{1} Lesson 1
習 相 遠 也 。 |
子 曰 。 性 相 近 也 。 |
{2} 1.2. Vocabulary
(Eight new characters)
子 zǐ n., Master (here refers to 孔子 Kǒngzǐ, who is better known in the West by the Latinization of his name, “Confucius”)
曰 yuē v., to say (used to introduce a direct quotation)1
性 xìng n., nature (as in “human nature” or “the natures of humans”)
相 xiāng adv., to each other
近 jìn s.v., to be close
也 yě g.p. (comes at end of sentences to mark nominal sentences; often indicates a generalization)
習 (习) xí n., practices
遠 or 遠 (远) yuǎn s.v., to be far
Stative Verbs, Adverbs, and Nominal Sentences
This reading is the complete text of Analects 17.2.2 The Analects (known in Chinese as the 論語 (论语) Lúnyǔ, which probably means “Categorized {3} Sayings”) is the collection of sayings and brief dialogues attributed to 孔子 Kǒngzǐ and his disciples. Kǒngzǐ is better known in the West by the Latinization of his name: “Confucius.” He lived from 551 to 479 BCE. The Analects is divided into twenty “books” (each of which is about as long as a chapter), and the books are subdivided into “chapters” (some of which are as short as this one, and others of which are as long as a few paragraphs). So Analects 17.2 is book 17, chapter 2. The traditional view is that the Analects was composed after the death of Kǒngzǐ by his disciples, but there is controversy among contemporary scholars about how and when the Analects was composed.3
Look up the meanings of 近 jìn and 遠 yuǎn in the character list if you have not already done so.
Roughly speaking, we can divide Classical Chinese verbs into transitive verbs (which take a direct object) and stative verbs (which do not). Here 近 jìn and 遠 yuǎn are stative verbs. Stative verbs function something like adjectives in English, because they tell you the “state,” or characteristics of something.4 A stative verb, “SV,” following a noun, “N,” can make a complete sentence.
{4} Pattern:
N + SV.
The N is SV.
Examples:
子近。
The Master is near.
子遠。
The Master is far away.
Adverbs are words that modify verbs or adjectives. “Quickly,” “foolishly,” and “carefully” are examples of adverbs in English. In this lesson, 相 xiāng, “to each other,” is an adverb. In English, adverbs can go either before or after the verb they modify: “He cautiously opened the door” or “He opened the door cautiously.” But, in general, adverbs in Chinese must precede the phrase they modify.
Pattern:
ADV + V
to do V in an ADV way
to V ADV-ly
Example:
相近。Xiāng jìn.
(They) are mutually close.
(They) are close to each other.
One of the basic constructions in Classical Chinese is the nominal sentence, which involves a noun or a nominal phrase (i.e., a phrase acting as {5} a noun), N1, another noun or nominal phrase, N2, and the grammatical particle 也 yě.
Pattern:
N1 N2 也。
N1 is an N2
As for N1, it is an N2.
So we might say in English
The king is a thief.
But in Classical Chinese they would say
King thief 也。
Or, to replace N1 and N2 with nominal phrases, we would say in English
Whistling through your nose is irritating to your neighbors.
In Classical Chinese they might say
Whistling through your nose。Irritating to your neighbors 也。
(Recall that 。 is the traditional multipurpose mark of punctuation.)
If you look at this sentence carefully, you’ll notice that it is a bit different from our previous sample. In “King thief 也,” both the N1 and the N2 are nouns. But in “Whistling through your nose。Irritating to your neighbors 也,” the N1 and the N2 are actually verbal phrases. (Intuitively, “irritating to your neighbors” does not refer to a thing: it describes something that your whistling does.) This is quite common in Classical Chinese: the N1 or the N2 (or both) can be verbal phrases that are acting as nouns. So the meaning of our second sample sentence above is really
Whistling through your nose is a thing that is irritating to your neighbors.
A final point to notice about sentences with a final 也 in which the N2 is verbal is that they often express states that are ongoing (as opposed {6} to states that have been completed) or are universal generalizations (as opposed to statements that are only true at a particular time).5
1.3.4. Putting It All Together
So let’s apply what we’ve learned to the first sentence from the reading:
性相近也。 Xìng xiāng jìn yě.
The occurrence of 也 yě at the end of the phrase makes us suspect that we are dealing with a nominal sentence (and we are). So what are the N1 and the N2? As you become more accustomed to reading Classical Chinese, you will start to develop an eye for quickly spotting plausible nominal phrases (although, as in any language, there will be sentences that puzzle you at first glance). When in doubt, start at either the beginning or the end of the sentence and move in the opposite direction, trying various combinations of characters as candidates for N1 and N2, until you see what makes the most sense.
Let’s try starting from the beginning of the sentence. Suppose 性 xìng is the N1. That would make 相近 xiāng jìn the N2. So the sentence would be saying
As for 性, they are things that are 相近.
This is, in fact, the correct way to understand the grammar of this sentence. (If you tried 性相 as the N1, you would quickly realize your mistake: 相 is an adverb that has to come before the verb it modifies, so it would be “dangling” without anything to modify if it were part of N1.) You will notice that 相近 is a verbal phrase, of the form ADV + SV. In addition, the 也 here marks a generalization. If you put all this together, you should be able to work out what Kǒngzǐ is saying. (You may be unsure why Kǒngzǐ is saying this, but you should have a hypothesis about the general sense of the sentence.)
