Old Chinese, also calledArchaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage ofChinese, and the ancestor of all modernvarieties of Chinese.^[a] The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions onoracle bones from around 1250 BC, in theLate Shang period.Bronze inscriptions became plentiful during the followingZhou dynasty. The latter part of the Zhou period saw a flowering of literature, includingclassical works such as theAnalects, theMencius, and theZuo Zhuan. These works served as models for Literary Chinese (orClassical Chinese), which remained the written standard until the early twentieth century, thus preserving the vocabulary and grammar of late Old Chinese.

Old Chinese
Archaic Chinese
Inscription on theKang Hougui (late 11th century BC)[1]
Native to	Ancient China
Era	Late Shang,Zhou,Warring States period,Qin,Han[a]
Language family	Sino-Tibetan Sinitic Old Chinese
Writing system	Oracle bone script Bronze script Seal script
Language codes
ISO 639-3	och
Linguist List	och
Glottolog	shan1294  Shanggu Hanyu
Linguasphere	79-AAA-a
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	上古漢語
Simplified Chinese	上古汉语
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Shànggǔ hànyǔ Wade–Giles Shang4-ku3 han4-yü3 IPA [ʂâŋ.kù xân.ỳ] Hakka Romanization Song-gu hon-ngi Yue: Cantonese Yale Romanization Seuhng-gú hon-yúh Jyutping Soeng6-gu2 hon3-jyu5 Southern Min HokkienPOJ Siōng-kó͘ hàn-gú TeochewPeng'im Ziên6-gou2 hang3-ghe2
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Old Chinese was written with several early forms ofChinese characters, includingoracle bone,bronze, andseal scripts. Throughout the Old Chinese period, there was a close correspondence between a character and a monosyllabic and monomorphemic word. Although the script is not alphabetic, the majority of characters were created based on phonetic considerations. At first, words that were difficult to represent visually were written using a "borrowed" character for a similar-sounding word (rebus principle). Later on, to reduce ambiguity, new characters were created for these phonetic borrowings by appending aradical that conveys a broad semantic category, resulting in compoundxingsheng (phono-semantic) characters (形聲字). For the earliest attested stage of Old Chinese of the late Shang dynasty, the phonetic information implicit in thesexingsheng characters which are grouped into phonetic series, known as thexiesheng series, represents the only direct source of phonological data for reconstructing the language. The corpus ofxingsheng characters was greatly expanded in the following Zhou dynasty. In addition, the rhymes of the earliest recorded poems, primarily those of theClassic of Poetry, provide an extensive source of phonological information with respect to syllable finals for the Central Plains dialects during theWestern Zhou andSpring and Autumn periods. Similarly, theChu Ci provides rhyme data for the dialect spoken in theChu region during theWarring States period. These rhymes, together with clues from the phonetic components ofxingsheng characters, allow most characters attested in Old Chinese to be assigned to one of 30 or 31 rhyme groups. For late Old Chinese of the Han period, the modernSouthern Min languages, the oldest layer ofSino-Vietnamese vocabulary, and a few early transliterations of foreign proper names, as well as names for non-native flora and fauna, also provide insights into language reconstruction.

Although many of the finer details remain unclear, most scholars agree that Old Chinese differed fromMiddle Chinese in lackingretroflex andpalatalobstruents but having initialconsonant clusters of some sort, and in having voicelessnasals andliquids. Most recent reconstructions also describe Old Chinese as a language without tones, but having consonant clusters at the end of the syllable, whichdeveloped intotone distinctions in Middle Chinese.

Most researchers trace the core vocabulary of Old Chinese toSino-Tibetan, with much early borrowing from neighbouring languages.During the Zhou period, the originally monosyllabic vocabulary was augmented with polysyllabic words formed bycompounding andreduplication, although monosyllabic vocabulary was still predominant. Unlike Middle Chinese and the modern Chinese languages, Old Chinese had a significant amount of derivational morphology. Severalaffixes have been identified, including ones for the verbification of nouns, conversion between transitive and intransitive verbs, and formation of causative verbs.^[4] Like modern Chinese, it appears to be uninflected, though a pronoun case and number system seems to have existed during the Shang and early Zhou but was already in the process of disappearing by the Classical period.^[5] Likewise, by the Classical period, most morphological derivations had become unproductive or vestigial, and grammatical relationships were primarily indicated using word order andgrammatical particles.

