What are the types, forms and characteristics of couplets?

1. Universal couplets-Spring Festival couplets

2. Special couplets-tea couplets, birthday couplets, wedding couplets, elegiac couplets, industry couplets, motto couplets, gift couplets and question-and-answer couplets.

Classified by word number

1. Short connection (within the cross)

2. Zhonglian (within 100 words)

3. Long couplet (100 words or more), etc.

Classified by rhetorical skills

1. Duality: word right, object right, right right, opposition, work right, width right, flow right, palindrome right, top right.

2. Rhetoric couplets: metaphor, exaggeration, backchat, pun, rhetorical question and homophonic.

3. Skill association: embedded words, hidden words, compound words, overlapping words, radicals, word analysis, word splitting and numbers.

According to the source of conjunctions

1. Sentence couplet: a couplet composed entirely of ready-made sentences in ancient poetry.

2. Couplets composed of ancient Copybook for calligraphy articles and characters.

3. Sentence-picking couplets: Couplets made by picking antithetical sentences directly from other people's poems.

4. Create couplets: couplets independently created by the author.

Types of couplets

1. Festival couplets: refer to couplets with specific timeliness or commemoration, and the contents are mostly general chanting, lyricism, discussion and wishes. Strictly speaking, it can be divided into festival couplets and season couplets, but since they are often integrated, this distinction has no practical significance. Generally speaking, couplets can be directly divided into Spring Festival couplets, New Year's Day couplets and National Day couplets. In the Spring Festival couplets, the most important thing is the Spring Festival couplets. The so-called Spring Festival couplets are seasonal couplets used in the Spring Festival. Most Spring Festival couplets can be used universally.

2. Festive couplets: also known as greeting couplets, refer to couplets with a certain congratulatory nature in addition to holiday celebrations. According to its content and object, it can be divided into several subcategories, such as wedding couplets, birthday couplets, new house couplets (housewarming couplets) and so on. The outstanding feature of festive couplets is that they have certain festive and congratulatory nature, and their contents must be good wishes, celebrations and auspiciousness. There are universal and special holiday couplets. Whether it is universal depends on the alliance, and it is not easy to copy, so as not to make jokes.

3. elegiac couplet: also known as elegiac couplet, it refers to the couplet used to mourn the dead. Its content is limited to mourning, remembering, evaluating and wishing the deceased, and its style is generally sad, solemn, deep and solemn. Others write elegiac couplets for the dead, or write elegiac couplets for themselves, which is another matter. The elegiac couplets can be divided from many angles, including old couplets, middle-aged couplets and youth couplets, as well as elder couplets, peer couplets and younger couplets. In addition, it can be divided into famous couplets and self-mourning couplets, and sacrificial couplets can also be regarded as a subclass of mourning couplets. The content of elegiac couplet generally refers to more specific objects, although there are also general objects and special objects, but in practice, we should pay more attention to the distinction.

4. Scenic couplets: refers to couplets posted, hung and carved at scenic spots. Most of its contents are engraved with scenic spots (such as landscapes and cultural relics). ) or closely related to it (related people, things, etc. Such couplets often become an important part of scenic spots and even history and culture. The combination of scenic spots and historical sites can be divided into several sub-categories, such as landscape gardens, temples and temples, pavilions, houses and halls, monuments and tombs, etc.

5. Industry couplets: refers to couplets whose contents are aimed at a certain industry, department or field. Due to the changes of the times, the application of couplets in the industry is not as good as before, but it is still considerable. Judging from its scope of application and content characteristics, it is still a major category of couplets. Trade associations can be subdivided according to industries and departments.

6. Inscription of couplets: refers to couplets inscribed to others. Although many couplets have been given a certain title, the title couplets mentioned here are limited to interpersonal (or yearning) works, excluding elegiac couplets and congratulatory couplets. Its content generally has a certain nature of praise, wishes and encouragement. From the perspective of the application of couplets, title couplets can be regarded as a big category. According to the different objects of the questions, the questions can generally be divided into several small categories, such as questions, questions, and questions.

7. Miscellaneous couplets: refers to couplets with a wide range of contents without specific objects. This kind of couplets often have simple literary creation characteristics, such as philosophical couplets, lyric couplets, persuasion couplets and so on.

