This book consists of a series of original and detailed studies on basic problems of Classical Chinese grammar. Well over 1000 Classical Chinese sentences are quoted and analysed so that the book may serve as a teaching aid for advanced students of Classical Chinese. The topics discussed in­ clude negation, pronouns, words for ‘all’, ‘some’, ‘only’, ‘many’; ‘few’, and the contrasts between various kinds of conditional sentences in Classical Chinese. The new results reported in this doctoral dissertation from the University of Copenhagen will be of great practical interest for anyone con­ cerned with Classical Chinese literature or Chinese linguistics. The inclusion ofhandbook.for a detailed analytical index increases sinologists. the value of the work as ’ a practical Christoph Harbsmeier is at present Senior Lecturer in Chinese Language and Literature in the East Asian Institute of the University of Oslo. Also published in the Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Sefles: No. 42. N. H. Leon: Character Indexes of Modern Chinese Reflecting recent" developments of the Chinese language in the People's Republic of China, this book provides, in one volume, a convenient cross-reference between the following systems for arranging Chinese characters: 1. The Chinese Phonetic Alphabet; 2. The 189 new "Radicals; 3. The new Four-Corner Number; and 4. The Rapid‘Stroke-Order Number. All the 9,394 characters listed in the Xinhua Zidién ‘New China Dictionary’, the standard monolingual Chinese dictionary of modern usage in China at the present time, are in­ cluded in the indexes according to the first three systems, which have been widely used in China in recent years for indexing characters. In addition, the Chinese characters officially used in Japan are included in the appendices, thereby enlarging the use of the book. ASPECTSOF CLASSICAL CHINESE SYNTAX ASPECTS C) F CLASSICAL CHINESE SYNTAX :'E_.7-".=_‘-"'1' ’ "*~-‘-‘ "1-'5'-'“=‘?' ' _ ' LY; . mi F’ Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series Tit/es: No 6 Inga-Lill Hansson (ed.): A Symposium on Chinese Grammar A discussion on dialects, texts and typology of the language No 10 Eric Grinstead: Analysis of the Tangut Script Exposition, vocabulary, list of characters and language chart No 13 Bo Utas: Tariq ut-tahqiq A critical edition of a_Sufi Mathnavi or didactic poem (Out of print) No 14 Rune E. A. Johansson: Pali Buddhist Texts A simple and practical introduction to the Pali language No 15 Otto Christian Dahl: Proto-Austronesian A critical survey of this family of Asian-Oceanic languages No 18 Pensak Chagsuchinda: Nang Loi - The Floating Maiden A recitation from the Ramakien, a Thai epic poem No 21 Robert Tung: Proscribed Chinese Writing A textbook for students of the modern Chinese language No 25 Thomas Silcock: A Village Ordination The 1971 prize poem in Thai with parallel English translation No 27 Viggo Brun: Sug, the Trickster who Fooled the Monk A northern Thai tale in the trickster-cycle with vocabulary No 33 Kristina Lindell et al: A Kammu Story-Listener's Tales A study of Kammu folklore in Thailand and Laos No 35 Soren Egerod: Atayal-English Dictionary An Austronesian lexicon with English—Atayal index No 36 Bo Utas: A Persian Sufi Poem — Vocabulary and Terminology A contribution to New Persian lexicology No 39 David Bradley: Proto-Loloish A comparative method applied to Sino-Tibetan stock No 40 Kristina Lindell et al: Folk Tales from Kammu - ll A story-teller's tales from Thailand and Laos No 42 N. H. Leon: Character Indexes of Modern Chinese A consideration of recent developments of the Chinese language SCANDINAVIAN INSTITUTE OF ASIAN STUDIES MONOGRAPH SERIES NO 45 Aspects of Classical Chinese Syntax Christoph Harbsmeier Curzon Press Scandinavian institute of Asian Studies Kejsergade 2, DK-1155 Copenhagen K First published 1981 Curzon Press Ltd: London and Malmé © Christoph Harbsmeier 1981 ISBN 0 7007 0139 7 ISSN 0069 1712 Printed in Denmark by AiO print, Odense Table of Contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . .. I INTRODUCTION . .. 1 CHAPTER I: NEoAT1oN . .. 17 1.1. Verbal, Nominal, and Sentential Negation . .. 17 1.2. Neg-raising in AC . .. 31 1.3. Gnomic weiill and the Final Particle yi £— . .. 42 CHAPTER II: QUANTIFICATION . .. 49 2.1. Universal Object Quantifiers . .. 49 2.1.1. The Use of liangfi as an O_bject Quantifier . .. 74 2.2. The Subject Quantifiers jie ‘E and ge 3. .. 78 2.3. Existential Quantification in AC . .. 88 2.4. Relative Quantifiers and the Comparative Degree . .. 1()() 2.4.1. A Note on the Superlative Degree in AC . .. 111 2.5. Restrictive Quantifiers . ... 116 2.5.1. A Note on the Particles yi 7)]<and youl . .. 136 2.6. The So-called Adjectival Quantifier fan IL . ' . .. 153 2.7. The Definite Quantifiers zhu $3‘, qun éiiand zhong X . 166 CHAPTER III: PRONOMINALIZATION . .. 177 3.1. The Reflexive Pronoun ji '11» . .. 177 3.2. Reflexive zi E . _ . _ . _ . ... 189 3.3. Interrogative Pronouns . ... 