Middle Chinese and its southern neighboursKra–Dai,Hmong–Mien and theVietic branch ofAustroasiatic have similar tone systems, syllable structure, grammatical features and lack of inflection, but these are believed to beareal features spread by diffusion rather than indicating common descent.^[6][7]The most widely accepted hypothesis is that Chinese belongs to theSino-Tibetan language family, together withBurmese,Tibetan and many other languages spoken in theHimalayas and theSoutheast Asian Massif.^[8]The evidence consists of some hundreds of proposed cognate words,^[9] including such basic vocabulary as the following:^[10]

Although the relationship was first proposed in the early 19th century and is now broadly accepted, reconstruction of Sino-Tibetan is much less developed than that of families such asIndo-European orAustronesian.^[36]Although Old Chinese is by far the earliest attested member of the family, its logographic script does not clearly indicate the pronunciation of words.^[37]Other difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, and the effects of language contact.In addition, many of the smaller languages are poorly described because they are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, including several sensitive border zones.^[38][39]

Initial consonants generally correspond regardingplace andmanner of articulation, butvoicing andaspiration are much less regular, and prefixal elements vary widely between languages. Some researchers believe that both these phenomena reflect lostminor syllables.^[40][41]Proto-Tibeto-Burman as reconstructed byBenedict andMatisoff lacks an aspiration distinction on initial stops and affricates. Aspiration in Old Chinese often corresponds to pre-initial consonants in Tibetan andLolo-Burmese, and is believed to be a Chinese innovation arising from earlier prefixes.^[42] Proto-Sino-Tibetan is reconstructed with a six-vowel system as in recent reconstructions of Old Chinese, with theTibeto-Burman languages distinguished by themerger of the mid-central vowel*-ə- with*-a-.^[43][44] The other vowels are preserved by both, with some alternation between*-e- and*-i-, and between*-o- and*-u-.^[45]

The earliest known written records of the Chinese language were found at theYinxu site near modernAnyang identified as the last capital of theShang dynasty, and date from about 1250 BC.^[46] These are theoracle bones, short inscriptions carved on turtleplastrons and oxscapulae for divinatory purposes, as well as a few briefbronze inscriptions. The language written is undoubtedly an early form of Chinese, but is difficult to interpret due to the limited subject matter and high proportion of proper names. Only half of the 4,000 characters used have been identified with certainty. Little is known about the grammar of this language, but it seems much less reliant ongrammatical particles than Classical Chinese.^[47]

From early in theWestern Zhou period, around 1000 BC, the most important recovered texts are bronze inscriptions, many of considerable length.^[48] These texts are found throughout the Zhou area.^[49] Although their language changed over time, it was highly uniform across this range at each point in time, suggesting that it reflected the prestige form used by the Zhou elite.^[50] Even longer pre-Classical texts on a wide range of subjects have also been transmitted through the literary tradition. The oldest sections of theBook of Documents, theClassic of Poetry and theI Ching, also date from the early Zhou period, and closely resemble the bronze inscriptions in vocabulary, syntax, and style. A greater proportion of this more varied vocabulary has been identified than for the oracular period.^[48]

The four centuries preceding the unification of China in 221 BC (the laterSpring and Autumn period and theWarring States period) constitute the Chinese classical period in the strict sense.^[51][52] There are many bronze inscriptions from this period, but they are vastly outweighed by a rich literature written in ink onbamboo and wooden slips and (toward the end of the period) silk. Although these are perishable materials, a significant number of texts were transmitted as copies, and a few of these survived to the present day as the received classics. Works from this period, including theAnalects, theMencius and theCommentary of Zuo, have been admired as models of prose style by later generations.^[52] As a result, the syntax and vocabulary of Old Chinese was preserved inLiterary Chinese (wenyan), the standard for formal writing in China and neighboringSinosphere countries until the early 20th century.^[53][54]

