Abstract: In the study of ancient tones based on the rhymes in The Book of Songs,the following four points need to be clarified.First,rhyming of the sentences in The Book of Songs can be divided into sentences to be rhymed (must-rhymed) and sentences not obliged to be rhymed (possibly-rhymed).The former requires more strict rhyming than the latter,so the situation of tones of must-rhymed sentences is more accurate to reflect the reality of ancient Chinese tones.Second,some sentences in The Book of Songs rhymed with the same final and tone,while others rhymed with the same final but different tones.Those rhymed sentences with different tones could be intentional change of rhyming by the poet to fit into some rhyming patterns,which should be considered as rhyming on separated tones.Third,a character could have several tones.Under the corresponding principle of sound and meaning,it is necessary to determine the right tone of a rhyme in poems according to its meanings or grammatical functions. Forth,in The Book of Songs,the rhyming with different tones or different codas differentiate from each other,and should be counted separately.Based on the above principles,this paper discovered some new patterns and examples of rhyming,which proves that tones can be detected according to their meanings.To analyze the rhymes of The Book of Songs,the researcher built a database including 305 poems,1133 rhymed paragraphs,1696 rhymed sections and 5308 rhymed sentences and acquired the following data by computer statistic.In 4548 must-rhymed sentences,183 sentences have different tones in a rhymed section,only 4.02%.The percentage of the mixed tones is Pingsheng 2.27%,Shangsheng 5.42%,Qusheng 16.71%,and Rusheng 1.44%.The mixed rhyming percentage of Yinsheng,Yangsheng,Rusheng is 5.88%,3.29%,and 1.44% respectively.In the Yangsheng rhyme,the mixed proportion of tones is Pingsheng 1.26%,Shangsheng 15.05%,and Qusheng 17.86%.Qusheng in Yinsheng rhymes as well as Shangsheng and Qusheng in Yangsheng rhymes in The Book of Songs may be in their later developing stage of the four-tone system in ancient Chinese.

Key words: The Book of Songs, rhyme, four tones in ancient Chinese, Qusheng (falling tone), corresponding of sound and meaning