It is common to find a shape with more than two functions in Chinese characters, including individual characters which record more than two words and parts expressing more than two meaning. The main reasons for the phenomenon are: one shape was given different functions when being created; similar shapes became one shape during evolution process; one shape was borrowed to record a derivative or homophone. Its development resulted in the glyph differentiation or generation of a new shape with more than two functions. And the simplification of Chinese characters results in a shape recording more than two words, which does not affect the distinguishing function of characters because the modern Chinese vocabulary is mainly composed of disyllabic words in which there is another morpheme playing a distinguishing role.

“Differentiation of form” plays an important role in Tang Lan’s theory system. It is not only an important path to the evolution of characters, but also the theoretical basis of the natural classification created by Tang Lan. This theory is put forward in the second part of ‘The Origin and Evolution of Writing’ and in the Fourth quarter of ‘Composition of Ancient Chinese Characters’, in Introduction to Ancient Philology. According to Tang’s theory, the earliest text is hieroglyphs, but some rarely recorded real name is not representative of hieroglyphic language. In order to record language, hieroglyphics produced three kinds of methods: shaping evolution under the guise of differentiation, meaning extension, and transliteration. ‘Six Skills’ in Chinese Philology section of the “differentiation” is very different to Introduction to Ancient Philology, only one point is probably the same (i.e. change form). The differentiation in China Philology, including corruption and division, also touched the variant that includes differentiation, differentiation due to evolution caused by the text, these are not involved in Introduction to Ancient Philology. This paper makes a detailed analysis of Tang’s differentiation examples on different occasions, so as to understand his theory more accurately and to explore the theoretical value of his theory of “form differentiation”.

Based on the analysis of the contents of removing evil spirits on bamboo slips for divination in Chu area, this paper infers that the connotation of the object of removing evil spirits in the Warring States Period was considered as negative significance, so diviners regarded it as the source of disease. In order to relieve the illness, diviners will try to solve its specific reasons. This will transform some related actions and contents into noun-like ones, thus creating new parts of speech and semantics. Most of these transferred-designations are unmarked and difficult to distinguish from basic vocabulary. Therefore, it is necessary to restore their highly generalized meanings through the analysis of metonym-referential phenomenon. After defining and classifying , this paper re-interprets the objects of the study by combining the excavated and handed-down documents, such as “Shuishang(水上)”, “Mengzu( )” and “Renhai(人 )”, in order to further reveal the content and value orientation of early Chinese sorcery and religion.

Wang 尫 from Xinke Zengjiao Qieyong Zhengyin Xiangtan Zazi Daquan is a difficult word. It has four meanings which include God, joss, picture and pupil. By extension, now the word of Wang 尫 has four various of meanings which include God, joss and Gods tablets; marionette and toy; pupil; portrait and picture in contemporary Min Dialect. We believe that the meaning of God extends the meanings of joss and Gods tablets. Then the meaning of joss extends other three various meanings. We know that Wang 尫 has no meaning of God. In fact, the meaning of God is from Weng 翁 which is used to call old people and also God by extension.

During the late Qing Dynasty, the translator of Jinshi Shibie transliterates names with foreign elements into multisyllabic Chinese words. Through this investigation, I found that the translator’s choice of Chinese characters to be used in the transliteration element was mainly based on Xiaoyun of Guangyun. The characters selected with the principles include those easy to write, easy to distinguish, commonly used, and used for systemization. The main reason for different usage of Chinese characters in element transliteration name was mainly the switch of homophones or variant characters.

Since Xu Xuan revised Shuowen and supplemented it with “Newly Appended Characters”, the study on it has become an important part of the Shuowen studies. There are three main viewpoints developed in later generations on how to understand “Newly Appended Characters”. First, totally negative one, such as Qian Daxin. The second is that “Newly Appended Characters” is based on the orthographic Characters since the Tang Dynasty, such as Wang Mingsheng. Last, it is believed that it is inherent in Shuowen before the Tang Dynasty, such as Yan Kejun. In this paper, a textual research of 52 newly appended characters has been taken by both using the data of Shuowen cited in Huilin Yinyi慧琳音義 and combining it with the previous literature. It is speculated that one of the 402 newly appended characters of Xu Xuan’s gain is originally owned by the ancient version of Shuowen.