Each character of the script represented a single Old Chinesemorpheme, originally identical to a word. Most scholars believe that these words were monosyllabic.^[55]William Baxter andLaurent Sagart propose that some words consisted of aminor syllable followed by a full syllable, as in modernKhmer, but still written with a single character.^[56] The development of characters to signify the words of the language follows the same three stages that characterizedEgyptian hieroglyphs,Mesopotamiancuneiform script and theMaya script.^[57][58]

Some words could be represented by pictures (later stylized) such as日rì 'sun',人rén 'person' and木mù 'tree, wood', by abstract symbols such as三sān 'three' and上shàng 'up', or by composite symbols such as林lín 'forest' (two trees).About 1,000 of the oracle bone characters, nearly a quarter of the total, are of this type, though 300 of them have not yet been deciphered.Though the pictographic origins of these characters are apparent, they have already undergone extensive simplification and conventionalization.Evolved forms of most of these characters are still in common use today.^[59][60]

Next, words that could not be represented pictorially, such as abstract terms and grammatical particles, were signified by borrowing characters of pictorial origin representing similar-sounding words (the "rebus strategy"):^[61][62]

• The wordlì 'tremble' was originally written with the character栗 forlì 'chestnut'.^[63]
• The pronoun and modal particleqí was written with the character其 originally representingjī 'winnowing basket'.^[64]

Sometimes the borrowed character would be modified slightly to distinguish it from the original, as with毋wú 'don't', a borrowing of母mǔ 'mother'.^[59]Later, phonetic loans were systematically disambiguated by the addition of semantic indicators, usually to the less common word:

• The wordlì 'tremble' was later written with the character慄, formed by adding the symbol忄, a variant of心xīn 'heart'.^[63]
• The less common original wordjī 'winnowing basket' came to be written with the compound箕, obtained by adding the symbol竹zhú 'bamboo' to the character.^[64]

Such phono-semantic compound characters were already used extensively on the oracle bones, and the vast majority of characters created since then have been of this type.^[65]In theShuowen Jiezi, a dictionary compiled in the 2nd century, 82% of the 9,353 characters are classified as phono-semantic compounds.^[66]In the light of the modern understanding of Old Chinese phonology, researchers now believe that most of the characters originally classified as semantic compounds also have a phonetic nature.^[67][68]

These developments were already present in the oracle bone script,^[69] possibly implying a significant period of development prior to the extant inscriptions.^[55]This may have involved writing on perishable materials, as suggested by the appearance on oracle bones of the character冊cè 'records'.The character is thought to depict bamboo or wooden strips tied together with leather thongs, a writing material known from later archaeological finds.^[70]

Development and simplification of the script continued during the pre-Classical and Classical periods, with characters becoming less pictorial and more linear and regular, with rounded strokes being replaced by sharp angles.^[71]The language developed compound words, though almost all constituent morphemes could also be used as independent words.Hundreds of morphemes of two or more syllables also entered the language, and were written with one phono-semantic compound character per syllable.^[72]During theWarring States period, writing became more widespread, with further simplification and variation, particularly in the eastern states.The most conservative script prevailed in the western state ofQin, which would later impose its standard on the whole of China.^[73]

Old Chinese phonology has been reconstructed using a unique method relying on textual sources.The starting point is theQieyun dictionary (601 AD), which classifies the reading pronunciation of each character found in texts to that time within a precise, but abstract, phonological system.Scholars have sought to assign phonetic values to theseMiddle Chinese categories by comparing them with modernvarieties of Chinese,Sino-Xenic pronunciations and transcriptions.^[74]Next, the phonology of Old Chinese is reconstructed by comparing theQieyun categories to the rhyming practice of theClassic of Poetry (early 1st millennium BC) and the shared phonetic components of Chinese characters, some of which are slightly older.^[75]More recent efforts have supplemented this method with evidence from Old Chinesederivational morphology, from Chinese varieties preserving distinctions not found in theQieyun, such asMin andWaxiang, and from early transcriptions and loans.^[76]

