11 Lesson 10 -趙簡子舉兵而攻齊

Grammar Note 9

1. More about 於 yú: 於 yú:  is variably described as a “coverb” and as “to, in, from, than”, and this is its common use as an empty word.  (It can also be a full verb “to take a position”, nominalized to mean “position”, as in 王之於國 wáng zhī yú guó “the king’s position toward his country”).

As an empty word, followed by its noun object, 於 yú commonly forms a coverbal or prepositional phrase which comes after the verb: 生於燕，長於楚 shēng yú Yān, zhǎng yú Chǔ “born in Yan, grew up in Chu” (lesson 9).  If you are familiar with Mandarin you may be thinking of 於 yú as equivalent to Mandarin 在 zài “at, on, in”.  When you are writing in Classical Chinese you must remember that Classical Chinese 於 yú and Mandarin在 zài, while similar in meaning, are used differently with respect to word order, for 於 yú phrases, as noted follow the verb and do not generally precede it, while 在 zài phrases may do either: 他們在家裡玩兒呢 tāmen zài jiā lǐ wánr ne “they are playing at home” (preceding the verb)  住在家裡 zhù zài jiā lǐ (following the verb).

The rule in Classical Chinese that 於 yú phrases following the verb is not, however, without exception.  The exception you will most often see is the expression 於是 yúshì “at this, thereupon”, which often begins a sentence, as in the last sentence of lesson 10.

2. Verb of manner. In lesson 9 the expression 愀然 qiǎo rán “sad(ly)”, 喟然 kuì rán “deep(ly)”, 涓然 juān rán “streaming(ly), and 啞然 è rán “loud(ly)” are all verbs of manner (Shadick, pp. 721-22), a set of verbs especially restricted in function – for example, they can’t be negated.  Often, as here, they modify another verb to which they may be joined by而 ér, as in 喟然而嘆 “deeply sigh” etc.  然 rán is a common suffix of verbs of manner.

3. As we have seen (Grammar Notes 1, 4), ” 而 ér is a conjunction which joins verbs or verb phrases, meaning “and, and thus, and therefore, but”. The most common conjunction “and” which joins nouns or noun phrases is 與 yǔ as in 夫與婦 (Lesson 10).

4. Another contraction. A common sentence-final phrase in Classical Chinese is 而已 ér yǐ, literally “and stop” meaning “and there’s the end of it, that’s all (there is to it), that’s it, that’s the whole story.” The expression而已 ěr yǐ is sometimes contracted to 耳 ěr as in 此晉國耳 cǐ Jìn guó ěr “This is the State of Jin and no other – this is only the State of Jin.” Compare the Mandarin sentence-final phrases 罷了 bà le and 就是了 jiù shì le.

Both而已 ér yǐ and its contraction can be followed by 矣 yǐ (cf. the 了 le in the Mandarin expressions just cited).  Thus the Classical Chinese expression can take four forms:

而已 ér yǐ                           耳 ěr

而已矣 ér yǐ yǐ                  耳矣ěr yǐ

The verb 已 yǐ “stop” which (in full or contracted form) occurs in all these variants, should potentially be the main verb of the sentence, since it follows the (full or contracted) conjunction.  But in fact this phrase had been reduced to an idiomatic tag ending of sentence.

而已 ér yǐ /耳 ěr is an interesting example of an expression which coexisted in uncontracted and contracted forms (just like English will not, won’t).  The other Classical Chinese contractions we have seen had supplanted the contracted forms they derived from: 耶 yē from 也乎, 焉 yān   from 於 yú plus ? an (meaning 之 zhī), 然 rán from 如 rú or 若 ruò, plus the same final; 耶 yē  seldom occurs uncontracted, 焉 yān and 然 rán  never.