Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar, Edwin Pulleyblank 1995

this is part of my ongoing efforts to establish a Classical Chinese subforum.

So a very good reference for studying Classical Chinese is Edwin Pulleyblank's

Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar. 1995. Vancouver: UBC Press.

He is a Chinese linguist (as in Chinese linguistics) who has worked a lot in historical Chinese phonology, especially Middle Chinese, for which he has published a lexicon of reconstructed pronunciations.

I like his Classical Chinese Grammar a lot, it is written in a very concise style, and all the examples are from Classical texts. In a strict sense, this includes only texts from the time of Confucius up to the founding of the Qin Empire.

As Pulleyblank says on p. 3, the texts from this period can be roughly grouped into four categories:

a) a rather archaic form of literary language, showing features in common with the Shījīng and probably based on a Central dialect, such as the Zuǒzhuàn 左傳 and Guóyǔ 國語;

B) a Lǔ 魯 dialect used in the Confucian Analects (Lúnyǔ 論語; more archaic) and Mencius (Mèngzǐ 孟子; more evolved);

c) a Chǔ 楚 dialect used in the Lí Sāo 離騷 and other early poems such as the Chǔcí 楚辭;

and d) a third-century dialect found in texts such as Zhuāngzǐ 莊子, Xuńzǐ 荀子 and Hán Fēizǐ 韓非子, showing an evolution towards a common literary standard but still with marked differences between different texts.

Anyways, so please use this thread for any questions, comments etc. related to the contents of the book, especially if the explanations and/or example sentences used are hard to understand or whatever.

I will probably use this thread to randomly post some notes from things I have learnt from this book, but please feel free to contribute in any way.

Thanks

In some cases, two function words can be contracted and written as one monosyllabic character. This is akin to how 別 has evolved from 不要 in Modern Mandarin.

And in Classical Chinese, because characters used for writing function words can be quite ambiguous (due to how characters were used according to the rebus principle), it can make it all the more confusing. So I'll review some common contractions. If anything is unclear, or you want some example sentences illustrating one point or the other, feel free to ask!

Contractions involving the 之

Usually 之 as an object pronoun, but sometimes also as a genitive particle or nominaliser. However, in the full lexical meaning as a verb "to go", it is usually not subject to contractions.

- 諸 zhū can be a contraction of 之乎 zhī hū, with 之 being the object pronoun and 乎 either the final question particle or a variant of the coverb 於 yú. In some rarer cases 諸 can also be contraction for 有之乎 "is it so". To make matters even more confusing, 諸 can be used on its own with the meaning of "all, the class of", as in 諸侯 zhū hóu "the feudal lords".

- 奈何 nài hé for 若之何 ruò zhī hé "what is to be done about it"

There are also some cases that aren't contractions in the strict sense that one never finds the "uncontracted cases"

- 焉 yān, the most important of them all, which always occurs where one would expect 於之, i.e. a combination of the preposition and the object pronoun. But 於之 never occurs in classical texts, only 焉. (Very rare is 旃 zhān for 之 + 焉, only occurs in the 左傳)

- 爰 yuán similarly is a contraction of 于 yú and 之 zhī, which also never occurs. The prepositions 於 yú, 于 yú and 乎 hū are of different (dialectal?) origin, but in Classical Chinese they are pretty much used interchangeably (with the exception that 乎 hū can also be used as a final question particle).

- 然 rán occurs where one would expect 如之 rú zhī, "like this"

- 云 yún for 曰之 yuē zhī.

- 弗 fú and 勿 wù: these two negators were originally not contractions, but were apparently reanalysed as contractions of 不 bù +之 zhī and 毋 wú + 之 zhī in the Warring States Period

- 以 yǐ "with, by" is almost never followed by 之. Instead 以 alone is used.

Other contractions

- 耳 ěr is a contraction of 而已 éryǐ 'only', which is two words in Classical Chinese. This was discussed in an earlier thread.