Although many details are still disputed, recent formulations are in substantial agreement on the core issues.^[77]For example, the Old Chinese initial consonants recognized byLi Fang-Kuei andWilliam Baxter are given below, with Baxter's (mostly tentative) additions given in parentheses:^[78][79][80]

Various initial clusters have been proposed, especially clusters of*s- with other consonants, but this area remains unsettled.^[82]

Bernhard Karlgren and many later scholars posited the medials*-r-,*-j- and the combination*-rj- to explain the retroflex and palatalobstruents of Middle Chinese, as well as many of its vowel contrasts.^[83]*-r- is generally accepted. However, although the distinction denoted by*-j- is universally accepted, its realization as a palatal glide has been challenged on a number of grounds, and a variety of different realizations have been used in recent constructions.^[84][85]

Reconstructions since the 1980s usually propose six vowels:^[86][e][f]

Vowels could optionally be followed by the same codas as in Middle Chinese: a glide*-j or*-w, a nasal*-m,*-n or*-ŋ, or a stop*-p,*-t or*-k. Some scholars also allow for a labiovelar coda*-kʷ.^[90]Most scholars now believe that Old Chinese lacked thetones found in later stages of the language, but had optional post-codas*-ʔ and*-s, which developed into the Middle Chinese rising and departing tones respectively.^[91]

Little is known of the grammar of the language of the Oracular and pre-Classical periods, as the texts are often of a ritual or formulaic nature, and much of their vocabulary has not been deciphered. In contrast, the rich literature of theWarring States period has been extensively analysed.^[92] Having noinflection, Old Chinese was heavily reliant on word order,grammatical particles, and inherentword classes.^[92][93]

Classifying Old Chinese words is not always straightforward, as words were not marked for function, word classes overlapped, and words of one class could sometimes be used in roles normally reserved for a different class.^[94] The task is more difficult with written texts than it would have been for speakers of Old Chinese, because the derivational morphology is often hidden by the writing system.^[95][96] For example, the verb*sək 'to block' and the derived noun*səks 'frontier' were both written with the same character塞.^[97]

Personal pronouns exhibit a wide variety of forms in Old Chinese texts, possibly due to dialectal variation.^[98]There were two groups of first-person pronouns:^[98][99]

• *lja余,*ljaʔ予,^[g]*ljə台 and*lrjəmʔ朕
• *ŋa吾,*ŋajʔ我 and*ŋaŋ卬

In the oracle bone inscriptions, the*l- pronouns were used by the king to refer to himself, and the*ŋ- forms for the Shang people as a whole.This distinction is largely absent in later texts, and the*l- forms disappeared during the classical period.^[99]In the post-Han period,我 (modern Mandarinwǒ) came to be used as the general first-person pronoun.^[101]

Second-person pronouns included*njaʔ汝,*njəjʔ爾,*njə而 and*njak若.^[102]The forms汝 and爾 continued to be used interchangeably until their replacement by the northwestern variant你 (modern Mandarinnǐ) in theTang period.^[103]However, in someMin dialects the second-person pronoun is derived from汝.^[104]

Case distinctions were particularly marked among third-person pronouns.^[105]There was no third-person subject pronoun, but*tjə之, originally a distaldemonstrative, came to be used as a third-person object pronoun in the classical period.^[105][106]The possessive pronoun was originally*kjot厥, replaced in the classical period by*ɡjə其.^[107]In the post-Han period,其 came to be used as the general third-person pronoun.^[101]It survives in someWu dialects, but has been replaced by a variety of forms elsewhere.^[101]

There were demonstrative andinterrogative pronouns, but noindefinite pronouns with the meanings 'something' or 'nothing'.^[108]Thedistributive pronouns were formed with a*-k suffix:^[109][110]

• *djuk孰 'which one' from*djuj誰 'who'
• *kak各 'each one' from*kjaʔ舉 'all'
• *wək或 'someone' from*wjəʔ有 'there is'
• *mak莫 'no-one' from*mja無 'there is no'