200 3.4. The So-called Pronoun zhe Pfiand Subordinating suo PIT . 210 CHAPTER IV: CoND1T1oNALs . .. 229 4.1. Concessive Clauses in AC . .. 229 4.2. Conditional ruo 25, ruivand ze fllj . .. 245 4.3. Conditional gou 25 . _ . ... 263 4.4. Counterfactualshi Q . ... 272 BIBLIOGRAPHY . ... 288 Bibliographical Abbreviations . .. 293 INDEX . ... 295 DANISH SUMMARY . .. 298 Acknowledgements I should like to thank a number of people, whose encouragement and help have been important to me in preparing this book. Professor Soren Egerod, Copenhagen, has encouraged me to embark on this project and to submit the book as a doctoral thesis in the University of Copenhagen. Professor A. C. Graham, London, has given me his unstinting moral support over a long number of years. I have profited at many points from thoroughly congenial discussions with him. Professor Henry Henne, Oslo, has kindly recommended my book for publication by Curzon Press, London. Professor Piet van der Loon, Oxford, has provided some useful hints. The help of the librarian Dr. Carl Steenstrup, Copenhagen, was especially important for my work, since I had to write this book far from public sinological libraries, on the mellow island of Fyn. My teacher Tung Yu Lin from Penang has undertaken the arduous task of printing the Chinese characters for this book. Dr. Lois Egerod, Mrs. Lise Sode-Mogensen and Mr. Frede Hojgaard have kindly and patiently helped with the task of proof-reading and seeing the book through the press. The Danish Research Council for the Humanities has provided a grant towards the publication of this book. Finally, I should like to thank Professor Lii Shuxiang, Peking, for his generous encouragement, and for doing me the honour to write the characters for the Chinese title page of this book. Reading other scholars’ work on Chinese grammar, I have often found much to be dissatisfied with. Looking back now, I am afraid my attitude to my own work is not so different: I wish I had been able to write a better book. It is my earnest hope that in spite of its shortcom­ ings this book may prove useful to fellow students and lovers of Classi­ cal Chinese language and literature. C.H. Introduction Ancient or Classical Chinese (AC) was the literary language current (and evolving) in China around 500-200 B.C.. It is the language of China’s first great moralist Confucius and of his successors who laid the foundations for Confucianism which was to dominate China right down to the 20th century. It is the language of the oldest and greatest monu­ ments of Taoist mystical philosophy, the Lao Zi and the Zhuang Zi. It is the language of China’s earliest systematic efforts in logic and sci­ ence, the Mo Zi and the Gongsun Long Zi.‘ It is the language of China’s first great lyrical poet who put his name to his works, Qu Yuan. It is the language of China’s first work of narrative history, the Zuo Zhuan, worthy ancestor to what was to become the world’s most im­ pressive historiographical tradition, the Chinese dynastic histories. It is the language of the political philosophers Shang Yang and Han Pei Zi, whose teachings formed the ideological basis for the unification of China and the establishment of the Chinese empire. Classical Chinese is the language in which the foundations of Chinese civilisation were first articulated? In the Far East, Classical Chinese has played much the same key role as Classical Greek has in Western Europe. Its impact on language and script in countries like Vietnam, Korea, and Japan is obvious.3 In the context of Far Eastern linguistics the study of Classical Chinese gram­ mar is clearly of the very first importance. 1. Cf. the monumental study Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science (1978) by A. C. Graham and my review of this book in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (forthcoming). 2. The recent political campaign against Confucius demonstrates abundantly how the classical heritage lives on even among the most outrageously anti-traditionalist philistines in the Chinese communist movement. (Cf. my book Konfuzius und der Riiuber Zhi (1978)). One just has to try to imagine someone trying to launch a political mass campaign against Plato in Europe in order to appreciate the traditionalism that persists in China even at the most iconoclastic of times. 3. For example, the Vietnamese leader I-Io Chi Minh was quite as fond of writing Classical Chinese poetry as Mao Ze-dong. 2 Introduction Within the larger field of general linguistics and the typology of language, Classical Chinese is of unique significance because of its extremely isolating grammatical structure. Anyone who wishes to gain an unparochial understanding of things like the history of ideas, the history of science, historiography, lyrical poetry or the philosophy of language will obviously do well to take serious account of the Classical Chinese evidence precisely because it is so different from what we are used to.