Professor Ho is Chairman of the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is also the Director of the D.C. Lau Research Centre for Chinese Ancient Texts and Honorary Research Fellow of the T.T. Ng Chinese Language Research Centre. His research interests include ancient literature, ancient text collation and reference book compilation.

The research plan of the D.C. Lau Research Centre for Chinese Ancient Texts is titled "An Integrated Study of the Lexicon from Pre-Qin to Han Period: The Establishment of a Multi-Purpose Online Dictionary of Ancient Chinese Texts". According to Professor Ho Che Wah, the project will aim to comprehensively catalogue and study the vocabulary used from the pre-Qin era to the Han dynasty to supply data for the study of the development of language during this period. The project will also aim to solve the problem of how to periodise the documents and the transmission of philosophical thought. It will include the compilation and publication of a series of glossaries of ancient texts and of special purpose dictionaries, along with a multi-functional web dictionary based on transmitted and unearthed texts from the same period. Notably, when researchers consult the web dictionary, the database will provide data related to transmitted and unearthed texts that will make up for the lack of use of both kinds of texts in the present large-scale dictionaries. This type of research functionality is also lacking in the current digital vocabulary databases.

The main task during the first stage of the research programme, which will be conducted in cooperation with Zhejiang University, will be to arrange the excavated texts, supplemented by the transmitted texts from the pre-Qin to the Han era, to determine the meaning of their vocabulary. During the second stage, the "Automatic Compiling System for the Database of Ancient Chinese Disyllabic and Polysyllabic Words" 中國古代雙音節及多音節詞彙資料庫自動編纂程式系統 developed by the Research Centre for Chinese Ancient Texts will be used to set up the online dictionary. Why study ancient Chinese language and compile such a comprehensive online dictionary? What actual benefits will this research provide for the study of ancient texts and philosophical thought? Professor Ho has answered these questions in the following four points.

First, the study of ancient Chinese language can influence the periodisation of historical documents, as exemplified by the bamboo slips of the Wenzi 文子 unearthed in Dingzhou 定州 in 1973. At first, this was believed to be a weft text written after the Han dynasty. However, the Wenzi was found among bamboo slips dating back to at least 56 BCE, which was sufficient for some scholars to infer that the text was published between the middle and the end of the Warring States period. Professor Ho compared the transmitted version with the excavated version of the Wenzi and found that the sentence "chaoting bu gong" 朝廷不恭 in the former was originally written as "chaoqing bu gong" 朝請不恭. According to the Shiji jijie 史記集解, the chaoqing was a Han legal ceremony held during spring and autumn when the feudal lords had an audience with the emperor. Therefore, Professor Ho argued that the Wenzi could not have been published before the Western Han. As this example shows, recording the whole vocabulary of a period in the database will theoretically provide more clues to help us date whole texts or parts of them and, thereby, allow textual research to develop new thought patterns.

Moreover, the database will help researchers to date the exact original source of ancient Chinese expressions. Professor Ho pointed out that many of the Chinese words used in everyday life were already present in ancient Chinese. The Research Centre plans to add the most frequently used contemporary Chinese words to the database and to match them with entries from oracle bones, bronze inscriptions, bamboo slips and silk manuscripts. This will make it possible to systematise the vocabulary and to conduct large scale etymological investigations. This will not only allow researchers to trace the vocabulary back to the period of the oracle bone inscriptions of the Shang dynasty, but will also contribute to the revision of contemporary large-scale dictionaries. For example, the Chinese translation of the French post-structuralist word "deconstruction" (jiegou 解構) has already been described in the Huainan zi 淮南子 as "undoing and rejoining". The contemporary Chinese expression suiyi 隨意is defined in the Xiandai Hanyu cidian as "according to one's own idea". The database shows no trace of this word in texts dated from the pre-Qin era to the Han dynasty, with the exception of the Liu tao 六韜, which includes the phrase "tian yan (dan) suiyi" 恬惔(淡)隨意. However, this phrase is nowhere to be found in the transmitted version of the text, but only in the version unearthed in the Han tombs of Yinque shan 銀雀山. Therefore, we can prove that the term suiyi dates back to at least the Western Han period. This textual reference greatly predates that reported in the Xiandai Hanyu cidian, which refers to the Sanguo zhi 三國志 as the earliest text that uses this word. Although there are no traces of the expression "suiyi" in the pre-Qing era, the "Tian dao" 天道 chapter of the Zhuangzi 莊子 contains the following sentence, "Words have value; what is of value in words is meaning. Meaning has something it is pursuing, but the thing that it is pursuing cannot be put into words and handed down" 語之所貴者意也，意有所隨。意之所隨者，不可以言傳也, which may be considered the origin of the word suiyi.

