Li Shan’s Wenxuan Annotations is regarded as a masterpiece of “Studies of Wenxuan”, which implies Li Shan’s unique ideas that are different from those of the previous phonosemanticans of Wenxuan. He fully inherited and developed the tradition of phonosemantics from the Han Wei (漢魏) to Sui Tang (隋唐) Dynasty. Under the influence and inspiration of the comprehensive and erudite style of learning at that time and the prologue of Jingdianshiwen (經典釋文), he opened up a precedent of large-scale citation-based annotating by adopting the sounds and meanings of various phonosemanticans, avoiding the shortcomings of the “one sect’s learning”. At the same time, he has chosen the sounds that he recognized, and achieved the right degree of simplicity. His demand for the unity of form, sound and meaning has been very close to the modern idea of “matching sound and meaning”, which can be regarded as an extremely important stroke in the history of the development of Chinese phonosemantics.

Li Shan’s commentary on the Selected Writings appears in 304 of his works, ranging from the Xidufu, an excerpt from the Zuo Zhuan, to the Ritual Essay, Ji Qu Yuan Wen. The Zuo Zhuan records a wide range of topics, from the evolution of history to various rituals, social customs, astronomy and geography, rhymes, proverbs, and a variety of literature. Li Shan’s commentary on the Zuo Zhuan is based on the main text and its content, with citations centered on its main historical events and the origin of its words. On the question of Li Shan’s citation of the Zuo Zhuan notes, we can see through examination that Li Shan was not influenced by the political advocacy of the unification of the Five Classics, and that he took Du’s notes as his main focus and did not exclude the other Zuo Zhuan notes, and in accordance with what is stated in the text of the Selected Works, he thought that it conformed to the wording of the text and made appropriate use of the Fu Qian’s service of the pianist’s notes on the Zuo Zhuan as well as the notes of the other annotators. Among them, the author suspects that Li Shan should have referred to the text of Fu Qian’s “Jie Yi” and Jia Kui’s “ChunQiu ZuoShi JieGu”, while Ma Rong’s words can hardly be said to be a comment from Ma Rong’s “ChunQiu SanZhuan YiTongShuo”, but rather a text quoted from other documents of the time. The contents of Ma Rong’s commentaries in the “Selected Writings” can be found in Kong Yingda’s commentary, which is more detailed than the “Selected Writings” commentary. However, in terms of the “Selected Writings” commentary, especially nowadays, it can be regarded that the commentaries of Li Shan’s commentaries are within the scope of his old commentaries, and it is quite possible that Li Shan cited his old commentaries as commentaries on other works in the case of the same words in his old commentaries in the later years.