Verb Prefixes in the Tangut (Xixia) Tiansheng Code: Verbs for ‘Send Document’ and Their Prefixes

Abstract

The Tiansheng Code is a code of the Xixia Kingdom published in the mid-to-late twelfth century, written in the Tangut language. This code laid down about 1, 400 articles on such matters as punishment and administrative affairs. Many types of verbs and prefixes were used in this code. Nishida Tatsuo suggested based on other Tangut texts that there are two series of prefixes—one that originally functioned as directional markers and then developed to express the perfective aspect (“prefix series 1”), and another (“prefix series 2”) that represents an “optative” meaning. In this paper, I examined the use of prefixes in this code to test his suggestion. First, I researched three articles of this code that regulated the format of official documents sent between government departments. We find three variants of the verb meaning ‘send document’. When government departments sent documents to higher-class departments, the verb [L0733] and the prefix [L2219] were used; when they sent documents to departments of the same class, the verb [L4507+L1332] or [L1332] and the prefix [L3706] were used; when they sent documents to lower-class departments, the verb [L5474+L5113] and the prefix [L3846] were used. Despite referring to the same action ‘send document, ’ specific verb stems take specific prefixes depending on the class of the government department. Each of these prefixes belongs to prefix series 2, but not all of them have the meaning optative—some mean ‘ought’ according to context. Second, I researched whether the prefix [L3846] functioned as a directional marker in the same code. [L3846] was affixed to the verb ‘to sign/mark by hand’ and ‘to stamp’ in other articles. These actions move a seal or writing brush in a downward direction, suggesting that this prefix functioned as a downward-directional marker. We can find another usage of the verb [L0733] when taking another prefix in series 1 [L1326] in this code. In this case, the verb indicates that the action ‘to declare’ has ended; therefore, this prefix expresses the perfect aspect.