Kroll’s Introduction to Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese

Brill has released Paul Kroll’s Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese, with a plugin also available for Pleco. The introduction is also available online–here’s an excerpt:

The three determining factors in making sense of any text are grammar, context, and vocabulary. That order reflects the relative importance of these factors in reading classical and medieval Chinese. This dictionary will provide substantial help with vocabulary. Context of course is text-specific and cannot be prescribed. However, there is a certain amount of general cultural knowledge that hovers around particular words, which one learns from long experience but which may also be learned in advance. Many entries in the dictionary therefore include comments of a discursive nature, in addition to definitions. This is the kind of information I impart orally to students in my courses, and I hope some of it will be of use here in written form.