Evolution of ancient Chinese thesaurus: from «Erya» to «Shiming»

The article is devoted to the history of early Chinese lexicography, the author traces the development of the early Chinese lexical classification system embodied in thematic layouts of thesauri. The main goal of the study was to analyze the macrostructure of five ancient Chinese thesauri from the oldest extant «Erya» («Approaching correct language», 3rd century BC) to «Shiming» («Explanation of names», 200 CE), and to highlight the changes that occurred in the «Shiming» semantic categories system in comparison with such lexicons as «Erya», «Xiao Erya» («Little Erya», 2nd century BC), «Fangyan» («Regional speech», 1st century CE), and «Guangya» («Expanded Erya», 230 CE).