17 Lesson 16 – 雞鳴狗盗

Commentary on lesson 16:

Younger sons of feudal rulers were often prominent ministers in their own right, often taking the title of 君 “lord”. During the early third century BCE, a number of these lords were particularly famous for their acts of daring-do and their generosity in rewarding their warrior-retainers (the atmosphere was not unlike that found in Japanese samurai movies). The Lord of Mengchang was one such lord; though the younger son of the king of 齊, he travelled through other kingdoms, often hiring out his services. This excerpt comes from the lord’s biography in the 史記

1.1: This is a standard way of indicating chronology of events in historical writing: “In the twenty-fifth year of the reign of King Min…” The Lord of Mengchang had previously visited Qin, hence the phrase “again finally.” Who sent him is unclear in the narrative.

The verb 以…為 can also refer to making somebody something, literally, “he took the Lord of Mengchang and made him a minister.” Probably best translated as “he appointed the Lord of Mengchang minister.”

1.2: Another “modal” use of 其’ see note to 1.4 in lesson 13 above.

This text is an excellent review of all of the various functions of以; you might make a list of its appearances and pay careful attention to how it is used in each case.

Grammar Note 15

In Grammar Note 14 we saw, by inserting 所 suǒ we can turn a simple sentence, such as 梟逢 鳩 xiāo féng jiū  “owl meets a dove,” into a noun parse梟所逢 xiāo suǒ féng  “what owl met.” In Grammar Note 15 we look a little more systematically at some ways of augmenting such phrases and then making them components of new, more elaborate sentences.

1. First, let’s note that梟所逢 xiāo suǒ féng , 虎所求hǔ suǒ qiú  etc. aren’t themselves minimal noun phrases. The minimal noun phrase capable of functioning as such in the sentence would be 所逢  suǒ féng “what was met,” 所求  suǒ qiú  “what was sought.”  These minimal forms are always translatable as passive. An example we’ve seen was 所謂 suǒ wèi “what is called”  in Lesson 11 (twice).  It follows that梟xiāo placed before 所逢 suǒ féng isn’t exactly the actor of an action ( as in the underlying sentence梟逢 鳩 xiāo féng jiū, but something more like the agent of a passive. In other words, we might better translate梟所逢 xiāo suǒ féng  as “what was met by the owl” and 虎所求 hǔ suǒ qiú  as “what was sought by the tiger.”

What we need to catch, here, is a difference of form, not meaning. In meaning , “ what the owl met”  hardly differs from “what was met by the owl.”  But the form – the syntax, the way words combine with and replace each other – is different, and the same is true of as actor in the sentence 梟逢 鳩 xiāo féng jiū compared to its use as agent of the passive in the phrase梟所逢 xiāo suǒ féng.  For now you need to recognize and grasp two formal peculiarities of the agent before所 suǒ:

(1) It is frequently followed by 之 zhī. Thus:

In each case, the meaning is no different from that of the same phrase without the 之 zhī.

(2) In each of the above sentences the agent (and, if present, the 之 zhī  which follows it) can be replaced by the possessive or attributive pronoun 其 qí “his, her its, their”:

and likewise in  其所求  qí  suǒ qiú, 其所釋   qí  suǒ shì, etc.

Note that 其 qí can never stand by itself as actor but in these uses is always and only an agent followed by 所 suǒ.  The use of attributive其 qí as agent consists with the use of a noun as agent followed by attributive之 zhī .

Note also that what precedes所 suǒ need not be an agent but may be some other sort of subject (topic), for example setting the scene in time or place.  Thus besides

we may have

2. Noun phrases of the kinds mentioned, followed by之 zhī , can in their entirety serve as modifiers.  The resulting construction, including the element modified, is still a noun phrase (as it must be, because of the nominalizing 之 zhī ).  Examples are:

As in any other case, construction like 之鳩zhī jiū are replaceable with 者 zhě.   Thus:

虎所求之狐  becomes 虎所求者       and

其所求之狐  becomes 其所求者

(Note that there is no meaningful difference between 虎所求者 hǔ suǒ qiú zhě and 虎所求 hǔ suǒ qiú.)

3. Noun phrases with 所 suǒ of the kinds we have considered, preceded or not by an agent or other subject, and followed or not by an element which they modify, can as a whole enter sentence as subject or predicate.

subject:

predicate:

The above are augmented forms; the minimal forms would be: