The reading-meaning correspondences in
multiple-reading characters have never been clear-cut inMiddle Chinese as well as
in Modern Pekin(北京). Results of surveys of actual pronunciations of poyinzi(破音字) as well as one-reading characters in Pekinese renders the term poyinzi(破音字) almost meaningless.This paper attempts to prove that the different pronunciations of such characters are
historical layers in theprocess of sound change and are still subject to further sound change. The formation of poyinzi(破音字) hasbeen entirely fortuitous, as revealed in cross-dialectal comparisons given in this paper. A poyinzi(破音字)ought to be studied in its entirety rather than divided into separate ‘lexemes’, because such a division willobstruct our vision of the path of the sound change. The 2nd and 3rd editions of Hanyu Fangyin Zihui(汉语方音字汇) are descriptive in nature and have encoded large numbers of deviations from the prescribed norms.Deviations are commonplace today; they must have been commonplace at any point in history. Guangyunmay very well have been descriptive like the latter editions of Zihui(字汇). To insist on claiming thatGuangyun(广韵Qieyun切韵) was a prescriptive dictionary necessarily entails a ‘collective’ interpretation.