In addition, the study of ancient Chinese will benefit the study of the relationship between the texti recepti and philosophical thought. Taking the Zhuangzi and Xunzi 荀子 as examples, people usually consider the former as belonging to the Daoist school and the latter to Confucian thought (or as shared by the Confucian and Legalist schools), because Xunzi criticised Zhuangzi's perspective. The "Jiebi" 解蔽 chapter of the Xunzi states that "(He) takes cover in Heaven and doesn't know Man". However, Feng Youlan, Wang Shumin and David S. Nivison point out that the relationship between the two was different, even arguing that Xunzi was seemingly well versed in Zhuangzi's thought. Unfortunately, the scholars did not provide a list of textual references. Because vocabulary is the principal carrier of past philosophical thought, it is possible to compare the language used by each school and thereby discern the subtle differences between them. It is evident that the research project directed by Professor Ho provides an extremely favourable basis on which to support and verify these earlier academic intuitions. Behind these philosophical concepts there is the phenomenon of the consistency of vocabulary. Accordingly, many of the expressions in the Junzi follow their use in the Zhuangzi while others are only seen in these two texts, such as feng yi qian dai 縫衣淺帶, yiqu 一曲 and dali 大理.

Moreover, the database will help understand the emergence of neologisms, as exemplified by Wang Chong's 王充 Lunheng 論衡 and the Xunzi. Wang disliked everything that was delusive and severely criticised spiritual and superstitious thought. His criticisms contain many neologisms related to the word gui 鬼 (ghost), where Wang added different attributes to the morpheme gui to indicate different kinds of ghosts, such as zhenggui 正鬼, kegui 客鬼, yigui 疫鬼, nüegui 虐鬼 and wanglianggui 魍魎鬼. The Xunzi also uses neologisms to name the nine classes that Wang used to classify the Confucian scholars: daru 大儒, yaru 雅儒, suru 俗儒, xiaoru 小儒, louru 陋儒, sanru 散儒, furu 腐儒, mouru 瞀儒 and jianru 賤儒.

After having shown how the Database of Ancient Chinese Words can promote and influence the study of ancient texts and philosophical thought, Professor Ho presented the findings of the Research Centre, including the most recently published "Kongcong zi" cihui ziliao huibian 《《孔叢子》詞彙資料彙編 》, "Xinyu" cihui ziliao huibian 《《新語》詞彙資料彙編》, "Xinshu" cihui ziliao huibian 《《新書》詞彙資料彙編》 and future research projects. The research results are released to the global academic community as soon as they become available. Professor Ho stated that this helps promote academic research and thus "makes knowledge available to all instead of the individual", which is one of the main aims of publishing the research.

Finally, to summarise the achievements of the Research Centre for Chinese Ancient Texts and the objectives for the next five years, Professor Ho referred to the comments made by the renowned Swedish sinologist Nils Göran David Malmqvist on the word index formerly compiled by the Research Centre:

• The Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong provided excellent prerequisites to this research, like the Xian-Qin liang Han guji zhuzi suoyin congkan 《先秦兩漢古籍逐字索引叢刊》 and the Wei-Jin Nanbeichao guji zhuzi suoyin congkan 《魏晉南北朝古籍逐字索引叢刊》, edited by Professor D.C. Lau, including all the concordances of the texts dated between the pre-Qin and the end of the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
• The concordances by the Institute of Chinese Studies surpassed any other preceding concordances on the pre-Qin to pre-Sui period. This extremely valuable work provides to the experts of grammar a means to study and analyse the grammar of archaic and ancient Chinese. This kind of grammatical study is significant for evidential learning.
• The accomplishment of this extremely wide research project will probably require an international effort along with an institution able to organise it. Because the Institute of Chinese Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has already provided these important prerequisites, we think that it should keep carrying on this responsibility. . . Some years ago, the Confucius Institute of Beijing suggested a research project, a new translation of the Five Classics into the world's major languages. I think that the project here proposed is even more meaningful.