Typological Change in Chinese Syntax 9780191516382, 9780199297566

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Typological Change in Chinese Syntax

For Shiqi Youcun and Youlai

Typological Change in Chinese Syntax XU DAN

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford   Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Xu Dan  The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by SPI Publisher Services, Pondicherry, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd, www.biddles.co.uk ISBN –––– ISBN –––          

Contents Preface Abbreviations

ix xi

Introduction



 From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese: Word Order and Word Order Change



.. Introduction .. OV word order in OC ... Object = lexical NP ... Object = pronoun ... NEG+OV>NEG+VO (examples of 之知 zhī zhī and 知之 zhī zhī ) ... Discussion .. OV and VO ... NP 以 yǐ and 以 yǐ NP ... 是 shì V and V是 shì ... 是以 shì yǐ and 以是 yǐ shì in OC and Late OC ... Comparison between received texts and unearthed texts ... Comparison between earlier texts and later annotated texts ... Evolution of 是 shì: from a demonstrative to a copula .. Prepositions and postpositions ... The status of 於/于 yú in “location+yú” ... The status of 中 zhōng in “zhōng+location” .... NP[+time]+中 zhōng/中 zhōng+NP[+time] .... NP[+place word]+中 zhōng/中 zhōng+ NP[+place word] .. Word order of motion verbs ... Motion verbs and grammaticalization ... 去 qù+NP[+locative]: leave a place>go to a place ... 東去 dōng qù and 向東去 xiàng dōng qù ... 來 lái, 去 qù, and aspects .. Preliminary conclusion

                       



Contents

 Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese .. .. .. ..

Introduction Phonological and morphological evidence The role of word order Orientations of verbs marked by the preposition 於 yú ... The origin of the two yú (于 yú and 於 yú) ... Functions of 於 yú ... Presence or absence of the preposition 於 yú ... Discussion in phonological approach ... Tentative explanation .. Passive voice marking ... Marking by the same verb ... Marking by the same structure ... The rise of passive structures .. Conclusion

 Causative Structures in Old Chinese .. Introduction .. Coexistence of different devices in OC ... Phonological and morphological causatives in OC ... Lexical causatives ... Syntactic causatives .. Comparison between 使 shǐ and 令 lìng causatives .. Comparison between 使 shǐ and 讓 ràng/叫 jiào causatives .. Grammaticalization of the verb 使 shǐ .. New structures related to the causative structure (把 bǎ and 被 bèi constructions) ... Causatives and the 把 bǎ construction ... Causatives and the 被 bèi construction .. Conclusion  The Rise of Resultative Compounds .. Introduction .. Previous works .. Distribution of VV in contemporary Chinese ... Verbs which can occur at V position ... Verbs which cannot occur at V position ... Syntactic and semantic constraints of V ... Verbs which can occur at V position .. A single V and VV in OC

                                    

Contents .. Semantic features of V in the rise of resultative compounds ... Semantic features of V during the Han period ... Semantic features of V in Middle Chinese .. The V+O+V construction .. 破 pò ‘to break’ ... “破 pò NP” and “NP 破 pò” ... Reanalysis of 破 pò: from a verb to an adjective ... Syntactic position of 破 pò in VV ... The VR with 破 pò in contemporary Chinese .. Conclusion  Negation in Old Chinese .. Introduction .. The negation system in OC ... p/f negatives ... m/w negatives .. Simplification of the negation system .. Comparison between transmitted versions and unearthed texts: replacement of 亡 wáng by 無 wú .. The merger of 無 wú and 毋 wú .. Replacement of 毋 wú by 勿 wù .. The case of 莫 mò .. From temporal meaning to modal meaning .. Discussion in morphological approach Conclusion Appendix: Chinese Chronology References Sources of Examples Index

                           

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Preface The periodization of Chinese used in this book is given in the list of Abbreviations. There are substantial differences of opinion among specialists on the question of periodization. I have adopted a scheme which takes into account phonological, morphological, and syntactic changes in Old Chinese (OC) and Middle Chinese (MC). It overlaps, in great part, with that accepted by most scholars in the field. As readers will notice, the period covering Late OC and Early MC occupies a significant position. The late Western Han and early Eastern Han emerge as a crucial time in the evolution in Chinese syntax, stimulated by phonological and morphological changes. Examples are presented in Chinese characters and pinyin transcription, followed by a literal translation and a normalized translation. Tonal modifications such as tone sandhi have not been noted. I have added a pinyin transcription in square brackets if a cited author uses a non-standard notation. Explanatory notes are inserted in square brackets in cited translations when necessary. The phonetic system of OC and MC is provided on the basis of previous scholars’ works, and the sources are cited when special cases are discussed. Symbols such as □, O, ( ) and [ ] are recopied according to the original texts. In word for word translations, a loan character seen in (excavated) texts is not translated since the standard character is placed in brackets and translated: 功, (攻), gōng, (gōng), ‘attack’. Lexicalizations are reflected in the pinyin notation. The function of a grammatical word is generally translated into English if any equivalent exists. My warm thanks go to two research centres. I previously worked in the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, where I learned a lot from my former colleagues in various fields. They also provided me with many valuable documents, especially excavated texts. I have been an Associate Researcher at the Centre for Linguistic Research in East Asia (CRLAO), in France, since . I have been strongly supported financially by CRLAO, which has provided a favourable environment in which to carry out my research. Without the generous help of my colleagues at these two centres, I would never have been able to do significant work in Chinese linguistics. I would also like to thank the editors of the Oxford University Press for having agreed to publish this manuscript on such a specialized field of research, especially Mr John Davey who was extremely patient, helpful, and understanding. Many thanks also to the two anonymous reviewers who provided constructive



Preface

remarks and advice. I am also very grateful to Fang Xu and Jingqi Fu who have always encouraged me and helped me in many ways. I feel deeply indebted to my husband Shiqi Song, who has always supported me in my research, which has been so time consuming. Without his understanding and precious help, this book would never have been completed. A thousand thanks indeed to Daniel Kane who kindly offered to proofread the manuscript. For any remaining faults, of course, I am solely responsible. X.D. Oxford October 2006

Abbreviations Linguistic terms A ADJ ADV ART ASP AUX BA BEI CL H IP LE MOD MP N NEG NP O P P P PART PASS PL PP PREP RESUL S V VP VR SUO SVO ZHE

animate adjective adverb article aspect marker auxiliary verb direct object marker agent marker classifier human interrogative particle aspect marker, final particle modification marker modal particle noun negation noun phrase object first person pronoun second person pronoun third person pronoun particle passive plural prepositional phrase preposition resultative subject verb verb phrase verb+resultative verb nominalizing particle of patient subject–verb–object nominalizing particle of agent, topic marker



Abbreviations

Sources GY HFZ SJ ZGC ZZ ZZJ

Guóyǔ Hánfēizǐ Shǐjì Zhànguócè Zuǒzhuàn Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū

Periodization of Chinese language OC EOC LOC MC EMC LMC Modern Chinese Contemporary Chinese

Old Chinese (th–st centuries ) Early Old Chinese (th–th centuries ) Late Old Chinese (rd century –st century ) Middle Chinese (st–th centuries ) Early Middle Chinese (st–th centuries ) Late Middle Chinese (th–th centuries ) th–th centuries th–

Introduction In the present book Typological Change in Chinese Syntax, I claim that Old Chinese (OC) was typologically a “mixed language”. “Mixed language” carries two notions here: () both verb–object (VO) and object–verb (OV) word orders are found in OC, and () different devices, for example phonological, morphological, lexical, and syntactic, coexist to highlight the grammatical relations between each morpheme. The Chinese language was not and is not a pure type of language which can be easily classified using the current theory of language typology. As has been well noted, contemporary Chinese (i.e. Mandarin) is, from all points of view, an atypical SVO language. The dominant word order was SVO in OC but it coexisted with SOV, which appears to be more archaic according to some scholars. Around the Han ( – ), there was a transition period during which important typological changes occurred: Chinese evolved into an increasingly analytic language, and the word order SVO came to be clearly favoured. Old Chinese was not an analytic language as it has usually been treated; it employed phonological, morphological, and lexical devices as well as syntactic means. Grammatical relations were expressed in OC by hidden devices such as alternation between voiced and unvoiced initials, ablaut and tonal changes, and so on. From the Han onwards, Chinese language began to exploit overt devices, i.e. syntax, to compensate for the loss in phonological and morphological means; classifiers arose to distinguish NP from VP. Adpositions, the fruit of a process of grammaticalization, flourished to indicate the grammatical relations at syntactic level. The “verb+resultative verb” compound was formed in Early Middle Chinese (MC) to indicate the aspect (aspect markers came later from resultative verbs), marked often in OC by a sole verb which depended on its pronunciation or context. The passive markers began to develop in order to clarify the agent–patient relationship, which was indicated by phonological, morphological, or contextual strategies. The bǎ construction began to be 1

See the periodization provided in Abbreviations.



Introduction

used to mark the object. These changes had a strong impact on the word order in OC and MC; readjustment took place that favoured evolution into a SVO language. The text presents, step by step, the arguments supporting the above points of view along with abundant examples found in the data. In this book, I use archaeological findings from the past two decades where possible. I compare the transmitted versions with the unearthed texts to avoid the anachronism apparently suffered by some past and current research. It is especially interesting to compare the word order change in a transmitted version with the order in an excavated version when they report the same historical event or story. Unearthed texts have been long neglected by some scholars of Classical Chinese and are worth more consideration. Although this manuscript deals primarily with syntactic issues, it also pays close attention to phonological and palaeographic issues. This is because a language is a whole entity and needs to be treated with different but complementary approaches. Often a syntactic problem is motivated by a phonological one and a phonological problem may find an answer in the writings. In the Chinese language, at least, the heritage of the phonological and writing domains provides consistent arguments to the syntactic problems. Overall, the book shows that, since the Han, the Chinese language has fully exploited syntactic devices to the detriment of phonological and morphological devices. This irresistible development means that the syntactic needs issued from the language itself. In contemporary Chinese, one character (in writing) corresponds, in most cases, to one syllable (in speaking); this is the result of a long evolution. In OC, however, it is not certain that this overwhelming correspondence existed. If the morphology in OC was wiped out, the reason seems to be that the one character–one syllable development, urged perhaps by the rise of tones, was not favourable to recording a morpheme containing more than one syllable or clusters. As has been remarked, this growth enabled the Chinese language to drop with ease affixations probably incorporated within one morpheme. This at least limited any eventual morphological development as in alphabetic languages. The present book advances the hypothesis that the Chinese language underwent typological changes.

1 From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese Word Order and Word Order Change

. . Introduction Is Chinese a language of SVO (subject–verb–object) or SOV word order? Since the work of Greenberg (), these terms have been used by scholars to describe different languages. During the s, an animated debate over Chinese word order began, and a series of articles was published. These discussions continue to have an impact on current research. Some scholars such as Li and Thompson (, ) and Tai () assume that Chinese word order was once SVO, but has changed to SOV. Their main arguments are based on two structures in contemporary Chinese: () prepositional phrases (PP) were postverbal in Old Chinese and moved into the preverbal position, i.e. S+V+PP > S+PP+V (“>” means ‘becomes’); () the appearance of the 把 bǎ construction in Chinese, which serves to put focus on the object of a sentence by moving it to the preverbal position, i.e. SVO>S+把 bǎ+O+V. This hypothesis attracted the attention of many researchers who supported or refuted it with numerous examples. Linguists who contest this hypothesis (Light , Mei Kuang , Peyraube , , among others) point out that even in contemporary Chinese, the word order S+V+PP exists and the 把 bǎ construction has to be treated as a marked structure; in other words, it does not represent a basic word order in Chinese. A decade later, the statistics of Sun and Givón () showed that the Chinese language is a typical SVO language. The predominant point of view remains that Chinese is SVO. In this chapter, I will not simply support or refute these hypotheses, but try to show that, typologically, Old Chinese was a mixed language; i.e. it had both word orders OV and VO (though the occurrences of the latter were much more significant). Today, the Chinese language has become a prominently VO-order language with some vestiges of OV. In fact, even contemporary Chinese, which is classified as SVO, “has a number of characteristics that are highly atypical of VO languages” (Dryer : ), such as relative



From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

clauses before the noun, manner adverbs and adpositional phrases before the verb, etc. More concretely, I will try to show how Chinese evolved from a mixed word order language to an SVO language. This hypothesis is backed up by my data from Old Chinese (OC), as well as data in transmitted versions and in unearthed texts from the Han period (third century  to third century ), a key period of typological change in Chinese. Throughout the book, I will support one hypothesis: that the Chinese language was a mixed language, in terms of both language type and word order. The Chinese language we can observe today presents relatively stable structures resulting from an endless evolution. Several structures have been chosen for investigation to illustrate the coexistence of two word orders in OC. As we can see in modern Chinese, VO word order eventually became the dominant order. In this chapter, I will analyse the coexistence of the two types of word order in the following constructions: (a) (b) (c) (d)

NP (noun phrase)+V and V+NP (NP=object) 是以 shì yǐ (demonstrative+V) and 以是 yǐ shì (V+demonstrative) NP[+location]+於/于 yú+V and 中 zhōng+NP[+location]+V 東去 dōng qù (east–go) and 向東去 xiàng dōng qù (preposition+ east+go).

VO is the most common word order in OC, while OV is also attested. The preverbal object has two forms: () a full lexical NP and () a pronoun. In the first case, “唯 wéi+O+V” has been found in the oracle bone inscriptions (甲骨文 Jiǎgǔwén of the fourteenth to the eleventh centuries ) while “(唯 wéi)+O+是 shì+V” was very common in Early OC. In the second case, preverbal pronouns are mostly seen in interrogative or negative sentences. These problems will be discussed in sections .. and ... In section ., I will examine the constructions with 是以 shì yǐ (O+V) and 以是 yǐ shì (V+O). The first combination is much more frequent than the second. In the first one the object (demonstrative) is preverbal and in the second it is postverbal. I will show that the Chinese language indeed had two word orders in OC and in Late OC, but that later the language clearly evolved towards a VO language. In contemporary Chinese, 於/于 yú ‘to, from, at’, etc., is undoubtedly a preposition and 中 zhōng ‘in, at’ a postposition. Typological studies on languages 

Cf. Dryer (: ). An “adpositional phrase” includes prepositional phrase or postpositional phrase. See Dryer (: ). 

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese



tell us that the word order and prepositional/postpositional use show a strong correlation (Dryer ); however, these two adpositions show some atypical use or puzzling behaviour in early OC, as will be discussed in section .. Finally, I will show in section . why a spatial orientation term and a place word which share the same semantic property [+location] needed a preposition in Middle Chinese but not in OC; and how the verb 去 qù+NP[+location], without changing word order, changed in meaning from ‘leave a place’ to ‘go to a place’.

.. OV word order in OC Since the most commonly observed word order in OC is VO, the analysis will focus on OV word order. Gradually, OV word order lost its territory and VO order became predominant. Some instances of OV order were lexicalized (became disyllabic words) or went out of use while VO order remained at the syntactic level and continues to exist. ... Object = lexical NP When an object is a preverbal lexical NP in OC, we find numerous cases which are indeed complex. In the following structures an object is preverbal: (a) 隹 (唯) wéi/叀 huì+O+V (b) O+是 shì+V (c) 唯 wéi+O+是 shì+V (唯 wéi+O+之 zhī+V) This list is not exhaustive, but is enough to show the complexity of the problem. It is easy to understand why articles on this topic are abundant and points of view are quite different. I will treat these structures with a unified approach: all of the structures constitute variant forms of one core “OV” structure at different periods. I will call (a) and (b) “single marking forms” and (c) a “double marking form”. If all of these structures are considered as points on a continuum in a

 According to 管燮初 Guǎn Xièchū, (), 劉翔 Liú Xiáng et al. (), and 沈培 Shěn Péi (), among others, the language of the oracle bone inscriptions shows a regular order of SVO.  Previous scholars call 唯 wéi a “preposition” , “model particle” , “topic marker” , or “focus marker”.  An elliptical form “ø+是 shì+V” in which the object is omitted can sometimes be found.  “唯 wéi+O+之 zhī+V” presents heterogeneous properties and some of them are not the variant form of the structure 唯 wéi+O+是 shì+V.丁貞蕖 Dīng Zhēnqú () distinguishes two types of constructions with 之 zhī: (a) 之 zhī is a pronoun with two syntactic positions: postverbal (a normal position) and preverbal (when used in a negative sentence); (b) 之 zhī is a grammatical particle indicating a preverbal object when used only in a preverbal position. In fact, the particle 是 shì is more typical in early OC and the use of 之 zhī appears to be later.



From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

chronological chain, we will notice that a preverbal object needs to be marked with a single or double marking in OC, since the main order is SVO: ●

●

●

隹 (唯) wéi/叀 huì+O+V (oracle bone inscriptions, fourteenth–eleventh centuries )> O+是 shì+V (bronze inscriptions, 詩經 Shījīng or The Book of Odes, eleventh–sixth centuries )> 唯 wéi+O+是 shì+V (Shījīng, mid and late Zhōu texts).

According to investigations by previous scholars, the word order in the oracle bone inscriptions is SVO. Two morphemes, 隹 (唯) wéi and 叀 huì, can introduce a preverbal object. Here are some examples from the oracle bone inscriptions: () 隹帝臣令。(殷虛書契後編上 .) wéi dì chén lìng WEI Lord-on-High servant order ‘Give orders to the servant of the Lord on High.’ (Yīn xū shū qì hòu biān shàng) ()

王叀北羌伐? (殷虛書契前編) wáng huì běi Qiāng fá king HUI north Qiang attack ‘Will the king attack Bei Qiang?’ (Yīn xū shū qì qián biān)

According to the chronological chain presented above, in the single marking construction “NP+是 shì+V” , two possible situations have to be considered: (a) the NP is a subject (S+是 shì+V); (b) the NP is a preverbal object (O+是 shì+V). The following is a sentence corresponding to type (a): ()

. . . 寡人是徵 . . . 寡人是問。(左傳. 僖公 ) . . . guǎrén shì zhēng . . . guǎrén shì wèn I this attack I this blame ‘It is for this reason I attack your state and I condemn you.’ (Zuǒzhuàn, hereafter ZZ, Xǐ )

In (), 寡人 guǎrén (I) is the subject, and 是 shì is the preverbal object of the verbs 徵 zhēng ‘to attack’ and 問 wèn ‘to condemn’ . In fact, this order “S+shì+V” is already known in the bronze inscriptions. The following example, found in the Shījīng, corresponds to type (b):

 Sentences such as 子子孫孫是永寳 zǐ zǐ sūn sūn shì yǒng bǎo, ‘Sons and grandsons forever keep it’ are often seen in bronze inscriptions.

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese ()



四方是維, 天子是毗 (詩經 ) sì fāng shì wéi, Tiānzǐ shì pí four regions this unite, Son-of-Heaven this strengthen ‘The four regions, them you should unite; the Son of Heaven, him you should (augment) strengthen.’ (Shījīng ) (translation by Karlgren , , hereafter: Karlgren)

In (), 四方 sì fāng ‘the four regions’ and 天子 Tiānzǐ ‘the Son of Heaven’ constitute the preverbal object marked by the demonstrative 是 shì. The word order is “O+shì+V” . Due to the complexity of these constructions, scholars have different interpretations. Some of them think that shì is not a demonstrative pronoun but a grammatical word marking the preverbal object. I think that shì was a demonstrative pronoun and that its anaphoric role was not doubtful at an earlier stage. Shì was grammaticalized as a marker that put focus on a preverbal object when the latter was present, but shì kept its anaphoric function when the preverbal object was absent. In other words, shì was grammaticalized from a less grammatical word to a more grammatical one, keeping a double status. In the case of “唯 wéi+O+shì+V”, this was a double marking form which was used later than the other two single marking forms “隹 (唯) wéi O+V” and “O+shì+V”. It is clear that “wéi+O+shì+V” was an inheritance from the two single marking forms. In other words, these constructions (single or double marking) were variant forms of one construction at different periods. In the double marking construction, two particles wéi and shì are used in a discontinuous way, and in the single marking construction, wéi or shì is used separately and independently. The aim is the same: to mark the preverbal object. In general, scholars agree that the construction “wéi+O+shì+V” is mainly seen between the end of the Western Zhou and the beginning of the Eastern Zhou (around the eighth to the seventh centuries ). In other words, this construction was used particularly in Middle OC and went out of use rapidly. This explains why most instances of the construction occur in the 左傳 Zuǒzhuàn and the 國語 Guóyǔ, thought to have been compiled around the fifth century . In later classics, this construction is often seen in sentences quoted from earlier texts. It seems that in the Zuǒzhuàn, the construction “wéi+O+shì+V” had already become a lexicalized expression. 殷國光 Yīn Guóguāng () observed that the construction without wéi, i.e. “NP+shì+V”, was replaced by “NP+之 zhī+V” in the middle of the Warring States period (– ). In contrast, 俞敏 Yú Mǐn (: ) believes that 

丁貞蕖 Dīng Zhēnqú (); 殷國光 Yīn Guóguāng ().



From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

the first construction was used more than the second. This may depend on the criterion with which we define the construction “NP+之 zhī+V”. In fact, sentences with zhī seem to be very heterogeneous; many sentences with zhī studied by some scholars as a preverbal object marker cannot be classified as parallel to “NP+shì+V”, so the function of zhī needs to be discussed. The following are examples: ()

父母唯其疾之憂 (論語 /) fù mǔ wéi qí jí zhī yōu father mother WEI their/your illness this worry ‘Give your mother and father nothing to worry about beyond your physical well-being.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, translated by Ames and Rosemont ; hereafter A&R)

()

德之不修, 學之不講, 聞義不能徙, 不善不能改, 是吾憂也 (論語 /) dé zhī bù xiū, xué zhī bù jiǎng, wén yì bù néng xǐ, bù shàn bù néng gǎi, shì wú yōu yě excellence MOD NEG cultivate, learn MOD NEG practise, know whatis-appropriate NEG can move, NEG good NEG can reform, this I worry PART ‘To fail to cultivate excellence (de 德), to fail to practise what I learn, on coming to understand what is appropriate (yi 義) in the circumstances to fail to attend to it, and to be unable to reform conduct that is not productive—these things I worry over. ’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

In (), the construction “wéi+O+zhī+V” clearly imitates “wéi+O+shì+V” and is parallel to the latter. The statistics and research of previous scholars tell us that the construction with zhī is a later one and is vernacular. In (), however, we have the construction “O+zhī+V”, in which it may be better to interpret the particle zhī as a structural particle inserted between a subject and a verb, as is often seen in the classics, instead of analysing it as a preverbal object marker. In other words, the constructions with zhī must be treated in different ways. ... Object = pronoun Most preverbal objects are found in interrogative and negative sentences, with a pronoun as the preverbal object. Such examples are abundant. However, 

I think that it is a question of periods. See 魏培泉 Wèi Péiquán (). The author makes a comprehensive study of 之 zhī. He also points out that, in some cases, it is hard to distinguish zhī that marks a preverbal object from zhī that is inserted between a subject and a verb (see p. ). 

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese



interrogative and negative sentences have to be treated differently. Interrogative sentences with a preverbal pronoun seem to have appeared later (in Middle OC) than negative sentences with a preverbal pronoun (in Early OC). In interrogative sentences, OV order changed to VO order later than in the negative ones. The following are examples of interrogative pronouns in OC: () 天何言哉! (論語 /) tiān hé yán zāi Tian what speak PART ‘Does tian 天 speak?’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R) () 吾誰欺? 欺天乎! (論語 /) wú shuí qī, qī tiān hū I who fool? fool tian PART ‘Who am I going to fool? Am I going to fool tian 天?’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R) () 牛何之? (孟子 A/) niú hé zhī ox where go ‘Where is the ox going?’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, translated by Lau ; hereafter Lau) ()

不為者與不能者之行何以異? (孟子 A/) bù wéi zhě yǔ bù néng zhě zhī xíng hé yǐ yì NEG act ZHE and NEG can ZHE MOD act what take different ‘What is the difference in form between refusal to act and inability to act?’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

In the above examples, the interrogative pronouns 誰 shuí and 何 hé are preverbal objects. In the version on bamboo unearthed at 定州 Dìngzhōu (+ ), the word order of these two sentences remains the same as in the transmitted version; in Mencius’ annotated version of the texts compiled by 趙岐 Zhào Qí (– ), the same word order (OV) is given. However, beginning in the Han, the two word orders (OV and VO) are found coexisting in interrogative sentences. Sometimes, two word orders are encountered in the same text: ()

物之與物也, 又何以相物也? 雖然, 其生我也, 將以何益?其殺我也, 將 以何損? (淮南子. 精神訓) wù zhī yǔ wù yě, yòu hé yǐ xiāng wù yě? Suīrán, qí shēng wǒ yě, jiāng yǐ hé yì? Qí shā wǒ yě, jiāng yǐ hé sǔn

 The unearthed text on bamboo of the Analects of Confucius at 定州 Dìngzhōu, province of 河北 Héběi, dates from around  .  This example is taken from Sūn Liángmíng ().



From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese thing MOD and thing PART, then what take compare thing PART? sobe-it, MP give-birth I PART, will take what beneficial? MP kill I PART, will take what harmful ‘Between the things, how can we compare them? If they are comparable, to whom is my birth beneficial? To whom is my death harmful?’ (Huáinánzǐ, Jīngshénxùn)

In the above sentence found in the 淮南子 Huáinánzǐ (second century ), two word orders 何以 hé yǐ (what–take: OV) and 以何 yǐ hé (take–what: VO) were used to express the same meaning. Like 是以 shì yǐ (this–take: OV), which became a lexical compound meaning ‘that is why’, 何以 hé yǐ ‘what– take’ also became a lexical word meaning ‘why’. In a parallel manner, 以何 yǐ hé ‘take–what’ remained, like 以是 yǐ shì ‘take–this’, two separate elements at the syntactic level; neither of them became a lexical compound. In the 論衡 Lùnhéng, a first-century  text, the two word orders are also found: ()

以何驗之? (論衡. 無形篇) yǐ hé yàn zhī take what prove it ‘How can one prove it? (With what can one prove it?)’ (Lùnhéng, Wúxíngpiān)

()

何以明人年以百為壽也? (論衡. 气壽篇) hé yǐ míng rén nián yǐ bǎi wéi shòu yě what take understand human-being age take hundred as longevity PART ‘How can one be sure that longevity has to take one hundred years as a criterion?’ (Lùnhéng, Qìshòupiān)

In fact, beginning in the Eastern Han (–), VO word order was used increasingly in glosses by scholars to explain the OV word order seen in the classics. They often changed OV word order to VO. It is interesting to compare some sentences drawn from the 孟子 Mèngzǐ and the 孟子章句 Mèngzǐ zhāng jù cited by 孫良明 Sūn Liángmíng (): ()

a. 鄉人長於伯兄一歲,則誰敬? (孟子 A/) xiāngrén zhǎng yú bóxiōng yī suì, zé shuí jìng? village man older than eldest-brother one year, then who respect ‘If a man of your village is a year older than your eldest brother, which do you respect?’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau) b. 季子曰：敬誰也? (孟子章句) Jìzǐ yuē: jìng shuí yě

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese



Jizi say: respect who PART ‘Jizi says (means) which do you respect?’(趙岐 Zhào Qí, Mèngzǐ zhāng jù) It is clear that Zhào Qí changed the OV word order 誰敬 shuí jìng ‘who– respect’ into the VO order 敬誰 jìng shuí ‘respect–who’. It should be noted that in contemporary Chinese, we have the same VO order as in (b). To sum up, OV word order in interrogative sentences began to change into VO word order in the Eastern Han. For negative sentences with a personal pronoun, the situation is more complex. Two factors work together: the preverbal pronoun depends on the choice of (a) the negative particle and (b) the person of the pronoun. As a complete investigation is beyond the aim of this chapter, the discussion will be restricted to the most prominent phenomena. 周光午 Zhōu Guāngwǔ () and 魏培泉 Wèi Péiquán () investigated these problems thoroughly. The data of Zhōu and Wèi are slightly different, but their statistics are comparable. According to their findings, the particle 不 bù combines mostly with the first and second person pronouns such as 不我 bù wǒ ‘NEG-I/we’, 不吾 bù wú ‘NEG-I/my’, 不爾 bù ěr ‘NEG-you’, and 不女 (汝) bù rǔ ‘NEG-you’; and the particles 未 wèi and 莫 mò are mainly found in the preverbal position with a third person pronoun 之 zhī, such as in 未之 wèi zhī ‘NEG-it’ and 莫之 mò zhī ‘NEG-it’. Still, due to the findings of Zhōu, we know that 不我V (bù wǒ V) and 不V我 (bù V wǒ) are both possible (:). In contrast, 不吾 bù wú, 不爾 bù ěr and 不女(汝) bù rǔ are obviously preverbal (:; :; :). 沈培 Shěn Péi (: ) points out that in the oracle bone inscriptions, which are the oldest available data, out of sixty-two 不bù+pronoun+V, ‘不我 bù wǒ+V’ occurs fifty-seven times. The statistics of Wèi () show the same tendency: the combination 不我 bù wǒ is seen most often in the Shījīng (thirtyeight occurrences), compared to other combinations of a negative particle and a personal pronoun. This means that the combination 不我 bù wǒ was perhaps the most used in proto-Chinese and Early OC. In later documents, this use of bù wǒ occurs seven times in the Zuǒzhuàn (fifth century ), twice in the Guóyǔ (fifth century ), once in the Lúnyǔ, and twice in the Mèngzǐ (Mencius). It is 

In his investigations, Zhōu takes account of preverbal and postverbal combinations. Zhōu’s () statistics are based on sixteen classic texts supplemented by examples drawn from the oracle bone and bronze inscriptions; those of Wèi () are based on twenty classics.  According to the statistics of Shěn Péi (: ), 不余 bù yú has four occurrences and 不爾 bù ěr has one occurrence.  Wèi () offers the statistics of twenty classics; 不我 bù wǒ does not occur at all in seven of them. In his data, the Shījīng are the most ancient texts and contain thirty-eight occurrences of bù wǒ. This supposes that this combination has to be an older one and was in decline in Middle OC. 



From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

clear that the use of bù wǒ was on the decline. As for 未之 wèi zhī and 莫之 mò zhī, the tendency is also clear: the preverbal use was undoubtedly dominant in the data from before the Han. In contrast, when the negative particle 不 bù combines with the pronoun zhī, 不之 bù zhī is constantly postverbal, which corresponds to a VO language word order. According to Zhōu’s statistics (: ), the combination bù zhī is seen only twice in a preverbal position ‘bù zhī+V’ but  times in a postverbal position ‘bù+V+zhī’ in sixteen classical texts. Table . summarizes the tendency of each combination of a negative particle and a personal pronoun (P = first person pronoun, P = second person pronoun, P = third person pronoun). If occurrences are not significant, the combination is not presented in the table. Thus we see that the word order VO in a negative sentence consistently contains the particle bù and the first and third person pronouns can combine with it. The particle bù became dominant during the simplification of the negation system in Chinese (see Chapter ), and VO later became the only word order permitted. Below are some concrete examples in which the first and second persons are negated: ()

父母之不我愛, 於我何哉? (孟子 A/) fù mǔ zhī bù wǒ ài, yú wǒ hé zāi father mother MOD NEG I love, towards I what PART ‘If my parents do not love me, what is that to me?’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

()

日月逝矣!歲不我與 (論語 /) rì yuè shì yǐ, suì bù wǒ yǔ day month pass PART! Year NEG I wait ‘The days and months are passing; the years will not wait for us.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

()

不吾敬也 (國語. 晉語) bù wú jìng yě

T .. The most-used combinations among P// and NEG in OC P1

不 bù

P2

preverbal

postverbal preverbal

不 bù+我 wǒ +V

不 bù+V+ 不 bù+爾 ěr +V 我 wǒ 不 bù+女(汝) rǔ+V

P3 preverbal

postverbal 不 bù+V+ 之 zhī

未 wèi

未 wèi+之 zhī+V

莫 mò

莫 mò+之 zhī+V

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese



NEG I respect PART ‘[He] did not respect me’ (Guóyǔ, Jìn ) ()

如有政,雖不吾以,吾其與聞之 (論語 /) rú yǒu zhèng, suī bù wú yǐ, wú qí yù wén zhī if there-is affairs-of-state, even-though NEG I take, I MP participate know it ‘Even though I am not in office, if there were affairs of state, I would know about it.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

()

豈不爾思? 室是遠而 (論語 /) qǐ bù ěr sī, shì shì yuǎn ér how NEG you think? Home this far PART ‘How could I not be thinking of you? It is just that your home is so very far away.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

()

无适小国, 将不女容焉。(左傳. 僖公 ) wú shì xiǎo guó, jiāng bù rǔ róng yān NEG go small state, will NEG you tolerate PART ‘Do not go to the small states, they will not tolerate you.’ (ZZ, Xǐ )

As has been mentioned, when the negated personal pronoun is the third person, the syntactic distribution is different in that the combination bù zhī is almost always postverbal while wèi zhī and mò zhī present the opposite situation—they are almost always preverbal. Even in (early) MC, wèi zhī and mò zhī are mostly found in the preverbal position. However, we have a few examples that show that, in earlier texts, the word order was “wèi zhī+V” ‘NEG+O+V’, while in the later version the order became “wèi+V+zhī” ‘NEG+V+O’: ()

a. 未之嘗有也。(戰國縱橫家書  章) wèi zhī cháng yǒu yě NEG it ever there-is PART ‘It never happens.’ (Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū: ZZJ ) b. 未嘗有之也。(戰國策. 魏策 ) wèi cháng yǒu zhī yě NEG ever there-is it PART ‘It never happens.’ (ZGC, Wèi )

In the above examples, the first was found in an unearthed text while the second one was found in a later transmitted version of the same story. In (a), the word order is “wèi+zhī+V” , and in (b) the pronoun zhī becomes postverbal, The 戰國縱橫家書 Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū (ZZJ + . Letters of Strategists in the Warring States Period) is from texts on silk excavated from the 長沙馬王堆 Chángshā Mǎwángduī in . The book has twenty-seven chapters, eleven of which are similar to those that are seen in the 史記 Shǐjì (st century ) and the 戰國策 Zhànguócè (st century ). 