- 盍 hé from 胡不 hú bù 'why not' (胡 is a variant of 何)

- 與 yú (also written 歟), from 也乎 yě hū the question particle added to the final particle 也

- 邪 yé (also written 耶), from 也乎 yě hū, probably a dialectal variant of the former.

- the final particle 夫 fú 'is it not' might be a contraction of 不 bù + 乎 hū. Unfortunately, 夫 fú can have a lot of other meanings (demonstrative pronoun, generalising initial particle), but then it's not at the end of a sentence (and probably not a contraction either). If it's used as a noun meaning "man", it is pronounced 夫 fū however.

One thing that always confused me about the syntax of Classical Chinese was the word order of object pronouns in certain types of sentences.

Usually, the object pronoun just follows the verb:

而乃今知之乎? ér nǎi jīn zhī zhī hū? Do you know it now? (ex. 264, from Zhuangzi)

There are three cases, where a different word order applies, with the pronoun occurring BEFORE the verb instead:

1. Interrogative pronoun objects

Interrogative pronouns used as object still precede the verb

鄉人長於伯兄一歲,則誰敬? xiàng rén zhǎng yú bó xiōng yī suì, zé shuí jìng? (Suppose that) a man of the village is a year older than your elder brother, then which do you respect (ex. 321, Mencius).

However this is not true if the pronoun is a copula complement, then it follows the copula:

子為誰? zǐ wéi shuí? Who are you? (ex. 323, Analects)

2. When verbs are negated

When a verb is negated, unstressed pronominal objects are usually placed between the negator and the verb.

父母之不我愛.... fù mǔ zhī bù wǒ ài... That my parents did not love me... (ex. 286, Mencius) (Note: 之 is a nominaliser here and not an object pronoun)

臣未之聞也. chén wèi zhī wén yě. Your servant has never heard about them.(ex. 295, Mencius)

Exceptions: a. often, when the perfective particle 矣 ends the sentence, the pronominal object follows the verb.

聖人吾不得而見之矣. shèng rén wú bù dé ér jiàn zhī yǐ. A sage, I shall not get to see. (ex. 292, Analects)

b. with the negators 弗 fú, 勿 wù and 蔑 miè which originally ended in *-t.

...則勿毀之矣. ...zé wù huǐ zhī yǐ. ... then don't destroy it. (ex. 388, Mencius)

c. negated personal pronouns occasionally occur after the verb

夫不惡女乎? fú bù wù rǔ hū? Does he not hate you? (夫 fú "he", 女 rǔ "you") (ex. 294, Zuozhuan)

3. Pronoun referring to an exposed object

Usually when an object gets exposed (fronted), the object pronoun 之 is used to refer back to it. Usually this occurs after the verb:

五畝之宅,樹之以桑. wǔ mǔ zhī zhái, shù zhī yǐ sāng. The household plots of five mu, let them plant those with mulberries. (ex. 231, Mencius)

However in the Shijing and texts from comparatively early periods of Classical Chinese, such as Zuozhuan or Guoyu, the recapitulating pronoun can either be 之 or 是 and is usually placed BEFORE the verb.

戎狄是膺. Róng Dí shì yīng. The Rong and the Di, them he repressed. (ex. 232, Zuozhuan)

寡人之從君而西也,亦晉之妖夢是踐. guǎ rén zhī cóng jūn ér xī yě, yì Jìn zhī yāo mèng yāo shì jiàn. That I am following my ruler and going to West, surely fulfills my strange dream in Jin. (ex. 233, Zuozhuan)

This usage survives in the Classical language in the construction with 謂 wèi .

夫子之謂也. Fūzǐ zhī wèi yě. It (the poem) refers to you, sir. (ex. 237, Mencius)

非此之謂也. fēi cǐ zhī wèi yě. I did not mean this. (ex. 238, Mencius)

Cool thread. I found this line quite hard to understand the first time I came across it in class:

戎狄是膺. Róng Dí shì yīng.