8. Academic couplets: refers to couplets with certain academic nature. This academic nature refers to the specialty that does not belong to the above categories in content and use. Its content is often specialized, with certain disciplinary or religious characteristics, such as popular science association, Buddhist association, Taoist association and so on. From the application scope and development space of couplets, it is necessary to regard academic couplets as a separate category. For example, in the book "A Collection of Touching Smells-1200 Buddhist Couplets" written by the author, many Buddhist figures and Buddhist teachings are systematically written into an academic monograph in the form of couplets. By extension, many scientific knowledge or other learning principles can also be written as couplets, highlighting its academic or professional nature in content.

9. Funny couplets: refer to couplets that highlight interest or skills and pay relatively little attention to content. For example, various humorous associations and skill associations. The content of this kind of couplets either highlights the uniqueness of a certain style (humorous couplets) or is relatively unimportant (technical couplets), making it unique. In this sense, it can be regarded as a single category.

Couplets vary in length, only one or two words are short; It can be hundreds of words long. There are various forms of couplets, such as pairs, pairs, flowing pairs, couplets, set sentence pairs and so on. However, no matter what kind of couplets and forms are used, they must have the following characteristics:

First, the number of words should be equal and the sentences should be consistent. In addition to deliberately leaving a place for a word to achieve a certain effect, the number of words in the upper and lower couplets must be the same, neither more nor less.

Second, it is necessary to be honest and have a harmonious tone. The traditional habit is to "pucker up and fall flat", that is, the end of the last sentence of the first couplet is puckered up and the end of the last sentence of the second couplet is flat.

Third, the parts of speech should be relative and the position should be consistent. It is generally called "virtual to virtual, real to real", which means that nouns to nouns, verbs to verbs, adjectives to adjectives, quantifiers to quantifiers, adverbs to adverbs and related words must be in the same position.

Fourth, the content should be related and run through from top to bottom. The meaning of up and down links must be interrelated, but they cannot be repeated.

In addition, the traditional practice of hanging couplets must be written straight and pasted vertically, from right to left and from top to bottom, and cannot be reversed.

The horizontal criticism closely related to couplets can be said to be the title and center of couplets. Good reviews can make the finishing point and complement each other in couplets.

As the name implies, couplets should be "paired", that is, they are composed of upper and lower couplets. The upper and lower couplets must have the same number of words and the same content, that is, the upper and lower couplets can be "linked", and two unrelated sentences cannot be casually combined to form a couplet.

Generally, couplets are written vertically, with the last word (tone) of the first couplet posted on the right (hand) and the last word (tone) of the second couplet posted on the left (hand).

Although antithesis of couplets has something in common with poetry, it is more demanding than poetry. Couplets can be divided into wide pairs and narrow pairs. Wide pairs can only be formed if the contents of the upper and lower couplets are related, while narrow pairs should be written in strict accordance with the standards of Li Weng Dui Yun. However, in practical couplets, wide couplets are often used, while narrow couplets are rarely used, because the requirements for antithesis are too strict, which restricts people's thinking and is suspected of hurting meaning because of the text.

The level and level of couplets are basically the same as poems. Generally, the basic law of distinguishing 135 and 246 is applied to each poem.

How to judge the couplets? Besides distinguishing from the content of couplets, it is more important to judge from the flat sound at the end of couplets. It is strictly stipulated in couplets that the last word of the first couplet should be in a flat voice and the last word of the second couplet should be in a flat voice. Later generations called this rule "flat rise and flat fall". It must be noted that the "four tones" in ancient Chinese and modern Chinese are somewhat different. Since the popularization of hanyu pinyin and the use of Beijing pronunciation as the national common language, the level of the same Chinese character has changed.

The official name of couplets is couplets, commonly known as couplets, which is a unique Chinese language, literature and art form in China and is deeply loved by people from all walks of life. To sum up, the joint law is six elements, also called "six phases", which are described as follows:

First, the number of words should be equal.

The number of words online equals the number of words offline. The number of words in each clause of the long couplet is equal. There is a special case that the number of words in the upper and lower couplets is intentionally different. For example, during the Republic of China, some people ridiculed Yuan Shikai's couplets: "Yuan Shikai is eternal; Long live the people of China. " The first part of "Yuan Shikai" and the second part of "China people" are "sorry", which means that Yuan Shikai is sorry for the people of China.