From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

presenting a VO order which would later become dominant in Chinese. This means that when Chinese evolved towards a prominent VO language, most of the personal pronouns had to shift from a preverbal position to a postverbal position in negative sentences. Although “wèi zhī+V” and “mò zhī+V” seem to have been much more conservative, their word order (OV) did not conform with the strong tendency towards VO order, and they were out of use by Late MC. Below are some examples in which the third person pronoun is negated and preverbal when wèi or mò is used: ()

軍旅之事未之學也。(論語 /) jūnlǚ zhī shì wèi zhī xué yě military MOD matter NEG it learn PART ‘. . . but I have never studied military matters’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

()

蓋有之矣, 我未之見也。(論語 /) gài yǒu zhī yǐ, wǒ wèi zhī jiàn yě perhaps there-is it PART, I NEG it see PART ‘I doubt there are such people—at least I have yet to meet them.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

()

. . . 然而不王者, 未之有也。(孟子 A/) rán’ ér bú wàng zhě, wèi zhī yǒu yě however NEG be-king ZHE, NEG it there-is PART ‘. . . it is impossible for their prince not to be a true King.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

()

臣未之聞也。 chén wèi zhī wén yě (孟子 A/) I NEG it know PART ‘I have no knowledge of them.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

In the above examples, the word order is wèi zhī+V. As has been mentioned, this preverbal use in a negative sentence was very common in OC. It is worth comparing some sentences using two different word orders: “mò+zhī+(AUX)+V” and “mò+(AUX)+V+zhī”: ()

天下大國之君莫之能禦。(國語. 齊語) tiānxià dà guó zhī jūn mò zhī néng yù world big state MOD ruler NEG it can stop ‘The rulers of strong states under Heaven cannot stop it.’ (Guóyǔ, Qí)

()

保民而王, 莫之能禦也。(孟子 A/) bǎo mín ér wàng, mò zhī néng yù yě protect people and be-king, NEG it can stop PART ‘He becomes a true King by bringing peace to the people. This is something no one can stop.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese ()



螭魅罔两, 莫能逢之 (左傳. 宣公) chīmèi wǎngliǎng, mò néng féng zhī demon monster, NEG can meet them ‘No one will meet demons and monsters.’ (ZZ, Xuān )

It is clear from the above examples that two word orders, mò+zhī+AUX+V and mò+AUX+V+zhī, are found in the classics, even though the second use (VO) is rare. Below is another pair of sentences with two word orders: ()

諸侯莫之救, 百姓莫之哀 (呂氏春秋. 驕恣) zhū hóu mò zhī jiù, bǎixìng mò zhī āi PL feudal-lord NEG him help, common-people NEG him grieve ‘No feudal lord comes to his help, no person shows compassion for him.’ (Lǚshì Chūnqiū, Jiāozī)

()

人莫救之 (韓非子. 内儲說上) rén mò jiù zhī man NEG put-out it ‘No one tries to put out the fires [in the palace]’ (Hánfēizǐ, Nèichǔshuō shàng)

This time, the two word orders are “mò+zhī+V” and “mò+V+zhī”. Though the combination of the negative particles mò /wèi plus the third person pronoun zhī mostly occurred in the preverbal position in OC, the other word order (postverbal use of the pronoun) later took over the preverbal use. This occurred because the postverbal pronoun better matched VO word order, which has dominated the direction of Chinese language evolution since the Han. ... NEG+OV>NEG+VO (examples of 之知 zhī zhī and 知之 zhī zhī) The coexistence of the two word orders NEG+O+V and NEG+V+O is often seen in sentences containing the cognitive verb 知 zhī ‘to know’. At the least, the coexistence of the two word orders shows that, in OC, OV word order was common. Some concrete examples with the verb 知 zhī ‘to know’ will now be examined to track the word order change from NEG+之 zhī +知 zhī ‘NEG+O+V’ to NEG+知 zhī+之 zhī ‘NEG+V+O’. As was mentioned in section .., the two word orders bù+wǒ +V and bù+V+wǒ are both possible; however, the former is much more frequent in the Shījīng. Let us compare the following examples in which the verb 知 zhī occurs:  In OC and MC, these two characters had very different pronunciations: 知 zhī go to a place The first step in the grammaticalization of qù relies upon its semantic change. As has been mentioned, this verb expressed ‘to leave’ in OC and progressively gained a new meaning of ‘to go to(wards)’ in LOC. Finally, in LMC, the same structure “qù+NP [+locative]” underwent a reanalysis and gave rise to the meaning ‘go to, reach a goal’. This semantic change means that it remained a motion verb, although its spatial direction changed. Before gaining the meaning ‘to reach’, the verb qù lost its original meaning ‘to leave’, and expressed only ‘to move’ or ‘to pass’ without indicating the direction or the goal. This semantic change is possible only when the verb qù is used intransitively, because the meaning of the verb can be ambiguous, expressing ‘to leave’ or ‘to move’ (see examples below). In the reorganization of the word order in MC, localizers such as 東 dōng ‘east’, 西 xī ‘west’, 南 nán ‘south’, and 北 běi ‘north’ used before the verb 去 qù needed a preposition to indicate the direction. Finally, when an NP[+locative] reappears after the verb qù, the starting point changes into a terminal point. More concretely, due to the occurrence of prepositions such as 向 xiàng ‘towards’ and 朝 cháo ‘towards’, spatial direction is determined and fixed; i.e. it always points towards a goal or a destination, but never the starting point or a source. Constrained by the construction xiàng/cháo ‘towards’+localizer/ NP[+locative]+qù, the latter cannot express the meaning ‘to leave’ any more. In this way, the two intermediate constructions qù ‘to leave or to move’+ø and localizer+qù ‘to move’ constitute very important steps in the spatial direction change of the verb qù. Fig. . illustrates this change. 去 qù ‘to leave’+NP[+locative]

> > > >

去 qù‘to leave or to move’+ø localizer+去 qù‘to move’ preposition+localizer+去 qù‘to go towards’ 去 qù‘to go to a place, reach a goal’+NP[+locative]

F . Semantic change of the verb去 qù  Grammaticalization is a complex subject. Articles and books upon it are abundant. I limit the study here to two motion verbs: qù and lái.  Separately, 王國栓 Wáng Guóshuān (), 梁銀峰 Lián Yínfēng (handout at the conference in Hángzhōu, ), and Xu Dan (conference at Peking University, ) pointed out that the intransitive use of 去 qù (去 qù+ø) is important in its semantic change. Moreover, Xu Dan indicates that the construction “localizer+去 qù[to move]” is the crucial link in the semantic change chain.

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

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Since MC, more prepositional phrases indicating a location have taken the preverbal position. The four direction localizers were not marked in OC, but since MC, they have had to be marked by a preposition such as xiàng or cháo ‘towards’; the latter completed the process of grammaticalization from a verb to a preposition. The word order “preposition+NP[+locative]+V” corresponds better to the reorganization of the word order in MC, which was evolving into an SVO language. Below are some examples that demonstrate my opinion. The semantic change of qù is noted by all scholars but articles on the subject are rare. According to 楊克定 Yáng Kèdìng’s () investigations, the verb qù with the meaning ‘to leave’ existed in OC and MC, but the same verb gained its new meaning ‘to go’ in MC. No example with the meaning ‘to go’ is available in OC. I agree with this conclusion in great part. However, I believe that the first step of this meaning change was due to the construction “qù+ø” , in which the starting point is not precise. In this construction, the direction of qù is ambiguous. Compare the following examples in which qù is used transitively ‘to leave a place, to leave a person’ and intransitively ‘to leave, to move, to go’: () 去荆之秦, 秦缪公入之。(吕氏春秋. 上德) qù Jīng zhī Qín, Qín Mù gōng rù zhī leave Jing go Qin, Qin Mu duke enter him ‘[He] left the state of Jing and went to the state of Qin, the Duke Mu of Qin received him.’ (Lǚshì Chūnqiū, Shàngdé) () 微子去之 (論語 /) Wēi zǐ qù zhī Wei viscount leave him ‘Viscount Wei abandoned him.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R) () 置君而後去之 (孟子 B/) zhì jūn ér hòu qù zhī set-up ruler and after remove it ‘. . . and take your army out after setting up a ruler.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau) In the above examples in OC, the verb 去 qù expresses ‘to leave (a place or a person)’ in () and (), while example () offers two possibilities: ‘to leave a place’ or ‘to take something out of a place’. Whatever the case, it

In MC, other prepositions such as 自 zì ‘from’, 在 zài ‘at’ are also found in the preverbal position. 楊伯峻 Yáng Bójùn () translates 去之 qù zhī into contemporary Chinese as 從燕國撤退 cóng Yān guó chè tuì, from–state of Yan–withdraw, ‘withdraw the army from the state of Yan’.  

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From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

is clear that qù does not mean ‘to go’. However, when the same verb is used intransitively, the ambiguous interpretation is possible: () 引軍而去 (韩非子. 初见秦第一) yǐn jūn ér qù lead army and leave ‘Lead the army and go/leave.’ (HFZ, Chū jiàn Qín dìyī) () 軍罢而去 (韩非子. 初见秦第一) jūn pí ér qù army weaken and leave ‘The army was weakened and went away/left.’ (HFZ, Chū jiàn Qín dìyī) These two examples are drawn from the Hánfēizǐ. They clearly show that when the verb qù is used intransitively, the meaning change becomes possible since the direction is not crucial. It is the beginning of the change. As Yáng () points out, in a few sentences using the verb qù in texts from the Han period, this verb can be interpreted as ‘to go’, but not ‘to leave’. The following three examples are drawn from Yáng’s article () in which qù must be interpreted as ‘to go’: ()

[右賢王] 潰圍北去 (史記. 衛將軍驃騎列傳) [Yòuxiánwáng] kuì wéi běi qù [Youxianwang] break encirclement north go ‘[Youxianwang] broke the encirclement and ran towards the north.’ (Shǐjì )

() 以船西去 (史記. 南越列傳) yǐ chuán xī qù take boat west go ‘[They] took the boat towards the west’ (Shǐjì ) () [雁鵠] 避熱北去 (論衡. 偶會篇) yàn hú bì rè běi qù [wild-goose swan] avoid heat north go ‘[The wild goose and swan] are flying toward the north in order to avoid the hot weather.’ (Lùnhéng, Ǒu huì piān) It is evident in all these sentences that the verb qù has begun to express ‘to go’ with a common feature: the direction localizers (north, west, etc.) precede the motion verb qù and thus limit the direction of the verb. This step was decisive for the semantic change, as the spatial direction of the verb qù began to be more and more precise. In some unearthed texts, we also find this kind of construction. For instance, in the excavated texts in the 居延漢簡 Jūyán Hàn jiǎn, written between  and  , we find examples such as 北去 běi qù north–go,

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

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‘go towards the north’, 東去 dōng qù east–go, ‘go towards the east’, 西北去 xī běi qù western–north–go, ‘go to the north-west’. There is no NP[+locative] behind “localizer+去 qù”. It appears that the localizers are limited to the four directions: 東 dōng ‘east’, 西 xī ‘west’, 南 nán ‘south’, and 北 běi ‘north’. In Late OC and Early MC, when the construction “去 qù+ø” was used, the verb qù expresses ‘to go’. When the construction is followed by an NP[+locative], a measure word is generally seen after the NP[+locative] (qù+ NP[+locative]+measure word); in this case, the same verb means ‘from’ (but not ‘go to’), a derived meaning of ‘to leave’. According to 朱慶之 Zhū Qìngzhī (doctoral dissertation ), the verb qù began to have the meaning ‘to go to’ when followed by an NP in Buddhist texts of the period of 東晉 Dōng Jìn ( –): () 汝可起, 去靜處思維。《賢愚經》, /b rǔ kě qǐ, qù jìng chù sīwéi you can get-up, go quiet place think ‘You can get up, go to a quiet place to think it over.’ (Xiányújīng) We do not find this kind of sentence, i.e. ‘qù “to go to”+NP[+locative]’, in nonBuddhist texts from the same period, or even in later texts (sixth century ). From the examples given by Zhū, it appears that the Buddhist texts reflect a more colloquial language. This means perhaps that qù had already accomplished its semantic change in the vernacular, but was not yet recognized in the standard language. ... 東去 dōng qù and 向東去 xiàng dōng qù The semantic change and the reorganization of the word order interacted. The verb qù lost the meaning ‘to leave’ owing to the construction “localizer+qù”. With this construction, the word order was reorganized further: a preposition had to mark the localizer, i.e. “preposition+localizer+qù”. Beginning in MC, a preposition marking the localizer is observed more frequently: () 生死向前去 (杜甫) shēng sǐ xiàng qián qù live die towards ahead go ‘Go ahead regardless of his life.’ (Dù Fǔ) For example, 東去城十五里 dōng qù chéng shí wǔ lǐ, ‘fifteen li from the wall’. 祝敏徹 Zhù Mǐnchè and 尚春生 Shàng Chūnshēng () find this type of sentence in the texts of Dūnháng biànwén (Táng period):  

早覓高飛去淨方 (妙法蓮華經講經文) zǎo mì gāo fēi qù jìng fāng ‘[You] have to fly high and go to a clean place.’ (Miàofǎ liánhuājīng jiǎngjīngwén)

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From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

() 年光似水向東去 (白居易) nián guāng sì shuǐ xiàng dōng qù year light like water towards east go ‘Like the water, the time is flowing towards the east.’ (Bái Jūyì) The two examples above were written in the Táng period (–), and the construction “preposition+localizer+qù” was generalized. We see that, in this period, another construction expressing ‘to go to’ was also used: “NP[+locative]+qù” . This construction was formed by analogy with “localizer (the four directions)+qù” . Constructions in which a preverbal NP indicates a location are not found in OC texts. However, except in the Táng poems, this construction is not widespread: () 揮鞭萬里去 (李白) huī biān wàn lǐ qù swish whip ten-thousand li go ‘Swish the whip to run a great distance on horse.’ (Lǐ Bái) () 天涯去不歸 (李白) tiānyá qù bù guī skyline go NEG return ‘Go to the ends of the earth without returning.’ (Lǐ Bái) In these two examples, the construction “NP[+locative]+qù” is equivalent to “qù+NP[+locative]” in modern Chinese. Although the latter is rare in Táng poetry, there are examples with the word order “qù+NP[+locative]” in which the verb qù clearly indicates the meaning ‘to go’ but not ‘to leave’ in the nontranslated (non-Buddhist) texts. This means that the new meaning of the verb qù began to be widespread during this period. Compare these sentences: () 走馬東西去 (韋應物) zǒu mǎ dōng xī qù ride horse east west go ‘Riding a horse to go towards the east and the west.’ (Wěi Yīngwù) () 惆悵去西東 (劉長卿) chóuchàng qù xī dōng melancholy go west east ‘Being melancholy I go towards the west and the east.’ (Liú Chángqīng) In the two examples above, the meaning is the same despite the different word order: “localizers+qù” versus “qù+localizers” . What is important is that the second construction is a new one in non-Buddhist texts. The interpretation ‘to leave’ is not possible since the disyllabic localizer indicating two different

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese



directions cannot be a starting point, although it can indicate direction. I thus assume that the verb “qù+NP[+locative]” had begun to indicate ‘to go towards’. Another piece of evidence also proves that the same word order was expressing a new meaning (or an opposite one). In the following verse, two versions are transmitted. In one, the verb qù is used; in the other, the verb 來 lái is seen: () 求官去/來東洛 (韓愈) qiú guān qù/lái Dōngluò seek official-position go/come Dongluo ‘I go/come to Dongluo to seek an official position.’ (Hán Yù) In the above example, the use of the verb lái is significant, because it shows that it is possible for the verb qù to cause misapprehension in constructions in which an NP[+locative] is postverbal. This also means that the new interpretation had not yet taken root. With the construction “verb lái+NP[+locative]” , no confusion is possible; NP[+locative] always indicates a destination or final point when it comes after the verb lái ‘to come’, without exception. This hesitation is also found in other verses, which clearly shows that the reinterpretation of the construction “qù+NP[+locative]” needed some time to be adopted by people and into the standard language: () 拂衣何處去/去何處 (孟浩然) fú yī hé chù qù/qù hé chù shake dress what place go/go what place ‘Where to go with the dress whisked?’ (Mèng Hàorán) () 情人去何處 (宋之問) qíngrén qù hé chù sweetheart go what place ‘Where is the sweetheart going?’ (Sòng Zhīwèn) In Táng poetry, the word order 何處去 hé chù qù is evidently more used than 去何處 qù hé chù. However, the significance of the second word order is that “V+O” began to appear in interrogative sentences and eventually became dominant. It should be noted that in the 世說新語 Shìshuō xīnyǔ, a text from the fifth century , 何 hé ‘what, where’ is still mostly preverbal ( per cent, see n.  above) in interrogative sentences. Apparently, the word order “qù+NP[+locative]” was reanalysed in MC and the verb qù gained the new meaning ‘reach a place, go to a place’, similar to its meaning in contemporary Chinese. As is well known, the word order  This is noted in the 全唐詩 Quán Táng Shī (electronic versions), edited by Běijīng diànzǐ chūbǎn zhōngxīn.

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From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

“preposition+NP[+locative]” corresponds better to a VO language. In addition, this construction fixes the direction of the verb qù. The meaning change of the verb qù (from ‘to leave’ to ‘to go to’) was only possible because of the reorganization of the word order in Chinese. ... 來 lái, 去 qù, and aspects In general, most researchers have studied the auxiliary and suffix functions of lái and qù in terms of grammaticalization. I will examine them from another angle. The two motion verbs lái and qù underwent a process of grammaticalization which was not retained in the Chinese language; they almost played the role of an aspect marker during a period in MC. From my point of view, this occurrence was not insignificant, even though these motion verbs did not become aspect particles. This is because one of the salient features of grammaticalization is the use of spatial terms as temporal terms. Although scholars take 卻 què as a synonym of qù in terms of an aspect particle, few  think that lái may have also played the same role at a certain time. I will first present some results of research on què/qù and lái, and then analyse these issues. There are two different written origins of qù and què. The first one is attested on the oracle bone inscriptions but the earliest occurrence of the second graph is not clear. In the transmitted texts, 卻 què became common. Its variant graph was 却 què, in which the graph 去 qù is used. Perhaps for this reason, the alternation between these two graphs (去 qù and 却 què) was possible in some cases in MC, a period in which aspectual particles were formed after the rise of resultative compounds (see Chapter ). The resultative verb compounds and aspectual particles were produced from the word order “V+V” , a serial verb construction in Chinese. The result of an action is expressed by V; consequently, verbs frequently used in the V position became resultative verbs. Later, some of them turned into aspectual particles. This is also the situation for qù/què and lái. 曹廣順 Cáo Guǎngshùn () and 吳福祥 Wú Fúxiáng () have conducted studies on these grammaticalized verbs as aspectual particles. I will add some other examples to theirs and present my analysis before focusing on the aspectual role of lái because few studies have been done on it. According to Cáo (), què began to express an accomplished aspect in the V position in the Táng: () 斬却此賊 (舊唐書. 史思明傳) zhǎn què cǐ zéi 

曹廣順 Cáo Guǎngshùn (), 吳福祥 Wú Fúxiáng (), Xu Dan (a).

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

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kill away this evildoer ‘kill this evildoer.’ (Jiù Táng Shū, Shǐ Sīmíng zhuàn) () 悉云賣却 (趙璘. 因話錄) xī yún mài què all say sell away ‘[They] all answer that these properties and goods were sold out.’ (Yīnhuàlù) These two examples are taken from Cáo (: ). It is evident that què marks an accomplished aspect. It must be noted that the verbs at V position express a concrete action. As què combines with a verb having an abstract meaning, the resultative verb què was grammaticalized into a functional word (indicating a more abstract concept); i.e. an aspectual particle. There are examples in Táng poems (全唐詩 Quán Táng Shī) in which què and qù express the same meaning. The most frequent is 老去 lǎo qù old–qù, ‘to become old’ with  occurrences; with only twelve occurrences, 老却 lǎo què old–què, ‘to become old’, is rarer. 老 lǎo is undoubtedly an adjective used as a verb expressing an abstract “action”. In the following two verses written by the same author in different poems, the graph marking the aspect changes; however, the meaning remains the same. It is evident that these two graphs are variant forms in Táng poetry: () 老去悲秋強自寬 (杜甫) lǎo qù bēi qiū qiáng zì kuān old ASP melancholic autumn force oneself breathe-again ‘Becoming old one encourages himself in a melancholic autumn.’ (Dù Fǔ) () 籬邊老却陶潛菊 (杜甫) lí biān lǎo què Táo Qián jú bamboo-hedge border old ASP Tao Qian chrysanthemum ‘The chrysanthemum of Tao Qian withered on the bamboo hedge.’ (Dù Fǔ) I propose that the synonymous use of these two graphs must be an earlier phenomenon, even though examples are not numerous. I have found another pair of sentences in the Buddhist text 百喻經 Bǎiyùjīng (fifth century ). At  陶潛 Táo Qián ( –) was an earlier poet. 杜甫 Dù Fǔ ( –) was alluding to Táo Qián’s poem:

采菊東籬下 cǎi jú dōng lí xià take–chrysanthemum–east–hedge–down ‘pick a chrysanthemum at the eastern hedge.’

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From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

that period, resultative verb compounds began to be formed. In the following examples, què and qù used at V position must be interpreted as a resultative verb, but not yet as an aspectual particle: () a. 左右侍人以腳踏卻。(百喻經. 踏長者口喻) zuǒ yòu shìrén yǐ jiǎo tà què left right servant use foot step-away ‘. . . the attendants around stamp on it and wipe it up with their feet.’ (Bǎiyùjīng ) b. 左右諂者已得踏去。(百喻經. 踏長者口喻) zuǒ yòu chǎn zhě yǐ dé tà qù left right fawn ZHE already obtain step-off ‘Those who are fawning on you will already stamp on it and wipe it up with their feet.’ (Bǎiyùjīng ) In these examples, the verb 踏 tà ‘to step’ expresses a concrete action and 卻 què/去 qù indicates the result ‘off, up’. These two forms coexist in the same story, proving again that, in MC, they could play a similar role in syntax and that their meaning was sometimes confused. Wú () found five occurrences where qù marked the accomplished aspect in the texts from Dūnhuáng (Táng texts). Cáo () does not give statistics of this function of qù in the Zǔtángjí (a Sòng text). Even though these examples are not numerous, they show clearly how a motion verb shifted from a full verb to a resultative verb and finally from a resultative verb to an aspectual particle. Neither the aspectual particle què nor qù became dominant aspect markers in syntax; they gave their place to 了liǎo, which gained complete status as an aspectual particle in Late MC. What is important is that the verb què was one

 The version used here is the 百喻經 Bǎiyùjīng , 南京金陵刻經処藏版 Nánjīng Jīnlíng kèjīngchù cángbǎn [] 金陵書畫社 Jīnlíng shūhuàshè.  However, in the following examples, it is clear that these two words are distinct and each has its own function:

(a) 一花却去一花新，前花是價（假）後花真（敦煌變文 p. ） yī huā què qù yī huā xīn, qián huā shì jiǎ hòu huā zhēn ‘One flower withers and another blossoms, the first is false and the second is real’ . (texts of Dūnhuáng) (b) 到這裡却迷去（祖堂集 . ） dào zhèlǐ què mí qù ‘[He] however gets lost here.’ (Zǔtángjí) Example (a) is cited by Wú (: ) and (b) by Cáo (: ). These sentences show clearly that 却 què and 去 qù are different syntactically as well as semantically: 却 què is a main verb in (a) and an adverb in (b) while 去 qù is an aspectual particle expressing an accomplished action in both sentences.

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

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of the first verbs to be grammaticalized into an aspectual particle; like other verbs expressing ‘to finish’, què did not end up becoming an aspectual particle. The verb qù did not undergo exactly the same change; it did not keep its status as an aspectual particle either, but remained a resultative verb or directional suffix. Another example is 來 lái. According to Cáo () and Wú (), the aspectual use of lái is found not earlier than the Táng. According to my observations, it is already seen in Buddhist texts. For example, in the Bǎiyùjīng, in which the language is vernacular and simple, some sentences in which lái is used can be considered as the beginning of the aspectual use of lái: () a. “失經幾時? ”言: “失來二月。 ” (百喻經. 乘船失釪喻) shī jīng jǐ shí, yán: shī lái èr yuè lose last how-many time? Say: lose ASP two months ‘How long ago did you lose it?—Two months ago.’ (Bǎiyùjīng ) b. 失來二月云何此覓。(百喻經. 乘船失釪喻) shī lái èr yuè yún hé cǐ mì lose ASP two months say what here search ‘Why do you search for it here if you have lost it two months ago?’ (Bǎiyùjīng ) In these examples, the morpheme lái cannot express a direction in space; it is not a directional suffix, as in most cases. In the same book, lái often cooccurs with another motion verb with the word order V來, such as 持來 chí lái hold–come, ‘to hold and come’, 出來 chū lái go out–come, ‘to go out’, or VO來: 牽牛來 qiān niú lái lead along–ox–come, ‘to lead the ox and come’ etc. When lái appears after a concrete action verb, its directional function is clear. In my cases, as in the above examples, lái occurs after a less “concrete” action verb, at least not a motion verb; in this case, lái actually marks a direction in time. That is why some scholars interpret these lái as 以來 yǐ lái ‘from, since’. Wú (: ) locates twelve occurrences in which lái marks the accomplished aspect in the Dūnhuáng texts. Here are two of his examples: () [其女]已早死來三年。(敦煌變文 p. ) [qí nǚ] yǐ zǎo sǐ lái sān nián [his daughter] already early die ASP three year ‘[His daughter] has been dead for three years.’ (Dūnhuáng texts)  I agree that the meaning ‘since, from’ is derived from this kind of construction; however, I suggest that this is just due to the fact that lái marks an accomplished event. In Buddhist texts, the occurrences of 死來 sǐ lái dead–ASP, ‘to be dead’ are numerous. In general, 死 來 sǐ lái is followed by a duration; it is clear that the duration begins from the accomplishment of the event, the meaning of which is assumed by 來 lái.

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From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

() 冢上人看來得醉气, 猶三日不醒 (敦煌變文 p. ) zhǒng shàng rén kàn lái dé zuì qì, yóu sān rì bù xǐng tomb up man see ASP obtain drunk gas, also three day NEG wake ‘People who had seen the scene around the tomb got the smell of alcohol and they also were drunk for three days.’ (Dūnhuáng texts) In the above examples, lái evidently plays the role of an aspect [+accomplished] marker. However, neither qù nor lái gained full status as aspect markers in contemporary Mandarin because they represent innate weaknesses compared to the verb 了liǎo ‘to finish’. In contemporary Mandarin, lái and qù have kept their two grammatical functions as auxiliary verbs when they precede a main verb and as directional suffixes when they follow a main verb or a verbal phrase. It is understandable that they gave their place to liǎo in marking an accomplished aspect. Moreover, in the functions they retain, they mark a future event in time and a direction in space. The accomplished aspect meaning is not consistent with its other semantic features (future, intention) while liǎo bears only one function. In fact, liǎo displays more advantages of taking the accomplished aspect function. In dialects, however, the above assumption is not suitable as the replacement of these particles by liǎo is not certain. In the 泉州方言 Quánzhōu fāngyán, one of the oldest dialects in 閩南 Mǐn nán (李如龍 Lǐ Rúlóng ), it is the particle qù which marks the accomplished aspect: () 三粒梨仔我食去兩粒。 sān lì lízǐ wǒ shí qù liǎng lì three CL pear I eat away two CL ‘I ate two of the three pears.’ As Lǐ reports, the morpheme qù not only indicates the accomplished aspect, it is also, as in Mandarin, a directional complement. Sometimes this can cause confusion in the interpretation of a sentence (see details in his article). 伍云姬 Wǔ Yúnjī () provides other information about a composed aspectual particle, 去來 qù lái, in 長沙方言 Chángshā fāngyán in the 湘 Xiāng dialect. According to her, 去來 qù lái marks a past event, but the event is not necessarily accomplished:  According to Cáo (), the reason that 來 lái and去 qù did not remain accomplished aspect markers is that these verbs were vernacular and their roles became redundant with the arrival of 了liǎo which gained, in consequence, the dominant status of an accomplished aspect marker.  In most examples cited by Lǐ (), the verb used before 去 qù has a concrete meaning. The status as aspectual particle of qù is, in some cases, doubtful. It could perhaps be considered as a resultative verb.

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese



() 他來去來。 tā lái qù lái (in Mandarin: 他曾來過 tā céng lái guò) he come go come ‘He has come here.’ In this example in the Xiāng dialect, the first lái is a main verb meaning ‘to come’ and qù lái corresponds to the construction “曾. . . 過” céng . . . guò, ‘have done’ in Mandarin. Qù lái is a composed particle marking an experience or a past event. According to the studies of 朱美芳 Zhū Měifāng (), in the variety of Mǐn nán spoken in Taiwan, 廈門 Xiàmén in 福建 Fújiàn, and 潮州 Cháozhōu in 廣東 Guǎngdōng, 來去 láiqù can be employed as a verb compound indicating a directional movement when used as a main verb, or as a future meaning when used before another verb. Chinese dialects inherited in different ways the function of these motion verbs. In Táng poetry, the two different word orders, 去來 qù lái and 來去 lái qù, are already in evidence. According to my rough estimate, qù lái has  occurrences in Táng poetry (全唐詩 Quán Táng Shī) and lái qù occurs eightythree times. They are used as verb compounds. Qù lái can be used after a main verb such as 歸去來 guī qù lái ‘to have been returned’. We can think of this as the beginning of the aspectual use (of the composed aspectual particle), and contemporary dialects make use of them in their own ways. In contemporary Chinese, we have seen that lái and qù have the following functions: (a) main verbs (motion in space) (b) auxiliary verbs (future in time) (c) verbal suffixes (direction in space)/verbal complements (accomplished aspect) (d) aspectual markers (accomplished aspect in MC; past time in some dialects). It is clear that Mandarin has retained only (a), (b), and (c). The function (d) found in dialects represents a trace of MC. It is difficult to predict how these aspectual particles in dialects will evolve in the future. However, the evolution that Mandarin underwent seems similar to other languages. As Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca () point out, one of the sources of the future marking comes from motion verbs such as ‘go’ and ‘come’; “for those future grams for which we can identify lexical sources, movement verbs figure more prominently as sources than verbs or other lexical material of any other type” (pp. –). ‘ The semantics of “movement toward” constructions implies movement in time as



From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese

well as space, making the transition to future easier’ (p. ). With their database, Bybee, Perkins, and Pagliuca show that the verbs ‘go’ and ‘come’ frequently indicate the future tense. They conclude that “the overt or inherent aspect of the construction is progressive, present, or imperfective” (p. ). I have used my data to show that, in Chinese, these motion verbs are capable of indicating an accomplished aspect. However, they have not survived in Mandarin and their present functions (indicating the future or direction) are parallel to other languages; it is rare to see motion verbs indicating ‘move back to’, marking the past. The evolution of Chinese shows, however, that this phenomenon was not impossible, but that these motion verbs were abandoned by Mandarin in the choice of aspectual particles because other particles were more convenient. The four functions of the motion verbs lái and qù present a process of grammaticalization in different degrees. In (a), they are main verbs and content words; in (b) they keep their verb status but have already lost some verbal features and they are comparable with other auxiliary verbs which form a limited list; in (c) the motion verbs have become verbal complements and are grammaticalized; in (d), the degree of grammaticalization is the highest, and the verbs present abstract concepts marking the aspect of a main verb. In contemporary Mandarin, (d) has vanished or has failed to be taken up. Though 過 guò ‘to cross, to pass’, another motion verb, became an aspectual particle (it keeps function in (c) in Mandarin and also in dialects), it does not imply a goal to reach, or a target to aim at, like lái and qù. For lái and qù, the speaker is the absolute reference. Thus, the motion verbs implying a goal present more constraints than do other motion verbs. The word order qù+NP[+locative] can be reinterpreted or reanalysed with an opposite meaning from ‘leave a place’ to ‘go to a place’, which is due to the typological change which took place in Chinese.