It's odd that the resumptive pronoun comes right after the noun that it's resuming. Do you know why that is?

hi, it's no so much after the noun it's resuming but that it precedes the predicate. So it's more like 戎狄, 是膺. Unfortunately the resumptive pronoun is between the exposed part and the predicate in all examples. So I don't know. That's actually quite an interesting topic to think about. Another example he gives argues against the idea that the exposed part is a topic, but again the resumptive pronoun is between the exposed object and the predicate:

余必臣是助. yú bì chén shì zhù. My subjects, I will certainly help. (Zuozhuan)

When we look at exposed subjects, we get the same thing, but in both preclassical and classical (only that in this case the presumptive pronoun in preclassical is 實 shí or 寔 shí:

此二人者實弒寡君. cǐ èr rén zhě shí shì guǎ jūn. "It was these two men who killed our ruler." (Zuozhuan)

王之不王是折枝之類也. wáng zhī bù wàng shì zhé zhī zhī lěi yě. "Your majesty's not achiveing true kingship is in the category of breaking a branch." (Mencius)

But I would think it really should go with the verb, and it's a pity there are no further examples in Pulleyblank. I don't think I will get around to reading the Zuozhuan any time soon, otherwise one could look out for further instances.

So, as I announced in the other thread, here's a question. I've been meaning to buy a copy of this excellent book, but as its price is fairly high, I keep putting it off and consulting the copy in the library instead. Has anyone bought this book, and if so, do you use it regularly once you've bought it? It's been my experience over the last few years that books I buy quickly end up just being used once in a blue moon. I will probably end up buying a copy anyway, but just wondering how you feel.

I'd say it depends on you. If you like reading grammar books, you'll like this one, and it will definitely come in handy for your Classical Chinese lessons. One problem I see is that the examples aren't glossed, although the translations are reasonably literal that you can usually figure the structure out.

I really should learn some more vocabulary though. While I think I have a good idea about the grammar, I struggle quite a bit with the vocab, both the unknown words and also words you think you know but turn out to be quite polysemous depending on the context.

Hmm. Lack of glosses wouldn't be too much of a problem for me, as I generally enjoy trying to figure it out by myself anyway. I think I'll buy a copy, and I'll probably get An Introduction to Literary Chinese as well. Can't keep relying on the library, eh. Thanks!

Yeah Fuller has also grammatical explanations, though I don't think they're detailed enough (I guess if we wanted to go into detail about that, it would be a case for the Fuller thread).

No, I don't think I'd be buying Fuller for his grammatical explanations, but Amazon.co.uk was offering Pulleyblank and Fuller as a special deal "recommended for me" (which just goes to show how often I've browsed amazon.co.uk and pondered whether my wallet could take the hit). Thanks!

By the way, if you would like to know more about "the word order of object pronouns in certain types of sentences", I read an article a few weeks ago with detailed research into such "oddities". I'm afraid I've forgotten where I read it, as I merely came across it while doing some other research, but would you like for me to see if I could find it?

Yeah, I'd love to read that. Thanks!

Okay, I'll have a look on Monday...I'll keep you posted

Okay, I've found it. It's probably not exactly what you were looking for, but it might still be interesting if you want to know more about word order in the classical era:

Barbara Meisterernst. “The Position of Interrogatives in a Han-time Text”. In: Djamouri, Redouane (ed.) Collected Essays in Ancient Chinese Grammar. Paris: Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Centre de Recherches Linguistiques sur l'Asie orientale, 2001. pp. 265-287.

I seem to recall there was also another article about word order in ancient Chinese languages in the same volume, although as I have been unable to physically examine it, I cannot verify that.

Hope it is of interest to you!

I just had a quick look at my university online library catalogue and they've got the book. It's exam season at the moment though, so I had better wait a few weeks before getting it out