Abstract Every word belongs to certain time and certain region. Epochality refers to the words used only in a certain period of time, while regionality to the words merely used in a certain region. To reveal the epochality and regionality of words is not only one of the basic tasks of Lexical History Research, but also an important task of the subject to explain the meaning of words correctly. Therefore, from the perspectives of chronological order and spatial distribution, that is, to pay attention to the epochal and regional nature of language is the proper meaning of the study of Chinese history, and has become the consensus of the academia. The term ″Daojiu (倒酒)″ (to pour wine) is commonly used in Chinese. This article describes the synchronic distribution and diachronic evolution of main members of the concept domain ″to pour wine″ in Chinese, and tries to explain the relationship between them. In modern Chinese, the words such as ″Shai (筛)″, ″Xie (泻)″, ″Zhen (斟)″ and ″Dao (倒)″ are in a North-South distribution. In the history of Chinese, words such as ″Zhen (斟)″, ″Zhuo (酌)″, ″Xie (泻)″, ″Shai (筛)″, ″Dao (倒)″, etc., were used to express the concept ″ to pour wine″, and they followed the replacement order of the dominant words from ″Zhen (斟)/Zhuo (酌)″ to ″Zhuo (酌)″, to ″Zhen (斟)/Xie (泻)″, to ″Zhen (斟) ″ and finally to ″Dao (倒) ″. Today the leading word ″ Dao(倒)″ first obtained the dominant position of the concept ″to pour out non-alcoholic liquids″, and then it became more and more popular. Since the period of the Republic of China (1912-1949) , it had gradually replaced the dominant position of ″Zhen (斟) ″ in expressing the concept ″to pour wine″. Specifically speaking, it is generally believed that in the pre-Qin period and before it, the ancients used a spoon to scoop wine out of a container and then poured it into a cup for drinking. Moreover, judging from the ancient classics, no clear evidence has been found that the words ″Zhen (斟)″ and ″Zhuo(酌)″ carried the exact meaning ″to pour wine″. However, according to the shape and appearance of the unearthed pre-Qin pots, the direct pouring of wine became possible due to the finding of tubular-flow shape attached to one side of the pots. In addition, the ancient scholars such as Dai Dong, Duan Yucai and Zhu Bin had actually found and pointed out that ″Zhen (斟)″ ″Zhuo(酌)″ in the pre-Qin period could both mean ″to scoop″ and ″to scoop at first and then pour″, so they were the two main verbs used to express the meaning ″to pour wine″ at that time. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, ″Zhen (斟)″ and ″Zhuo(酌)″ both acquired the meaning ″to pour wine″, and there were such examples in literatures, but the latter was more common. ″Xie (泻) ″ and ″Dao (倒) ″ appeared in the periods of Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties, whose main meaning was ″to dump″, and the usage ″to pour wine″ did not appear at that time. As far as they are concerned, the word frequency of ″Xie (泻)″ was higher, and it had a large number of collocates, especially in the book of Qimin Yaoshu (《齐民要术》). Since the Tang Dynasty, ″Zhen (斟)″ had gradually replaced ″Zhuo(酌)″ and held a dominant position, followed by ″Xie (泻)″ and ″Dao (倒)″. ″Shai (筛)″ and ″Shai (酾)″ began to appear in the Tang and Song Dynasties respectively. In the dynasties of Yuan, Ming and Qing, ″Zhen (斟)″ was still playing a key role, and its collocates had increased to a certain extent. At the same time, ″Dao (倒)″ began to hold a leading position in expressing the concept ″to pour non-alcoholic liquid″, tending to replace ″Zhen (斟)″. The word of ″Shai (筛)″ appeared in the dialect and became popular throughout China in the early Qing Dynasty, but it did not last long. After the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the usage frequency of this word declined, and it was only prominent in the dialect of Wu at the end of the Qing Dynasty. Correspondingly, ″Zhuo(酌)″ and ″Xie (泻)″ completely declined in the common language. Since the Republic of China, ″Dao (倒)″ has not only far outnumbered ″Zhen (斟)″ in expressing the meaning ″to pour wine″, but also is far beyond ″Zhen (斟)″ in collocation, and gradually replaced the dominant position of ″Zhen (斟)″ in the common language. Similar to ″Shai (筛)″ which had become the southern dialect, ″Zhen (斟)″ had also dropped out of the common language and were only used in Hui Dialect, Cantonese and Pinghua in Guangxi, etc. Generally speaking, ″Zhen (斟)″ is the leading word which had held the dominant position for the longest time in the whole history of the Chinese language, and the time of its position overtaken by ″Dao (倒) ″ is not very long. Today, the distribution of the conceptual domain ″to pour wine″ in the north and south of China came into being only after the May 4th Movement. All in all, the meaning development of many dialect words in modern Chinese can be interpreted and their origins can be found from a diachronic perspective.
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