.. Preliminary conclusion In this chapter, I have shown that the word order in OC was not homogeneous: VO and OV word orders coexisted, and VO predominates in the oracle bone inscriptions. In the pre-Han classics, it is clear that OV word order existed with a syntactic condition: the preverbal object was a pronoun in interrogative and negative sentences. I have analysed the coexistence of two orders in the following constructions: 是以 shì yǐ and 以是 yǐ shì, NP[+pronoun]+V and V+NP[+pronoun], NP[+location]+於/于 yú+V and 中 zhōng+NP[+location]+V, 東去 dōng qù and 向東去 xiàng dōng qù. At first, these constructions and expressions appear to have nothing to do with one

From Old Chinese to Middle Chinese



another. In fact, they exhibit an adjustment of word order to the language. More concretely, each instance where two orders coexist represents a change towards a typologically VO language: (a) the word order “NP[+pronoun]+V” definitely changed into “V+NP[+pronoun]” in Early MC. The movement began during the Han and VO became the only permitted order; (b) 是以 shì yǐ (OV word order) became lexicalized as an adverb and 以 yǐ was grammaticalized as a preposition introducing an NP, which reinforced the VO word order; (c) in the early use of 於/于 yú and 中 zhōng, the prepositional use of 於/于 yú and the postpositional use of 中 zhōng were almost fixed. However, a few examples in EOC clearly show that they did have a different word order; (d) the shift from 東去 dōng qù (spatial orientation term+V) to 向東去 xiàng dōng qù (preposition+spatial orientation term+V) better matches the direction of the word order change: the “preposition + locative term+V” structure is preferred to the unmarked “locative term+V” in Chinese. In contemporary Chinese, VO word order is dominant and corresponds to the observation of Dryer () that VO languages tend to be prepositional since the Chinese language mostly uses prepositions, although it has kept a few postpositions. According to various observations, the Chinese language is undoubtedly a VO language, even though some phrases exhibit syntactic properties of an OV language. I thus assume that, typologically, Chinese was not and is not a pure language type.  See Sun and Givón () and Wang Mingquan (), among others. They have some differences in their analysis, but their conclusions remain the same: Chinese has a VO word order.

2 Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese .. Introduction The term “orientation of a verb” (or verb orientation) obviously implies agent– patient relationships, but it also indicates other semantic relationships such as goal, beneficiary, causer, causee, and so forth. In brief, the orientation of a verb consists of the clarification of relationships between subject and object. Unlike contemporary Chinese, in which NPs are marked to indicate agent– patient relations (I am referring to 把 bă and 被 bèi constructions which introduce a patient or an agent), in Old Chinese, verbs are predominantly marked to express complex semantic relationships (goal, source, agent, patient, beneficiary, result, etc.). In other words, these marks were phonologically, morphologically, and lexically reflected in verbs: changes of tone, the voicing of initials and the alternation of some vowels, the choice of verbs—all of these operations relate to the verb phrase. In fact, at the syntactic level, word order also played an important role in marking verbs. Some prepositions, too, were employed to clarify the relationships between agent and patient and other relationships. This confirms that OC represents a mixed type of language in which different devices were used to highlight syntactic relations. The agent–patient relationship is apparently marked by a phonological device in some cases (according to the phonetic glosses of classical texts and the 經典釋文 Jīngdiăn shìwén), but in many other cases, there is no evidence to confirm that the marking of verbs depends on phonological devices. The role of word order is obvious. In this chapter, I will study various devices used to mark the orientation of verbs, such as phonological change, lexical choice, and word order. I will specifically look at verbs marked by the preposition 於 yú. The irregular occurrence of yú introducing a noun will be examined: for the same verb, yú can be present or absent without changing the meaning  經典釋文 Jīngdiăn shìwén was compiled by 陸德明 Lù Démíng ( –). It constitutes with the 切韻 Qièyùn another important work for understanding MC phonology. The 切韻 Qièyùn is the first dictionary of rhymes compiled around  .

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



of the sentence. A comparison on two levels will be made. First, I will study instances in the 戰國縱橫家書 Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū (ZZJ ) in which the same verb sometimes uses yú and sometimes does not. Second, I will compare these verbs in the ZZJ with those attested in the two transmitted versions (the 史記 Shǐjì and the 戰國策 Zhànguócè, first century ) to understand the irregular occurrence of yú. Sentences with yú attested in other classical texts will also be analysed. I will also examine the passive voice in OC because it constitutes a new explicit syntactic device, which indicates the typological change that was occurring in Chinese.

.. Phonological and morphological evidence Orientation of verbs actually implies at least two kinds of relationships between subject and object: agency (agent and patient), and benefactive or recipient relationships (endodirectional verb and exodirectional verb such as [+give] verbs). In OC, these two relationships could be assumed by phonological and morphological devices. Let us first observe some examples of phonological devices: () 魚餒而肉敗, 不食。(論語/) yú něi ér ròu bài, bù shí fish spoil and meat bad, NEG eat ‘ . . . and when the fish and meat had spoiled and gone bad, he would not eat them.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R) ()

上農夫食九人 (孟子 B/) shàng nóngfū sì jiǔ rén up farmer feed nine man ‘ . . . a farmer could feed nine persons . . .’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

()

入以事其父兄, 出以事其長上 (孟子A/) rù yǐ shì qí fù xiōng, chū yǐ shì qí zhǎng shàng

 See n.  in Chapter . In this unearthed text ZZJ, interesting cases of different ways of marking the verbs are seen.  Actually, other relations can also be indicated by phonological and morphological devices; for example, with tone change, a verb can be transformed into a noun, or vice versa:

知者無不知也 (孟子 A/) zhì zhě wú bù zhī yě, A wise man knows everything (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau, ). The first 知 zhì, which functions as a nominalized verb, must have the departing tone, and the second 知 zhī, which functions as a verb, must have the level tone. It is easy to understand why another graph 智 zhì is widely used when the graph plays the role of an adjective or a noun—because confusions will be avoided. The verb use of the graph 智 zhì is also attested in the classics. In the unearthed texts that I have access to, the two graphs 知 and 智 often alternate.



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese inside PREP serve his father elder-brother, outside PREP serve his elder superior ‘(so that they will,) in the family, serve their fathers and elder brothers, and outside the family, serve their elders and superiors . . . ’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

() 出妻屏子, 終身不養焉 (孟子 B/) chù qī bǐng zǐ, zhōng shēn bù yǎng yān send-away wife leave son, whole life NEG (be-)look-after PART ‘(Therefore,) he sent his wife and sons away and refused to allow them to look after him.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau) In () and (), the same graph 食 is used to indicate two different orientations (to eat and to cause to eat); their pronunciation varies on the basis of the verb’s orientation (the subject can be an agent or a causer) and their reconstructions in OC are as follows: (a) 食∗bml
k>zyik>shí ‘to eat’ (b) 食∗bsl
ks>ziH>sì ‘to feed’ In the two cases above, the graph is used as a transitive verb. In fact, the use is causative in (): ‘to make someone eat’ . When it means ‘to eat’ (), its pronunciation is ∗bml
k, and when it means ‘to feed’ (), its reconstruction is ∗bsl
ks. It seems that two prefixes (∗m- and ∗s-) indicating the verb’s orientation (see Xu Dan ) have to be dealt with. It is clear that the meaning is different in these two contexts. Even in modern Chinese, two graphs meaning ‘to feed’ and corresponding to ‘to eat’ coexist: (a´) 食shí ‘to eat’ (b´) 食sì ‘to feed’ (for human beings) (c´) 飼sì ‘to feed’ (for animals) In examples () and (), the same thing is happening: the verb 出 is expressing two different orientations (go out or cause to go out). In (), it is used intransitively meaning ‘to go out’ . Unfortunately, the translation of the sentence ‘outside’ does not express this clearly. And in (), the same verb is used transitively meaning ‘to expel, to make someone be outside’ . In other terms, in (), the subject moves by itself while in () the object is removed by

 The reconstructions are mainly taken from Baxter () and Sagart (). The examples of type (b) belong to categories “b”, i.e. “∗b”. Rewriting the “yod” as a/b in a reconstruction was introduced by Sagart () who adopted the point of view of Pulleyblank () on the treatment of “yod” in OC.

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

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someone else thus having a causative meaning. In OC, their reconstructions are as follows: ● ●

出∗bthut>tsyhwit>chū ‘to go out’ 出∗bthuts>tsyhwijH>chuì/chù ‘to take out, to send out’

Actually, Karlgren () has already noted these two different meanings attested in the Shījīng: ()

既醉而出, 並受其福。(詩經 ) jì zuì ér chū, bìng shòu qí fú already drunk and go-out, moreover receive its blessing ‘If they, when drunk, go out (retire), they will receive the blessing (of the feast) along with (the rest).’ (Shījīng , Karlgren)

()

我出我車, 于彼牧矣。(詩經) wǒ chuì wǒ jū , yú bǐ mù yǐ we bring-out our carriage, go that pasture PART ‘We bring out our carriages on that pasture-ground.’ (Shījīng , Karlgren)

In (), the character 出 means ‘to go out’ and in () it means ‘to bring out’ . Another graph connected with this word is 黜 ∗bthuts>tsyhwitH>chù ‘to expel’ , ‘to degrade’ . It is possible that the left part (黑 hēi: ‘black’) was added later to clarify the difference, because this character is not seen in oracle or bronze inscriptions. The graph 出 is not only seen in oracle and bronze inscriptions but also its use of the two orientations is attested. In modern Chinese, however, a few traces remain of the causative reading of 出. Now let us examine the second type of verb orientation. These verbs have the semantic feature [±give] expressing endodirectional ‘to receive, to accept, etc.’ or exodirectional ‘to give, to offer, etc.’ action. Here are some examples in OC: ()

男女授受不親, 禮與? (孟子 A/) nán nǚ shòu shǒu bù qīn, lǐ yú male female give receive NEG touch, rite PART ‘Is it prescribed by the rites that, in giving and receiving, man and woman should not touch each other?’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

 Hereafter, when Baxter’s reconstruction is used, there will be no notes. If Karlgren’s reconstruction is used, I will convert it into Baxter () and Sagart’s () system, to facilitate the reading. For the graph 出 chū, Sagart’s reconstruction (: ) is quite different from that of Baxter.  Shījīng, poems compiled during the th and th centuries .  In one excavated text 孫臏兵法 Sūn Bìn bīngfǎ 銀雀山漢墓竹簡 Yínquèshān Hàn mù zhújiǎn, documents from the Western Han, the loan character for 黜 chù ‘degrade’ is written as 詘. The semantic part is 言 ‘speech’ .  Cf. the 簡明金文詞典 Jiǎnmíng jīnwén cídiǎn (Concise Dictionary of Bronze Inscriptions), .



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

()

a. 見利思義, 見危授命 (論語 /) jiàn lì sī yì, jiàn wēi shòu mìng see profit think appropriate-conduct, see danger give life ‘If on seeing a chance to profit they think of appropriate conduct (yi 義), on seeing danger they are ready to give their lives . . . ’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R) b. 既不能令, 又不受命, 是絕物也 (孟子 A/) jì bù néng lìng, yòu bù shòu mìng, shì jué wù yě either NEG can dictate, or NEG receive order, this exterminate thing PART ‘Since, on the one hand, we are not in a position to dictate, and on the other, we refuse to be dictated to, we are destined to be exterminated.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

In () and (), it is clear that the two graphs 受 shǒu and 授 shòu are connected and that their different pronunciations indicate their orientations. The first graph has the rising tone and expresses an endodirectional action ‘to receive’; the second graph has the departing tone and implies an exodirectional action ‘to give’: ● ●

受∗bdu>dzyuwX> shǒu ‘to receive’ 授∗bdus>dzyuwH> shòu ‘to give’

For several decades, scholars (王力 Wáng Lì , Downer , 周法高 Zhōu Fǎgāo , 周祖謨 Zhōu Zǔmó , 梅祖麟 Méi Zǔlín , among others) have been aware of the function of tonal contrasts. Méi () clearly states that the departing tone transforms words with the non-departing tone expressing an endodirectional action into words indicating an exodirectional action. Here are some examples from Méi: ● ● ● ●

買∗amre>mea
X>maǐ ‘to buy’ 賣∗amres>mea
H>mài ‘to sell’ 聞∗bmun>mjun>wén ‘to hear, to perceive’ 問∗bmuns>mjunH>wèn ‘to ask’

The graphs with the non-departing tone 買 mǎi and 聞 wén indicate an endodirectional action, i.e. the subject of the verb is the receiver; their counterparts with the departing tone express an exodirectional action, i.e. the subject of the verb is the source giving an object. For the first pair of graphs, 買賣 mǎi mài, an example in the 周禮 Zhōulǐ (fifth to the third centuries ) in which the departing tone precedes the 

This is Sagart’s reconstruction (: ).

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



non-departing tone (賣買mài mǎi) is found. The same phenomenon in the Mèngzǐ (): in 授受 shòu shǒu, the graph with the departing tone is placed before the graph with the non-departing tone. Actually, in contemporary Chinese, words bearing the non-departing tone generally precede those with the departing tone in a combination. Zhōu Zǔmó () states that in disyllabic words, the tone order is píng (level tone), shǎng (rising tone), qù (departing tone), and rù (entering tone). For example, in contemporary Chinese, many disyllabic words conforming to this rule: 買賣 mǎimài, 黑白 hēibái, etc. Here two counterexamples in OC are presented. Problems for 聞 wén and 問 wèn are more complex. According to Baxter (), in the oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, 聞 wén is not written with 門 mén as phonetic. ‘The use of 門 mén wén, ‘to hear’; in the intransitive case, it had a departing tone: 聞∗bmuns>mjunH> wèn ‘to be heard, to be famous’ . The few examples presented above share some common features: when the orientation of a verb is towards the subject (the action is done by the agent or it expresses an endodirectional action), the verb often bears a non-departing tone and the graph has a basic form; when the orientation of a verb refers to the object (the action is caused by the subject and performed by the object or an exodirectional action is implied), the verb often has a departing tone, and the basic graph generally has an added element in order to avoid confusion. As is well known, graphs with added elements were generally formed later and unearthed texts consistently show that the same graph can bear different functions. Even in received texts, this phenomenon is well attested. With the semantic properties found in all the examples cited above, the function of the departing tone is obvious. Actually, this phonological feature can also be interpreted in terms of a morphological problem if one adopts Haudricourt’s hypothesis (). More precisely, it seems that the suffix ∗-s is capable of changing the orientation of a verb to a different orientation. As previous scholars have pointed out, the suffix ∗-s can transform verbs into nouns or vice versa, an endo-orientation into an exo-orientation, an intransitive verb into a transitive verb. Thus phonological and morphological devices in OC indicate the orientation of verbs in concert with semantic and syntactic devices. This phenomenon will be observed in the following sections.

.. The role of word order Syntactic devices in OC relied on word order to express the verb’s orientation, just as phonological and morphological devices used sound changes to express the same thing. Word order has been one of the most discussed topics in Chinese linguistics. In classical texts, sentences showing that word order is  This difference is not recorded in the 切韻 Qièyùn, cf. 余迺永 Yú Nǎiyǒng (), but noted in the Jīngdiăn shìwén [], p. , a–.  Cf. also Baxter (), Sagart ().  I suppose that this “suffix” denotes more a phonological feature than a usually understood suffix.

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



another useful tool for indicating the orientation of verbs are abundant. Until now, the idea that Chinese is a SVO language has been very popular. (I presented some new points of view on this problem in Chapter .) In this section, I will examine how word order in OC works to clarify relations between different syntactic elements. The verb orientation that I deal with here mainly concerns agency. In the 戰國縱橫家書 Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū (ZZJ ± ), I find numerous examples in which the change of syntactic positions expresses different relationships between a verb and a noun phrase. Most of the examples in this section are based on the ZZJ. The advantage of using excavated documents is evident—the data are more reliable. Specifically, we face at least three possible situations: (a) Some verbs can express either an action or a result. They have two readings, and it seems that phonological and morphological modification is as frequently used as their syntactic order. This is the case for 敗 bài, ‘to defeat’ , 壞 huài, ‘to damage’ , 毀 huǐ, ‘to destroy’ , 伐 fá, ‘to attack’ , and so on. In this group, other verbs have no phonological change and their orientation is only detectable in their word order. This is the case for 殘 cán, ‘to hurt, to damage’ , 敝bì, ‘to weaken’ , 立 lì, ‘to appoint’ , 取 qǔ, ‘to conquer’ , 破 pò, ‘to break’ , 墮 duò, ‘to fall’ , 圍 wéi, ‘to surround’ , and 拔 bá, ‘to capture’ , among others. Since they can indicate different voices in different syntactic positions, they will be called “double-oriented verbs”. (b) Some verbs do not have a natural end point in their process; in consequence, they are usually used transitively, and their usual word order is VNP. In the sequence NPV, the NP cannot be a subject patient, it is always a subject agent. No phonological change is attested for these verbs. They are therefore “single-oriented verbs”. (c) Some verbs do not have two readings; nor is their word order significant (no syntactic marks are offered). Only the context shows the verb’s orientation. Therefore, they are considered to be “non-oriented verbs”. It is evident that these criteria are not absolute since sometimes a verb can behave unusually as a verb from another group. (a) Double-oriented verbs Let us examine first examples from group (a). 敗 bài has two readings according to the 切韻 Qièyùn and 經典釋文 Jīngdiǎn shìwén:

  

Cf. n. in Chapter . Evidently the list is not exhaustive here. The reconstruction of 敗 in Old Chinese is taken from Sagart ().



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese 敗∗aN-prats>bæjH>bài ‘to be destroyed’ ● 敗∗aprats>pæjH>bài ‘to destroy’ ●

The difference between the two readings lies in the voicing of the initials: when the initial is voiced, it means ‘to be destroyed’; when it is voiceless, it expresses ‘to destroy’ . In this way, this word can be listed in the phonological device group. Instead of changing the tones, the alternation between voiced and voiceless initials indicates the orientation of a verb. The verb bài can also be put into the group of words whose orientation depends on word order, because the syntactic position of bài (bài+NP ‘to destroy’ and NP+bài ‘to be destroyed’) is sufficient by itself to clarify the agent–patient relations without the help of a phonological change. Two possibilities may be considered: either these phonological distinctions began to go out of use during the period of 陸德明 Lù Démíng (–), or syntactic position was the basic device for distinguishing the orientation of verbs at the initial stage (in OC). Here are some examples: ()

a. 王必毋以竪之私怨敗齊之德。(戰縱章) wáng bì wú yǐ Shù zhī sī yuàn bài Qí zhī dé king surely NEG take Shu MOD private complaint hurt Qi MOD virtue ‘[It is recommended that] Your Majesty does not hurt the virtue of Qi because of the private complaint about Shu.’ (ZZJ ) b. 功(攻) 秦之事敗 . . . (戰縱章) gōng (gōng) Qín zhī shì bài . . . attack Qin MOD operation fall ‘If the operation against Qin falls . . . ’ (ZZJ )

It is clear that in the order V+NP, the V is used transitively and indicates an action; in the order NP+V, the V is used intransitively and expresses a result, an accomplishment of the action. The order V+NP indicates an active voice while the order NP+V marks a passive voice. The verb 伐 fá in OC is interesting and merits attention. It is quite different from other verbs. In general, the syntactic position indicates the verb’s orientation, though sometimes the syntactic position of the verb fá does not give people any information about its meaning; only the context tells us if it indicates an active or a passive voice. In the Jīngdiǎn shìwén, some traces of the two readings are found: Lù Démíng cited the phonetic gloss of 何休 Hé Xiū ( –) from the 春秋公羊傳 Chūnqiū Gōngyángzhuàn. According to Hé Xiū, the same character has two pronunciations: when fá is “longer” in the pronunciation, it expresses ‘the person who attacks’ , and when it is “shorter” , it means ‘the person who is attacked’:

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese ()



二十八年伐者為客, 伐者為主 (公羊傳. 莊公 ) ér shí bā nián fá zhě wéi kè, fá zhě wéi zhǔ twenty-eight year attack ZHE be aggressor, (be-)attack ZHE be host ‘In  years of King Zhuang, the one who invades others’ lands is the invader and the one whose lands are invaded is the invaded.’ (Gōngyángzhuàn, Zhuāng )

In Hé Xiū’s description, people understand that the different pronunciations of the verb fá imply two opposite orientations: the first fá indicates an active voice and the second fá expresses a passive voice. Until now, I have not had access to other documents in which a phonetic gloss of fá is found. However, I find a trace, though weak, in the excavated text the ZZJ. Possibly at the period where the ZZJ was compiled, this difference did exist. The use of the verb fá is based on two devices: word order and phonological means. Let us consider the first case: ()

伐秦, 秦伐 (戰縱  章) fá Qín, Qín fá defeat Qin, Qin (be-)defeat ‘to defeat the state of Qin and Qin is defeated.’ (ZZJ )

() 秦必取, 齊必伐矣。夫取秦, 上交也, 伐齊, 正利也。(戰縱  章) Qín bì qǔ, Qí bì fá yǐ, fú qǔ Qín, shàng jiāo yě, fá Qí, zhèng lì yě Qin surely (be-)conquer, Qi surely (be-)attack PART. PART conquer Qin, up strategy PART, attack Qi, just cause PART ‘ . . . Qin will certainly be conquered and Qi will surely be beaten. Conquering Qin is the best strategy and beating Qi is a just cause.’ (ZZJ ) In the two examples above, the syntactic position clearly indicates the orientation of the verb fá: when the word order is fá+NP, it means ‘to defeat, to attack’; when the order is NP+fá, it means ‘to be defeated’ . In this case, the behaviour of the verb is quite similar to verbs like 殘 cán, ‘to hurt, to damage’ , 毀 huǐ, ‘to destroy’ , 敗 bài, ‘to destroy, to fight’ , 敝 bì, ‘to weaken’ , 立 lì, ‘to appoint’ , 取 qǔ, ‘to conquer’ , and so on. However, the position of fá in the sentence sometimes does not at all indicate the verb orientation in the ZZJ; it is the context which gives such information. Compare the following examples: ()

宋、中山數伐數割, 而國隋 (隨) 以亡 (戰縱  章) Sòng, Zhōngshān shù fá shù gē, ér guó suí (suí) yǐ wáng Song, Zhongshan numerous attack and numerous occupy, therefore state consequently cause-of (this) die ‘The states of Song and Zhongshan repeatedly beat others and took others’ lands, they caused the death of their states.’ (ZZJ )



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

()

楚久伐, 中山亡。(戰縱  章) Chǔ jiǔ fá, Zhōngshān wáng Chu constantly (be-)attack, Zhongshan die ‘The state of Chu was beaten constantly and (in consequence) the state of Zhongshan perished.’ (ZZJ )

In these two examples, the verb fá takes the same syntactic position, i.e. “NP+fá” , but the context helps us to understand that the interpretation is the opposite. In example (), the verb fá is transitive and the object is not present, and its meaning is ‘to defeat (other states)’; in example (), the same verb indicates the passive meaning ‘(the state of Chu is) defeated’ . If this verb had not retained both readings until the period of the ZZJ, one can hardly understand how people could differentiate between them. These examples offer perhaps an indirect proof of the existence of the two readings of the verb fá. In general, when the same verb precedes a noun/noun phrase (VNP) indicating an action or the beginning of an action, it expresses an active voice; when it follows the same noun/noun phrase (NPV) marking the result or the end of an action, it often indicates a passive voice. In other words, in the first case, the NP following a verb corresponds to an object patient; in the second case, the NP preceding a verb is in fact a subject patient. That is why some linguists (Cikoski , Onishi , among others) say that these verbs present ergative features. These verbs do not exhibit phonological change and their word order is the unique indicator to understand their orientation: ()

(薛公) 欲以殘宋, 取進北, 宋不殘, 進北不得。(戰縱  章) (Xuē Gōng) yù yǐ cán Sòng, qǔ jìn (Huái) běi, Sòng bù cán, jìn (Huái) běi bù dé (Xue Gong) want take hurt Song, conquer Huai north, Song NEG (be-) hurt, Huai north NEG (be-)conquer ‘(Duke Xue) wanted to hurt the state of Song and to conquer the north of the river Huai, but Song remains intact and the north of the river Huai is not conquered.’ (ZZJ )

The first 殘 cán ‘to hurt, to damage’ precedes 宋 Sòng ‘the state of Song’ and clearly expresses the starting point of a process but not its accomplishment. This effect is reinforced by the auxiliary verb 欲 yù ‘to wish, to desire’ . In the sentence 宋不 殘 Sòng bù cán, the same verb is used after the name of the state of Song. In this case, the verb cán insists on the result, the outcome. More examples: ()

a. 毀齊, 不敢怨魏。(戰縱  章) . . . huǐ Qí, bù gǎn yuàn Wèi

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



destroy Qi, NEG dare complain-about Wei ‘ . . . if someone destroys the state of Qi, Qi dares not complain about the state Wei.’ (ZZJ ) b. 齊毀, 晉敝。(戰縱  章) Qí huǐ, Jìn bì Qi (be-)destroy, Jin (be-)weaken ‘Qi is destroyed and Jin is weakened.’ (ZZJ ) Comparing these two examples, one sees that the syntactic position of the verb 毀 huǐ ‘to destroy’ is clear enough to indicate orientations of the verb: when it is before the NP 齊Qí ‘the state of Qi’ , it marks an action or a potential action— an active voice is implied; when the verb is after the NP, a result is marked—the process is complete, a passive meaning is understood. Other examples: ()

a. 主君何為亡邯鄲而敝魏氏 . . . (戰縱  章) zhǔjūn hé wéi wáng Hándān ér bì Wèishì . . . Majesty what reason destroy Handan and harm Wei ‘Why would Your Majesty want to destroy Handan and do harm to Wei . . . ’ (ZZJ ) b. 吾國勁而魏氏敝 (戰縱  章) wú guó jìn ér Wèishì bì I state (be-)reinforce and Wei (be-)weaken ‘Our state is reinforced and the state of Wei will be weakened . . . ’ (ZZJ )

The analysis is the same. In the order V+NP (敝 bì ‘to weaken’+NP), the V is used transitively and indicates an action; in the order NP+V (NP+敝 bì, ‘to be weakened’), the V is used intransitively and expresses a result, an accomplishment of the action. The voice is indicated by the word order. Now consider some more examples: ()

立帝, 帝立。(戰縱  章) lì dì, dì lì appoint emperor, emperor (be-)appoint ‘to appoint an emperor and the emperor is appointed.’ (ZZJ )

() . . . 秦必取, 齊必伐矣。夫取秦, 上交也, 伐齊, 正利也。(戰縱  章) =() . . . Qín bì qǔ, Qí bì fá yǐ, fú qǔ Qín, shàng jiāo yě, fá Qí, zhèng lì yě Qin surely (be-)conquer, Qi surely (be-)attack PART. PART conquer Qin, up strategy PART, attack Qi, just cause PART ‘. . . Qin will certainly be conquered and Qi will surely be beaten. Conquering Qin is the best strategy and beating Qi is the just cause.’ (ZZJ )



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

Evidently, in group (a) many verbs like 殘 cán ‘to hurt, to damage’ , 毀 huǐ ‘to destroy’ , 敗 bài ‘to destroy, to fight’ , 敝 bì ‘to weaken’ , and so on, share some common properties: they express “negative meaning” . In most cases, these kinds of verbs, which can indicate two opposite orientations, are consistently related to the meaning ‘to destroy, to hurt, to do harm’ , and their degree of transitivity is high. If people observe them closely, it will be noticed that they have special semantic properties: they are capable of indicating either the starting point of an action or its endpoint. These double-oriented verbs form a closed set. Verbs with a “neutral meaning” or “positive” meaning are not numerous in our data, owing perhaps to the fact that verbs with a “negative meaning” make different phases of a process more striking; in other words, the starting point and the end point of a process are more clear-cut. An expression of voicing is thus implied. (b) Single-oriented verbs In general, these verbs are used at a fixed position and their voice cannot be changed by their syntactic position. The verb 攻 gōng ‘to attack’ has this property. In the ZZJ, the verb 攻 gōng has  occurrences. Out of , ninetythree have the order 攻 gōng+NP. In six cases, the object is omitted. Numerous examples are attested like 攻楚 gōng Chǔ attack–Chu, ‘to attack the state of Chu’ , 攻齊 gōng Qí attack–Qi, ‘to attack the state of Qi’ , and so on. The verb gōng never appears in the final position as ∗NP+gōng with a passive meaning, it is always in the initial position before an NP as gōng+NP with an active meaning. If the result is effective, the verb 已 yǐ ‘to finish’ is added after the order gōng+NP ( gōng+NP+已 yǐ ) in the ZZJ. One example 攻齊已 attack–Qi–finish, ‘after having attacked Qi . . . ’ , is seen. This sentence is significant: it shows the beginning of aspect marking in Chinese. Other verbs like 割 gē ‘to cede (territory)’ , 收 shōu ‘to take back’ , 罪 zuì ‘to blame’ behave in the same way. These verbs almost never take the syntactic position after a subject patient like the verbs mentioned above in group (a). This means that some verbs do not possess a built-in end point of an action; they express the starting point of a process. The verb 殺 shā can also be classified in this group, but in parallel sentences, some exceptions may be expected: ()

a. 齊人攻燕, 拔故國, 殺子之 . . . (戰縱  章) Qí rén gōng Yān, bá gù guó, shā Zǐzhī . . . Qi man attack Yan, take ancient state, kill Zizhi

Often another character ‘功’gōng is used instead of 攻 gōng. In one sentence, characters are lost after 攻 gōng. One 攻 gōng is used as a loan character for 工 gōng ‘work’ .  Two orders are attested in the ZZJ: V+O+已 yǐ or 已 yǐ+V+O.  

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



‘The state of Qi attacked the state of Yan, recovered their lost territory, and killed Zizhi . . . ’ (ZZJ ) b. 秦孝王死, 公孫鞅殺 (戰縱  章) Qín Xiào wáng sǐ, Gōngsūn Yāng shā Qin Xiao king die, Gongsun Yang (be-)kill ‘King Xiao of Qin is dead and Gongsun Yang has been killed (in consequence).’ (ZZJ ) Normally, the verb 殺 shā is a typical transitive verb, and in general it precedes an NP (an object) marking an active voice. But in the two sentences above, it is the word order that indicates which is the active voice (as in a) and which is passive (as in b). Word order evidently has an important and decisive function. (c) Non-oriented verbs Examples of the first two situations have been examined, and now let us see some sentences illustrating the third case: ()

臣處於燕齊之交, 固知必將不信。(戰縱  章) chén chǔ yú Yān Qí zhī jiāo, gù zhī bì jiāng bù xìn your-servant is at Yan Qi MOD relation, therefore know surely will NEG (be-) believe ‘Your servant is between the Yan and Qi [which do not enjoy good], that is why he knows that he is certainly not trusted by them.’ (ZZJ )

Without the context, it is impossible to identify the orientation of the verb 信 xìn ‘to trust’ . Neither its pronunciation nor its word order gives us information. More examples of this type: ()

誰能懼我? (左傳. 襄公 ) shuí néng jù wǒ who can intimidate us ‘Who can intimidate us?’ (Zuǒzhuàn, Xiāng )

()

使者目動而言肆, 懼我也 (左傳.文公 ) shǐzhě mù dòng ér yán sì, jù wǒ yě messenger eye move and speak lose-control, afraid us PART ‘The messenger’s eyeballs dart back and forth and his speech loses control, (because) he is afraid of us (Zuǒzhuàn, Wén )

In () and (), the word order is the same 懼我 jù wǒ ‘to frighten–me/us’; however, the orientation of the verb 懼 jù ‘to frighten/to be frightened’ is the  

These two sentences are taken from 李佐豐 Lǐ Zuǒfēng (: ). In Chinese, even in contemporary Chinese, wǒ means ‘I’ , ‘me’ or ‘we’ , ‘us’ .



