using 予以

[Pedroski]

I had this sentence,

 

您认为我国在发展“低碳经济“方面，可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进。

 

and I was not sure what '予以‘ was doing there. Dictionaries say '予以 = give, grant', one said 'impose'. I liked 'impose' because it meant the government is forcing the adoption of '低碳经济‘， but I got no echo there. There doesn't seem to be a sense of 'forcing' in the Chinese.

 

Theory 1： Someone said 予以 is often seen in officialese and may be regarded as 'as a means of, for the purpose of'. Makes sense.

 

Theory 2：Another person gave this example: 我对她予以照顾。

 

He said, 予以 is functioning here a bit like 把 or 将， marking 她 as the object of 照顾。Otherwise， he said, I should write '我照顾她。‘ Is this correct? Isn't it just 'I give her care.'

 

He said, unlike 把， 予以 comes after the noun/pronoun. In my sentence that would be '哪些政策措施‘ so leaving out 予以 I would need to write '可能会采取推进哪些政策措施‘ which seems a bit odd to me, but I am not Chinese.

 

Which theory do you prefer?

[imron]

Playing dictionary hunt with Guifan CC dictionary...

 

予以 = 给以 = 使对方得到

[Pedroski]

Got this for a rearranged senence:

 

"Yeah, maybe '可能会采取哪些推进政策措施' is better, or '可能会采取哪些政策推进措施'"

[skylee]

Consider -

您认为我国可能会采取哪些政策措施（繼續/進一步）发展“低碳经济“？

[陳德聰]

Notice the following things:
给予 <- that's a word where 给 and 予 mean the same thing as each other, and we can infer that 给以 and 予以 (or just use a dictionary as in #2) are equivalent to each other.
In essence... 给 and 给以 really mean the same thing, they just show up in different places and mark different things.
给 (for the most part) comes before nouns.
给以 comes before verbs. (magical little 以 there, think 可以、足以 etc.)
 
Beside register/style, there is no difference between 对她予以照顾 and 照顾她. The former just sounds kind of ridiculous and convoluted.
 
Your examples of "rearrangements" in #3 don't mean the same thing as the original sentence. The first one... I don't even see that as being a correct sentence.
 
[我国] 在 [发展“低碳经济“]方面，[可能会采取[哪些政策措施]] 予以[推进] can be rearranged by removing the convoluted superfluous structures “在...方面" and "予以" thusly:

[我国] [可能会采取[哪些政策措施]] [推进] [发展”低碳经济“]

But... 推进发展 sounds a bit awkward (though it is certainly used by some people), which would lead to skylee's #4 post.

 

Something to keep in mind: 政策措施 goes together. Don't insert random things in between like whoever suggested the awful rearrangement in #3.

[Pedroski]

Still not too clear on this: 予以 is a particle or a word with meaning? Is it just 给 in a different guise?

 

•  

• 有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚
• Those who have made special contributions should be recognized.

The grammar used here is literary Chinese, and the original meaning of 予以 as 'give + indirect obj marker' is very clear. The subject is the direct object, hence in English, the whole thing is passive. Many native speakers don't really know how to use this type of literary construction.

 

[陳德聰]

I don't think that is a very apt explanation.

Definitely not "a particle".

[Pedroski]

Also not 给：

 

You would like to interpret 予以 as 給 in a sentence like this:

有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚.

But would you say:

有特殊貢獻者應給表揚

I don't think this is good Chinese. Have you checked with a native speaker?

 

 

I wanted to interpret 予以 just as 给

 

有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚

have special contributors should give praise.

There are special contributors (who we) should give praise to.

 

What makes you interpret 表扬 as a verb? Why not a noun?

 

[陳德聰]

予以 is not 给. Nobody ever said that it was. We said that is is 给以.

 

Ughhhhh after writing out a whole long thing, I take it back. It is a "noun". I do still feel that 予以 works best with words that are verbs in their root, but become nouns in this construction. The only reason I have to believe that is that people say things like 予以报酬 (although I think that sounds weird and would make more sense as X予报酬 where X is either nothing or 付 or 赠 or something like that), which tells me that there is a noun-ness to the construction but that the 以 does something to change the word category of the following verb.

 

Note though that when I see this construction I actually interpret it as the un-flipped-around-version in my mind： 有特殊贡献者应该表扬. English is noun heavy. Chinese sounds and feels way more natural to me with the focus on verbs.

[Pedroski]

Thanks for that, very interesting. Only another 10 or 20 years, I might get the hang of Chinese. A joke to lighten the load, I like this one:

 

An Englishman, a Frenchman, a Spaniard and a German are watching a street performer juggling. The juggler notices that they can't see him very well at the back of the crowd, so he stands on a box, then asks 'Can you see me better now?' They reply:

 

Yes

Oui

Si

Ja