Now, go on and do the same thing for the second sentence in this lesson, which has the same grammar. Once you have a hypothesis for what {7} the second sentence means, see if you have a better idea why Kǒngzǐ is saying what he is saying, and what contrast he wishes to draw.
1.4.1. Philosophical Issues: Human Nature
Later followers of Kǒngzǐ debated whether human nature is good, bad, morally neutral, has good and bad elements in it, or is good in some and bad in others.6 Which of these views is Kǒngzǐ supporting in Analects 17.2? Which of these views is Kǒngzǐ ruling out in 17.2?
What does Kǒngzǐ mean by “practices” here? He might just mean “human activities” or “what people do.” However, Analects 1.1 (the opening passage in the book) says “To learn and then have occasion to practice [xí 習] what you have learned—is this not satisfying?”7 How would you read 17.2 if you were interpreting it in the light of 1.1?
1.4.2. Sino-Tibetan vs. Indo-European
The Indo-European language family is the group to which all the “Western” and most of the South Asian languages belong: Latin and the Romance Languages that developed from it (such as Italian, Spanish, and French), Greek, the Germanic languages (including the German dialects and English), Sanskrit and its descendants such as Hindi. Classical and Modern Chinese are in a different and (in the opinion of most scholars) unrelated language family: the Sino-Tibetan languages. (As I noted in the Introduction, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese are neither Indo-European nor Sino-Tibetan languages, even though Chinese characters were adopted in all these cultures.) Unsurprisingly, there are lots of differences between the Indo-European and Sino-Tibetan language families.
{8} One major difference is that all the Indo-European languages have forms of the verb “to be” (for example εἶναι in Classical Greek, esse in Latin, and 
in Sanskrit). This verb expresses existence (“there are mice in the basement”), predication (“the mice are happy”), identity (“Clark Kent is Superman”), and truth (“Is not!” “Is so!”). There is no one verb or grammatical construction that performs all of these roles in Classical Chinese. For example, as we have seen, 也 yě performs some of the roles of the verb “to be” in English, but it cannot express the fact that something exists (see Lesson 5).
This difference may have led to some of the characteristic differences between Chinese and Western philosophy. Plato is one of the fathers of Western philosophy, and one of his main concerns was the nature of Being. But there is no way to even say “Being” in Classical Chinese. Consequently, certain metaphysical issues became central to Western philosophy in a way that they almost couldn’t have in Chinese philosophy.
If you have previously studied any Indo-European languages, you may notice some other things that seem to be “missing” from my vocabulary list for this reading. The nouns have no number. Is it “nature” or “natures”? “Practice” or “practices”? Verbs also lack number and tense: depending on its context, 近 jìn could mean “am close” or “will be close.” They have no mood: depending on its context, 近 jìn could be “let them be close” rather than “they are close.”
This might seem to imply that Classical Chinese is vague. Classical Chinese can be vague, but so can any other language. Classical Chinese can also have a level of precision limited only by one’s own mind. The key phrase in the previous paragraph is “depending on its context.” Context disambiguates most expressions to a great extent. By providing context, a careful writer of Classical Chinese can be as precise as he wishes.
Free practice materials—including quizzes and additional readings—are available at www.hackettpublishing.com/chinese-for-everyone-support.
1. Nerd note: In a later lesson we’ll meet a different character 日 rì, which is narrower than 曰 yuē and means “Sun.” For this lesson you are only responsible for learning 曰 yuē.
2. For an English translation of this passage, see Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, Second Edition (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2005), p. 48. In each lesson, I will provide a reference to an English translation of the relevant text, but I have two strong recommendations. First, do not look at any English translations until after you have completed the lesson. Second, it is a good idea to compare multiple translations of a single text and think carefully about the differences among them. Sometimes, differences are because translators make mistakes. However, differences can also be because of choices translators make about how to balance values like readability and fidelity to the original. For more on these issues, see sections 6.4.2–3 and 7.4.2, below.
3. Nerd note: To learn more about Confucius, see the TED-Ed video I scripted, “Who Was Confucius?” TED-Ed, https://ed.ted.com/lessons/who-was-confucius-bryan-w-van-norden.
4. Nerd note: Pulleyblank subdivides intransitive verbs into stative verbs and “verbs proper.” See Pulleyblank, Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar, IV.1–8, especially pp. 23–24. Why not just call stative verbs “adjectives”? Well, Pulleyblank does call them that, but many scholars prefer to call them stative verbs for the following reason. A noun followed by a stative verb in Chinese can be a complete sentence. But, in English, you can’t just put an adjective after a noun and have a grammatical sentence. If you said, “Ball red,” you would sound like the Hulk. In English, to make a complete sentence with an adjective, we use a form of the verb “to be,” but in Chinese they use verbs that do the work of “to-be + adjective” in English. (See also the supplemental section “Sino-Tibetan vs. Indo-European” below.)
5. Nerd note: To learn more about nominal sentences, see Pulleyblank, Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar, III.1, especially p. 16, and XII.2b, p. 118.
6. Nerd note: the followers of Kǒngzǐ came to be known as 儒 rú. In English, we translate this “Confucians,” but that is misleading because “Confucian” is derived from the name “Confucius,” but as you can see 儒 (“Confucians”) in Chinese is not cognate with 孔子 (“Confucius”).
7. Ivanhoe and Van Norden, Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, p. 3.