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

opposite. In the first sentence, it is used as a causative verb ‘to make me/us terrified’; in the second, it is used as a transitive verb ‘to frighten me/us’ . These examples are numerous and their interpretations depend on the context. It has to be noted that in contemporary Chinese, this use of verbs has disappeared. It has been observed that at this period (second century ), different devices worked together to indicate the orientation of a verb. However, the Chinese language needed overt devices at the syntactic level to clarify relations between diverse elements. The studies in this section allow us to better understand why, when two verbs (VV) co-occurred frequently around the Han ( – ), the verbs expressing an action tend to be at the position of V and those indicating the result or the accomplishment began to be gathered at V. This combination helped the development of the resultative compound “V+V resultative” (cf. Chapter ). At the period of the ZZJ (+ ), this tendency was not yet clear but had begun to appear. In OC, some verbs were double-oriented or single-oriented verbs, while some of them vacillated between the action verb and the resultative verb and finally ended up with a fixed syntactic position. Contemporary Chinese tells us that quite a few verbs became typical resultative verbs. This observation matches what can be seen in the ZZJ, an unearthed document with valuable evidence on this point.

.. Orientations of verbs marked by the preposition 於 yú Besides phonological and morphological means of indicating the verb’s orientations in OC, prepositions are a syntactic way of giving information on active or passive voice. Word order without a preposition is an unmarked means, while word order with a preposition is a marked one. Using a preposition makes the relationship between an agent and a patient explicit, while the relationship is implicit if their interpretation depends exclusively on word order. Here I choose the prepositions 于 yú and 於 yú, which are the most significant in indicating a verb’s orientation. These two yú, which have exactly the same pronunciation in contemporary Chinese, were different in OC. After the reform of Chinese characters in , publications did not pay attention to the difference between these two characters in diachronic data and adopted the simple form 于 yú for both of them even in classic texts, to the detriment of the authenticity of the data. Some editors use the complex 於 yú in classical documents without taking the original graph (i.e. the graph in received texts, pre-modern editions) into account. Even in some linguistic  

We will develop this problem in the next chapter. Cf. Xu Dan (b).

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



research papers, the authors scarcely attach any importance to the difference between these two graphs. This is a pity, because throughout history, many copyists have misled later generations by changing one form to another. Therefore it is very difficult to be sure of the version of the classical texts, which in most cases are transmitted versions. For this reason, the texts excavated from archaeological findings are precious for researching this issue. I will consider some unearthed documents (bronze inscriptions and texts written on bamboo or silk) in which the two prepositions “于 yú and 於 yú” sometimes co-occur (for example in bronze inscriptions), and sometimes only one of them is attested (mostly in writings on silk or bamboo). The data on which our studies on the preposition yú are mainly based are the Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū (ZZJ). It is important to note that in these data, most graphs of yú are 於, the complex form. Studies on these two prepositions are abundant. But in our work, I will not observe all the functions of these prepositions. A comparison between the two yú will be made with excavated texts. More specifically, my studies will focus on the optional use of yú in OC (more precisely in texts written around the third century ): I will try to clarify in which cases this preposition is necessary and in which cases it is optional. Different analyses will be made to understand the reasons for such a syntactic distribution. ... The origin of the two yú (于 yú and 於 yú) One of the puzzles of OC still remains: how could the two yú which, phonologically and graphically, were so different be merged into the same pronunciation and into the same functions? Without even considering their reconstruction in OC, their pronunciations were not similar even in MC: ● ●

于∗bwa>hju> yú 於∗ba>jo> yú

Many scholars have studied the syntactic, semantic, even stylistic interpretation of the two graphs. Here are some representative points of view among many. Karlgren () listed the different functions of the two yú; his research was based on the transmitted texts of the 左傳 Zuǒzhuàn and of the 國語 Guóyǔ (both documents are thought to have been compiled in the fifth century ). 何樂士 Hé Lèshì () observes these two graphs as found in the Zuǒzhuàn and comes up with some interesting statistics. According to her, 于 yú represents  per cent of the occurrences and 於 yú is  per cent. She points out that the complex 於 yú was more important in vernacular language 

Cf. Sagart () and Baxter ().



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

at the time the text was written while the simpler one 于 yú is often used in more archaic expressions or sentences. 聞宥 Wén Yòu () was the first person (to my knowledge) to have insisted on the importance of palaeography. He does not think that the grammatical differences established by Karlgren are well founded since the latter did not take into account the period of the two graphs’ creation. Finally, 郭錫良Guō Xīliáng () agrees with Wén that the use of the two graphs depends heavily on different periods and not on their grammatical differences. Some scholars follow Pulleyblank’s () observation. According to him, 于 yú was initially a verb meaning ‘to go’ , and later, it became a “coverb” expressing ‘to’ or ‘at’ . He argues that this explains why 于 yú can precede motion verbs. If one does not take the origin of the two yú into account, people will misinterpret their functions. My investigation will be mainly based on the excavated texts I have access to. In the oracle bone inscriptions, I find only the graph 于 yú, which has three strokes. In later data (around fifth century ), the complex 於 yú appears. In the 史墻盤 Shǐ Qiáng pán, inscriptions on bronze dating from the Western Zhou (eleventh century– ) and excavated from the north of China (陝西 扶風縣 Shǎnxī Fúfēng xiàn), the graph 于 yú appears twice among  graphs. The complex 於 yú does not occur at all. But the situation is reversed in the 包山楚簡 Bāoshān Chǔ jiǎn (湖北 Húbeǐ) data from the middle or late period of the Warring States (fourth or third century ). According to Guō (), 於 yú appears  times; but for the graph 于 yú, not one instance is found. 魏德勝 Wèi Déshèng () reports that in the 睡虎地秦墓竹簡 Shuìhǔdì Qín mù zhújiǎn (湖北云夢 Húběi Yúnmèng, + ), 于 yú is used fourteen times and 於 yú forty-four times. This suggests that the first graph had begun to give way to the second. As for the Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū (湖南長沙 Húnán, Chángshā, + ), the graph 於 yú is attested  times and 于 yú only three times. For these reasons, the 中山 Zhōngshān bronze inscriptions (+  河北 Héběi) are especially precious for us since the data offer a significant number of occurrences of the two yú. In the Zhōngshān texts, seven occurrences of 于 yú and eighteen occurrences of 於 yú are found. The comparison of the contexts in which they appear is quite significant. Here  In the Shījīng, transmitted texts, the two graphs co-occurred. Pulleyblank () thinks that the syntactic and semantic behaviour of the two yú are distinct in these poems.  Cf. Wén Yòu ().  I am very grateful to my colleague Fabienne Marc who gave me her Ph.D. thesis () on the Zhōngshān bronze inscriptions and Takashima’s articles on the same subject.

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



are all examples of 于 yú and a portion of the examples of the other graph 於 yú: ()

隹十四年中山王[錯][詐][鼎]于銘曰 . . . (圓鼎) wéi shí sì nián Zhōngshān wáng Cuò zuò dǐng yú míng yuē WEI fourteen year Zhongshan king Cuo make cauldron at inscription say ‘It was in the fourteenth year of his reign that the king of Zhongshan, Cuo, made this cauldron. Its inscription says: . . . ’ (Yuándǐng: YD)

() 天降休命于朕邦 (圓鼎) tiān jiàng xiū mìng yú zhèn bāng Heaven bestow gracious mandate to I state ‘Heaven bestowed its gracious mandate upon my state.’ (YD) ()

天其[有][型], 于[哉][厥]邦 (圓鼎) tiān qí yǒu xíng, yú zāi jué Bāng Heaven MP have model, at here I state ‘How far-reaching is Heaven’s perfect model! Here it is found in my state.’ (YD)

()

五年, [覆]吳, 克並[之], 至于[今]爾。(圓鼎) wǔ nián, fù Wú, kè bìng zhī, zhì yú jīn ěr five year, topple Wu, conquer annex it, till at today PART ‘After five years, they toppled the state of Wu and were able to annex it, continuing to the present.’ (YD)

()

節于[禋][齊] (方壺) jié yú yīn qí control for yin-sacrifice amount-of-wine ‘In accord with the proper amount of wine for use in the yin sacrifice . . . ’ (Fānghú: FH)

()

明[載][之]于壺 (方壺) míng zǎi zhī yú hú clear inscribe it at vase ‘I have (thus) clearly inscribed all this upon this hu vase.’ (FH)

()

隹[朕]先王茅蒐[田]獵于[彼]新土 (圓壺) wéi zhèn Xiān wáng máo sōu tián liè yú bǐ xīn tǔ WEI I former king hunting-in-summer hunting-in-spring hunt at that new territory ‘My former king (Cuo) hunted in the new territories in the summer and [spring] . . . ’ (Yuánhú)

 The translations of the Zhōngshān inscriptions used here belong to Takashima (). In (), I have modified one translated word put in a square bracket. Please see the real characters in the inscriptions of Zhōngshān; those used here in brackets are the glossed characters.



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

It is not difficult to see that 于 yú is almost exclusively used in solemn contexts: it introduces words referring to holy things like ‘state’ , ‘in the inscriptions on the cauldron’ , 壺 hú ‘vessel’ , or it is used in expressions related to ‘sacrifice’ , which were certainly important at that period. Syntactically speaking, the graph 于 yú plays the role of a preposition introducing an NP. The NP can be a location ((), (), and ()), a time word (), or an indirect object (). However, the syntactic role and semantic meaning of 于 yú in example () is not clear. In contrast, the other 於 yú appears in more vernacular sentences such as in exclamations (), or in proverbs (, ). The graph of 於 yú itself is also quite interesting in the Zhōngshān inscriptions. It depicts a bird plus a symbol written with two strokes; scholars do not know the meaning of the symbol on the right-hand side of the bird. In eighteen sentences in which 於 yú occurs, it is used seven times as an exclamation: “於呼” , something like ‘oh’ in English: ()

於[呼], [念]之哉！(圓鼎) Ūhū, niàn zhī zaī PART, think it PART ‘Oh! Bear this in mind!’ (YD)

In the other eleven instances, it is used as a preposition. Here are two examples: ()

[寡]人[聞][之], [與]其[溺]於人旃, 寧[溺]於淵。(圓鼎) guǎrén wén zhī, yǔqí nì yú rén zhān, níng nì yú yuān I hear it, if drown at men PART, rather drown at river ‘I have heard it said that it would be better to be drowned in the river than to be drowned in men.’ (YD)

()

[則][上]逆於天, 下不[順]於人旃 (方壺) zé shàng nì yú tiān, xià bù shùn yú rén zhān then up against at Heaven, down NEG follow at people PART ‘The superior (Zi Kuai) is going against the will of Heaven and the inferior (Zi Zhi) is offending other people.’ (FH)

In (), the preposition 於 yú introduces a location (abstract location such as [溺] 於人 nì yú rén, ‘to be drowned in men’ and concrete location such as [溺] 於淵 nì yú yuān, ‘to be drowned in the river’) and in (), it precedes 天 tiān ‘Heaven’ and 人 rén ‘people’ marking indirect objects. In short, one cannot ignore the fact that 於 yú (except in exclamations) plays the role of a preposition just like 于 yú. I suggest that the distinction between them at the beginning was on the level of the spoken language. Apparently, during the period when the replacement

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



began, the 于 yú with three strokes seemed more archaic and the complex one 於 yú was probably more popular in everyday language. This distinction is also reported to be true (cf. Hé Lèshì ) in the Zuǒ Zhuàn, if one accepts this transmitted text as a reliable source. The condition for this change from the simpler 于 yú to the complex one lies in their similarity in syntactic use. However, their original pronunciation is not obvious for this replacement. For the reasons mentioned above, the bronze inscriptions and the excavated texts are all the more reliable for the study of the two yú graphs. It is clear in these texts that only lexical change need be considered; it is not a question of syntactic distribution. In comparing the occurrences of the two graphs, I think that the graph 於 yú may have begun to replace the graph 于 yú in the late third century . Many scholars tend to agree with the point of view that these two yú are distinct, because one thing is obvious: 于 yú is used in limited circumstances, while 於 yú is compatible with almost all verbs, having many meanings. In fact, the complex yú not only took over the functions of the archaic 于 yú, it also played a syntactic and semantic role on a larger scale. This is in fact due to a development of syntactic devices in Chinese. In the next section, the multiple functions of 於 yú will be observed. ... Functions of 於 yú The 商周古文字讀本 Shāng Zhōu gǔwénzì dúběn () clearly summarizes various grammatical functions of the two yú during the period from   to  . According to these authors, on the oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, the graph 于 yú already had the following grammatical functions: 于 yú is used () as a verb, () as a preposition, () as a conjunction, () as a particle. The other graph 於 yú is not found on oracle bone inscriptions, but it is seen in bronze inscriptions. It seems to have had fewer functions: it mainly plays the role of a preposition and that of a particle of exclamation. The statements of these scholars correspond to the data before the Warring States period. In this section, I will focus on the functions played by the complex yú. After the graph 於 yú took the dominant position, this preposition played multiple roles in indicating syntactic functions. It is useful to observe its occurrence to better understand its tendency towards later change. The presentation of 於  In the Mǎwángduī Hàn mù bóshū (Húnán province, Chángshā), from the early period of Western Han ( – ), both of the graphs yú are seen. In the Yúnmèng Lónggāng Qín jiǎn (Húběi province, Yúnmèng district, data not later than Western Han), again the two yú are attested. These facts show that from the north to the south of China around the third century , the replacement of 于 by 於 was perhaps already taking place. At least, the graph于 yú completely lost its dominant position in later transmitted versions.



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

yú’s function will be focused on the pre-Qin (fifth to third centuries ) texts since the typological change took place around the Han. Its main uses can be listed as below: 於 yú appearing before a location ()

王立於沼上 (孟子A/) wáng lì yú zhǎo shàng king stand at pond up ‘The king was standing over a pond.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

()

河内凶, 則移其民於河東, 移其粟於河内。(孟子A/) Hé nèi xiōng, zé yí qí mín yú hé dōng, yí qí sù yú hé nèi river inside calamity, then move its population to river east, move its grain to river inside ‘When crops failed in Ho [He] Nei, I moved the population to Ho Tung [He Dong] and the grain to Ho Nei.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

This use is very common and attested in the classic texts. 於 yú used in a comparative construction ()

冰, 水為之而寒於水 (荀子. 勸學) bīng, shuǐ wéi zhī ér hán yú shuǐ ice, water make it and cold than water ‘(As for) ice, water makes it but (it is) colder than water.’ (Xúnzǐ, Quànxué)

()

則無望民之多於鄰國也 (孟子A/) zé wú wàng mín zhī duō yú lín guó yě then NEG wish population MOD more than neighbour state PART ‘. . . you will not expect your own state to be more populous than the neighbouring states.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

In these kinds of comparative structures, one character yú is equivalent to ‘more/less than’ . 於 yú indicating passive voice () 勞心者治人, 勞力者治於人, 治於人者食人, 治人者食於人 (孟子 A/) láo xīn zhě zhì rén, láo lì zhě zhì yú rén, zhì yú rén zhě sì rén, zhì rén zhě shí yú rén work heart ZHE rule others, work muscle ZHE (be-) rule by others, (be-) rule by other ZHE feed others, rule man ZHE (be-) feed by others ‘There are those who use their minds and there are those who use their muscles. The former rule; the latter are ruled. Those who rule are supported by those who are ruled. ’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese ()



吾常見笑於大方之家 (莊子/) wú cháng jiàn xiào yú dàfāng zhī jiā I often see laugh by great-accomplishment MOD specialist ‘I would forever have been laughed at by masters of great accomplishment.’ (Zhuāngzǐ, Pulleyblank)

In the above sentences, 於 yú marks the agent of the action. 於 yú introducing an indirect object ()

孟孫問孝於我 (論語 /) Mèng Sūn wèn xiào yú wǒ Meng Sun ask filial-conduct to I ‘Meng Yizi asked about filial conduct (xiao) . . .’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

()

王之臣有託其妻子於其友而之楚遊者 (孟子 B/) wáng zhī chén yǒu tuō qí qī zǐ yú qí yǒu ér zhī Chǔ yóu zhě king MOD minister there-is entrust his wife children to his friend and go Chu travel ZHE ‘[Suppose that] there was one of Your Majesty’s ministers who entrusted his wife and children to a friend and travelled to Chu.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

於 yú introducing an object ()

寡人之於國也, 盡心焉耳矣 (孟子 A/) guǎrén zhī yú guó yě, jìn xīn yān ěr yǐ I MOD towards state PART, exhaust heart PART PART PART ‘As for my [behaviour] towards my country, I exhaust my mind in it and that’s all.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Pulleyblank)

()

始吾於人也, 聼其言而信其行。今吾於人也, 聼其言而觀其行。(論 語 /) shǐ wú yú rén yě, tīng qí yán ér xìn qí xíng. Jīn wú yú rén yě, tīng qí yán ér guān qí xíng beginning I towards others PART, hear their words and trust their conduct. Today I towards others PART, hear their words and observe their conduct ‘Formerly my [attitude] towards men was to listen to their words and trust in their conduct. Now my [attitude] towards men is to listen to their words and observe their conduct.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, Pulleyblank)

These examples enumerate standard uses of 於 yú. They show us how OC, a language that did not possess many syntactic devices, exploited the same preposition. In a language of poor morphology such as Chinese, grammatical



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

markers are certainly useful in clarifying relations between different elements. The functions of yú mentioned above are more or less typical. When two noun phrases appear before or after a verb, people have to distinguish the object from the location, the direct object from the indirect one, the agent from the patient, the topic from the comment, and so on. Thanks to the presence of yú, these grammatical relationships are recognizable because the process of identification can be based on marked sentences. Evidently, yú also has other functions and our list is far from being exhaustive. Here my studies will focus on the optional presence of yú. In fact, I also find numerous sentences in which the use of yú is not fixed. In comparing different texts, sometimes the use of the preposition yú is not clearcut. Let us observe some sentences of this type: ()

逎 (猶) 免寡人之冠也。(戰縱  章) yóu miǎn guǎrén zhī guān yě like remove I MOD offcial-hat PART ‘(This act) is as if you are removing my official hat (relieving me of my post).’ (ZZJ )

()

知 (智) 能免國, 未能免身 (戰縱  章) zhī (zhì) néng miǎn guó, wèi néng miǎn shēn wisdom can save state, NEG can save body ‘(My) wisdom can save the country but not my body (life).’ (ZZJ )

()

臣雖無大功, 自以爲免於罪矣 (戰縱  章) chén suī wú dà gōng, zì yǐwéi miǎn yú zuì yǐ I even-though NEG great exploit, myself think exempt from punishment PART ‘Even though I have achieved no great exploits, I think that I am exempt [lit. to take off from] from punishment.’ (ZZJ )

It is clear that the verb 免 miǎn can be used either as a transitive verb as in () and (), or as an intransitive verb as in (). For a concrete action, the meaning is ‘to take off ’ , and for an abstract one, it means ‘to avoid, to be exempt from, to remove someone from office’ . Perhaps for this semantic reason, the presence of yú is frequent for abstract actions since the transitivity of the verb is meaningfully reduced. Perhaps also the use of yú was not yet fixed (see analysis in later sections). In some cases, the preposition yú is expected, but it is absent. Observe the following examples: ()

a. 所亡秦者 . . . (戰縱  章) suǒ wáng Qín zhě . . .

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



SUO (be-)conquer Qin ZHE ‘Those (areas) conquered by Qin (are) . . . ’ (ZZJ ) b. 所亡於秦者 . . . (史記. 魏世家) suǒ wáng yú Qín zhě . . . SUO (be-)conquer by Qin ZHE ‘Those (areas) conquered by Qin (are) . . . ’ (Shǐjì, , hereafter: SJ) c. 所亡乎秦者 . . . (戰國策. 魏策 ) suǒ wáng hū Qín zhě . . . SUO (be-)conquer by Qin ZHE ‘Those (areas) conquered by Qin (are) . . . ’ (Zhànguócè, Wèi , hereafter: ZGC) These sentences are significant for us because they tell the same story by authors of different periods (the Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū, ZZJ dates from + , the Shǐjì from   and the Zhànguócè, ZGC from  ). In (a), the passive voice is not marked; however the context and other versions inform us that the passive meaning is evident and is the sole possibility (Qín is the agent). I verified a photograph of this paragraph written on silk; all characters are well preserved. Thus the problem of corruption of the text is excluded. Comparing it with other texts, I think that this is probably due to an oversight of the copyist. In transmitted versions (b) and (c), the preposition is present: in (b), the particle 於 yú is used, and consequently, the passive voice is overtly marked to clarify the agent–patient relationship; in (c), the particle 乎hū is used; generally, this is taken as a variant of the preposition yú (see Pulleyblank , Guō : ). The sentence in (c), like (b), is also marked. In fact, in this kind of sentence, the use of yú is not optional but indispensable, because without it, the use of 所suǒ here indicates an active voice, such as: 所食 suǒ shí: ‘what to eat’ , 所知 suǒ zhī: ‘what to know’ , and so forth. Additionally, the structure used here is 所 . . . 者 suǒ . . . zhě which is a focus structure on an object of the verb. This structure can mark either active voice or passive. With the preposition yú, the object is not only emphasized, its patient status is also stressed. In this section, I have presented some standard uses of the preposition yú, but I have also shown some cases in which its presence or absence warrants further investigation. More cases will be studied in the next section. ... Presence or absence of the preposition 於 yú The ZZJ (+ ) is an interesting data source for studying the preposition 於 yú: not only are there a large number of examples of yú in the text of the ZZJ;



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

in addition the ZZJ contains twenty-seven chapters, eleven of which are similar to the SJ (Shǐjì from  ) and ZGC (Zhàn Guócè, from  ). These texts can be compared because on many occasions the two transmitted versions tell the same story as that found in the ZZJ. In some sentences, the locative word can be introduced by the preposition yú, but sometimes yú is not necessary. I will focus on the sentences in which a verb can be used transitively (without the preposition yú) or intransitively (with the preposition yú). Let us begin by comparing the sentences in the text of the ZZJ. I notice that within the same chapter, sometimes the same verb uses the preposition yú to introduce the object, but in the same paragraph (or in other paragraphs), the same verb drops the preposition. ()

奉陽君甚怒於齊 (戰縱  章) Fèngyáng jūn shèn nù yú Qí Fengyang duke extremely furious at Qi ‘Duke Fengyang is very furious with the state of Qi.’ (ZZJ )

()

(今齊王) 怒於勺 (趙) 之止臣也。(同上) ( jīn Qí wáng) nù yú Sháo (Zhào) zhī zhǐ chén yě (today Qi king) furious at Zhao MOD arrest I PART ‘(Today the ruler of Qi) is quite furious at Zhao’ s arresting me.’ (Ibid.)

()

秦王怒於楚之緩也 (戰縱  章) Qín wáng nù yú Chǔ zhī huǎn yě Qin king furious at Chu MOD slowness PART ‘The ruler of Qin is furious at the slowness of Chu.’ (ZZJ )

()

楚、趙怒於魏之先己也 (同上) Chǔ Zhào nù yú Wèi zhī xiān jǐ yě Chu Zhao furious at Wei MOD earlier themselves PART ‘Chu and Zhao are furious that Wei is more rapid than they are.’ (Ibid.)

Now let us observe examples () to (). They are all drawn from the ZZJ. The verb 怒 nù ‘to be furious’ is generally followed by yú in the ZZJ if the object of

 These sentences are not included in our study. Let us just compare two sentences of this type; in (a), the preposition 於 yú is present, in (b) it is omitted:

(a) (伯夷) 餓而死于首陽之山. (Bóyí) è ér sǐ yú Shǒuyáng zhī shān ‘(Boyi) starved and died at the Mountain Shouyang.’ (ZGC, Yān ) (b) (伯夷) 餓死首陽山下. (Bóyí ) è sǐ Shǒuyáng shān xià, ‘(Boyi) died of hunger at Shouyang Mountain.’ (SJ )

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



nù is present; this object can be a noun as in () or a nominalized sentence (see , , ). However in the Zhànguócè (first century , one century later than the ZZJ), the graph 怒 nù can be introduced by the preposition yú or can directly precede the object: ()

王怒於犀首之泄也, 乃逐之。(戰國策. 秦策 ) wáng nù yú Xī Shǒu zhī xiè yě, nǎi zhú zhī king furious at Xi Shou MOD divulge PART, so expel him ‘The king is furious at Xi Shou’s divulging the secret, so he expelled the latter.’ (ZGC, Qín )

()

楚王怒周 (戰國策.東周策) Chǔ wáng nù Zhōu Chu king furious Zhou ‘The ruler of Chu is furious at Zhou.’ (ZGC, Dōng Zhōucè)

As we know, the dating of the ZGC is not as certain as that of the ZZJ. At least it seems that when the object is a sentence nominalized by the particle 之 zhī, the preposition yú is necessary to introduce the nominalized element expressing the cause, the reason of the anger. In contrast, when the object of nù is a simple noun, the preposition yú is dropped. However, this hypothesis is obviously not available for example () drawn from the ZZJ, in which the object of 怒 nù is a simple noun. According to 李佐豐 Lǐ Zuǒfēng (), in nine pre-Qin classical texts, out of a total of  uses of 怒 nù, the intransitive nù is seen eighty-three times. The verb directly precedes an element expressing time, location, or instrument only eight times; the verb uses a preposition only once. In fact, the intransitive use of nù is attested in texts from all periods; here is one example of the word order “subject+nù” seen in the ZZJ: ()

楚趙怒而與王爭秦 . . . (戰縱  章) Chǔ Zhào nù ér yǔ wáng zhēng Qín . . . Chu Zhao furious and with king strive Qin ‘If the states of Chu and Zhao are furious at us and strive with Your Majesty for the state of Qin’s favour . . . ’ (ZZJ )

In the transmitted text Zuǒ Zhuàn (ZZ) believed to date from the fifth century , one finds the same phenomenon: 怒於 nù yú+O and nù+O coexist. When the object is a simple noun, the preposition yú is absent. When the object is a sentence nominalized by 之 zhī, the preposition is present. Let us compare  The nine classical texts are: 左傳 Zuǒzhuàn, 公羊傳 Gōngyángzhuàn, 穀梁傳 Gǔliángzhuàn, 論 語 Lúnyǔ, 孟子 Mèngzǐ, 墨子 Mòzǐ, 莊子 Zhuāngzǐ, 荀子 Xúnzǐ, and 禮記 Lǐjì.  He does not specify which preposition is concerned.



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

different examples found in the same chapter of the ZZ; the translation of the examples below (–) is by Burton Watson (): ()

晉魏錡求公族未得而怒, 慾敗晉師。(左傳. 宣公  年) Jìn Wèi Yǐ qiú gōng zú wèi dé ér nù, yù bài Jìn shī Jin Wei Yi request ducal family NEG obtain and furious, want defeat Jin army ‘Wei Yi of Chin [Jin] had earlier wanted to enter the service of the ducal family of Chin [Jin] but had been unable to do so and, disgruntled over this, he now hoped to bring about a defeat of the Chin [Jin] army.’ (ZZ, Xuān )

()

若二子怒楚, 楚人乘我, 喪師無日矣! (同上) ruò èr zǐ nù Chǔ, Chǔ rén chéng wǒ, sàng shī wú rì yǐ if two gentlemen furious Chu, Chu man bully us, lose army NEG time PART ‘If those two gentlemen who set off succeed in angering Ch’u [Chu], the Ch’u [Chu] men will come swooping down upon us, and then our forces will be wiped out in no time.’ (Ibid.)

()

趙旃求卿未得, 且怒於失楚之致師者, . . . (同上) Zhào Zhān qiú qīng wèi dé, qiě nù yú shī Chǔ zhī zhì shī zhě Zhao Zhan request ministerial-post NEG obtain, moreover furious at lose Chu MOD (make-)arrive army ZHE ‘Chao Chan [Zhao Zhan] of Chin [Jin] had earlier tried to obtain a ministerial post and failed, and moreover he was angry that Yüeh Po [Yue Bo] and the others who had come from the Ch’u [Chu] side to challenge the Chin [Jin] army had been allowed to escape . . . ’ (Ibid.)

In (), the verb 怒 nù is used as in most cases: it is intransitive. It is used as a transitive verb in () when the object is a simple noun; in () the preposition yú is employed to introduce the reason for the anger. It is interesting to see that the particle 之 zhī occurs again in the nominalized sentence. I do not think it is a chance occurrence. But how can one explain why in example (), drawn from the ZZJ, the simple noun needs the preposition yú? Actually, I think that the word orders “nù+Noun” vs. “nù+yú+sentence” are a syntactic distribution trend, and the use of the preposition yú was not yet completely fixed. In the SJ, the use of yú after nù disappears: ()

(須賈) 心怒睢, 以告魏相。(史記. 範睢蔡澤列傳) (Xū Gǔ) xīn nù Suī (Jū), yǐ gào Wèi xiàng (Xu Gu) heart furious Sui (Ju), take (this) tell Wei minister ‘(Xu Gu) was furious with Sui (Ju) and told the whole story to the minister of Wei.’ (SJ ) 

The phonetic notation in the translation is Burton Watson’s.

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese ()



魏王怒公子之盜其兵符 (史記. 魏公子列傳) Wèi wáng nù gōngzǐ zhī dào qí bīngfú Wei king furious prince MOD steal his military sign ‘The ruler of Wei is furious that the prince (of Wei) has stolen the sign of military order.’ (SJ )

In (), the object of the verb nù is a simple noun and in () the object of the verb is a sentence, but it is clear that the preposition has been dropped. In fact when the verb nù can be used transitively, the word order “nù+O” offers two meanings: () ‘to be furious at someone/something’ or () ‘to make someone furious’ . Because of possible confusion, the word order “nù+O” later disappeared and in modern Chinese, it must occur with another prepositional phrase in order to express ‘to be furious with someone’ , while the causative meaning ‘to make someone furious’ is assumed with explicit use of the causative structure, 使 shǐ/令 lìng+NP+nù. This means that the verb nù was behaving more and more like an intransitive verb and finally became an adjective. Let us observe more sentences in which the preposition yú is optional in the ZZJ: ()

危弗能安, 亡弗能存, 則奚貴於智矣。(戰縱  章) wēi fú néng ān, wáng fú néng cún, zé xī guì yú zhì yǐ danger NEG can calm, peril NEG can save, then why appreciate PREP wisdom PART ‘If one cannot calm the situation when the state is in danger, or save it when it is in peril, then why do we appreciate wisdom?’ (ZZJ )

()

王之於臣也, 賤而貴之 (戰縱  章) wáng zhī yú chén yě, jiàn ér guì zhī king MOD towards servant PART, humble but honour him ‘As for me, your servant, you made him honourable while he was humble.’ (ZZJ )

Again, the use of the preposition yú is not fixed: in (), the verb 貴 guì is followed by the preposition to introduce its object, but in () the same verb is used transitively. In other classical texts, the same phenomenon is seen: ()

君子所貴乎道者三 . . . (論語 /) jūnzǐ suǒ guì hū dào zhě sān . . . exemplary-person SUO consider PREP dao ZHE three

 In his statistics, Lǐ Zuǒfēng () has noted thirteen sentences in which the verb nù is used as a causative verb.  In contemporary Chinese, the prepositional phrase is needed, 對 duì+someone+生氣 shēngqì/很 氣憤 hěn qìfèn ‘to be furious with someone’ . Here the preposition is duì.



