Basic Principles for Creating Annotations/Commentary #

The scholarly apparatus for the Myōgishō in this database includes elements such as Textual Collation (kōkan), Source Criticism (shutten kōshō, 出典考証), Review of Previous Scholarship (kenkyūshi seiri), Lexical Analysis (goshaku), and Additional Expositions (yosetsu). The content of each is explained as follows:

Textual Collation (校勘, kōkan): Involves presenting textual variants by comparing the Myōgishō text with the main texts of other manuscripts and with fragmentary textual evidence (逸文, itsubun), conducting comparative analyses, correcting scribal errors, and reconstructing the original text.
Source Criticism (出典考証, shutten kōshō): Entails searching for original sources cited in the Myōgishō, analyzing citation methods, and clarifying distinctions between direct and indirect (second-hand) citations.
Review of Previous Scholarship (研究史整理, kenkyūshi seiri): Summarizes and introduces the views and findings of previous scholars.
Lexical Analysis (語釈, goshaku): Consists of philological analysis concerning semantic meanings, phonology, and orthography of words and characters.
Additional Expositions (余説, yosetsu): These are the annotator’s (i.e., the database compiler’s) own detailed discussions and considerations based on the analysis of specific Entries or elements within them.

Ideally, annotations should be concise and clear. However, as a preliminary step, it is necessary to gather as much relevant material as possible for a given annotation. Only after this preparatory stage is complete can the work of selecting and refining the collected materials begin.

The materials collected to date are recorded as Compiler's Remarks in the remarks column of the krm_notes file.

In this document, we will first classify the Entries of the Myōgishō by their Headwords and the various types of Original Glosses they contain, and then present the quantities for each category. Based on this, we will consider the priority for creating annotations for each type of Headword and each category of Original Gloss element, focusing our primary analytical efforts on Japanese Native Readings (wakun) and Phonetic Glosses. This will clarify the basic principles for annotation creation and the primary subjects of analysis.

Next, we will provide and explain specific examples of scribal errors, omissions, and superfluous characters (衍字, enji). We will also describe how such information is recorded in the Compiler's Remarks and conduct a calculation of the number of Headword characters.

For Notes on Character Form (字体注, jitaichū), we will organize their types and descriptive formats. By clarifying the content and format of these original notes, we aim to minimize the need for extensive commentary on them within the Compiler's Remarks.

Regarding Semantic Glosses in Chinese (義注, gichū), we will indicate their types and quantities, and introduce examples of such glosses that have been mistakenly identified as katakana.

For Japanese Native Readings (和訓, wakun), given the extensive body of previous research, we will provide a list of these studies and the abbreviations used for them in the Compiler's Remarks. This will serve as an introduction to the foundational materials for annotating wakun.

Finally, using page 62 of the Butsujō (仏上) volume of the Kanchiin manuscript of the Ruiju Myōgishō as a specific example of annotation practice, we will introduce the content of the Compiler's Remarks. This will demonstrate how subtle differences in Hanzi (Chinese character) glyph forms can be explained in the annotations through the use of GlyphWiki.