As in the modern language, localizers (compass directions, 'above', 'inside' and the like) could be placed after nouns to indicate relative positions.They could also precede verbs to indicate the direction of the action.^[109] Nouns denoting times were another special class (time words); they usually preceded the subject to specify the time of an action.^[111] However theclassifiers so characteristic of Modern Chinese only became common in theHan period and the subsequentNorthern and Southern dynasties.^[112]

Old Chineseverbs, like their modern counterparts, did not show tense or aspect; these could be indicated with adverbs or particles if required. Verbs could betransitive orintransitive. As in the modern language,adjectives were a special kind of intransitive verb, and a few transitive verbs could also function asmodal auxiliaries or asprepositions.^[113]

Adverbs described the scope of a statement or various temporal relationships.^[114] They included two families of negatives starting with*p- and*m-, such as*pjə不 and*mja無.^[115] Modern northern varieties derive the usual negative from the first family, while southern varieties preserve the second.^[116] The language had no adverbs of degree until late in the Classical period.^[117]

Particles werefunction words serving a range of purposes. As in the modern language, there were sentence-final particles markingimperatives andyes/no questions. Other sentence-final particles expressed a range of connotations, the most important being*ljaj也, expressing static factuality, and*ɦjəʔ矣, implying a change. Other particles included the subordination marker*tjə之 and the nominalizing particles*tjaʔ者 (agent) and*srjaʔ所 (object).^[118]Conjunctions could join nouns or clauses.^[119]

As with English and modern Chinese, Old Chinese sentences can be analysed as asubject (a noun phrase, sometimes understood) followed by apredicate, which could be of either nominal or verbal type.^[120][121]

Before the Classical period, nominal predicates consisted of acopular particle*wjij惟 followed by a noun phrase:^[122][123]

The negated copula*pjə-wjij不惟 is attested in oracle bone inscriptions, and later fused as*pjəj非.In the Classical period, nominal predicates were constructed with the sentence-final particle*ljaj也 instead of the copula惟, but非 was retained as the negative form, with which也 was optional:^[124][125]

The copular verb是 (shì) of Literary and Modern Chinese dates from the Han period.In Old Chinese the word was a neardemonstrative ('this').^[126]

As in Modern Chinese, but unlike most Tibeto-Burman languages, the basic word order in a verbal sentence wassubject–verb–object:^[127][128]

Besides inversions for emphasis, there were two exceptions to this rule: a pronoun object of a negated sentence or an interrogative pronoun object would be placed before the verb:^[127]

An additional noun phrase could be placed before the subject to serve as thetopic.^[130] Like the modern language, Old Chinese usedin situ questions, formingyes–no questions by adding a sentence-final particle, andopen questions by substituting aninterrogative pronoun for the requested element.^[131]

In general, Old Chinese modifiers preceded the words they modified. Thusrelative clauses were placed before the noun, usually marked by the particle*tjə之 (in a role similar to Modern Chinesede的):^[132][133]

A common instance of this construction was adjectival modification, since the Old Chinese adjective was a type of verb (as in the modern language), but之 was usually omitted after monosyllabic adjectives.^[132]

Similarly, adverbial modifiers, including various forms of negation, usually occurred before the verb.^[134] As in the modern language, timeadjuncts occurred either at the start of the sentence or before the verb, depending on their scope, while duration adjuncts were placed after the verb.^[135] Instrumental and place adjuncts were usually placed after the verb phrase. These later moved to a position before the verb, as in the modern language.^[136]

The improved understanding of Old Chinesephonology has enabled the study of the origins of Chinese words (rather than the characters with which they are written).Most researchers trace the core vocabulary to aSino-Tibetan ancestor language, with much early borrowing from other neighbouring languages.^[137]The traditional view was that Old Chinese was anisolating language.Linguists still believe that the language lackedinflection, but it has become clear that words could be formed byderivational affixation, reduplication and compounding.^[93][138]