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese ‘There are three things that exemplary persons (junzi 君子) consider of utmost importance in making their way (dao 道): . . . ’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

()

用下敬上, 謂之貴貴: . . . (孟子 /) yòng xià jìng shàng, wèi zhī guì guì use inferior deference superior, say it honour honoured ‘For an inferior to show deference to a superior is known as honouring the honoured; . . . ’ (Mèngzǐ, /, Lau)

In (), the verb 貴 guì ‘to appreciate’ is used intransitively with the preposition 乎 hū, a variant of yú, and in (), the same verb is used transitively. A similar syntactic change happened to the verb guì as happened with nù: in later texts, where guì is used as a transitive/causative verb, the preposition is omitted. Finally, guì lost its causative use and became intransitive like other adjectives. In the ZZJ, the verb guì can precede the preposition yú, but in the SJ, texts from about  years later, the same verb is used without the preposition to express ‘to appreciate’; a few occurrences of 貴於 guì yú in the SJ actually indicate the comparative structure ‘more appreciated than’ . This structure is still present today and has become a lexical compound. Two more examples: ()

士不遠千里而至者, 以君能貴士而賤妾也。(史記. 平原君虞卿列傳) shì bù yuàn qiān lǐ ér zhì zhě, yǐ jūn néng guì shì ér jiàn qiè yě scholar NEG far thousand li and arrive ZHE, because you can consider scholar and despise concubine PART ‘If the scholars join you regardless of distances, they thought that you would appreciate scholars more than concubines.’ (SJ )

()

皆知大王賤人而貴馬也。(史記. 滑稽列傳) jiē zhī dàwáng jiàn rén ér guì mǎ yě all know Your-Majesty despise man and consider horse PART ‘Everyone knows that Your Majesty despises the human being and appreciates horses more.’ (SJ )

Examples with other verbs: ()

必善勺 (趙), . . . (戰縱  章) bì shàn Sháo (Zhào), surely kind Zhao ‘We have to be on friendly terms with Zhao . . . ’ (ZZJ )

()

a. [此其善於]公而[惡張]義 (儀) 多資矣。(戰縱  章) [cǐ qí shàn yú] gōng ér [wù Zhāng] Yì (Yí) duō zī yǐ [this MP kind to] you and [detest Zhang] Yi many things PART ‘[That is why they are nice to] you and [detest Zhang] Yi who possesses too many things.’ (ZZJ )

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



b. 此其善於公而惡張子多資矣。(史記. 田敬仲完世家) cǐ qí shàn yú gōng ér wù Zhāng Zǐ duō zī yǐ this MP kind to you and destest Zhang Zi many things PART ‘That is why they are nice to you and detest Zhang Zi who possesses too many things.’ (SJ ) ()

王以天下善秦 (史記. 趙世家) wáng yǐ tiānxià shàn Qín king take world befriend Qin ‘Your Majesty is on friendly terms with Qin offering him all that he has under Heaven.’ (SJ )

Let us compare examples () and (). In (), the verb 善 shàn is used transitively, but in (), the preposition yú introduces the object. As is well known, the SJ often copied the same version from previous historic documents; (b) is almost exactly the same as (a). This means that the preposition yú could follow the verb shàn with no comprehension problems. At this period, in other words, the meaning of shàn was not affected by the presence of the preposition. In most cases, the verb shàn did not precede yú any more in the SJ (). As is observed for 貴於 guì yú, 善於 shàn yú also began to be lexicalized as a compound, gaining a derived meaning ‘to be capable of’ , and in contemporary Chinese, this expression remains in use. Other parallel examples with the optional preposition yú: ()

以爲不利國故也。(戰縱  章) yǐwéi bù lì guó gù yě think NEG beneficial state cause PART ‘That is why I think that this is not beneficial to the state . . . ’ (ZZJ )

()

利於國。(戰縱  章) lì yú guó beneficial PREP state ‘. . . (and it is) beneficial to the state.’ (ZZJ )

In (), 利國 lì guó ‘to be beneficial to the state’ is found, and in the same chapter of the ZZJ, 利於國 lì yú guó () is seen. Once again the meaning does not depend on the presence or absence of the preposition. However, the verb 利 lì kept the preposition yú and 利於 lì yú became a lexical compound to express ‘to be beneficial’ , even in the modern language. Let us see some examples with the verb 患 huàn ‘to be worried about’: ()

王何患於不得所慾 (戰縱  章) wáng hé huàn yú bù dé suǒ yù king what worry PREP NEG obtain SUO want ‘Why is Your Majesty worried that he cannot get what he wants?’ (ZZJ )



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

()

王何患無天下 (戰縱  章) wáng hé huàn wú tiānxià king what worry NEG world ‘Why is Your Majesty worried that he cannot get all that is under Heaven?’ (ZZJ )

()

君何患無有！(史記. 平原君虞卿列傳) jūn hé huàn wú yǒu you what worry NEG have ‘You will get everything you want. (Why are you afraid of not getting what you want!)’ (SJ )

In these examples, the verb 患 huàn ‘to be worried about’ is used, with or without yú, in the corresponding chapter of the ZZJ, and it seems that the presence or absence of the latter is not distinctive; but in the SJ, the preposition is absent. Obviously, the same structure was preserved without the preposition. In other transmitted classical texts earlier than the SJ, the same thing happens: the verb 患 huàn is used both as a transitive verb and intransitive verb: ()

不患無位, 患所以立。(論語 /) bù huàn wú wèi, huàn suǒ yǐ lì NEG worry NEG position, worry SUO take position ‘Do not worry over not having an official position; worry about what it takes to have one.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&S)

()

二三子何患於喪乎? (論語 /) èr sān zǐ hé huàn yú sàng hū my-students what worry PREP lose PART ‘Why worry over the loss of office, my friends?’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&S)

()

二三子何患乎無君? (孟子 B/) èr sān zǐ hé huàn hū wú jūn my-students what worry PREP NEG lord ‘It will not be difficult for you, my friends, to find another lord.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

Like 善於 shàn yú and 利於 lì yú, 患於 huàn yú also later became a lexical item. These expressions are still used in literary Chinese. Examples with another verb 從 cóng ‘to follow’: ()

天下之從於君也, 如報父子之仇 (戰縱  章) tiānxià zhī cóng yú jūn yě, rú bào fù zǐ zhī chóu world MOD follow PREP you PART, like avenge father son MOD enemy

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



‘People under Heaven follow you in the same way that they want to avenge their fathers or sons.’ (ZZJ ) ()

今從強秦久伐齊, 臣恐其過 (禍) 出於此也 (戰縱  章) jīn cóng qiáng Qín jiǔ fá Qí, chén kǒng qí guò (huò) chū yú cǐ yě today follow powerful Qin long-time beat Qi, I afraid its disaster result from this PART ‘Today you have been following the powerful Qin for a long time in order to beat Qi, I am afraid that disaster will result from this.’ (ZZJ )

()

從彊秦攻韓, 其禍必至於此。(史記. 趙世家) cóng qiáng Qín gōng Hán, qí huò bì zhì yú cǐ follow powerful Qin attack Han, its disaster surely arrive from this ‘(If the state of Zhao) follows the powerful Qin to attack Han, disaster will result from this.’ (SJ )

()

今從於彊秦國之伐齊, 臣恐其禍出於是矣。(戰國策. 趙策 ) jīn cóng yú qiáng Qín guó zhī fá Qí, chén kǒng qí huò chū yú shì yǐ today follow PREP powerful Qin state MOD beat Qi, I afraid its disaster result from this PART ‘Today you are following the powerful Qin in order to beat Qi, I am afraid that disaster will result from this.’ (ZGC, Zhào )

The verb 從 cóng ‘to follow’ behaves in the same way; the use of the preposition yú does not play a key role in the interpretation of the verb. Sometimes the transmitted versions deal in a different way with the preposition yú. Examples () and () appear to employ the same structure, and in the latter, the preposition yú does not occur; the SJ () follows the usage of (), but the ZGC (), the latest text of the three, adds the preposition. These facts suggest that during this period, the use of the preposition yú was not completely on the decline for some verbs, but it did mark the onset of the decline. In the following examples, however, the situation is reversed: the SJ presents exactly the same sentence as the ZZJ, but in the ZGC, the preposition yú is omitted after the verb in the same structure: ()

立三帝以令於天下 (戰縱 ) lì sān dì yǐ lìng yú tiānxià appoint three emperor PREP order in world ‘to set up three emperors in order to command the world.’ (ZZJ )

()

立三帝以令於天下 (史記. 蘇秦列傳) lì sān dì yǐ lìng yú tiānxià appoint three emperor PREP order in world [Translation as example ().] (SJ )



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

()

立為三帝而以令諸侯 (戰國策. 燕策 ) lì wéi sān dì ér yǐ lìng zhū hóu appoint as three emperor and PREP order PL lord ‘to set up three emperors in order to command all lords’ (ZGC, Yān )

In some cases, the preposition yú is not unnecessary. Compare the following examples of the ZZJ with a sentence found in the Mèngzǐ: ()

王告人, 天下之慾傷燕者與群臣之慾害臣者將成之 (戰縱  章) wáng gào rén, tiānxià zhī yù shāng Yān zhě yǔ qún chén zhī yù hài chén zhě jiāng chéng zhī king tell others, world MOD want hurt Yan ZHE and PL subordinate MOD want harm I ZHE will succeed it ‘If Your Majesty let others know that, under Heaven, those who would do harm to Yan and the subordinates who would do harm to me will help it to succeed.’ (ZZJ )

()

勺 (趙) 止臣而它人取齊, 必害於燕。(戰縱  章) Shào (Zhào) zhǐ chén ér tā rén qǔ Qí, bì hài yú Yān Zhao stop I and other man conquer Qi, surely harm PREP Yan ‘The state of Zhao has arrested me, so others (take advantage of this) will conquer Qi, this will be harmful to Yan.’ (ZZJ )

()

曰: “許子奚為不自織?” 曰: “害於耕。 ” (孟子 A/) yuē: “Xǔ Zǐ xī wéi bù zì zhī?” yuē: “hài yú gēng.” say: Xu Zi what reason NEG himself weave? Say: harm PREP farming ‘Why does Hsü Tzu [Xu Zi] not weave it himself?—Because it interferes with his work in the fields.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

For the verb 害 hài, the presence or absence of the preposition yú expresses a slight difference. Without the preposition, the object can be a human being (the verb means ‘to injure, to hurt’) or a state (the verb means ‘to do harm to’); with the preposition, the object is inclined to be abstract and the verb usually means ‘to be harmful to’ . Again the evolution of this verb shows that its transitivity changes according to the meaning: in later texts (even in modern Chinese) when this verb expresses ‘to hurt, to kill someone’ , it remains transitive, and for



Transitive uses are attested in the classics: 不害耕事 (管子. 山國軌) bú hài gēng shì, ‘do not interfer with the work in the fields.’ (Guǎnzǐ, Shānguóguǐ)

 For instance, in the Zuǒzhuàn we find examples such as: 害楚 hài Chǔ ‘to do harm to the state of Chu’ , where the preposition yú is absent.

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



the second meaning ‘to be harmful to’ , hài needs another prepositional phrase or uses an idiomatic expression. Comparing these sentences in which yú is optional, one easily notices that at the earlier stage (third century ), the meaning is not really affected by the presence/absence of the preposition yú. When the semantic features of these verbs are closely examined, it will be seen that almost all of them express a feeling, an impression, or a sense of perception. Let us set up a list of these verbs: 怒 nù ‘to be furious’ , 貴 guì ‘to appreciate’ , 利 lì ‘to be beneficial to’ , 患 huàn ‘to be worried about’ , 從 cóng ‘to follow’ , 善 shàn ‘to be kind to’ , 令 lìng ‘to order’, and 害 hài ‘to hurt, to be harmful’. In short, the degree of transitivity is very weak in these verbs. The action does not have a direct effect on the object. This partially explains why the preposition yú can, in this position, introduce a “direct object” . In the SJ, the preposition yú had gone out of use with some verbs, or had combined with other verbs forming a lexical compound. It has to be noted that in the SJ, the style is sometimes merged. When the author copies the same story, he often takes exactly the same sentences found in previous texts (for example, many passages are completely identical to those written in the Guóyǔ). In this case, it is difficult to judge whether the language at the time the text was written had already changed. If the author systematically changes the structure for the same verbs, one can be sure that the language was undergoing a change. If the use of yú was beginning to change at the period of the SJ, three consequences have to be considered: () some psychverbs, like verbs expressing feelings (syntactically speaking, I will call these verbs pseudo-transitive verbs) dropped the preposition yú; () some other verbs kept this preposition (locative, indirect object) forming a lexical compound; and () some new prepositions began to develop and to take the place of yú—this gave rise to the reorganization of word order. The behaviour of verbs in the ZZJ, SJ, and ZGC suggests that the early Han period was important: the syntax of Chinese was undergoing changes. First of all, the transitivity of some verbs was not fixed, it vacillated between the transitive use, intransitive use (with the help of yú), and causative use; in addition, syntactic devices were on the rise, and the word order was reorganizing itself because of the movement of some prepositions. The weak degree of transitivity of some verbs neutralized the function of the preposition yú, which seems to have been useless for them, and it fell into disuse. This change caused a semantic reinterpretation of the object and a syntactic reanalysis for these pseudo-transitive verbs: the cause of the action became a direct object of the verb, as did the verb’s goal, and the indirect object became direct.  In modern Chinese, there are two manners to express ‘to be harmful to’. () 對 . . . 有害 duì . . . yǒu hài; () 有害於 yǒu hài yú. The second case is somewhat literary language and retains the trace of classical Chinese.



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

Since the Han, the multiple functions of yú were gradually taken over by different prepositions, because the preposition yú had too many meanings to clarify complex relations in syntax. The boom of different prepositions constituted new syntactic devices in Early Middle Chinese. More precisely, OC marked verbs with phonological, morphological, and lexical devices, but since MC, the language sought syntactic devices as a solution. Evidently, the Chinese language needed more specific prepositions in order to compensate for the decreasing use of other devices. ... Discussion in phonological approach Phonologically, these verbs are also interesting. It is easy to notice that most of them have a departing tone. If one adopts the hypothesis of Haudricourt, one can imagine that these verbs took the suffix ∗-s and consequently became verbs with a departing tone. But many problems remain: does this mean that these verbs initially had a non-departing tone and later had two readings? Many scholars put forward that the departing tone of many verbs is secondary. In other words, the non-departing tone is a basic tone. As is known, some verbs like 怒 nù, 惡 wù/è, 好 hǎo/hào, 度 duó/dù already had two readings in the Shījīng. (In the Shījīng, these verbs had a departing tone and a non-departing tone.) But no evidence is found proving that other verbs with a departing tone also had two readings (a departing tone and a non-departing tone). For example: the verbs 愛 ài, 懟 duì, 患 huàn, 善 shàn, etc. have only a departing tone; even other words arranged with them in the same phonetic series do not have other tones, only the departing tone. This means that the departing tone for many verbs may be the basic tone and not a derived tone. If the comparison is extended to other texts, it will be seen that in the Zuǒzhuàn, the transitive verbs which are used with or without the preposition yú also have, in most cases, a departing tone (愛 ài, ‘to love’; 厚 hòu, ‘to be generous’; 惡 wù, ‘to detest’; 讓 ràng, ‘to yield’). In fact, all of these verbs express a feeling, an impression, or an action whose effect on the object is psychological. More precisely, none of them expresses a concrete action, and the degree of transitivity of the verbs is very weak. Here are some examples: ()

衛定公惡孫林父 (左傳. 成公 ) Wèi Dìng gōng wù Sūn Línfù Wei Ding duke detest Sun Linfu ‘The Duke Ding of Wei detests Sun Linfu.’ (ZZ, Chéng ) 

These examples (–) of the ZZ are taken from Hé Lèshì ().

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

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()

衛侯始惡於公叔戌 (左傳. 定公 ) Wèi hóu shǐ wù yú Gōng Shūxū Wei marquis begin detest PREP Gong Shuxu ‘The Marquis Wei began to detest Gong Shuxu.’ (ZZ, Dìng )

()

王而虐之, 是不愛親也 (國語. 周語中) wàng ér nüè zhī, shì bù ài qīn yě make-king and maltreat him, this NEG love relatives PART ‘It you make him be a king and maltreat him, this is the act of not cherishing his relatives.’ (Guóyǔ, Zhōu Zhōng, hereafter: GY)

()

君何愛於臣也 (國語.晉語 ) Jūn hé ài yú chén yě Your–Majesty why love PREP I PART ‘Your Majesty does not need to cherish me.’ (GY, Jìn )

In fact, two phenomena have to be dealt with: () phonologically, the verbs expressing a feeling, a sensation, or “psychological action” often have a departing tone; () syntactically, these verbs can be used as a transitive verb or as an intransitive; the preposition yú is optional. In other words, the use of this preposition is not fixed. For the first point, I notice that many psychverbs have a departing tone, but the discussion is open; for the second point, I show that the degree of transitivity plays a key role in choosing the preposition yú. ... Tentative explanation In OC, the orientation of verbs was assumed by phonological, morphological, and syntactic devices. Evidently, OC is a mixed type of language and not an analytic language as was believed for a long time. I have shown in this section that the period around the Han was a period of transition: different ways of marking relations between agent and patient coexisted. However, phonological and morphological devices were significantly reduced; the word order played a key role in indicating the orientation of verbs in OC. In syntactically marked sentences, the prepositions 於 yú and 于 yú were obviously the most commonly used prepositions and their semantic and syntactic functions were overcharged. Before the Han period (in the later part of the third century ), the graph 於 yú took a dominant position over the graph 于 yú according to our investigations. Some of the functions of the graph 於 yú began to be fixed and some of the others were given to new prepositions. I have noticed that some psychverbs can freely use the preposition 於 yú to introduce an object, and the meaning remains the same for most of these verbs. The verbs which can undergo this operation have a prominent feature:

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Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

their degree of transitivity is very weak; the object is not subjected to any concrete action but only to a psychological effect. Otherwise, these verbs have an evident tendency to have a departing tone. The departing tone is secondary for some of them, but it may be a basic tone for many of them. The uncertain use of the preposition 於 yú of the verbs we have studied proves that some change was occurring. I am inclined to argue that the verbs marked by the preposition 於 yú reflected the reorganization of the word order in OC forced by typological change.

.. Passive voice marking In section ., I mentioned that the position of some verbs in a sentence helps to indicate the verb’s orientation. In this section, my study will focus on the passive voice expressed by the presence/absence of marking. Of course, I will not study the whole history of the passive voice in OC, which would require much more investigation. As I observed in section ., phonological and morphological devices played an important role in indicating voice in OC. In this section, I will only observe the syntactic ways of marking the passive voice in OC; I will especially focus on the fact that the same verb or the same structure can show either the active voice or the passive voice. To use a term created by Chinese researchers, it is 施受同辭 shī shòu tóng cí (using the same words to indicate the active or the passive voice). In my opinion, the shī shòu tóng cí implies two things: using the same verb to express the two opposite voices; or using the same structure to do it. I will study these two ways separately. ... Marking by the same verb In fact, in section ., I have already touched upon this phenomenon (such as some double-oriented verbs, 敗 bài, ‘to defeat’ , 壞 huài, ‘to damage’ , and so on); when the order is VNP, it expresses an active voice, and when the order is NPV (in which the NP is a subject patient), it indicates a passive voice. Here I add another pair of examples: ()

a. 齊、晉又交輔之, 將以害楚 (左傳. 昭公 ) Qí, Jìn yòu jiāo fǔ zhī, jiāng yǐ hài Chǔ Qi Jin moreover together help it, will PREP harm Chu ‘The states of Qi and Jin will help them together, this is harmful to the state of Chu.’ (ZZ, Zhāo, )

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

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b. 晉使不害, 我則必死。(左傳. 宣公 ) Jìn shǐ bù hài, wǒ zé bì sǐ Jin envoy NEG (be-)harm, I then surely die ‘The envoy to Chin [Jin] will suffer no harm, but I am certain to be killed.’ (ZZ, Xuān, , Watson) In (a), the object, which suffers harm, is the patient, and in (b) the subject, who will be harmed, is the patient. In the first case, the verb 害 hài ‘to do harm to’ is used in a frequent way: it usually precedes an object which is a patient, and in (b), the verb hài is used in an unusual way and the subject is the patient. It is the context that indicates this meaning since (b) is composed of two parallel sentences. In the second sentence of the example, the verb 死 sǐ ‘to die’ is seen. The verb sǐ is used intransitively and the subject is a patient; thus the first sentence in (b), in which the verb hài is used, has to be interpreted in a manner symmetric with the second one. Taking symmetric sentences into account to interpret the verb’s orientation is a useful and common means in OC. Numerous verbs which usually are used as transitive verbs indicating an active voice could exceptionally be used intransitively expressing a passive voice. Apart from the verb hài ‘to do harm to’ , other examples such as 殺 shā ‘to kill’ , 弑 shì ‘to kill: an inferior kill a superior’ , 斬 zhǎn ‘to kill’ , 劫 jié ‘to rob, to seize by force’ , and so forth behave in the same way: they usually are used transitively expressing an active voice; but when they are used side by side with other verbs expressing a passive voice, their interpretation changes too: () 秦孝王死, 公孫鞅殺 (戰縱  章) =(b) Qín Xiào wáng sǐ, Gōngsūn Yāng shā Qin Xiao king die, Gongsun Yang kill ‘King Xiao of Qin is dead and Gongsun Yang has been killed (in consequence).’ (ZZJ ) As I have mentioned in section ., the verb 殺 shā ‘to kill’ must in general carry an object, but when it is used parallel to the verb 死 sǐ ‘to die’ , which in most cases is intransitive, the verb shā also changes its initial orientation meaning ‘to kill someone’ into ‘to die, to be killed’ . Now, let us observe some verbs whose properties are not so prominent: their degree of transitivity is not high and their meaning is not necessarily negative. 

In the Hánfēizǐ, we find an example using the verb 死 sǐ ‘to die’ as a transitive verb ‘to kill’: 崔子之徒以戈斲公而死之 Cuīzǐ zhī tú yǐ gē zhuó gōng ér sǐ zhī ‘The men of Cuizi slew down the Duke Zhuang with a dagger-axe, killing him’ (HFZ, ). The verb sǐ ‘to die’ is used transitively indicating a causative meaning ‘make someone die’ .

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Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

These verbs can also express an active voice or a passive voice. Their interpretation depends heavily on the context, but not on the syntax. Observe some pairs of examples: ()

a. 君其試臣, 奚以遽言叱也? (戰國策. 秦策 ) jūn qí shì chén, xī yǐ jù yán chì yě Your-Majesty MP employ I, how take hasty words shout PART ‘Your Majesty employs me, how could he shout at me?’ (ZGC, Qín ) b. 吾不試, 故藝。(論語/) wú bù shì, gù yì I NEG (be-)employ, therefore art ‘It is because I have never been appointed to office that I have learned these many arts.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

The verb 試 shì means ‘to appoint, to assign someone to a post’ . In (a), it is used transitively and the object 臣 chén (‘a minister, a subject’ , here ‘me’) is the patient; in (b), the context and its intransitive use imply that the subject 吾 wú ‘I’ is the patient. The other verb 用 yòng ‘to use, to appoint’ , a synonym of 試 shì, has a similar behaviour: ()

a. 故用祝弗, 即天下之理也。(戰國策. 東周策) gù yòng Zhù Fú, jí tiānxià zhī lǐ yě therefore use Zhu Fu, then world MOD reason PART ‘That is why if you adopt Zhu Fu’s proposition, it will be the will of Heaven.’ (ZGC, Dōng Zhōucè) b. 臣用, 將多望於臣。(戰縱  章) chén yòng, jiāng duō wàng yú chén I (be-)use, will many expect PREP I ‘If I am appointed as an officer, (they) will count heavily on me. ’ (ZZJ )

The verbs as 試 shì, 用 yòng, 信 xìn (cf. example  for 信 xìn in section .) do not have two readings, but given the context, their orientation is expressed clearly. In other words, the voice of sentences is marked neither by phonological means, nor by syntactic ones. Now, let us observe some verbs which have two readings, where their subject can be either an agent or a causer. It is the context which indicates grammatical relations. The verb 食 shí has two readings in OC: it means ‘to eat’ with a non-departing tone and ‘to feed’ with a departing tone. In both cases, the subject is an agent, but in the second case, the causative meaning is implied. Like some

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



double-oriented verbs which possess phonological means, the verb 食 shí can also clarify its orientation with context: ()

a. 君子食無求飽 (論語 /) jūnzǐ shí wú qiú bǎo exemplary-person eat NEG require full ‘In eating, exemplary persons ( junzi 君子) do not look for a full stomach.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R) b. 吾豈匏瓜也哉? 焉能繫而不食? (論語 /) wú qǐ páoguā yě zaī? Yān néng xì ér bù shí I how gourd PART PART? PART can (be-)string and NEG eat ‘Am I just some kind of gourd? How can I allow myself to be strung up on the wall and not be eaten?’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

In (a and b), the verb 食 shí keeps the same tone and both of them are used intransitively, however the context indicates that in (a) the subject 君子jūnzǐ ‘exemplary person’ is an agent and the verb means ‘to eat’; in (b) the subject patient (of the second sentence) 匏瓜 páoguā ‘a gourd’ is omitted—the same verb means ‘to be eaten’ . The verb 養 yǎng also has two readings (it means ‘to bring up children’ with a non-departing tone and ‘to provide for parents’ with a departing tone, see the Jīngdiăn shìwén, [], p. , b–), but as other verbs, the context is important to indicate different voices: ()

a. 其養民也惠 . . . (論語 /) qí yǎng mín yě huì he support people PART generous ‘. . . he was generous in attending to the needs of the common people . . . ’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

=() b. 出妻屏子, 終身不養焉。(孟子 /) chù qῑ bǐng zǐ, zhōng shēn bù yǎng/yàng yān send-away wife leave son, whole life NEG (be-)look-after PART ‘(Therefore) he sent his wife and sons away and refused to allow them to look after him.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau) In these two sentences, again, the context indicates their orientation: in (a), the verb 養 yǎng marks an active voice but in (b) a passive voice. It is easy to notice that in OC, shī shòu tóng cí (using the same words expressing the active or the passive voice) refers to the same verbs indicating different voices. The verb 惡 è/wù is interesting: it has two readings in OC (even in contemporary Chinese). When it is used intransitively, it means ‘to be evil’; when it is



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

used transitively, it means ‘to detest someone’. I find some examples in which the transitive use can either express an active voice ‘to detest’ or a passive voice ‘to be detested’: .

() a. 莒於是乎大惡其君。(左傳. 昭公 ) Jǔ yúshìhū dà wù qí jūn Ju then much detest their ruler ‘The senior officers of the state of Ju detest very much their ruler.’ (ZZ, Zhāo ) b. 申舟以孟諸之役惡宋。(左傳. 宣公 ) Shēn Zhōu yǐ Mèng Zhū zhī yì wù Sòng Shen Zhou cause Meng Zhu MOD battle detest Song ‘Shen Chou [Zhou] knew that he was hated in Sung [Song] because of the part he had played at Meng-chu [zhu].’ (ZZ, Xuān , Watson) Without context, “惡 wù+O” is generally understood as ‘to detest somebody’; as in (a); it is used “normally” to express ‘to detest’ , but in (b), the context tells us that it must be interpreted as ‘to be detested in the state of Song’ . ... Marking by the same structure Now let us observe how the same structure can indicate opposite voices in OC. Of course I do not mean that in OC, no lexical or syntactic indicators existed to signal voice. Generally speaking, the following words are seen as lexical or syntactic indicators that mark voice such as 可 kě+V ‘to be V+able’ , 足 zú+V ‘to be sufficient’ , 難 nán+V ‘to be difficult’ , 易 yì+V ‘to be easy’ as Cikoski () pointed out. I take them as “marks of the orientation of verbs” . This is because with this marking, the sentences can be seen as passive sentences or as sentences with orientation towards the subject. Though they certainly do not always express a passive meaning, they can be taken as a passive indicator in most cases. Let us compare these examples: () a. 今有殺人者, 或問之曰, “人可殺與?” (孟子 B/) jīn yǒu shā rén zhě, huò wèn zhī yuē, “rén kě shā yú?” today there-is kill man ZHE, someone ask him say, man able kill PART ‘Suppose a man killed another, and someone were to ask, “Is it all right to kill the killer?” ’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)  

Cikoski () called them “ergative verbs”. 姚振武 Yáo Zhènwǔ () does not agree with the passive interpretation of these verbs.

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

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b. 孰可以殺之? (孟子 B/) shú kěyǐ shā zhī who can kill him ‘Who has the right to kill him?’ (Ibid.) In (a), 可殺 kě shā means ‘can be killed’; in (b) 可以殺 kěyǐ shā means ‘can kill’ . The contrast between 可 kě and 可以 kěyǐ is obvious: the first case expresses a passive voice since the verb’s orientation is towards the subject 人 rén (here the ‘killer’), and the second one indicates an active voice because the verb’s orientation is towards the object pronoun 之 zhī. However when the verb is in the structure “kě+V” and has an object, the orientation of kě changes: kě behaves like other auxiliary verbs. Concretely, in “kě+V+O”, kě is a synonym of 能 néng and 可以 kěyǐ ‘to be able to do something’: ()

(犬馬) 旦暮罄於前不可類之 . . . (韓非子. 外儲說左上) (quǎn mǎ) dàn mù qìng yú qián bù kě lèi zhī (dog horse) morning night (be-)show PREP ahead NEG able copy them ‘(Dogs and horses) from morning to night are in the sight of men, so it is impossible to copy them.’ (HFZ, Wàichǔshuō zuǒshàng)

In this example, kě does not play the role of a passive voice indicator. This means that complex sentences can change the orientation of a verb that, in simpler situations, is used to indicate another orientation. For 足 zú, 難 nán, and 易 yì, similar cases can be found. In section ., the preposition yú was studied and it is clear that its multiple functions prevent it from being efficient to indicate the orientation of verbs. Indeed, it can introduce an agent and also a patient in some cases. The same structure can express opposite voices: ()

a. 初, 王姚嬖於莊王 . . . (左傳. 莊公 ) chū, Wáng Yáo bì yú Zhuāng wáng beginning, Wang Yao (be-)favour by Zhuang king ‘At the beginning, Wang Yao was favoured by the King Zhuang . . . ’ (ZZ, Zhuāng ) b. (帝紂) 嬖於婦人。(史記. 殷本紀) (Dì Zhòu) bì yú fùrén

 Kě and néng form a pair of markers of verb orientation in OC: the orientation of the former is towards the subject ‘to be subjected to do’ and that of the latter is towards the object ‘to be able to do something’ . In contemporary Chinese however they are merged. Cf. Wáng Lì ().  Examples (a) and (b) are taken from 向光忠 Xiàng Guāngzhōng (handout, th International Conference on Classical Chinese Grammar, – August , Vancouver).



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese (emperor Zhou) favour PREP women ‘(The Emperor Zhou) favours women.’ (SJ )

It is clear that in (a) 嬖於 bì yú expresses a passive voice while in (b) the same structure indicates an active voice. Even in contemporary Chinese dictionaries, the character 嬖 bì keeps two opposite orientations: () to favour someone, () to be favoured. The following sentences are cited by 姚振武 Yáo Zhènwǔ (): () a. 信人, 則製於人。(韓非子. 備内) xìn rén, zé zhì yú rén trust others, then control by others ‘If he (the ruler) trusts others, he will be controlled by others.’ (HFZ, Bèinèi) b. 夫製於燕者, 蘇子也。(戰國策. 燕策 ) fú zhì yú Yān zhě, Sūzǐ yě MP control PREP Yan ZHE, Su Zi PART ‘The person who will control the state of Yan is Su Zi.’ (ZGC, Yān ) In (a), 製於 zhì yú expresses a passive voice ‘to be controlled’ , while in (b) the same structure changes its orientation and the sentence is in an active voice ‘to control’ . These pairs of examples, () and (), show that in OC the same structure can indicate opposite voices. In other words, the preposition yú does not play any role in indicating the voice. These examples and different interpretations demonstrate that the preposition yú is not appropriate to express diatheses. One understands that the orientation of verbs depends, in fact, on the lexical properties of a verb or on contexts, but not on the preposition yú. Apart from the structure with yú which indicates opposite voices, the following structures such as 為 wéi+V and 見 jiàn+V, which are supposed to mark the passive voice, can also cause possible confusions. In other words, they are also capable of indicating an active voice or a passive voice. Let us examine some examples cited by Yáo Zhènwǔ (): () a. 弗勝為笑 (左傳. 襄公) fú shèng wéi xiào NEG win PASS laugh ‘If we do not win the battle, we will be laughed at by others.’ (ZZ, Xiāng )



As I have mentioned, the preposition yú marks a slight difference in some pairs of uses.

