Finding Language-Internal Cognates in Old Chinese

The investigation of language-internal cognates and word families in Chinese plays a central role in enhancing our understanding of Old Chinese phonology and morphology, as well as constituting a key element for fostering our knowledge of the history of Sino-Tibetan languages. Here, we provide an overview of common challenges encountered when searching for language-internal cognates in Old Chinese. We identify three major problems in this endeavor. An epistemological problem arises from varying definitions of word families among scholars, a heuristic problem results from the scarcity of shared workflows for word family identification, and a representation problem follows from the absence of standards for data handling and analysis. While ultimate solutions remain elusive, three suggestions are proposed to enhance future research on Chinese word families. These include advocating for a stricter separation between words and their written representations in Chinese characters, investing time and collaborative efforts in establishing consistent annotation schemes for Chinese word families, and promoting the integration and standardization of data from neighboring languages.