During the Old Chinese period, Chinese civilization expanded from a compact area around the lowerWei River and middleYellow River eastwards across theNorth China Plain toShandong and then south into the valley of theYangtze. There are no records of the non-Chinese languages formerly spoken in those areas and subsequently displaced by the Chinese expansion.However they are believed to have contributed to the vocabulary of Old Chinese, and may be the source of some of the many Chinese words whose origins are still unknown.^[139][140]

Jerry Norman andMei Tsu-lin have identified earlyAustroasiatic loanwords in Old Chinese, possibly from the peoples of the lowerYangtze basin known to ancient Chinese as theYue. For example, the early Chinese name*kroŋ (江jiāng) for the Yangtze was later extended to a general word for 'river' in south China.Norman and Mei suggest that the word is cognate withVietnamesesông (from *krong) andMonkruŋ 'river'.^{[141][142][143]}

Haudricourt and Strecker have proposed a number of borrowings from theHmong–Mien languages. These include terms related torice cultivation, which began in the middle Yangtze valley:

• *ʔjaŋ (秧yāng) 'rice seedling' fromproto-Hmong–Mien*jaŋ^A,^[144]
• *luʔ (稻dào) 'unhulled rice' from proto-Hmong–Mien*mblau^A.^[145]

Other words are believed to have been borrowed from languages to the south of the Chinese area, but it is not clear which was the original source, e.g.

• *zjaŋʔ (象xiàng) 'elephant' can be compared with Moncoiŋ,proto-Tai*jaŋ^C and Burmesechaŋ.^[146]
• *ke (雞jī) 'chicken' versus proto-Tai*kəi^B, proto-Hmong–Mien*kai andproto-Viet–Muong *r-ka.^[147]

In ancient times, theTarim Basin was occupied by speakers ofIndo-EuropeanTocharian languages, the source of*mjit (蜜mì) 'honey', from proto-Tocharian *ḿət(ə) (where *ḿ ispalatalized; cf. Tocharian Bmit), cognate with Englishmead.^[148][h]The northern neighbours of Chinese contributed such words as*dok (犢dú) 'calf' – compareMongoliantuɣul andManchutuqšan.^[151]

Chinese philologists have long noted words with related meanings and similar pronunciations, sometimes written using the same character.^[152][153]Henri Maspero attributed some of these alternations to consonant clusters resulting from derivational affixes.^[154]Subsequent work has identified several such affixes, some of which appear to have cognates in other Sino-Tibetan languages.^[155][156]A few of these were still productive or transparent in Old Chinese.^[157]

A common case is "derivation by tone change", in which words in the departing tone appear to be derived from words in other tones.^[158]If Haudricourt's theory of the origin of the departing tone is accepted, these tonal derivations can be interpreted as the result of a derivational suffix*-s with a range of functions.As Tibetan has a similar suffix, it may be inherited from Sino-Tibetan.^[159]The most common function wasnominalization of verbs, as in the following examples:^[160]

• *drjon (傳chuán) 'to transmit' and*drjons (傳zhuàn) 'a record'^[161]
• *nup (納nà) 'to bring in' and*nuts <*nups (內nèi) 'inside'^[162]
• *tjək (織zhī) 'to weave' and*tjəks (織zhì) 'silk cloth' (compare Written Tibetanʼthag 'to weave' andthags 'woven, cloth')^[163]

The*-s suffix also formeddenominal verbs, as in these examples:^[164]

• *kon (冠guān) 'cap' and*kons (冠guàn) 'to cap'^[165]
• *ʔjəj (衣yī) 'clothes' and*ʔjəjs (衣yì) 'to wear, to clothe'^[166]
• *wjaŋ (王wáng) 'king' and*wjaŋs (王wàng) 'be king'^[167]

Another alternation involves transitive verbs with an unvoiced initial and passive or stative verbs with a voiced initial:^[168]

• *kens (見jiàn) 'to see' and*ɡens (現xiàn) 'to appear'^[169]
• *kraw (交jiāo) 'to mix' and*ɡraw (殽yáo) 'mixed, confused'^[170]
• *trjaŋ (張zhāng) 'to stretch' and*drjaŋ (長cháng) 'long'^[171]