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

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b. 趙為號, 秦為笑。(史記. 趙世家) Zhào wéi hào, Qín wéi xiào Zhao be cry, Qin be laugh ‘The state of Zhao cries while the state of Qin laughs.’ (SJ ) Yáo Zhènwǔ () is right to point out that the passive meaning is derived from the same structure 為 wéi+V. In (), 為笑 wéi xiào traditionally is interpreted as “to be laughed at”. If it is more closely examined, 為笑 wéi xiào in fact can have two meanings: ‘to be a laughing stock’ or ‘to be laughed at’. In the first case, 為 wéi plays the role of a copula. In the second case, 為 wéi can indicate a passive meaning. Actually, the function of passive marking of 為 wéi originated in this structure. This phenomenon is very common in the process of grammaticalization: at first, one word has the function of A, and later on, it has both functions A and B, and finally, it gets the function of B. In (a) 為笑 wéi xiào exactly presents the second phase of grammaticalization; therefore, two interpretations are possible and the unique passive meaning is an intuition from the view of contemporary Chinese. With this analysis, people better understand why in (b), the same structure (X 為 wéi Y) has nothing to do with the passive voice (it means something like ‘to be’) owing to the context (the parallel sentences also help interpret the voice). When an NP is introduced between wéi and V, the structure 為笑 wéi xiào becomes 為 wéi+NP+笑 xiào; in this case, the agent represented by the NP is introduced and marked by wéi indicating explicitly the passive voice: () 幾為之笑而不陵我? (左傳. 昭公 ) jǐ wéi zhī xiào ér bù líng wǒ possible PASS him laugh and NEG lord-over us ‘Can they laugh at us without lording over us?’ (ZZ, Zhāo ) () 兵為秦禽, 智為楚笑。(戰國策.韓策 ) bīng wéi Qín qín, zhì wéi Chǔ xiào soldier PASS Qin capture, wisdom PASS Chu laugh ‘The soldiers were captured by those of Qin and their foolishness is ridiculed by the Chu.’ (ZGC. Hán ) In the above sentences, 為 wéi introduces an agent (之 zhī, a pronoun object in ; 楚 chǔ, a full NP in ), and the sentences must be read as passive 

Another example: 修正為笑, 至忠為賊 (荀子. 修身) xiū zhèng wéi xiào, zhì zhōng wéi zéi ‘The nobility is subjected to ridicule and loyalty is “understood as” treachery/craftiness.’ (Xúnzǐ, Xiūshēn)

Here again, the same structure 為笑 wéi xiào ‘to be the laughing stock or to be subjected to ridicule’ offers two possible interpretations of the voice, an active one or a passive one.



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

sentences—the active interpretation is impossible. The sentence as 為諸侯笑 wéi zhū hóu xiào ‘to be laughed at by other lords’ is seen numerous times in the classics (for example in the Zuǒzhuàn, Guóyǔ, Hánfēizǐ, and so on). In the Guóyǔ, however, another similar structure is attested, 以爲笑 yǐ wéi xiào: () 殺無罪以爲諸侯笑 (國語. 晉語 ) shā wú zuì yǐ wéi zhū hóu xiào kill NEG guilt cause PASS PL lord laugh ‘to kill an innocent person (Shen Sheng) and to be laughed at by other lords.’ (GY, Jìn  ) In (), the meaning of the structure 以爲諸侯笑 yǐ wéi zhū hóu xiào is almost the same as 為諸侯笑 wéi zhū hoú xiào; both of them mark passive voice. But the first one (with yǐ ) is much less common than the second (without yǐ ). Actually the first one can be taken as a variant form of the second. Anyway, without the presence of an NP between wéi and the verb, the confusion can happen. Let us compare the following examples with X+之 zhī+V; 之 zhī is a structure particle that nominalizes the V, turning it into a head noun, so that X is a modifier : () 子之誅, 軍旅之事也 (國語. 晉語 ) zǐ zhī zhū, jūnlǚ zhī shì yě you MOD blame, military MOD matter PART ‘Your blaming is a military matter . . . ’ (GY, Jìn ) () 君為婦人之笑辱也 (左傳.成公 ) jūn wéi fùrén zhī xiào rǔ yě Your Majesty PASS woman MOD laugh humiliate PART ‘Your Majesty is humiliated by the laughter of the woman . . . ’ (ZZ, Chéng ) () 由此觀之, 王之蔽甚矣。(戰國策. 齊策 ) yóu cǐ guān zhī, wáng zhī bì shèn yǐ from this observe it, king MOD deceive extreme PART ‘From this point of view, Your Majesty is greatly deceived.’ (ZZC, Qí ) In the above examples, the verbs 誅 zhū ‘to blame’ , 笑 xiào ‘to laugh’ , and 蔽 bì ‘to deceive’ in the structure [X+之 zhī+V]NP separately indicate different orientations. In () and (), the verbs 誅 zhū, 笑 xiào point towards an active voice, with X as the subject agent, while in (), the verb 蔽 bì indicates a passive voice with X as the subject patient. Obviously, the particle zhī does not play any role in indicating the voice; it is again the context which plays a key role in interpreting the orientation of a verb.

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



Take the verb 笑 xiào as an example for analysing the indication of voice: ● ●

●

X 笑 xiào Y (active voice: X laughs at Y) X 為笑 wéi xiào (active voice or passive voice: laughing of X as in (b) or X is subject to be laughed at as in (a)) X 為 wéi Y 笑 xiào (passive voice, X is laughed at by Y as in () and ())

It is obvious that the structure “X 為笑 wéi xiào” can express opposite voices. With the examples given above, one understands why the structure “X 為笑 wéi xiào” was later rejected by the Chinese language. During the Han, the structure 為 wéi+NP+所 suǒ+V developed. The reason for this innovation is evident: with the presence of an NP (overtly marked agent) and the particle 所 suǒ, ambiguities are avoided; this structure remained one of the passive structures in later Chinese. Let us observe another structure, 見 jiàn+V, which also causes confusion concerning voice. The following examples are cited by Cikoski (): () a. 為國家者, 見惡如農夫之務去草焉 (左傳. 隱公 ) wéi guójiā zhě, jiàn è rú nóngfū zhī wù qù cǎo yān run state ZHE, see evil like farmer MOD must clear-away weed PART ‘One who runs a state or household, when he sees evil, should be as a farmer resolved to clear away weeds.’ (ZZ, Yǐn , Cikoski) b. 進不見惡 (左傳.哀公 ) jìn bù jiàn wù advance NEG PASS detest ‘When he (Shi An) advanced, he was not disliked.’ (ZZ, Āi , Cikoski) In these two examples, 見惡 jiàn è/wù expresses two different voices: in (a), the expression indicates an active voice ‘to see evil’ and in (b), it expresses a passive voice ‘to be seen as detested’ . Since this graph has two readings (惡∗ ak>ak>è, ‘to be evil’; 惡∗aks>uH>wù, ‘to detest’), logically the confusion about voices does not exist for these sentences. This suggests that the graph 見 jiàn does not mark voice. Moreover, the confusion is possible for other verbs without two readings, for example, 見 jiàn is attested in different combinations in the classics: 見賢 jiàn xián ‘to see competence in someone’ , 見苦 jiàn kǔ ‘to see suffering’ , 見伐 jiàn fá ‘to be attacked’ , 見疑 jiàn yí ‘to be doubted’ , etc. Wèi Péiquán () and Yáo Zhènwǔ () point out with reason that the structure jiàn+V cannot always indicate a passive voice.  X 之笑 zhī xiào in general expresses an active voice: laughing at X. But other verbs seen in the same structure can express a passive meaning, as example ().



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

To sum up, in previous literature, some researchers take the structures V 於 yú, 為 wéi V, 見 jiàn V as passive structures, while others do not agree with them. With the examples cited in this section, I conclude that these structures can either indicate an active voice or a passive voice. For this reason, using the same structure to indicate the two voices is defective and inefficient. Since such structures cause confusion, they fell into disuse and gave way to others which are more consistent. ... The rise of passive structures Now one can understand why the passive structure with 被 bèi was the winner in the selection: it is impossible with this structure to cause confusion about voice. In general, researchers consider the earliest structures with bèi to be found in pre-Qin texts. According to the statistics of Yáo (), there are seven sentences in the 韓非子 Hánfēizǐ using the verb bèi to express ‘to suffer from’ . Let us look at one example cited by 王力 Wáng Lì: () 今兄弟被侵 . . . (韓非子. 五蠹) jīn xiōngdì bèi qīn . . . today brothers suffer humiliate ‘Today brothers are humiliated . . . ’ (HFZ, Wǔdù) In this sentence, the verb bèi precedes another one. The structure with bèi V became a dominant passive structure after the Han. In the Shǐjì, all of the structures observed in section .. coexist with the passive structure with bèi. The following examples are taken from the same chapter of the Shǐjì: () 内惑於鄭袖, 外欺於張儀 (史記. 屈原賈生列傳) . . . nèi huò yú Zhèng Xiù, wài qī yú Zhāng Yí inside mislead by Zheng Xiu, outside deceive by Zhang Yi ‘(The ruler of Chu) is crazy about Zheng Xiu inside the country and is taken advantage of by Zhang Yi outside the country.’ (SJ ) () 身客死於秦, 為天下笑。(同上) shēn kè sǐ yú Qín, wéi tiānxià xiào body stranger die at Qin, PASS world laugh ‘(The ruler of Chu) is dead in a foreign country, the state of Qin, and is laughed at by other states.’ (Ibid.) () 信而見疑, 忠而被謗 (同上) xìn ér jiàn yí, zhōng ér bèi bàng honest and see doubt, devote and suffer slander ‘Honest persons are doubted; devoted men are slandered.’ (Ibid.) () 其後楚日以削, 數十年竟為秦所滅。(同上) qíhòu Chǔ rìyǐ xiāo, shù-shí nián jìng wéi Qín suǒ miè

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



after Chu more-and-more weaken, many year in-the-end PASS Qin SUO wipe-out ‘Afterwards the state of Chu is more and more weakened and finally is wiped out by the state of Qin.’ (Ibid.) The coexistence of these structures, V+於 yú (), 為 wéi+NP+V (), 見 jiàn+V (), 被 bèi+V (), 為 wéi+NP+所 suǒ+V (), shows us that during the period when the Shǐjì was written, none of these structures took the dominant position. If not, one can hardly explain why these structures cooccurred in the same chapter of the Shǐjì but are not found in the same text at an earlier period. Among these structures, only the last two survived and developed into marked structures of the passive voice. It is well known that 被 bèi(+NP)+V later gave rise to another structure 被 bèi+NP+所 suǒ+V, a structure similar to 為 wéi+NP+所 suǒ+V. Actually, all the surviving structures share some common properties: the agent must be preverbal and introduced by an element, which was later grammaticalized into a passive marker. The eliminated structure has an agent after the verb and can indicate two opposite orientations: active voice and passive voice. This means that in Chinese word order, the postverbal position is no longer appropriate for marking the agent. In other words, in a passive structure, the patient and agent both have to be preverbal and the agent has to be marked. The postverbal position is reserved for other elements: resultative verb, aspectual particle, duration, location (some of them), and so on. I will develop that point of view in Chapter . The examples from the same chapter of the Shǐjì suggest that during the Han, the word order in Chinese underwent some important changes. Different phrases were in continuous movement in syntax and their adjustments were ceaseless. In short, since the postverbal position would be occupied by many new elements, the word order in Chinese had to reorganize peripheral elements such as locations, complements, and so on. Take the example of the structure V+於 yú; the preposition can introduce () a cause, () a location, () an agent, () a patient, () an argument of a comparative structure, () an object, or () an indirect object. The structure 見 jiàn+V is much simpler: it expresses () ‘to see’ , () ‘to be seen doing something’ , () ‘to see someone doing something’ , () ‘to see someone suffering from something’ . The structure 為 wéi+V can indicate () ‘to be done by’ , () ‘to be’ . It is evident that these structures had to be excluded from expressing the passive voice. Only the structure 被 bèi+V offered one meaning: ‘to suffer from something’ . Another factor which enabled the passive structure with bèi to develop is the abundant translation of Buddhist texts during the Han. As Zhū Qìngzhī () points out, in translated Buddhist texts, there are various passive structures which



Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese

are clearly more numerous than in the earlier excavated texts. It is easy to conclude that this is due to the influence of Sanskrit used in the original Buddhist texts. The fact that the translations had to use more passive structures favoured the selection of the passive structure with bèi since it is the simplest and least ambiguous in indicating the passive voice. The particle suǒ made the structure wéi+NP+V survive: it helped to avoid possible confusion in expressing voice. For the passive structure with bèi, this particle reinforced the meaning of the passive voice, and so confusion was less likely. With the particle suǒ, these structures become ideal candidates for expressing the passive voice.

.. Conclusion In this chapter, I showed how the orientation of verbs in OC (specifically late OC) was marked. I argued that OC represents a mixed language type in which different devices were used to express syntactic relations. I observed phonological and morphological devices, and specifically studied syntactic devices. In late OC, phonological devices were on the decline and the few traces remaining were hidden in poems and phonetic series or noted in rhyme dictionaries. In contrast to the decline of phonological devices, syntactic devices developed significantly and became dominant. In classical texts, especially in excavated texts, I find numerous examples in which the change of the verb position marks different relations between the agent and the patient. It is clear that at least three situations are possible: () Verbs which have two readings in OC. Alternation between voiced and voiceless initials, and tone change (a nondeparting tone changes into a departing tone) help this type of verb indicate the verb’s orientation. Some of these verbs can use these phonological and morphological changes or word order to mark it. My study focusses on these verbs, which are less studied. () Verbs which show no phonological change; their dominant use is single oriented. These verbs require some semantic features and form a special group. () Many verbs have neither two readings nor significant word order; this is partly due to their complex syntactic environment. Only the context tells us the verb’s orientation. In OC, the verbs with two readings gradually disappeared and the other verbs where the orientation was based on syntactic means greatly developed. Ultimately, the verb’s marking in OC was decidedly dependent on the word order and other semantic and syntactic devices. The preposition 於/于 yú was closely examined: I have shown that a lexical change took place before the Han period in the light of documents found from archaeological excavations. A comparison between a verb using the preposition

Orientation of Verbs in Old Chinese



yú and the same verb without this preposition was made. I believe that some verbs’ status was not fixed and the transitive use vs. intransitive use was in competition. In observing different ways of indicating passive voice, I note that the structures which did not survive are those which cause possible confusion. Only the passive structure with 被 bèi remains, and the particle 所 suǒ reinforces the passivity. For the same reason, one of the most ancient structures, 為 wéi+NP+所 suǒ+V, is still seen today in formal texts. In conclusion, all of these phenomena are the result of a reorganization of word order forced by the typological change that took place in late OC.

3 Causative Structures in Old Chinese .. Introduction Different linguists would give different lists of what they consider to be causative verbs. In my study, I limit the causative verbs to 使 shǐ ‘cause to do’ , 令 lìng ‘order to do’ , 教/叫 jiào ‘ask to do’ , and 讓 ràng ‘ask to do, let do’ . 使 shǐ and 令 lìng are attested in Old Chinese (OC) while 叫 jiào and 讓 ràng are seen in Late Middle Chinese and Modern Chinese. These four causative verbs can be used in the structure “NP+V+NP+V” in which V can be any of the four verbs mentioned above. The causative structure “NP+shǐ/lìng(+NP)+V” is actually one of the rare syntactically marked structures in OC. Other devices which were semantically parallel to syntactic causative structures were also employed; these phonological, morphological, and lexical devices indicated grammatical relations between different elements. It is well known that resultative compounds, 把 bǎ and 被 bèi constructions, are new structures in Chinese. The question is why they were not needed in OC. One of the most important relations in language is the agent–patient relation. In OC, syntactic causative structures and other devices were merely specific instances marking the agent–patient relationship in OC. In modern Chinese, new structures such as resultative compounds or 把 bǎ and 被 bèi constructions help to make up, at the syntactic level, for the loss of phonological and morphological devices. In this chapter, the relations between causative structures and these new constructions will be shown. They are actually closely connected to one another. Contemporary Chinese syntactically marks the noun (agent or patient) while OC phonologically and lexically marked the verb. The latter process was quite common in the classics (fifth to third centuries ).  The graph 教 jiào is older than 叫 jiào. They are merged in Modern Chinese. The latter will be used in this section to facilitate explications.  Its causative use is attested very late, see 江藍生 Jiāng Lánshēng ().

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



.. Coexistence of different devices in OC In OC, the causative was generally expressed by phonological and lexical devices as well as by syntactic structures (the causative structure). Phonological and lexical devices are attested in most cases. Sometimes the verbs are marked by such devices, but sometimes they are not. By “marked” is meant that the causative meaning can be expressed by phonological change (alternation of voiced and non-voiced initials, change of vowels or tones) or by morphological change (addition of affixes). In other cases, the causative meaning is interpreted because an intransitive verb is used, or an adjective or a noun is used as a transitive verb. In this kind of structure, the causative meaning is identified by the context. Causatives marked by phonological change and affixation will be called “phonological and morphological causatives”, and causatives expressed by the use of different categories of words, “lexical causatives”. In OC these two types of causatives were common. But a third type of causative also existed: the “syntactic causative” (NP+shǐ/lìng(+NP)+V). This is one of the rare cases in which OC used a syntactic device. In sum, these three causatives can be considered as essential causative structures in OC. They will be compared in the following sections. In typological terms, OC presents a language in which different devices coexisted. The different types of causatives mentioned above illustrate this phenomenon. The phonological/morphological, lexical, and syntactic causatives will be examined, and examples given. ... Phonological and morphological causatives in OC There have been numerous discussions of these types of causative. Some scholars have proposed analyses that are consistent with OC data. They suggest that prefixes and suffixes, and even a few infixes, bore the causative function in OC. Maspéro () was one of the first people to identify prefixes in OC. Since phonological change is closely related to morphological change, I will treat these devices together and present some examples generally accepted by scholars. The prefix ∗s() a. 吏∗br
s > liH > lì ‘officer’ b. 使∗bsr
 > sriX > shǐ ‘to cause, to send’ 

These terms are taken from Matisoff (). See Pulleyblank (), Méi Zǔlín (), Sagart (), and Baxter and Sagart () among others.  The OC reconstruction system is taken from Sagart (). 

 ()

Causative Structures in Old Chinese a. 順∗bmluns > zywinH > shùn ‘obedient’ b. 馴∗bsluns > zjwinH > xùn ‘to make (a horse) obedient’

()

a. 食∗bml
k > zyik>shí ‘to eat’ b. 食∗bsl
ks > ziH>sì ‘to feed’

In these examples, it is clear that the function of the prefix ∗s- is to indicate the causative function. It means ‘make someone do something’ or ‘to cause somebody to do something’ . The functions of the prefix ∗s- have been discussed by many researchers and all of them agree. As Sagart points out (: ), the prefix ∗m- verbs “express controlled actions by volitional agents” . Some ∗m- verbs and ∗s- verbs are only formed with certain pairs of verbs: ∗m- verbs express the action of the subject of a sentence, while ∗s-verbs indicate the action of the object of a sentence (the subject makes the object do something). Thus the first type is called “autonomous verbs” and the second type “causative verbs”. This pair of oppositions is well known in Tibetan. This concept was borrowed and introduced from Tibetan into Chinese by 馬慶株 Mǎ Qìngzhū () and has been generally accepted by Chinese linguists. The infix ∗-rPulleyblank () was the first to recognize the causative function of the infix ∗-r-. Sagart () later continued his work in this direction. Here are two well-known examples from Pulleyblank: ()

a. 至∗ btiks>tsyiH>zhì ‘to arrive’ b. 致∗ btriks>trijH>zhì ‘to transmit, to make arrive’

()

a. 出∗ btkhut>tsyhwit>chū ‘to get out’ b. 黜∗ btrkhut>trhwit>chù ‘to expel’

In most cases in OC, 至 zhì means ‘to arrive’ and is related to the subject (or agent), while 致 zhì expresses ‘to arrive’ and is only linked with the object; this is why the meaning is ‘to make arrive’ . In the Mèngzǐ, the contrast between the two graphs is clear: ()



千歲之日至, 可坐而致也。(孟子 B/) qiān suì zhī rì zhì, kě zuò ér zhì yě

Maspéro (), Pulleyblank (), Méi Zǔlín (), among others. In Xu Dan (), the author proposes that, in a few examples, the alternation between the prefix ∗m- and the prefix ∗s- in OC is evident.  See 徐通鏘 Xú Tōngqiāng (), among others.  The reconstruction of examples () and () is Sagart’s; those seen in Baxter () are different. 

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



thousand year MOD day arrive, can sit and make-arrive PART ‘One can calculate the solstices of a thousand years hence without stirring from one’s seat.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau) In the translation, it is difficult to see the difference between 至 zhì and 致 zhì; but in combination with 日至 rìzhì ‘solstices’ , the graph 至 zhì means ‘to arrive’ and 致 zhì literally means ‘to make the solstices arrive’ (to calculate). The difference between the two characters in the period of Mencius (fourth century ) is evident. However, the difference between 至 zhì and 致 zhì has been neutralized since the Western Han (– ). We can at least assume that the two graphs were confused in transmitted documents. Below are examples drawn from the Shǐjì. In (), the difference between the two graphs is clear, but in (a) and (b) it disappears: ()

不至十日, 而兩將之頭可致於戲[麾]下 (史記. 淮陰侯列傳) bù zhì shí rì, ér liǎng jiàng zhī tóu kě zhì yú huī xià NEG arrive ten day, and two commander MOD head can make-arrive PREP flag under ‘I will take the heads of the two commanders down to your flag before ten days. ’ (SJ )

()

a. . . . 至食客三千人。(史記. 呂不韋列傳) zhì shíkè sān qiān rén (make-)arrive scholar-supported-by-a-lord three thousand person ‘(He) makes , people come.’ (SJ ) b. . . . 致食客三千人。(史記. 魏公子列傳) zhì shíkè sān qiān rén (make-)arrive scholar-supported-by-a-lord three thousand person ‘(He) makes , people come.’ (SJ )

The sentences of (a) and (b) are found in two chapters of the Shǐjì, and the meaning is obviously the same despite the different choice of character. In (a) and (b), the graphs 至 zhì and 致 zhì express the same meaning ‘to make arrive’ , ‘to attract’ . The morphological causative had fallen into disuse in OC, and the use of the lexical causative use began to decline in the Han. The causative use of 致 zhì progressively disappeared and became confused with 至 zhì. Alternations of ∗-ø- and ∗-j- Benedict (, cited by Matisoff : ) explains an interesting phonological phenomenon in Lepcha (a language belonging to the Tibeto-Burman  

At least the trace of the morphological device remains in a transmitted version. Phonologists transliterate “yod” as “y” or “j” .



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

family): “the old ∗s- prefix disappeared after palatalizing the root-initial, yielding verb pairs like the following”: () a. nak ‘be straight’

b. nyak ‘make straight’

()

a. thor ‘escape, get free’ b. thyor ‘let go, set free, release’

()

a. rop ‘stick, adhere’

b. ryop ‘affix something, attach something’

This observation helps us to understand the origin of ‘-j-’ in Chinese, which has stimulated debate for decades. Yakhontov () put forward the view that “yod” in OC came from a voiced prefix ∗d-. Ferlus () proposes a different point of view on the basis of Austroasiatic languages. The palatalization process that Benedict mentioned is not surprising in OC. Many scholars have already remarked the alternation between ∗-ø- and ∗-j(Baxter and Sagart ): ()

a. 入∗n-j-up > nyip > rù ‘to enter’ b. 納、内∗nup > nop > nà ‘to send in’

()

a. 集∗dz-j-up > dzip > jí ‘collect, assemble’ b. 雜∗dzup > dzop > zá ‘mixed, miscellaneous’

()

a. 若∗n-j-ak > nyak > ruò ‘thus, like this’ b. 諾∗nak > nak > nuò ‘to agree’

It is evident that the characters in examples (b) are secondary and are created by adding an element to the graphs of (a). It is surprising to see that, for this kind of character in OC, the process is the inverse with respect to Lepcha and other languages, in which the causative function is borne by affixation. From examples () to (), the palatalization process is not secondary; the presence of ∗-ø- (or the absence of “yod”) indicates the causative function while the presence of “yod” in a word does not. I suggest that, in the above pairs of examples, example (b) can be retranslated as ‘to make enter’ , example (b) as ‘to make assemble’ , and finally example (b) as ‘to make similar’ . Perhaps the words with “yod” did have a prefix which had palatalized the word and disappeared at a later period. Is it possible that a blind phonetic process is involved  To facilitate the explanation, I cite examples (a), (a), and (a) from an article by Baxter and Sagart (), who explicitly put in the -j-. In fact, the words containing a “yod” belong to the category “b” noted by “∗b” in OC and fall into Division III in MC. See also n.  of Chapter .  In most cases, graphs with complex forms were created later than those with fewer strokes, but some exceptions exist.  There are examples in Sūn Hóngkāi (). According to his investigations, the prefix “s-” indicates the causative meaning in Dulong: kai ‘to eat’/s kai ‘to make eat’; the prefix “s-” marks the causative in Tibetan: ri ‘long’ /sri ‘to lengthen’; the infix “-s-” indicates the causative meaning in Jiarong: kaza ‘to eat’/kasza ‘to make eat’; and finally, the suffix “-s” plays the same role in Limbu: tum ‘to meet’/tums ‘to make meet’ , etc.

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



here? Perhaps it was a pre-initial which provoked metathesis in these words. Whatever the answer, it is difficult to explain why in other Tibeto-Burman languages, the causative use is a marked form. In these languages, an affix or a grammatical word is added to a verb to express a causative meaning; that is, the causative form is always more “complex” than the non-causative form. Among sixteen ways of expressing the causative in Tibeto-Burman languages listed by 孫宏開 Sūn Hóngkāi (), thirteen use affixes, two are expressed by the alternation between initials, and one by an ablaut. The function of “yod” in OC is still a topic of debate for researchers, because it is difficult to establish a unified explanation for this problem. More research is needed. The suffix *-s The causative function of the suffix ∗-s has been well known by scholars for some time. In fact, it can be treated as a phonological problem, and also considered as a morphological item if Haudricourt’s (a, b) hypothesis is adopted. According to him, the departing tone is derived from the suffix ∗-s, a suffix that can be added to any final. Today scholars agree that the suffix ∗-s could change one grammatical function into another (noun or adjective into verb, or vice versa). In some cases it even indicates the causative function: ()

a. 遠∗bwan>hjwonX>yuǎn ‘distant’ b. 遠∗bwans>hjwonH>yuàn ‘to distance from’

()

a. 王∗bwa>hjwang>wáng ‘king’ b. 王∗bwas>hjwangH>wàng ‘to make somebody king’

In the above examples, it is clear that a phonological problem can be converted into a morphological one and vice versa. The morphological and phonological causative was one of the most used devices in OC. But around the Han, except the development of the departing tone which was derived from the suffix ∗-s, other phonological and morphological devices were on the decline. In other words, among phonological means, only tone change was preserved. Today, the departing tone can still change the grammatical function of words in contemporary Chinese, even though such words are not as numerous as in OC. In that situation, lexical and syntactic devices became more and more important and took charge of the causative function. ... Lexical causatives It is difficult to say when the lexical causative came into use, but it is well known that this kind of causative fell into disuse in Middle Chinese (around the fifth century ). As has been mentioned above, these causatives were quite 

Cf. Méi Zǔlín (), Schuessler (), among others.



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

frequent and were interpreted by different categories of words. The following are examples in which a noun, an adjective, or an intransitive verb are used as transitive verbs indicating the causative meaning. ()

五畝之宅, 樹之以桑, 五十者可以衣帛矣。(孟子A/) wǔ mǔ zhī zhái, shù zhī yǐ sāng, wǔ shí zhě kěyǐ yì bó yǐ five mu MOD homestead, plant it with mulberry, fifty ZHE can wear silk ‘If the mulberry is planted in every homestead of five mu of land, then those who are fifty can wear silk.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

()

知我者其惟春秋乎! 罪我者其惟春秋乎! (孟子 B/) zhī wǒ zhě qí wéi Chūnqiū hū, zuì wǒ zhě qí wéi Chūnqiū hū understand I ZHE MP only Spring-and-Autumn-Annals PART! Condemn I ZHE MP only Spring-and-Autumn-Annals PART! ‘Those who understand me will do so through the Spring and Autumn Annals; those who condemn me will also do so because of the Spring and Autumn Annals.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

In examples () and (), the two words 樹 shù ‘tree’ and 罪 zuì ‘reproach’ , which are nouns in a normal context, act as verbs and their meanings change: ‘tree’ turns into ‘to plant a tree’ . The same happens for ‘reproach’ , which also can be a noun or a verb in OC (as in English). Generally speaking, almost any noun in OC can change into a verb; this was particularly frequent in OC: ()

友也者, 友其德也 . . . (孟子 B/) yǒu yě zhě, yǒu qí dé yě befriend PART ZHE, befriend his virtue PART ‘In making friends with someone you do so because of his virtue.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

()

牛羊父母, 倉廩父母 . . . (孟子A/) niú yáng fùmǔ, cāng lǐn fùmǔ cattle sheep father mother, granary cereal father mother ‘The cattle and sheep go to you, father and mother, and the granaries as well. ’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

In the above examples, the words 友 yǒu ‘friend’ , 牛羊 niú yáng ‘cattle and sheep’ , and 倉廩 cāng lǐn ‘granary’ are typical nouns. They are used transitively here: friend–virtue means ‘make friends (befriend someone) because of his virtue’; cattle–sheep–parents means ‘make the parents possess cattle and sheep’; granary–parents means ‘make the parents have granaries’ . Such cases were common in classical texts (fifth to the third centuries ) but disappeared in Middle Chinese.

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



In OC, an adjective could also play the role of a verb; for example “X 大 dà ‘big’ Y” means ‘X makes Y big’ or ‘X makes Y bigger’ . That is why this kind of sentence is called “causative”: ()

王請大之! (孟子 B/) wáng qǐng dà zhī king please enlarge it ‘You should make it something great.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

()

匠人斲而小之 . . . (孟子 B/) jiàngrén zhuó ér xiǎo zhī carpenter whittle and reduce it ‘If the carpenter spoils this timber by whittling it away . . . ’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

The roles of the words 大 dà ‘big’ and 小 xiǎo ‘small’ are clear, and in examples () and () they are given a causative meaning: the adjectives ‘big’ and ‘small’ are used as transitive verbs, expressing ‘to make bigger, enlarge’ and ‘to make smaller, reduce’. When an intransitive verb is used transitively, it is followed by an object, and the subject (the first agent) of the sentence expresses ‘to make’; in fact the object is the second agent of the action. In English, one word can express the same meaning. Instead of using a causative construction, verbs like ‘enlarge’ and ‘broaden’ correspond to ‘to make bigger’, and the verbs ‘to reduce’ and ‘to shrink’ can replace ‘to make smaller’. In OC, this kind of verb (even nouns) could express causative meaning, but with the evolution of Chinese, a causative construction is needed now to indicate the same meaning. Below are examples with verbs: ()

兵刃既接, 棄甲曳兵而走 (孟子 A/) bīng rèn jì jiē, qì jiǎ yè bīng ér zǒu weapon blade already cross, abandon armour trail weapon and flee ‘After weapons were crossed to the rolling of drums, some soldiers fled, abandoning their armour and trailing their weapons.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

()

秦戰勝魏, 走孟卯 (戰國縱橫家書 章) Qín zhàn shèng Wèi, zǒu Mèng Mǎo Qin attack win Wei, (make-)run Meng Mao ‘The state of Qin attacked and beat Wei, making Meng Mao run away.’ (Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū, hereafter ZZJ)

As Yakhontov (, Chinese version, p. ) points out, motion verbs can often be used as causative verbs. In (), the verb 走 zǒu ‘run away’ is used in a  

In transmitted versions, this name is written as 芒卯 Máng Mǎo. Hereafter 戰縱. See n.  of Chapter .



