 25 of these "representative characters," but what is their<br>> relation to the particular character you look up? What decides which of<br>> the "representative characters" for that tone is associated with any one<br>> particular character? Sometimes it appears potentially semantic, but not<br>> always. For example, if you look up 水, it's tone is 入, whilst the<br>> associated "representative character" is 紙: so how does that work?<br>><br>I’m embarassed not to have a more recent hanja dictionary. The two I<br>have, from the 1970s and 80s had no such feature. Could you supply an<br>example or two of the problem you mention? With that I might be able<br>to give some answers. But I’ll tell you one thing: the character 水is<br>in the Rising (上) tone, not the Entering
(入). The character (紙) is<br>also in the Rising tone, so that makes some tonal sense vis-a-vis 水.<br>But I fail to see what that information is worth.<br><br>> 4.) Sometimes a given character has more than one tone, depending on usage<br>> and occasionally pronunciation. However, I am surprised that this is not<br>> always related to a semantic difference (ie that the character has two<br>> distinct meanings), but often it is only grammatical, eg the tone changes<br>> depending on whether the character is being used as a noun or as a verb (eg<br>> 知, 下, 風, 衣, 王, 雨) or sometimes simply between whether the verb is being<br>> used in a transitive or intransitive function (eg 湯). This seems<br>> significant as it implies, if the tone of the character is known, the<br>> interpretation of the poem can be slightly more explicit.<br>><br><br>If the same character has more than one tone, then it
is generally<br>always related to a different meaning or a different grammatical<br>function, as with the examples you cite. On the other hand some<br>characters have lots of meanings without any tonal distinction at all.<br><br>Yours,<br>Gari Ledyard<br><br><br>> I would be very grateful for any advice or general pointers!<br>><br>> sincerely<br>> Andrew Logie<br>> (University of Helsinki)<br>><br><br><br><br><br><br></div></blockquote></td></tr></table>