Abstract
The reconstruction of linguistic history is inseparable from Methodology. One hundred years ago, Bernhard Karlgren (1915-1926) found a compromise between Historical Linguistics and Philology to establish a modal in common use: “Shih-Ching Ch’ieh-Yun Modern Chinese Dialects” to depict the development of Chinese linguistic history. Fang-Kuei Li (1971), Li Wang (1985), Kun Chang (1976) and Jerry Norman (1973-) et al. had their own accomplishment in various aspects afterwards. The concept of “Proto-Chinese” and the view of “Ch’ieh-Yun is as a condensed Chinese linguistic history” which were proposed by Kun Chang have no inheritance, but are very instructive in fact. We neither rely on written records nor dwell upon the details of Archaic Chinese. What we concern at present is the relation which “modern Chinese dialects”, “the phonological system of Ch’ieh-Yun” as well as “The Comparative Method” are involved. Blueprint like this is inspired by the reconstruction of “Proto-Wu” in Studies in the Modern Wu-Dialects (1928), Yuen Ren Chao’s masterpiece. Nasal final is suitable for reconstruction as a starting point because it is the most stable part among Chinese final system. The procedure of our reconstruction is in the light of “Modern Chinese Dialects Pre-Chinese Dialects Proto-Chinese Pre-Proto-Chinese” step by step. Follow by interpreting how sounds changed from the beginning, putting four phases in reverse, to make sure each dialect can be fully explained. Our goal is to show the change process of Chinese nasal finals, and present the initial exploration of The Comparative Method in Chinese.