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

common way, and in (), it is used transitively, gaining the causative meaning ‘make someone run away’ . Below are more examples: ()

主君何為亡邯鄲以敝魏氏 . . . (戰縱  章) zhǔjūn hé wéi wáng Hándān yǐ bì Wèishì Majesty what reason sacrifice Handan for hurt Wei ‘Why does His Majesty want to sacrifice Handan in order to hurt the state of Wei . . . ’ (ZZJ )

The verb 亡 wáng is usually an intransitive verb meaning ‘to die’ . It is used here in () as a transitive verb meaning ‘to hurt, to sacrifice someone’ . This graph expresses ‘not to have’ in the oracle bone inscriptions but fell into disuse in Late OC (see details in Chapter ). The meaning ‘to die’ took the dominant position in the classical texts. When this verb is used transitively, the causative meaning is evident: ‘to make someone dead/sacrificed/hurt, etc. ’ In OC, there are many such verbs and the complete list is not included here. Because of these specific features in OC, people tend to think that all intransitive verbs could be used as transitive verbs. Perhaps some verbs gained the causative use in Early OC and lost it during the Han (Late OC and Early MC). More concretely, a verb in classical texts often had several usages (intransitive, transitive, or causative). Few survived, however, since the Chinese language rejected the lexical causative during the Han because of typological change. The syntactic causative became the main construction expressing the causative meaning. ... Syntactic causatives With the causative markers 使 shǐ/令 lìng, the causative construction “NP+shǐ/ lìng (+NP)+ V” is easy to recognize. It is also one of the rare constructions that were syntactically marked. The construction is attested in the Shījīng: ()

既往既來, 使我心疚 (詩經 ) jì wǎng jì lái, shǐ wǒ xīn jiù again go again come, make I heart ache ‘They have been going and coming, they cause my heart to ache.’ (Shījīng , Karlgren)

()

無使我心悲兮! (詩經 ) wú shǐ wǒ xīn bēi xī NEG make I heart grieve PART ‘Do not make my heart grieve.’ (Shījīng , Karlgren)

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



However, another character, 俾bǐ, is far more used in causative constructions in the Shījīng: ()

之子之遠, 俾我獨兮。 . . . (詩經 ) zhī zǐ zhī yuǎn, bǐ wǒ dú xī this man go far, make I alone PART ‘This gentleman goes far away, he causes me to be alone.’ (Shījīng , Karlgren)

()

俾爾單厚, 何福不除 (詩經 ) bǐ ěr dān hòu, hé fú bù chú make you rich endow, what felicity NEG give ‘It causes you to be richly endowed; what felicity is not heaped (on you).’ (Shījīng , Karlgren)

Scholars do not know why this causative structure disappeared and only the 使 shǐ causative was seen in later data. Yue-Hashimoto () points out that the verb 俾 bǐ occurs as a causative only once in the Book of Documents (fifth to third centuries ?) and twice in the Zuǒ Commentary (or Zuǒzhuàn, fifth century ). She is right to distinguish verbs of command from causatives. The verb lìng can be used either as a verb of command or as a causative verb while the verb shǐ is by far most used as a causative verb in the classical texts. Examples abound of this; below are some sentences that use lìng and shǐ: ()

相國令之為太子 (戰國策. 東周策) xiàngguó lìng zhī wéi tàizǐ prime minister order him be prince ‘The prime minister ordered him to be the prince.’ (Zhànguócè, hereafter ZGC, Dōng Zhōucè)

()

而不能令狗無吠己 (戰國策. 韓策 ) ér bù néng lìng gǒu wú fèi jǐ and NEG can order dog NEG bark oneself ‘You cannot order a dog not to bark at you.’ (ZGC, Hán )

()

王使人來曰: . . . (孟子 B/) wáng shǐ rén lái yuē king send someone come say ‘The king sent someone who said . . . ’ (Mèngzǐ, B/)

()

常使民無知無慾 (老子) cháng shǐ mín wú zhī wú yù often make people NEG knowing NEG desire



Causative Structures in Old Chinese ‘Ever teaching the common people to be unprincipled in their knowing (wuzhi) and objectless in their desires (wuyu).’ (Lǎozǐ, R. T. Ames and D. L. Hall)

It is known that the phonological and morphological causatives were the first to decline and that the lexical causative was common in classical texts, but the lexical causative also progressively fell into disuse in Middle Chinese. Only the syntactic causative has survived. However, language evolution is not linear, and different devices coexisted during the transition period. The co-occurrence of the lexical causative and the syntactic causative seems to be rare in documents written between the fifth and third centuries , but the two types of causatives coexisted (see examples below), with the syntactic causative the victor. Below are some pairs of examples: ()

a. 若為小而祟, 以怒大國 (國語. 魯語上) ruò wéi xiǎo ér suì, yǐ nù dà guó if be small and secretively, with (this) enrage big state ‘If a small state acts secretively and enrages a big state . . . ’ (Guóyǔ, hereafter GY, Lǔ, Shàng) b. . . . 使君盛怒 (同上) shǐ jūn shèng nù make Your-Majesty greatly rage ‘(our ruler) makes Your Majesty boil with rage’ (Ibid.)

()

a. 寡人將反(返) 也。(戰縱  章) guǎrén jiāng fǎn Yín yě I will return Yin PART ‘I will order Han Yin to come back. ’ (ZZJ ) b. 齊秦復合, 使 反(返) . . . (戰縱  章) Qí Qín fù hé, shǐ Yín fǎn Qi Qin renew cordial-relations, make Yin return ‘If the states Qi and Qin become reconciled and Your Majesty makes me come back . . .’ (ZZJ )

()

a. 畢禮而歸之(史記. 廉頗藺相如列傳) bì lǐ ér guī zhī finish protocol and return him ‘After the protocol, (the ruler of Qin) made Xiangru return to his state. ’ (SJ ) b. 不如因而厚遇之, 使歸趙(同上) bù rú yīn ér hòu yù zhī, shǐ guī Zhào

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



NEG like at-this-point/thus and generous treat him, make return Zhao ‘It would be better to treat him well and let him go back to the state of Zhao. ’ (SJ ) ()

a. 高之不驕, 下之不懼 (國語. 楚語下) gāo zhī bù jiāo, xià zhī bù jù win-promotion him NEG arrogant, demote him NEG afraid ‘A man of virtue is not arrogant when he is appointed to a high position; he does not care when he occupies a low position.’ (GY, Chǔ Xià) b. [王]欲下令使高之 (史記. 循吏列傳) [wáng] yù xià lìng shǐ gāo zhī [king] want give order make heighten it ‘[The king] wants to order that his carriage be heightened.’ (SJ )

In the above examples, two word orders coexist: 怒 nù+NP/shǐ+NP+nù 怒 ‘to make someone furious’; 返 fǎn+NP/shǐ+NP+返 fǎn ‘to make someone go back’; 歸 guī+NP/shǐ(+NP)+歸 guī ‘to make someone return’; 高 gāo+NP/ shǐ+高 gāo+NP ‘to make something higher’ . The first order uses the lexical causative and the second one exploits the syntactic causative. The coexistence of the two orders is significant; it means that different devices worked jointly in the Chinese language, at least in some periods. Such coexistence was to be expected, since the Han was a transition period. Thus, example () is one of the early sentences showing two ways of indicating the causative. Example (b) is slightly different from the other examples; instead of having the order shǐ+NP+gāo, it has the order shǐ+gāo+NP. The construction can be interpreted as shǐ(+NP)+gāo+NP; in other words, in this sentence, two causatives are used side by side: the syntactic one with the marker shǐ (NP, which is at the same time the object of shǐ and the subject of gāo, is omitted) and the lexical causative with the verb/adjective gāo. As has been mentioned, the lexical causative gave way completely to the syntactic causative, and in contemporary Chinese only the latter is used though the former remains in some idioms. In comparing the same stories recorded by the Zuǒzhuàn and the Shǐjì, Yáng Bójùn and Hé Lèshì ( : ) point out that some “VNP” or “NPV” orders in the ZZ turn into syntactic causatives (causatives in a broadened sense) in the SJ. In my terms, the ZZ consistently uses the lexical causative and the SJ the syntactic one. As is well known, during the Eastern Han, many classical canons were glossed by scholars. For example, the transmitted version of Mencius glossed by 趙歧 Zhào Qí ( –) is famous. The following compares sentences drawn from the text of Mencius (fourth century ) and the glossed version of Zhào Qí:



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

()

a. . . . 皆能以朝諸侯、有天下 (孟子A/) jiē néng yǐ cháo zhū hóu, yǒu tiānxià all can PREP go-to-court PL lord, possess world ‘They would have been capable of winning the homage of the feudal lords and taking possession of the Empire.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau) b. 皆能使鄰國諸侯尊敬其德而朝之 (趙岐) jiē néng shǐ lín guó zhū hóu zūnjìng qí dé ér cháo zhī All can make neighbour state PL lord respect his virtue and go-to-court him ‘They would have been capable of winning the homage of the feudal lords of the neighbouring states owing to their virtue.’ (Zhào Qí)

()

a. . . . 是亂天下也 (孟子A/) . . . shì luàn tiānxià yě this bring-confusion world PART ‘It will only bring confusion to the Empire.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau) b. 則使天下有爭亂之道也 (趙岐) zé shǐ tiānxià yǒu zhēng luàn zhī dào yě then make world have dispute confusion MOD way ‘It will provide ways to bring confusion to the Empire.’ (Zhào Qí)

The translation by Zhào Qí shows clearly that at the period of Zhào Qí, people preferred the syntactic causative to the lexical one, which caused eventual confusion. This suggests that the use of the lexical causative was on the decline while the syntactic causative was beginning to develop. This change simply reflects the tendency for syntactic devices to be dominant.

.. Comparison between 使 shǐ and 令 lìng causatives Studies on the comparison between shǐ and lìng causatives are not abundant. I will present here some of my preliminary observations on this subject. In general, these two causatives are treated in the same way because they are apparently similar. But closer observation will show that they were in fact different in OC. Their use was confused in some technical texts in MC, but clearly separated later. First of all, shǐ has the meaning ‘to use’ that lìng does not have: ()

使民以時 (論語 /) shǐ mín yǐ shí use people PREP time ‘put the common people to work only at the proper time of year.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, R&A)

Causative Structures in Old Chinese ()



非其君不事, 非其民不使 (孟子 A/) fēi qí jūn bù shì, fēi qí mín bù shǐ NEG his prince NEG serve, NEG his people NEG use ‘(He would only) serve the right prince and rule over the right people.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

In the above examples, shǐ is translated as ‘to put someone to work’ or ‘to rule over’ according to the context. The core meaning is ‘to use’ . As for the verb lìng, its core meaning is doubtless ‘to order’ , while the verb shǐ occasionally expresses the meaning ‘to order’ depending on context: ()

為巨室, 則必使工師求大木。(孟子 B/) wéi jù shì, zé bì shǐ gōngshī qiú dà mù build big house, then surely make carpenter seek big timber ‘To build a big house, one has to ask the master carpenter if he will be successful in finding such timber.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

()

既不能令, 又不受命, 是絕物也 (孟子 A/) jì bù néng lìng, yòu bù shòu mìng, shì jué wù yě either NEG can dictate, or NEG receive order, this exterminate thing PART ‘Since, on the one hand, we are not in a position to dictate, and on the other, we refuse to be dictated to, we are destined to be exterminated.’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Lau)

In (), 使 shǐ expresses the meaning ‘to order’ or ‘to ask someone to do something’ , and in (), 令 lìng means ‘to order’ or ‘to dictate’ . Sometimes, the two verbs alternate in the same document without changing their meaning. The following sentences are from the 史記 Shǐjì: ()

a. 陰令 (史記. 項羽本紀)yīn lìng, secret order, ‘to order secretely’ (SJ ) b. 陰使 (同上)yīn shǐ , secret make, ‘to order secretly’ (Ibid.)

()

a. 令辱之 (史記. 陳涉世家) lìng rǔ zhī order dishonour him ‘make someone dishonour him’ (SJ ) b. 使人辱之 (史記. 項羽本紀) shǐ rén rǔ zhī send someone dishonour him ‘make someone dishonour him’ (SJ )

In the above examples, shǐ and lìng can be translated as ‘to order, to send’; the second verb in these sentences indicates a concrete action. However, in most



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

cases, shǐ is used to express ‘to make, to let’ , while lìng is used to focus on ‘to order, to command’ . Compare these examples: ()

此無異使羊將狼也 (史記. 留侯世家) cǐ wú yì shǐ yáng jiàng láng yě this NEG different send sheep command wolf PART ‘This is like sending a sheep to command wolves.’ (SJ )

()

多與使者金, 令毀之 (史記. 廉頗藺相如列傳) duō yǔ shǐzhě jīn, lìng huǐ zhī many give messenger gold, order discredit him ‘(Guo Kai) gave a large amount of gold to the messenger and ordered him to discredit Lian Po.’ (SJ )

In fact, the above sentences better illustrate the semantic nuance of these two verbs. How did these verbs mark the causative at the syntactic level and finally become grammaticalized as syntactic markers? Researchers take it for granted that reanalysis is the important step in grammaticalization. It is suggested here that reanalysis is also a process which may be gradual and segmentable in a semantic hierarchy chain, in which one key link illustrates the ambiguous meaning of the word. How the meaning ‘to send’ and ‘to order’ of the verbs shǐ and lìng can be neutralized is examined here: ()

有復言令長安君質者 . . . (戰縱  章) yǒu fù yán lìng Cháng Ān jūn zhì zhě . . . there-is again suggest order Chang An prince hostage ZHE ‘If someone dares to suggest again to send my son Chang An as a hostage . . . ’ (ZZJ )

()

必令王先知之(戰縱  章) bì lìng wáng xiān zhī zhī surely order king first know ‘I will certainly let Your Majesty know first.’ (ZZJ )

The examples above are drawn from the Zhànguó zònghéngjiā shū compiled in about   and excavated in . Normally, ministers would not be able to coerce the son of the ruler to do something; the verb lìng in () probably expresses the meaning ‘to make someone do’ but not ‘to order’ . In (), the presence of lìng is also striking, but only one interpretation is possible: the inferior cannot order the king; the verb lìng has to be  In the corresponding chapter of the Shǐjì, a transmitted text written in the st century , example () is copied exactly.

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



interpreted as ‘let the king know’ or ‘make the king know’ but not ‘to order the king to know’ . The following example of the verb shǐ shows that the meaning ‘to send someone’ was metaphorized into ‘to make someone do’: ()

晉侯召王, 以諸侯見, 且使王狩。(左傳.僖公  年) Jìn hóu zhāo wáng, yǐ zhū hóu jiàn, qiě shǐ wáng shǒu Jin duke call king, make PL lord see, moreover make king hunt ‘The Duke Jin invited the king and made other lords meet him, and moreover, he made the king hunt.’ (ZZ, Xǐ )

The analysis is the same for shǐ. Apparently, the inferiors were inviting their superiors to accomplish some tasks. In this case, the meaning of the verb shǐ cannot be ‘to order’ or ‘to send’ , but only ‘to invite to do’ or ‘to make do’ . When a word with a high frequency of use changes its initial meaning, reanalysis is possible and the process of grammaticalization may take place. It is known that shǐ and lìng were later able to express the meaning ‘if’, a new derived meaning in Late OC. This means that shǐ and lìng gained a new function: beside their use as verbs, and as causative markers in serial verb constructions, they acquired the role of conjunctions. Their semantic difference determined or limited their later development. Gaining this new function represents a typical case of grammaticalization, with a full verb becoming a conjunction, and a concrete meaning turning into an abstract one. This is a frequent phenomenon in diachronic syntax. I assume here that, in semantic change, a hierarchical chain exists in which one key link determines the crucial change of one word. The semantic chain could be represented as in Fig. .. Evidently, the key link in this chain is ‘to expect’; this step is very important for the meaning change from ‘to order’ into ‘if ’ . Apparently, lìng had more difficulties in crossing the key link. According to my data, the use of lìng meaning ‘if ’ seems to be much less frequent than shǐ. For example, in the 戰國策 Zhànguócè, lìng used as ‘if ’ occurs only once while shǐ used as ‘if ’ is attested fourteen times. Here are two examples: To order/to send a person to do

> > >

to ask a person to do to expect IF

F . Semantic shift from the verb ‘to order’ to the conjunction ‘if ’ 

These two examples () and () are taken from Lǐ Zuǒfēng (: ). In section .., I have given the example of the verb 去 qù, which changed its original meaning ‘to leave a place’ into ‘to go to a place’ . The semantic change can also be represented by a hierarchical chain in which one key link must exist and be decisive. 



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

()

令秦來年復攻 (戰國策. 趙策 ) lìng Qín lái nián fù gōng . . . if Qin next year again attack ‘Should the state of Qin attack us again next year . . . ’ (ZZC)

()

使以臣之言為可 (戰國策. 秦策 ) shǐ yǐ chén zhī yán wéi kě if take I MOD proposal act applicable ‘If you think that my proposal is applicable’ (ZZC, Qín )

In the transmitted documents, these two verbs share their functions evenly. When lìng is used, the second verb is often concrete; when shǐ is used, the second verb can be concrete or abstract. This is because the verb lìng ‘to command’ has the tendency to require an NP[+human] to accomplish a task while the verb shǐ does not necessarily have this semantic constraint. More evidence also shows that the meaning ‘to command’ of 令 lìng is stronger than that of 使 shǐ. According to the investigations of Yue-Hashimoto (), in nine pre-Qin texts, the verb lìng is compatible with the negative particle 無 wú, while the verb shǐ consistently combines with the negative particle 不 bù. Her data show that all sentences with lìng express an imperative meaning while all sentences with shǐ indicate a non-imperative meaning. In general, the particle wú is used in imperative sentences, and the particle bù, the most common one, is used in almost any context except imperative sentences. This proves again that the verb lìng better retained its initial meaning ‘to command’ than did the verb shǐ. I suggest that the semantic properties of these two verbs predicted their later divergence: with the verb lìng ‘to order’ , the second verb in the sentence often indicated a volitional action, while with the verb shǐ ‘to make do’ , the second verb in the sentence did not necessarily express a volitional action. For this reason, lìng retained in part its verb status in most documents. There is a group of verbs which are often used in the so-called “pivotal construction” , i.e. NP+V+NP+V, in which V is occupied by verbs such as ‘to ask, to force, to request’ and so on. As in other languages, this kind of construction expresses ‘to make somebody do something in a specific way’ . These constructions are very common in Chinese although the list of these verbs is not long: 請 qǐng ‘to invite’/迫 pò ‘to force’/ 逼 bī ‘to coerce’/求 qiú ‘to request’ , etc. It is clear that these constructions can be considered as causatives in a broad  In MC, in some technical texts, the construction with lìng is much more frequent than that with shǐ. For example, in the 齊民要術 Qímín yàoshù (documents treating agriculture dating from the sixth century ), the use of causative with lìng is very frequent. But in other texts (historical, literary) of the same period, the graph shǐ is more used.

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



sense; however, they were not grammaticalized and continued to behave like other full verbs. In this way, I consider only constructions marked by shǐ/lìng to be syntactic causatives in Chinese.

.. Comparison between 使 shǐ and 讓 ràng/叫 jiào causatives In contemporary Chinese, the verb shǐ has been completely grammaticalized in the shǐ construction. Studies on the constructions with 把 bǎ and 被 bèi are abundant, but those concerning shǐ are not. In this section, the verb shǐ will be observed, concerning how it became a preposition marking the causee (the role affected by the action). First, however, I will compare briefly the construction with shǐ, the oldest causative, which dates from OC, and its younger sisters: the constructions with 叫 jiào, which appeared in MC, and those with 讓 ràng, which occur in Modern Chinese. The syntactic causatives are clearly divided into two groups in contemporary Chinese: the causative with an abstract meaning (represented by shǐ ) and the causatives which express either an abstract meaning or a concrete meaning (symbolized by ràng and jiào). The causative with an abstract meaning can be represented in English by ‘get something+adjective’ (for example ‘make it bigger’ , ‘get him angry’), or in French by ‘rendre quelque chose/quelqu’un+adjective’ (rendre Paul furieux ‘get Paul angry’). Therefore the causatives with a concrete meaning are comparable with ‘make someone do, cause someone to do’ in English or with ‘faire . . . faire’ in French. As has been mentioned, the causatives with ràng and jiào can express either an abstract or a concrete causative meaning while causatives with shǐ can only indicate an abstract causative meaning in contemporary Chinese. Moreover, those with ràng and jiào are very colloquial while those with shǐ are more frequent in written texts. The other important difference lies in the fact that the construction with shǐ cannot express the passive meaning while the construction with ràng/jiào is regularly used in a causative meaning (abstract or concrete) as well as in a passive one. In other words, shǐ, the oldest, did not develop into a passive marker, while ràng and jiào came to play the role of a passive marker in colloquial Chinese. This difference recalls a comparable phenomenon between 以 yǐ and 把 bǎ; the former is older than the latter, but did not develop into an object marker, while the latter is a typical object marker in contemporary Chinese.  In the previous section, it was mentioned that the pivotal constructions in Chinese are parallel to ‘ask someone to do’ or ‘tell someone to do’ in English and to ‘demander à quelqu’un de faire quelque chose’ or ‘dire à quelqu’un de faire quelque chose’ in French. Evidently, in these constructions, the verbs keep their verbal status and are causatives in a very broad sense.  The passive is marked by 被 bèi in the literary style, see section ...



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

In contemporary Chinese, shǐ/ràng/jiào can be used as a full verb: ()

你的筆借我使一下行嗎？ nǐ de bǐ jiè wǒ shǐ yī xià xíng ma you MOD pen lend I use one bit do IP ‘Could you lend me your pen?’

()

年輕人應該給老年人讓座。 niánqīng rén yīnggāi gěi lǎonián rén ràng zuò young man must give old man offer seat ‘The young men must give their place to the old men.’

()

爸爸叫你呢。 bàbà jiào nǐ ne dad call you PART ‘Dad is calling you.’

In the above three examples, shǐ ‘to use’ , ràng ‘to yield, to give up’ , and jiào ‘to call’ are used as full verbs. Below are some examples of the causative structure in an abstract meaning ‘NP+shǐ/ràng/jiào(+NP)+VP’: ()

這件事使/讓他很高興。 zhè jiàn shì shǐ/ràng tā hěn gāoxìng this CL event cause/make him very happy ‘This event makes him very happy.’

()

這個孩子使/讓我很滿意。 zhè gè háizi shǐ/ràng wǒ hěn mǎnyì this CL child cause/make I very satisfy ‘This child makes me very satisfied.’

()

老師∗使/讓我辦這件事。 lǎoshī ∗shǐ/ràng wǒ bàn zhè jiàn shì teacher ∗cause/make I do this CL thing ‘The teacher asked me to do this.’

The above examples represent different situations: () and () indicate an abstract causative, in which shǐ and ràng can both be used; and () expresses a concrete causative. In (), the NP (這件事 zhè jiàn shì ‘this event’) has the feature [–animate] and the VP (高興 gāoxìng ‘happy’) is not transitive; in (), NP (這個孩子 zhè gè háizi ‘this child’) has the feature [+animate] and the VP (滿意 mǎnyì ‘satisfy’) is intransitive as well; in (), NP (老師 lǎoshī ‘the teacher’) is an NP [+A] and the verb (辦 bàn ‘to do’) is transitive. Apparently the semantic feature of NP does not play a role while the VP has to submit to some constraints. An abstract causative requires that the VP have the semantic

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



features [–volitional], [–concrete action], while a concrete causative does not demand these conditions: ()

他的做法使/讓大家感到很意外。 tā de zuòfǎ shǐ/ràng dàjiā gǎndào hěn yìwài he MOD behaviour cause/make everyone feel very surprise ‘His behaviour surprised everyone.’

()

她的精神使/讓人很佩服。 tā de jīngshen shǐ/ràng rén hěn pèifu she MOD spirit cause/make others very admire ‘Her spirit is worthy of admiration.’

()

父親的去世使/讓他懂得了不少事情。 fùqin de qùshì shǐ/ràng tā dǒngdé le bù shǎo shìqing father MOD death cause/make him understand LE NEG few thing ‘The death of his father lets him understand a lot of things.’

In these three examples, 感到很意外 gǎndào hěn yìwài ‘to be surprised’ , 佩服 pèifu ‘to admire’ , and 懂得 dǒngdé ‘to understand’ express an action which is neither volitional nor concrete. This shows us that the verbs expressing feelings are more compatible with the abstract causative (with shǐ or ràng/jiào) since they totally satisfy the semantic conditions: [–volitional], [–concrete action]. In (), the style is literary, so the choice of shǐ is more appropriate. If the VP of the causative expresses an action [+volitional], [+concrete] (), the sentence is not grammatical. Below are further examples: ()

a. ∗他使我去 tā shǐ wǒ qù he cause I go b. 他讓/叫我去 tā ràng/jiào wǒ qù he ask/call I go ‘He asks me to go (there).’

In (a), 去 qù has the features [+volitional] and [+concrete action], and is incompatible with the abstract causative with shǐ. The concrete causative with ràng/jiào does not suffer from these constraints, as (b) shows. Consequently, the causatives with ràng/jiào are different from the causative with shǐ in that they have a larger set of uses: (a) they can indicate an abstract causative like shǐ; (b) they can express a concrete causative and sometimes behave like pivotal  For the notion “volitionality” , we adopt the definition found in Hopper and Thompson (: ). It is evident that “volitionality” is closely connected with the agent expressed by an NP.



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

constructions (which are causatives in a broad sense) in that the verbs ràng and jiào can mark a subject (ràng/jiào+NP[+agent]) with high agency, thus keeping their original meaning; (c) they can mark the passive voice as can typical grammaticalized words. In other words, ràng and jiào can be inserted into any slot, or put into every phase of the process of grammaticalization, while shǐ does not have this vast array of uses. The above examples show why the causative with shǐ in contemporary Mandarin cannot express the passive meaning: the degree of transitivity of the verb used is quite weak (the verb is often intransitive, adjectives are often attested). The agent of the VP marked by shǐ is thus incapable of doing any concrete action that can affect a patient. However, a passive sentence requires that the verb be transitive in the first place (the object has to be completely affected). The causatives with ràng/jiào are more appropriate than shǐ to turn into a passive meaning because the verbs found in the construction with ràng/jiào can be intransitive (a causative use is implied, see ) as well as transitive (a passive meaning is possible if the object is absent, compare a and b). ()

他讓/叫我想想。 tā ràng/jiào wǒ xiǎngxiǎng he ask/call I think think ‘He has asked me to think over.’

()

a. 他讓/叫人打了小李。 tā ràng/jiào rén dǎ le Xiǎo Lǐ he ask/call man beat LE Xiao Li ‘He asked someone to beat Xiao Li up.’ b. 他讓/叫人打了。 tā ràng/jiào rén dǎ le he PASS/PASS man beat LE ‘He got beaten up by someone.’

I have previously proposed (Xu Dan : ) that a semantic hierarchical chain exists for these causative verbs, in which the key link is ‘to let, to concede’ (see Fig. .). It is clear that the power is decreasing from left to right. The verbs ràng and jiào can be inserted at every phase in this chain in contemporary

To order

> > > >

to make (someone) do to permit to let (someone) do/to concede to suffer from

F . Semantic shift from causative to passive

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



Chinese; they can thus indicate a causative meaning in a broad or a strict way, and express a passive meaning according to the context.

.. Grammaticalization of the verb 使 shǐ The causative with shǐ changed its syntactic behaviour in gaining a different meaning. The verb shǐ changed from having verb status into a preposition marking a causative. In OC, the verb shǐ expresses ‘to use’ or ‘to send’: ()

及其使人也, 器之。(論語 /) jí qí shǐ rén yě, qì zhī till his use man PART, measure/judge him ‘In employing others, they use them according to their abilities.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

() 使民以時。(論語 /) =() shǐ mín yǐ shí use people PREP time ‘and put the common people to work only at the proper time of year.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R) () (梁王)曾使人刺盎(史記.袁盎鼂錯列傳) (liáng wáng) céng shǐ rén cì Àng (Liang king) once send man assassinate Ang ‘(The king of Liang) once sent a man to assassinate Ang.’ (SJ ) In the above examples, shǐ in () and () means ‘to use’ and in () it means ‘to send’ . In OC texts, ‘to send/to order someone to do something’ is frequently seen. In other words, the meaning ‘to send/to order’ is far more common than ‘to use’ . If shǐ is considered to be a typical causative marker, its grammaticalization is comparable with that of the causative auxiliary verb c
in Lahu. This auxiliary verb has the basic meaning ‘to send on an errand’ (like OC). Lahu has several sister auxiliaries to mark the causative, but c
is the most important causative auxiliary verb. It has been shown that shǐ is the most important marker for the abstract causative in Chinese, since ràng and jiào have multiple functions (full verbs, causative markers, passive markers). Two conditions are required for the grammaticalization of shǐ in the causative construction “NP+shǐ+NP+VP” . Specifically, the verb (VP) must no longer express a concrete action, and agency has to be weakened for both NPs. In the causative with shǐ, the VP can express a concrete action or an abstract 

Matisoff (: ).



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

action in OC. The abstract meaning permitted the verb shǐ to change later into a causative marker. Compare the following examples: () 王使人來曰 . . . (孟子 B/) =() wáng shǐ rén lái yuē king send someone come say ‘The king sent somebody who said . . .’ (Mèngzǐ, B/) ()

賢者以其昭昭使人昭昭, 今以其昏昏使人昭昭。(孟子 B/) xiánzhě yǐ qí zhāozhāo shǐ rén zhāozhāo, jīn yǐ qí hūnhūn shǐ rén zhāozhāo wise ZHE with his clear-understanding make others understand, today with his/their confusion make others understand ‘A good and wise man helps others to understand clearly by his own clear understanding. Nowadays, men try to help others understand by their own benighted ignorance.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

In (), shǐ means ‘to send’; in (), it means ‘to help, to make’ . The causative meaning in () is concrete but it is abstract in (). A consequence of causatives like (), in which the VP does not express a concrete action, is that shǐ was able to develop the meaning ‘to make’ . More precisely, in the causatives with shǐ, if the VP is 殺 shā ‘to kill’ , 擊 jī ‘to attack’ , 追 zhuī ‘to pursue’ , etc., shǐ has to keep its original meaning ‘to send/order someone to do’ and cannot be grammaticalized. Only if the VP in the shǐ causative uses verbs expressing an abstract action is it possible for the verb shǐ to express ‘to make’ in an abstract way: ()

[孔子]取瑟而歌, 使之聞之。(論語/) [Kǒng Zǐ] qǔ sè ér gē, shǐ zhī wén zhī [Confucius] get-out lute and sing, make him hear it/him ‘Confucius got out his lute and sang, making sure that the messenger heard him. ’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

()

民可使由之, 不可使知之。(論語 /) mín kě shǐ yóu zhī, bù kě shǐ zhī zhī people able make follow it, NEG can make know it ‘The common people can be induced to travel along the way, but they cannot be induced to realize (zhi 知) it.’ (Lúnyǔ, /, A&R)

()

梓匠輪輿能與人規矩, 不能使人巧。(孟子 B/) zǐjiàng lúnyú néng yǔ rén guījù, bù néng shǐ rén qiǎo carpenter carriage-maker can give others rules, NEG can make others skilful ‘A carpenter or a carriage-maker can pass on to another the rules of his craft, but he cannot make him skilful.’ (Mèngzǐ, B/, Lau)

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



In the above examples, the VP expresses an abstract action (聞 wén ‘to hear’ , 知 zhī ‘to know’ , 巧 qiǎo ‘to be skilful’ , etc.) and the verb shǐ cannot be interpreted as ‘to send/order’ . The evolution of shǐ clearly shows that, finally, the causative with shǐ was the winner, and the other type of causative with shǐ ‘send someone to do something’ gradually disappeared. There was a second condition for the grammaticalization of shǐ: the semantic change of the NP in the shǐ causative. In the shǐ causative, in OC, the first agent “NP” and the second agent “NP” in the construction “NP+shǐ+NP+V” were generally assumed by an NP with the semantic feature [+human] or [+animate]. This situation lasted until the Han ( – ), a crucial period in which the Chinese language underwent typological changes. Before and during the Han, the causative with shǐ in which the first agent is not [+H] was rare: ()

是使民養生喪死無憾也 (孟子 A/) shì shǐ mín yǎng shēng sāng sǐ wú hàn yě this make people nourish living mourn death NEG regret PART ‘This is to let the people nourish the living and mourn the dead without regrets. ’ (Mèngzǐ, A/, Pulleyblank)

()

(今使太子將之) 此無異使羊將狼也。(史記. 留侯世家) (jīn shǐ tàizǐ jiàng zhī) cǐ wú yì shǐ yáng jiàng láng yě (today send prince command it) this NEG different send sheep command wolf PART ‘(Now if you send the prince to command the soldiers,) this is like sending a sheep to command wolves.’ (SJ )

In these sentences, the agents (NP) 是 shì ‘this’ in () and 此 cǐ ‘this’ in () refer separately to the antecedent propositions ‘with abundance of a natural substance’ () and ‘to send the prince to command the soldiers’ (). In OC, this type of causative, in which NP designated a thing, a situation, was rare. This is because, in OC, the original meaning of shǐ ‘to send, to order’ was still strong; so NP (the first agent) in the causative with shǐ was in most cases a human being. It is only when NP in the causative with shǐ refers to an abstract thing that it becomes possible for NP to refer to “the causer” instead of “the agent”. It is also interesting to notice that after the shifting of NP from “the agent” to “the  The verb 派 pài ‘to send someone’ is used in contemporary Chinese when ‘send someone to do something’ is expressed.  In transmitted texts, the two demonstratives 是 shǐ ‘this’ and 此 cǐ ‘this’ seem to be perfectly distinct: the first one is more literary and the second is more vernacular. In my data based on excavated texts, this difference is not absolute. See section ...  See Liú Chénghuì , Wèi Péiquán . See also n.  to Chapter .



