Some Discussion on the Phonological Issues in the Bamboo Slips and Silk Manuscripts of Laozi

In this article, we address the phonological issues reflected by nine groups of tongjia (interchangeable words) words found in the excavated bamboo and silk texts and such extant texts of Laozi as the Wang Bi edition and check the related evidences including phonetic compounds, word families and yiwen (variants). In this study, we compare the reconstruction of phonological system of Old Chinese assumed by Wang (1957), Li (1971), Zhengzhang (2013) and Baxter & Sagart (2014), point out the value or inadequacy of their reconstructions and put forward out proposal for further improvement. On the whole, a combination of Chinese paleography and historical phonology is necessary for fuller understanding of the phonological issues.