Abstract
I argue that cosmological methods, and the debates they inspired, were a major source of innovation in phonological scholarship during the late Ming. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century scholars strove to document the scope of possible sounds existing in the universe. Realizing the Chinese script was insufficient to fully record them, they explored new notation systems to comprehensively describe sound. Although competing contemporaneous approaches called for analyzing phonology according to regional or historical differences, Ming cosmologists asserted a significant alternative that they believed overcame limits of place and time. This case study suggests a need to rethink the impact of Ming scholars on Chinese intellectual history and on the history of writing in China.

摘要
象數學是明末音韻和文字學很重要的一部分。十六、十七世紀的學者試圖通過象數的方法記錄宇宙裡所有可能存在的聲音。因為漢字無法完全記錄所有的聲音，學者便開始探討漢字以外的方法來記錄聲音。這篇論文對以前被忽略的晚明學者在中國語言學史的作用做了重新思考。

Keywords: philology, history of linguistics, evidential learning, transcription, rhyme, numerology, history of science.
Local access digital pdf. [Vedal-Phonetic Notation.pdf]