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

causer” , NP, the second agent, became a causee and the verb shǐ gradually lost the meaning ‘to send/to order’ . Instead, it gained the new meaning ‘to let/to cause/to make’ . This causative has developed significantly since the Han: ()

昨與士少語, 遂使人忘疲。(世說新語. 賞譽) zuó yǔ shì shǎo yǔ, suì shǐ rén wàng pí yesterday with scholar little-while talk, after make one forget fatigue ‘Yesterday I talked a little with a scholar and this made me forget my fatigue. ’ (Shìshuō xīnyǔ, Shǎngyù)

()

聖靈之地, 使人自然對景起崇重之心也。(入唐求法巡禮行記. 卷 ) shènglíng zhī dì, shǐ rén zìrán duì jǐng qǐ chóngzhòng zhī xīn yě sacred MOD place, make one naturally towards scape rise respect MOD heart PART ‘This sacred place makes people naturally respect the environment.’ (Rù Táng qiúfǎ xúnlǐ xíng jì. Juàn )

In (), the subject of shǐ is the whole sentence 昨與士少語 zuó yǔ shì shǎo yǔ yesterday–with–scholar–little–talk, ‘talking a little with a scholar yesterday’ . Thus, the situation is the causer, and the morpheme shǐ, which loses its original meaning ‘to send/to order’ , signifies ‘to cause, to make’ . In (), the subject 聖靈之地 shènglíng zhī dì sacred–MOD–place, ‘sacred place’ , is an NP [–A] but not the agent. Moreover, NP rén ‘one’ in these sentences does not represent a participant with a high agency since the VPs 忘疲 wàng pí forget–fatigue, ‘forget the fatigue’ , in () and 起崇重之心 qǐ chóngzhòng zhī xīn rise–respect–MOD–feeling, ‘feeling of respect’ , in () do not express any effect on the object. The role of the morpheme shǐ is to indicate the causative. This kind of causative with shǐ is quite similar to those surviving in contemporary Chinese: an NP [+H] (NP) loses its latent semantic feature [+agent] at the subject position in the causative with shǐ. It gains the feature [+causer], because shǐ is no longer a verb but a pure causative marker since the morpheme shǐ is completely grammaticalized, and the verb has the semantic features [–volitional], [–concrete action]. Figure . illustrates the above comments. Below is a further example in contemporary Chinese: ()

他使我無所適從。 tā shǐ wǒ wú suǒ shì cóng

NP [+causer]+ shǐ [+causative marker]+NP [+the causee]+VP [–volitional], [–concrete action] F . Context of the grammaticalization of 使 shǐ

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



he make I NEG SUO fit follow ‘He’s made me perplexed.’ The causative with shǐ lost its original meaning ‘to send, to order’ and gained a new meaning ‘to let, to make, to cause’ . The first condition was the loss of the semantic feature [+concrete action] of the VP, and the second condition was the loss of the semantic feature [+agent] of NP. In this way, the subject [–agent] could do nothing to the object since the agent’s force was lost and the VP expressed a non-volitional and non-concrete action. These two conditions combined to force the verb shǐ to be grammaticalized into an overt causative marker because shǐ had lost its verbal status and no longer expressed ‘to order someone or to send someone to do something’ . The word order of the causative with shǐ “NP+shǐ(+NP)+VP” did not change, but each element experienced progressive changes provoking a reanalysis inside the same construction (see Fig. .). In Fig. ., the symbol “>” means ‘to change into’ . VP (at the initial stage, it was a second verb) changes from a verb expressing a volitional and concrete action into a verb indicating a non-volitional and non-concrete action. NP loses its force as agent and later indicates the causer. Finally shǐ shifts from a verb to a preposition and the causative with shǐ changes from a concrete causative into an abstract one. The following diagram can be obtained by comparing the degree of volition between the causative and other new constructions in Chinese related to it (see Fig. .). In this hierarchical chain, the symbol “>” means ‘is higher than’ . Evidently, in the bǎ construction, the action is the most volitional and the subject (NP) of the sentence is an agent controlling its action (NP+bǎ+NP+VP). Ràng/jiào (concrete causative) follows it immediately – because the subject (NP) can also be an agent, the action is necessarily volitional (NP+ràng/jiào+NP+VP). In the shǐ causative with an abstract meaning, the agent (NP) has no controlling –VP

[+concrete action]

>

[+volitional]

[+ concrete action]

>

[+ volitional]

[–concrete action] [–volitional]

–NP

[+agent]

>

[+agent]

>

[–agent]

–使 shǐ

[+V]

>

[+V]

>

[–V]

F . Progressive changes of the causative with 使 shǐ 

See Xu Dan a.



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

+volitional

–volitional

bǎ construction > ràng/jiào concrete causative

> shǐ (ràng/jiào) abstract causative

> bèi construction (ràng/jiào) passive

F . Degree of the volition in different constructions

force and the action is not really volitional, so ràng/jiào (abstract causative) can also be put with shǐ (NP+shǐ+NP+VP). In the last construction indicating the passive voice, the construction with bèi is typical; ràng/jiào marking the passive voice can also be put with bèi. In these constructions indicating a passive meaning, the subject (NP) must be a patient, representing all properties contrary to an agent (NP+bèi+NP+VP).

.. New structures related to the causative structure (把 bǎ and 被 bèi constructions) Until the Han dynasty, the Chinese language possessed few syntactic devices. In this period of transition, Chinese showed a steady development towards a more analytic language. Morphological and phonological degeneration forced OC to exploit syntax to respond to its expressive needs. In other words, OC shifted from a language in which different devices coexisted into a language in which syntactic devices became a dominant and almost unique device in indicating grammatical functions. This important change reflects the growing use of syntactic structures, which were becoming a more adequate device to express the agent–patient relationship in Chinese. Two new structures appeared that were related to different causative structures: () the 把 bǎ construction, which focused on the change of pre Many scholars such as Wèi Péiquán (), Liú Chénghuì () and Furuya (), have noticed that the causative structure is closely related to the rise of resultative compounds. As A. Furuya points out, in contemporary Chinese, the structure V+de+C (the complement is initially a verb meaning ‘to obtain’) is parallel to the causative V+lìng/jiào+V attested in MC and in contemporary Chinese dialects:

(a) 炒蔥令熟 (齊民要術 Qímín yàoshù, th century ) chǎo cōng lìng shú ‘to fry the leek and make it well done. ’ (b) 看教大底道理分明(朱子語類 Zhūzǐyǔlèi, th century ) kàn jiào dà dǐ dàolǐ fēnmíng ‘to judge clearly, to see and make the reason clear. ’ (c) 見得大底道理分明(朱子語類) jiàn dé dà dǐ dàolǐ fēnmíng ‘to judge clearly, to see and make the reason clear. ’ (d) 跑叫快些 pǎo jiào kuài xiē ‘to run more quickly. ’ (the dialect 獲嘉 Huòjiā at the 河南 Hénán province noticed by 賀巍 Hè Wēi )

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



verbal objects; and () the 被 bèi construction, which explicitly marked the passive voice, which is linked only with the causatives with ràng/jiào marking the passive voice. It is evident that the syntactic causative could not respond to the growing needs at the syntactic level to express different grammatical relations, while the constructions with bǎ and bèi marked an agent or a patient unambiguously. The two structures seem to be unrelated. However, it will be shown that these new constructions compensated not only for phonological and morphological loss but also for the insufficiency of the syntactic marking in the Chinese language. More concretely, more syntactically specialized constructions were needed in Chinese. In the following sections, I will try to show that aspects of each construction have similarities to the causatives. ... Causatives and the 把 bǎ construction One of the new constructions related to the causative is the famous 把 bǎ construction. This construction formed in MC or Late MC due to the evolution of the Chinese language. Many researchers have noted the close relationship between them. In modern Chinese, bǎ constructions imply the causative meaning. The order of the bǎ construction is “NP+bǎ+NP+VP” . Broadly speaking, two syntactic constraints have to be taken into account: NP must be definite (in an unmarked order, an object must be behind the verb while in the bǎ construction, the marked order, NP is traditionally considered as a preverbal object); the verb has to be marked by elements indicating the accomplished aspect (resultative verb, aspectual particles). Certainly, the bǎ construction is complex and all constructions with bǎ are not necessarily related to the causatives. In bǎ constructions, the NP causes NP to be changed while in causatives with ràng/jiào, the NP causes NP to do something. In other words, in bǎ constructions, the change of NP constitutes the focus, while in causatives, the change of NP is not important. Some bǎ constructions can be converted into causatives with ràng/jiào, but others cannot. The first type indicates an abstract causative meaning while the second often expresses a concrete causative meaning. In the first case, the NP introduced by bǎ has the semantic feature [+human] and is not a real “preverbal object” . The verb expresses an action [–volitional], [–concrete]. In this way, the NP marked by bǎ cannot be an agent. In the second case, the verb must have a high degree of transitivity and has the following features: [+volitional], [+punctual], [+affectedness]. These two bǎ constructions are illustrated as follows: 

See Xu Dan (a: –). See 金立鑫 Jīn Lìxīn (), 蔣紹愚 Jiǎng Shàoyú (), 張伯江 Zhāng Bójiāng (), among others.  The terms are taken from Hopper and Thompson (). 



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

()

a. 這件事把他樂壞了 zhè jiàn shì bǎ tā lè huài le this CL event BA him pleased extremely LE ‘This event makes him so pleased.’ b. 這件事讓他樂壞了 zhè jiàn shì ràng tā lè huài le this CL event make him pleased bad (=extremely) LE [Translation as example (a).]

()

a. 兒子的成績把他急死了 érzi de chéngjì bǎ tā jí sǐ le son MOD score BA him anxious death (=extremely) ‘His son’s bad grades make him very anxious.’ b. 兒子的成績讓他急死了 érzi de chéngjì ràng tā jí sǐ le son MOD score make him anxious death (=extremely) [Translation as example (a).]

In the above examples, the bǎ constructions correspond to an abstract causative meaning; moreover, they can be converted into the causatives with ràng. The semantic conditions required in this type of bǎ constructions are the same as those required by the causative with an abstract meaning. The second type of bǎ construction is different and is generally taken to be more typical. These constructions with bǎ are semantically related to causatives: ()

我把蘋果吃了。 wǒ bǎ pínguǒ chī le I BA apple eat LE ‘I have eaten the apple.’

()

他把衣服洗了。 tā bǎ yīfu xǐ le

 The bǎ constructions require a monograph-length work and are beyond the aim of this chapter. See Xu Dan (: chapter ).  Some bǎ constructions are comparable with causatives in a broad sense. According to Jīn Lìxīn , the construction ‘bǎ+NP+V+在 zài “be at”+location’ implies a causative meaning ‘make something move to some places’:

他把花種在院子裏 tā bǎ huā zhòng zài yuànzi lǐ ‘He planted flowers in the garden.’ In fact, people can interpret these bǎ constructions in different ways: to cause the object to move or to remove. According to the statictics of Zhāng Bójiāng (), in two contemporary authors’ works (王朔 Wáng Shuò and 老舍 Lǎo Shě), the bǎ constructions that express removing an object represent almost  per cent of the bǎ constructions.

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



he BA clothes wash LE ‘He has washed the clothes/He has the clothes washed.’ ()

他把小説看完了。 tā bǎ xiǎoshuō kàn wán le he BA novel read finish ‘He has read the novel.’

()

我把這件事都忘了。 wǒ bǎ zhè jiàn shì dōu wàng le I BA this CL thing even forget LE ‘I have forgotten this.’

In the above sentences with bǎ, the verbs are all transitive but slightly different: in () and (), the degree of transitivity (吃 chī ‘to eat’ and 洗 xǐ ‘to wash’) is higher than that in () and () (看 kàn ‘to read’ and 忘 wàng ‘to forget’) as well in Chinese as in other languages. ‘To eat’ and ‘to wash’ express more concrete actions while ‘to read’ and ‘to forget’ express two “actions” which cannot directly affect the object in a physical sense. The object marked by the preposition bǎ is definite and is known to the speaker. This kind of bǎ construction is semantically related to causatives. Both constructions require two participants (NP can be an agent or a patient/recipient), but a causative does not need a result or an effect upon NP. A bǎ construction has to mark the change or the consequence of the action upon NP. That is, bǎ constructions are complementary with causatives that do not insist on the aspect of verbs. It should be noted that the system of aspectual particles was formed in Late MC and aspects were expressed by means other than syntactic ones in OC. ... Causatives and the 被 bèi construction The relationships between the causative and the bèi construction (NP[+subject, patient]+bèi+NP[+agent]+V) have been studied for a long time. So far, we know that the bèi construction is used in texts with a literary style in Mandarin. In conversations, unmarked passive sentences (in which the subject is a patient) are more frequent. Actually, the bèi construction is not always necessary to express the passive. In many dialects, the bèi construction does not exist. In these dialects, only the causative construction (NP[+subject, patient]+ràng/ jiào+NP[+agent]+VP) is used to mark the passive meaning. In Mandarin, the 

For example: 衣服洗了 yīfu xǐ le ‘The clothing was washed.’

The object ‘clothing’ is not marked by any grammatical marker.



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

bèi construction is used in a literary style while the ràng/jiào construction is used in a colloquial context. Below are examples in contemporary Mandarin: ()

a. 他被汽車壓了。 tā bèi qìchē yà le he BEI car run(-over) LE ‘He was run over by a car.’ b. 他讓汽車壓了。 tā ràng qìchē yà le he PASS car run(-over) LE [Translation as example (a).]

()

a. 他的錢被人偷了。 tā de qián bèi rén tōu le he MOD money BEI someone steal LE ‘His money was stolen by someone.’ b. 他的錢讓人偷了。 tā de qián ràng rén tōu le he MOD money PASS someone steal LE [Translation as example (a).]

In these two pairs of examples, the passive marker bèi and the causative marker ràng can alternate without changing the meaning. As is well known, ràng and jiào can mark a causative meaning and a passive meaning. The syntactic and semantic constraints of the bèi construction are similar to those required by the bǎ construction in that the verb has to be [+punctual] and [+perfect]. However, for the causative with ràng/jiào, these features are not necessary. Only when the passive meaning is marked by ràng/jiào do these conditions have to be satisfied. In this way, when the verb is [–punctual] and [–perfect] in a construction with ràng/jiào, the meaning is causative ‘cause someone to do something’ (see a); when the verb is [+punctual], [+perfect] in a construction with ràng/jiào, the meaning is passive (see b): ()

a. 他讓我打 tā ràng wǒ dǎ he ask me beat ‘He asks/asked me to beat (someone)./He permits/permitted me to beat (someone).’ 

For example: ∗他被我打

tā bèi wǒ dǎ he–BEI–me–beat. The sentence is not grammatical.

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



b. 他讓我打了 tā ràng wǒ dǎ le he PASS me beat LE ‘He was beaten by me.’ In French as in English, the verb generally has the features [+punctual], [+perfect] in a passive sentence: ()

()

La porte a été fermée par lui. ART door was participle closed by him ‘The door was closed by him.’ The door was closed by him.

The passive construction did not exist in OC; many other devices helped to indicate the passive meaning. Phonological and lexical devices were especially common in OC to clarify grammatical relations. The alternation between the voicing of initials indicated the active or passive meaning in OC: ()

a. 折∗btet>tsyet>zhé ‘to cut off ’ b. 折∗bN-tet>dzyet>shé ‘to be cut off ’

()

a. 敗∗aprats>pæjH>bài ‘to beat’ b. 敗∗aN-prats>bæjH>bài ‘to be beaten’

As was seen in Chapter , in other cases, the word order indicated the passive meaning: ()

欲以殘宋 . . . 宋不殘(戰縱  章) yù yǐ cán Sòng . . . Sòng bù cán (Xue Gong) want with hurt Song . . . Song NEG (be-)hurt ‘(Duke Xue) wanted to damage the state of Song . . . But the state of Song remains intact. ’ (ZZJ )

Apparently, the word 殘 cán ‘to damage’ did not have two readings, but the word order is sufficient to tell us that the first cán was a transitive verb and expressed the active meaning, while the second cán was an intransitive verb and indicated the passive meaning. For more examples and explanations, see Chapter . Though bèi became a dominant passive marker in literary Mandarin, in colloquial Mandarin (and in most dialects), this marker is not frequently used when the subject patient is [–H]. The most used passive markers are ràng/jiào in Mandarin. When it is interpreted as a causative, the aspect of V can be 

In the Jīngdiǎn shìwén of Lù Démíng, no sound gloss is seen for the character 殘 cán ‘to damage’ .



Causative Structures in Old Chinese

accomplished (b) or non-accomplished (a); when it is understood as a passive structure, the aspect of V must be accomplished (c). Some semantic and syntactic constraints have to be obeyed, however. Compare these examples: ()

a. 他讓我看。 tā ràng wǒ kàn he allow me look ‘He allows me to look at it.’ b. 他讓我看了。 tā ràng wǒ kàn le he allow me see LE ‘He allowed me to look at it.’ c. 他讓我看見了。 tā ràng wǒ kànjiàn le he PASS me see LE ‘He was seen by me.’

It is easy to consider that, at the syntactic level, the bèi construction had to reinforce the syntactic devices in Chinese. Though the causative structure is one of those which mark the passive voice in Mandarin, the causative is the only structure which marks the passive in many dialects. In other languages, the causative may also indicate a passive meaning. This phenomenon is not new. In Chinese, the causatives with ràng/jiào expressed different meanings (see Fig. .): To order > to make (someone) do > to permit > to let (someone) do/to concede > to suffer from This hierarchical chain shows how one meaning shifts to another and how the causative gains the passive meaning. On the left, the meaning is ‘to make, to cause’; gradually, this meaning weakens and changes to ‘to permit’ , ‘to let/concede’ , and at the right becomes ‘to suffer from’ in the passive sense. To sum up, the causative structure is related to these two new constructions (bǎ and bèi). This connection is not random. It illustrates the typological change that occurred in Chinese and increasingly exploited syntactic devices. 

See Yue-Hashimoto (); Xu Dan (). In English, the causative can mark the passive meaning. One can say “He had/got the car washed.” The car was washed (by someone different than the subject). In French, when the causative construction uses a reflexive pronoun, the meaning is passive: Il se fait voler dans le bus. He–himself–do–steal–in–ART–bus ‘He was robbed on the bus. ’ 

Causative Structures in Old Chinese



These constructions were syntactic products related to causatives; they enabled Chinese to specify the result and the aspect of an action and to clarify the agent–patient relationship with prominent syntactic markers. In OC, these elements were not marked but were implied by the use of phonological and lexical devices.

.. Conclusion In OC, different devices worked together to express a causative meaning. The volition of a verb was not indicated by syntax but by morphological and phonological means. The active or passive meaning was not expressed by syntax but by other devices. In OC, the causative with shǐ was one of the rare syntactic constructions marking grammatical relations between different elements. The verb shǐ was grammaticalized as other elements in the construction gradually changed. Finally, its use has become limited and literary in contemporary Chinese; it lost the concrete causative meaning attested at its initial stage (in OC) and now indicates only an abstract causative meaning (since MC). The causatives with ràng/jiào are its younger sisters. They are generalized in the spoken language and occupy a vast domain that includes the concrete causative, which is close to the pivotal construction, the abstract causative, which overlaps with the causative with shǐ, and finally a passive meaning in which the bèi construction is no longer the unique marker. Evidently, the syntactic causative was not sufficient for the evolution of the Chinese language, which tended to mark different grammatical relations more and more by syntactic means. In other words, other syntactic constructions appeared and developed conforming to the historical trends of the Chinese language. In Middle Chinese, pivot constructions flourished in this context. In these constructions, the verb kept its status and was not grammaticalized. Other new constructions are related to the shǐ construction; this is developed in Chapter , in which the resultative verb compound formed in Chinese is explained.

4 The Rise of Resultative Compounds .. Introduction The subject of the rise of resultative compounds in Chinese has been frequently discussed over the past two decades. Actually this problem is important for two reasons. () Typologically speaking, in the terms of Talmy (: –), languages can be categorized into two types: verb-framed languages and satellite-framed languages: the world’s languages generally seem to divide into a two-category typology on the basis of the characteristic pattern in which the conceptual structure of the macroevent is mapped onto syntactic structure. To characterize it initially in broad strokes, the typology consists of whether the core schema is expressed by the main verb or by the satellite . . . Languages that characteristically map the core schema into the verb will be said to have a framing verb and to be verb-framed languages . . . languages that characteristically map the core schema onto the satellite will be said to have a framing satellite and to be satellite-framed languages.

Using these definitions, the contemporary Chinese language obviously belongs to the group of satellite-framed languages like English, German, and so forth, while French, Japanese etc. are included with the verb-framed languages. () Taking the syntactic evolution of Chinese into account, Old Chinese apparently has to be treated as a verb-framed language since in OC the macro-event was expressed by a single verb. In this way, the syntax in OC was closer to that of contemporary French and further from contemporary English. From the above considerations, one understands that the Chinese language underwent typological change. In this chapter, I will present previous works on this problem, analyse contemporary Chinese as a satellite-framed language, and treat OC as a verb-framed language. The present chapter aims to understand how the Chinese language shifted from one type of language to another type and what the mechanism of change was.  Certainly, I do not assume that the Chinese language was a pure type of verb-framed language and is now a pure type of satellite-framed language. As has been claimed in many passages, one can only show the tendency of the type of a language, but Chinese is not a pure type of a language either in OC or today.

The Rise of Resultative Compounds

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.. Previous works From the many impressive works on the rise of resultative compounds, it will be shown that two waves of publications had important impacts: one occurred in the s and the other in the s. In the s, some scholars’ works heavily influenced later researches such as Wáng Lì (), 余健萍 Yú Jiànpíng (), 祝敏徹 Zhù Mǐnchè (), 周遲明 Zhōu Chímíng (), 楊建國 Yáng Jiànguó (), and so forth. At this early stage, the terminology was not unified and the above authors used different terms. There is still a variety of terms used in recent articles, reflecting the complexity of the problem. I have chosen the common term “resultative compounds” when citing the works of all of these authors. Apart from Wáng Lì, who thought that the resultative compounds had formed in the Han dynasty ( – ), the other scholars mentioned assume that this structure appeared before the Han dynasty, more concretely during the Qin period (– ). The details will be discussed in later sections. Actually, it is easy to notice that other important works about resultative compounds were published between these two waves and after the s. As is known, research almost came to a standstill in mainland China for a long period, but other scholars continued their work outside China. One article which produced a strong impact on later research was written by a Japanese scholar, 志村良治 Shimura Ryōji (). In his article, he proposed semantic and syntactic criteria to determine when resultative compounds came into existence. At the beginning of the s, Chinese scholars introduced and translated the research results in Chinese linguistics of their Japanese colleagues, and numerous articles on the subject were published. Later contributions to the subject are found in works published after the s. Two examples will be presented here: the articles of Méi Zǔlín () and Wèi Péiquán (). Their works are representative and their approaches are different. In Méi’s article (), the author has developed the assumptions of 太田辰 夫 Ōta Tatsuo () and Shimura Ryōji (). The idea of these two Japanese scholars was to try to find a criterion that is purely syntactic, to avoid semantic interpretations which vary from one person to the next. Generally speaking, verbs in OC could be used transitively or intransitively (cf. Chapter ), thus the status of a verb is quite subtle since it is not easy at all to determine whether a verb is transitive or intransitive and exceptions can always be  Wáng Lì and Yú Jiànpíng use the term 使成式 shǐchéngshì ‘causative’; Zhōu Chímíng adopts the term 使動 shǐdòng ‘causative’; Zhù Mǐnchè takes the term 動詞補語 dòngcí bǔyǔ ‘resultative verb compound’.

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The Rise of Resultative Compounds

found. Ōta Tatsuo wanted to find verbs with a fixed application that could not be used both ways. He succeeded in discovering a pair of verbs which filled these criteria: 殺 shā ‘to kill’ and 死 sǐ ‘to die’ , two verbs which are semantically opposite and syntactically complementary. These two verbs form a pair of verbs having a causative relationship: we can reinterpret the first one ‘to kill’ as ‘to make someone die’ with regard to ‘to die’ or the second one ‘to die’ as ‘to be caused to be killed’ with regard to ‘to kill’. Méi () full developed the theory of the two Japanese scholars and found a significant number of pairs of verbs with “V殺 shā ‘to kill’ + Object” vs. “V死 sǐ ‘to die’+ø” . The examples he cites are mostly from the 史記 Shǐjì and 論衡 Lùnhéng, data from the Han period. Here are some of his examples: () a. 壓殺 +O yā shā (Shǐjì) press kill ‘to press and kill someone’ b. 壓死 +ø, yā sǐ (Lùnhéng) press die ‘to be crushed’ ()

a. 餓殺+O è shā (Lùnhéng) starve kill ‘to make someone starve’ b. 餓死+ø, è sǐ (Shǐjì) starve die ‘to starve’

()

a. 燒殺+O shāo shā (Lùnhéng) burn kill ‘to burn (and kill) someone’ b. 燒死+ shāo sǐ (Hànshū) burn die ‘to be burned’

 The 漢書 Hànshū is compiled by 班固 Bān Gù ( –) and is a sample of data coming from the Eastern Han.

The Rise of Resultative Compounds ()

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a. 溺殺+O nì shā (Lùnhéng) drown kill ‘to make someone drown’ b. 溺死+ø nì sǐ (Hànshū) drown die ‘to drown’

It is easy to see that these pairs of verb compounds are different only in transitivity: when the verb is 殺 shā ‘to kill’ and follows a verb, the whole verb compound is transitive and its orientation is towards the object; while when the verb is 死 sǐ ‘to die’ and follows the same verb, the whole verb compound is intransitive and its orientation is towards the subject. Méi () proposed that when the object was able to occur freely after the V 死 sǐ type, the resultative verb in Chinese had formed since the whole compound controlled the object. In data from the fifth century , these two verb compound types could carry an object. Méi concludes that the Chinese language did have resultative verb compounds by the MC period. Méi affirms that this phenomenon correlates with other phonological and morphological devices which were progressively disappearing. Wèi Péiquán ()’s work is representative both in approach and in result. Wèi rejects the criterion established by Méi for the pair of verb compounds mentioned above. He agrees with Huang’s () analysis that in the structure V+V, V is a head and V is a modifier. In Wèi’s terms, V plays an adverbial role qualifying V which is a main verb. After the reanalysis process, V became a main verb and V a resultative verb in MC. Wèi points out that the rise of the resultative compound correlates with the rise of the causative construction. This is a new point of view in the study of the resultative compounds. In fact, the causative constructions shǐ/lìng+O+V had a strong impact on the rise of resultative compounds. 古屋 Furuya () also noticed the relationship between causative constructions and other constructions. In his studies, he linked the causative construction with the 得 dé construction. These works are representative of previous works on the rise of resultative compounds. I will now present my analysis based on previous works, taking an approach quite different from other authors.  He thinks that initially these two verbs did not have the same meaning and it is not necessarily true that they can alternate one with the other. He affirms that till the 六朝 Liùcháo (th to th centuries ), V殺 shā ‘to kill’ and V死 sǐ ‘to die’ behave differently.  In  at the Third International Congress of Ancient Chinese Grammar in Paris, Wèi Péiquán and Liú Chénghuì indicated the similar point of view in their separated papers.

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The Rise of Resultative Compounds

.. Distribution of VV in contemporary Chinese Instead of directly studying how VV formed resultative verb compounds in OC or MC, I will start by considering contemporary Chinese. This is because my hypothesis is that what we can see today is the result of previous stages of the language. As the first step, I will examine the way in which VV (verb+resultative verb) are distributed in contemporary Chinese, and then, in order to understand the reason for the changes and preservations that occurred, I will study whether VV had the same distribution in MC. In other words, I will study how a basic verb which expressed an action and a result at the same time in OC changed from having verb status into a satellite (an additional element) in contemporary Chinese. After comparative studies, we can consider that the distribution of VV is clear in contemporary Chinese, but not in MC; because the syntactic position of a verb was flexible in MC, one can only see the tendency of most verbs. However, it is interesting to consider that the syntactic constraints of some verbs have remained the same from the Qin period until today. Some verbs can generally occur either at the V position or at the V position. Let us begin with contemporary Chinese. I will study VV in two ways: their external relationships in respect to other elements, i.e. their syntactic constraints will be observed; their internal relationships in respect to the process, i.e. their semantic implications, will then be examined. The data are based on the 動詞用法詞典 Dòngcí yòngfǎ cídiǎn ‘The Dictionary of Verb Usage’ edited in  by 孟琮 Mèng Zōng et al. Five hundred and twenty-eight monosyllabic verbs are chosen from which the statistics shown in Table . are drawn. Obviously, the large majority of monosyllabic verbs in contemporary Chinese can take V position and a minority of verbs can occupy V position. Verbs which can occur either at V or V position are not numerous. It is clear that some verbs like auxiliary verbs, psychological verbs, verbs that do not express ‘action’ (to be, to have, to like, etc.), can occur neither at V nor at V T .. Distribution of verbs in V or V positions total V 

only at V1 position

only at V2 position

V1 or V2 position

neither V1 nor V2 position

 ≈ %

 ≈ %

 ≈ %

 ≈ %

The directional suffixes 來/去 lái/qù and the construction in 得 dé are not treated here. In fact, this character 琮 should be pronounced cóng since its initial was voiced in MC and here I follow my old colleagues’ habit.  

The Rise of Resultative Compounds

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position. Why does such a distribution exist? Actually this just reflects the fact that most verbs in contemporary Chinese possess an internal starting point in expressing a process, while only a few verbs have an end point in expressing a process. Some verbs have neither a starting point nor an end point; this means that they are not action verbs, i.e. they are auxiliary verbs, psychological verbs, etc. The phenomenon that a verb may possess these two points or boundaries also explains the fundamental difference between verbs and adjectives in Chinese. I begin by studying the distribution in contemporary Chinese and I will compare the situation with that in MC. It will be shown that this distribution is not random and it is due to a natural evolution in the Chinese language. ... Verbs which can occur at V position As has been mentioned above, the verbs which describe the starting point of a process form an overwhelming majority in contemporary Chinese. They express an action, and the action’s accomplishment is not marked or is not necessary to be marked. In English as in Chinese, one verb is not sufficient by itself to express a whole process. It is clear that in English and in Chinese, the core schema is mapped onto the satellite, in contrast with French, a verb-framed language. It is easy to see that in Chinese, verbs implying the use of hands or instruments often appear at V position. The way in which the graphs are formed also clearly indicates this fact. In Table ., all these characters have a semantic element 扌which comes from the character 手 shǒu ‘hand’; these verbs express a concrete action performed with the hand. One understands that verbs with the feature [+concrete action] (which sometimes implies a hand movement and sometimes does not) can generally appear in V position. Table . shows T .. Verbs using hands 擱 gē ‘to put’ 捆 kǔn ‘to tie’ 揉 róu ‘to rub’

挂 guà ‘to hang’ 拉 lā ‘to pull’ 摔 shuāi ‘to break’

擠 jǐ ‘to squeeze’ 抹 mǒ ‘to plaster’ 拴 shuān ‘to bolt ‘

摳 kōu ‘to dig out’ 摸 mō ‘to touch’ 摘 zhāi ‘to take off ’

刮 guā ‘to scrape’ 磨 mò ‘to polish’ 炸 zhá ‘to fry’

刷 shuā ‘to brush’ 砸 zá ‘to smash’ 燙 táng ‘to scald’

T .. Verbs using instruments 剁 duò ‘to chop’ 砍 kǎn ‘to chop’ 燒 shāo ‘to burn’

割 gē ‘to cut’ 磕 kē ‘to knock’ 烤 kǎo ‘to bake’

 In most books on Chinese grammar, it is said that the Chinese adjectives behave just like verbs without further explanations. For some years, the studies of 張國憲 Zhāng Guóxiàn (), 馬真 Mǎ Zhēn and 陸儉明 Lù Jiǎnmíng (), have classified adjectives very clearly.

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The Rise of Resultative Compounds

that these characters have semantic elements expressing an instrument, such as 刂