The word “execution 執行” is a common word used in modern Chinese. The main meanings in modern Chinese are: 1. implemented according to law. 2. do it according to the plan or resolution. Both “execution” and “going” in ancient Chinese are polysemous words of monosyllabic. Under the “implementation” position，the same meaning field is a synonym relationship. As the compound word “execution”，it is deeply influenced by the Buddhist scriptures. “Execution” was initially compounded from the ancient Chinese period. The table “has adhered to the rhythm”，but it is not popular. In the Middle Chinese period，influenced by the Chinese translation of the Buddhist scriptures，the same morphological concept was re-integrated and stabilized to form a compound phrase，mainly referring to “In the period of modern Chinese，it mainly refers to” the implementation of “legalization according to law”; in modern Chinese，it is based on the table “to do according to plans or resolutions”.

Shuowen Tongxun Dingsheng 說文通訓定聲, as a representative work by Zhu Junsheng who is a famous expert in study of Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字(hereafter Shuowen) in Qing Dynasty, consists of three parts: Shuowen 說文, Tongxun 通訓, and Dingsheng 定聲. This book in Shuowen the part is based on the word meaning system, and corrected the error of explaining the original meaning. It includes the following eight types: 1. corrected the error of explaining the original meaning of Shuowen because of the wrong glyph analysis; 2. corrected the error of explaining the original meaning of Shuowen because of the philosophical thoughts of yin and yang five elements; 3. corrected the error of explaining the original meaning of Shuowen because the intending meaning is wrongly regarded as original meaning; 4. corrected the error of explaining the original meaning of Shuowen because the loaning meaning is wrongly regarded as original meaning; 5. corrected the error of explaining the original meaning of Shuowen because the contextual meaning is wrongly regarded as original meaning; 6. corrected the error of explaining the original meaning of Shuowen because the meaning of continuous words is wrongly regarded as original meaning; 7. corrected the error of explaining the original meaning of Shuowen because the meaning of overlapping words is wrongly regarded as original meaning; 8. corrected the error of explaining the original meaning of Shuowen because the language source meaning is wrongly regarded as original meaning. The value and significance of these researches lie in helping to use materials in Shuowen correctly and scientifically, and helping to understand the way of interpretating Shuowen.

The Longkan Shoujing 龍龕手鏡 written by Xingjun Buddhist monk in Liao Dynasty is a very important book in the history of the development of Chinese characters. Not only does it contain a large number of different characters in the Buddhist scriptures but provides a lot of difficult phonetic transcriptions and interpretations. It has important research value to the interpretation of difficult characters, the study of near ancient Chinese characters, the interpretation of unearthed and handed down documents, the compilation and revision of large-scale dictionaries, and the history of research on the history of dictionaries. With the advent of the digital age, processing methods of Chinese characters have changed a lot. Database-based philological studies can overcome the historical limitations of traditional Chinese philology and achieve the goals that traditional philology cannot. With reference to the accumulated experience of the academic research in database grammatology studies, we developed the corpus of Longkan Shoujing, designed the problem-oriented database structure, added various attribute annotations, solved the problem of insufficient Chinese characters set by collecting foreign words, and strived to build a perfect database of Chinese characters. The completion and improvement of the corpus of Longkan Shoujing will bring us new things in traditional Chinese philology, phonology, exegesis, lexicography, ancient books, as well as the creation of scientific Chinese philology and social life applications. By means of providing new research methods resting upon a new way of thinking, this work will effectively promote the further development of related research.

As a bilingual dictionary, Danan Guoyu reflects the difference and integration of Chinese and Vietnamese besides double characters. It adopts a clustering mode to classify the vocabulary. It consists of three types: the same function with the same form; different functions with the same form; new words constructions by conversion. On interpretation, it takes the form of semantic associations, translations from Chinese, and quotations from Chinese classics. The bilingual dictionary records the appearance of Chinese vocabulary in Vietnam and the creation of Vietnamese. It presents the differences and collisions between the two cultures and has multiple academic and practical significances such as lexicology, lexicography and philology.

There are lots of duplicative components in the glyph blocks of Maya hieroglyphs. Some of them are used to double the meaning or sound value of the original components. Some of them are just the aesthetic consideration of scribal which does not affect the significance of the original components. This phenomenon, which was discovered by earlier Maya epigraphers, still needs researches on its causes and substitution patterns. This essay discussed these two issues based on the rearrangement of the glyph blocks containing duplicative components. From the perspective of graphic structure, the doubling phenomenon existed in both syllabic signs and glyphs. There are two reasons for the doubling phenomenon as such. The redundancy and simplification of signs lead to the sign-internal duplication. The unique spelling rule of Mayan language lead to the repetition of the syllabic signs. From the perspective of glyphs, the doubling phenomenon existed in both compound graphs and couplets which are caused by the recombination of glyphs. The substitution patterns of these phenomenon are the use of doubling signs, underspelling, choosing different variants of the same syllabic sign, and sharing components. All of these four substitution patterns can function both in the glyph-internal and between different glyphs.