Overlapping or overlapping words are allowed in sentences. Folding in half and overlapping words are commonly used rhetorical devices in couplets, but attention should be paid to the consistency of the upper and lower couplets when overlapping. For example, in the Ming Dynasty, Gu Xiancheng wrote "Wuxi Donglin Academy Union: the sound of reading in the wind and rain, and the sound and sound are heard"; Family affairs, state affairs and world affairs are all concerned.

However, we should try our best to avoid "heterotopic words" and "appositive words" in couplets. The so-called ectopic reduplication means that the same word appears in different positions of the upper and lower links. The so-called homonym means that the same word is opposite in the same position of the upper and lower parts. But some function words are allowed to have homonyms, such as Gelinglian of West Lake in Hangzhou:

The song of peach blossom and flowing water;

Between the shade and the grass.

The word "Zhi" in the upper and lower couplets is repeated in the same place, but it is OK because it is empty word. But there is a special "heterotopic mutual weight" format that is allowed (called "transposition case"), such as Lin Sen's couplet with Dr. Sun Yat-sen:

A person is eternal; One person through the ages.

Second, part-of-speech equivalence.

There are two types of parts of speech in modern Chinese, namely, notional words and function words. The former includes nouns (including locative words), verbs, adjectives (including color words), numerals, quantifiers and pronouns. The latter includes adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary words, exclamations and onomatopoeias. Part of speech equivalence means that words or phrases with the same position in the upper and lower parts should have the same or similar parts of speech. The first is the rule of "real to real, virtual to virtual", which is the most basic rule and has the widest meaning. In some cases, just follow this. Secondly, the corresponding rules of parts of speech, that is, the words 12 above correspond to each other. This rule should be observed in most cases. Thirdly, the semantic correspondence rule refers to putting things of the same type represented by Chinese characters together for confrontation. The ancients noticed this rhetorical method long ago. In particular, nouns are divided into many subcategories, such as astronomy (sun, moon, wind, rain, etc. ), season (day and night, etc. ), geography (mountains and rivers, etc. ), government offices (towers, doors, etc. ), vegetation (trees, peaches, plums, etc. ), birds (chickens, birds, cranes, etc. ) and so on. Finally, the corresponding rules of adjacent categories, that is, words in adjacent categories can be paired with each other. For example, astronomy returns to the season, astronomy to geography, geography to the palace and so on.

The third is the structural proportion.

The so-called structural proportion means that the grammatical structure of the upper and lower conjunctions (or the structure of their phrases and sentence patterns) should be as consistent as possible, that is, the subject-predicate structure is opposite to the subject-predicate structure, the verb-object structure is opposite to the verb-object structure, the partial structure is opposite to the partial structure, and the coordinate structure is opposite to the coordinate structure, and so on. For example, Li Bai's topic is Hunan Yueyang Loulian:

Water and the sky are one color; The wind and the moon are boundless.

This conjunction is both a subject-predicate structure. Among them, "water sky" and "romantic moon" are both parallel structures, and "one color" and "boundless" are all positive structures.

However, in the case of equivalent parts of speech, the requirements for some similar or special sentence structures can be relaxed appropriately.

Fourth, the rhythm corresponds.

That is, the places where the up and down links stop must be consistent. For example:

Don't let the spring and autumn pass; It's the hardest for an old friend to come once.

This is a seven-character short couplet, and the rhythm of the upper and lower couplets is exactly the same, both of which are "223". Longer couplets must have corresponding rhythm.

The fifth is uniformity and harmony.

What is leveling? The classification of flat tones in Putonghua is, in short, flat tones and upper tones, flat tones and flat tones. In the ancient four tones, the flat sound is flat, and the rising, going and entering sounds are silent. Even peace and harmony include two aspects:

(1) The upper and lower links are opposite. Generally speaking, word alignment is not required, but attention should be paid to the alignment of the upper and lower tails (feet), the upper part is different and the lower part is flat; The words at the end of the sentence or at the rhythm point should be flat and opposite; The ending (foot) of each clause in a long couplet should be flat, right.

(2) The upper and lower couplets alternate in the sentence. Yu Dequan, a contemporary couplet writer, summed up a set of "horseshoe rhyme" rules. Simply put, it is "flat, steady and steady", walking like the rhythm of a horseshoe.