ChinLaw

Chinese Law

The ChinLaw project aims to assess the evolution of the content of imperial Chinese legislation by language models. The study will draw upon multiple editions of Chinese legal codes, as well as legal commentaries produced by jurists and scholars during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), to enrich the linguistic context of the analysis. These texts were obtained through the tools developed as part of the Numerica Sinologica project.[1]
The analysis will rely on the Pindola language model, which was specifically trained on historical Chinese documents. The research will compare different versions of legal texts and seek to quantify the semantic differences between them, with particular attention to changes in legal vocabulary. This quantitative approach will address several research questions.

The prevailing view in historiography is that Chinese law remained relatively stable between the seventh and nineteenth centuries, over a period spanning more than a millennium. However, this assumption has never been subjected to a systematic quantitative evaluation. This project will compare legal codes from the Tang dynasty (618–907) and the Qing dynasty, focusing on the semantic value of the vocabulary used in these texts. Chinese legal codes were primarily penal in nature and were structured around a hierarchy of punishments that remained largely unchanged from the Tang period through the Qing dynasty.
 

The long-standing argument that the number of provisions in the Qing legal code increased continuously over time has recently been challenged. However, the opposing interpretations have relied exclusively on counts of legislative amendments, without evaluating the intrinsic significance or substantive impact of each modification.[2] The objective of this project is to develop methods for measuring the semantic weight of individual reforms and thereby provide a more precise assessment of legislative change.


[1] The latest transcription model is available here: https://huggingface.co/badianeai/AnandaSky.
[2] Peng Kaixiang and Lin Zhan, “Amending the Central Regulations (Li) and the Governance of the Qing Dynasty: An Analysis Based on The Great Qing Code (Da Qing lü li) and The Collected Statutes and Precedents (Huidian Shili),” The Qing History Journal 2020-6, pp. 53–72.