Some scholars hold that the transitive verbs with voiceless initials are basic and the voiced initials reflect a de-transitivizing nasal prefix.^[172]Others suggest that the transitive verbs were derived by the addition of a causative prefix*s- to a stative verb, causing devoicing of the following voiced initial.^[173]Both postulated prefixes have parallels in other Sino-Tibetan languages, in some of which they are still productive.^[174][175]Several other affixes have been proposed.^[176][177]

The derivational affixes lost their productivity towards the end of the Zhou period, and their functions were taken over by forms such as auxiliary verbs.^[178]

Old Chinese morphemes were originally monosyllabic, but during the Western Zhou period many new disyllabic words entered the language.By the classical period, 25–30% of the lexicon was polysyllabic, though monosyllabic words occurred more frequently and made up 80–90% of the text.^[179]Disyllabic morphemes include thefamous*ɡa-lep (胡蝶^[i]húdié) 'butterfly' from theZhuangzi.^[181][182]

Many disyllabic, monomorphemic words, particularly names of insects, birds and plants, and expressive adjectives and adverbs, were formed by varieties ofreduplication:^[183][j]

• full reduplication (diézì疊字 'repeated words'), in which the syllable is repeated, as in*ʔjuj-ʔjuj (威威wēiwēi) 'tall and grand' and*ljo-ljo (俞俞yúyú) 'happy and at ease'.^[183]
• rhyming semi-reduplication (diéyùn疊韻 'repeated rhymes'), in which only the final is repeated, as in*ʔiwʔ-liwʔ (窈窕yǎotiǎo) 'elegant, beautiful' and*meŋ-reŋ (螟蛉mínglíng) 'bollworm'.^[183][184] The initial of the second syllable is often*l- or*r-.^[185]
• alliterative semi-reduplication (shuāngshēng雙聲 'paired initials'), in which the initial is repeated, as in*tsʰrjum-tsʰrjaj (參差cēncī) 'irregular, uneven' and*ba-bjək (匍匐púfú) 'to crawl'.^[183][184]
• vowel alternation, especially of*-e- and*-o-, as in*tsʰjek-tsʰjok (刺促qìcù) 'busy' and*ɡreʔ-ɡroʔ (邂逅xièhòu) 'carefree and happy'.^[186] Alternation between*-i- and*-u- also occurred, as in*pjit-pjut (觱沸bìfú) 'rushing (of wind or water)' and*srjit-srjut (蟋蟀xīshuài) 'cricket'.^[187]

More words, especially nouns, were formed bycompounding, including:

• qualification of one noun by another (placed in front), as in*mok-kʷra (木瓜mùguā) 'quince' (literally 'tree-melon'), and*trjuŋ-njit (中日zhōngrì) 'noon' (literally 'middle-day').^[188]
• verb–object compounds, as in*sjə-mraʔ (司馬sīmǎ) 'master of the household' (literally 'manage-horse'), and*tsak-tsʰrek (作册zuòcè) 'scribe' (literally 'make-writing').^[189]

However the components of compounds were notbound morphemes: they could still be used separately.^[190]Compounding became more productive during the following Han period and has continued to the present day.^[191]

A number of bimorphemic syllables appeared in the Classical period, resulting from the fusion of words with following unstressed particles or pronouns.Thus the negatives*pjut弗 and*mjut勿 are viewed as fusions of the negators*pjə不 and*mjo毋 respectively with a third-person pronoun*tjə之.^[192]

• Miyake, Marc (2001),"Laurent Sagart :The Roots of Old Chinese",Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale,30 (2):257–268,doi:10.1163/19606028-90000092. (review ofSagart (1999))
• Schuessler, Axel (2000),"Book Review:The Roots of Old Chinese"(PDF),Language and Linguistics,1 (2):257–267. (review ofSagart (1999))
• Starostin, Georgiy (2009),"Axel Schuessler :ABC Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese"(PDF),Journal of Language Relationship,1:155–162. (review ofSchuessler (2007))
• Recent Advances in Old Chinese Historical Phonology at SOAS, University of London, November 2015