predecessors and for the first time put the subject on a scientific footing,
he made certain basic errors which have remained uncorrected and have
hardened into an orthodoxy that few have been prepared to challenge.

In the first place, though the Yunjing and later rhyme tables in the same
tradition refer to the Qieyun, their classification in terms of the Thirty-six
Initials, the Four Grades (deng

Though the rhyme table language and the Qieyun represent different dia-
lects that are not in the same direct line, they go back to a common ancestor,
and, in general, their phonological categories are compatible. A correct
understanding of LMC is therefore an essential first step to the reconstruction
of the earlier standard underlying the Qieyun, which I call Early Middle
Chinese (EMC). My first tentatives at reconstructing EMC were made in a
paper read at the Third International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages
at Cornell University in the fall of 1970. The present monograph offers both a
considerably refined version of LMC and my first detailed presentation of
EMC.

Chapters 1 and 2 are introductory. Chapter 1 sets the stage with a general
survey of the history of what has constituted standard Chinese at various
periods and a discussion of the distinctive feature theory that I have used for
setting up the various synchronic stages and for analysing the diachronic

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