Abstract

The description of sound correlated figures of speech in early Chinese prose − where it was attempted since Jiāng Yŏugàos trailblazing work on prose rhyming at all − typically did not go beyond the analysis of prosodic phenomena occuring in phrase or sentence edge positions, which are moreover subject to relatively strict conditions of adjacency. After a short initial discussion of the problem of how to classify artfully crafted argumentative pre-imperial prose texts, the validity of approaching recurrences within Early Chinese prose in reconstructions, rather than through the intricate veil of its written representation, will be exemplified by looking at three repeatedly encountered phonological figures in Warring States-Han texts and the way the establish textual coherence. For lack of an established terminology, these will be preliminarily be called “rhyme nets”, “assonance chains”, and “paronomastic cadences”. Consideration of the latter category leads to a discussion of its relationship with genuine figura etymologica, and its role as a window on the self-awareness of linguistic structure on the part of early Chinese writer.