Rules of Rhyme

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Couplets are one of the distinct literary forms in the treasure house of Chinese culture; characterized by their popularity, practicality, and aesthetic value, they have remained popular over time. The basic characteristics of couplets are antithetical word pairing and rhythmic harmony. To promote this traditional Chinese art form, I brought together experts from various fields to compile and standardize the discussions on rhyming rules that have been scattered across various texts over the past thousand years, resulting in the formulation of the \"General Principles of Rhyming Rules (Trial Version)\”. Based on over a year of practice and incorporating feedback from various parties for revisions, the \"General Provisions on Joint Laws\" (revised draft) was formulated. It is now approved at the 17th executive meeting of the 5th session of the Chinese Couplet Society and is hereby issued. Chapter 1: Basic Rules. Rule 1: Word-for-word equivalence. A couplet consists of an upper line and a lower line. The number of characters in each line of the upper and lower couplets is equal, as is the number of characters in corresponding phrases. The second part classifies parts of speech. In the syntactic structure of the upper and lower lines, words in the same position have the same part-of-speech attributes, or conform to traditional antithetical patterns. The third structure corresponds. The composition of the words in the upper and lower lines, the matching of their meanings, the arrangement of word order, the use of function words, as well as the application of rhetorical devices, all follow certain rules or conventions, ensuring mutual balance and correspondence. The fourth rhythm is in sync. The rhythmic flow of the upper and lower lines is consistent. The rhythm can be determined based on the phonetic rhythm principle of \"two characters per rhythm unit\"; the rhythm points fall at the even-positioned characters in a sentence, with a single character constituting one rhythm unit ； It is also possible to follow the semantic rhythm, which may share similarities or differences with the rhythmic pattern of pronunciation; in such cases, there are three-character or longer words that should not be split, with the rhythm focus lying on the last character. Article 5: The opposition between level and oblique tones. In the sentence, the level and oblique tones are arranged in a rhythmic pattern, with the characters at corresponding rhythmic points in the upper and lower lines having opposite levels and oblique tones. In unilateral two-sentence or multi-sentence couplets, the endings of each sentence are connected in sequence; the rules regarding level and oblique tones generally require a alternation of syllable rhythms, which is traditionally referred to as \"level tone at the end of an even-numbered sentence, oblique tone at the end of an odd-numbered sentence\". If violation of taboo (3) in Article 10 of these general rules occurs, or if it affects the rhythmic balance of the sentence, leniency shall be applied. The upper line ends with a consonant sound, while the lower line ends with a vowel sound; it is a pair of lines with corresponding meanings of the sixth type. Formal opposition, semantic connection. The content expressed in the upper and lower lines is unified under the same theme. Chapter 2: Traditional Antithesis. Article 7: For those patterns of antithesis that have been formed over history and are still in use to this day, such as reduplication, embedded characters, and sequential characters in morphology; borrowed sounds, homophones, and connected sounds in phonology; mutual formation, interweaving, and category transformation in morphology; and sentence structures like balanced sentences, triangular structures, and flowing sequences in syntax, any pattern that conforms to traditional rhetorical antithesis can be considered a pair. This approach meets the requirements regarding the parallelism in part of speech and structure of the antithetical words, while being more flexible when it comes to the requirements concerning rhythm within sentences. Article 8: The tones of the characters used shall follow the conventions of Chinese phonology. The determination of tone patterns follows a \"dual-system\" approach that combines the traditional tones from the ancient times as outlined in the \"Shi Yun\" with the modern tones of Standard Mandarin; however, these two systems cannot be used together within the same sentence. Article 9 states that when using leading characters, supplementary characters, prepositions, conjunctions, particles, interjections, onomatopoeias, as well as numerals consisting of three syllables or more, it is permissible to disregard tone patterns at the beginning or within a sentence, and such elements are not taken into account when determining the rhythm of the surrounding words. Article 10: Taboo issues. (1) Avoid clasping the hands. (2) Avoid irregular repeated characters. (3) In sentences ending in a consonant sound, try to avoid having the last three characters be consonant sounds ； In a balanced sentence, avoid three consecutive level tones at the end. Chapter 3: The Wide Range of Part-of-Speech Flexibility Article 11: The range within which different parts of speech can be used relative to each other generally includes: (1) Adjectives and verbs (especially intransitive verbs) ； 　　(2) Words that function as modifiers in noun-centered modifier phrases ； 　　(3) Words that function as adverbs according to syntactic structure ； 　　(4) Common antithetical forms such as synonymous words used together, antonymous words used together, direction and number, number and color, synonymy and antonymy, synonymy and reduplicated characters, antonymy and reduplicated characters, adverbs and conjunctions/prepositions, conjunctions/prepositions and function words, and reduplicated characters paired with each other ； 　　(5) For certain sequences (or series) of terms, the relationship between two such sequences exists; examples include the sequence of natural numbers, the system of Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, the Five Elements, the twelve zodiac signs, as well as logical temporary structures created by combining words based on specific situations. Techniques such as the 12 types of meaningful pairings, interesting pairings, pairings through sound or meaning borrowing, pairing by extracting phrases, and pairing by combining phrases allow for flexibility and do not require strict adherence to traditional pairing patterns. Chapter 4: Supplementary Provisions, Article 13: These general principles serve as a basis for the rules regarding meter in the creation, evaluation, and appreciation of couplets. Explained by the Chinese Couplet Society. Article 14 These General Provisions shall come into force as of October 1, 2008. The \"General Provisions on Joint Laws (Trial Implementation)\\" issued on June 1, 2007 was simultaneously repealed.