Adam Smith

Grammar Notes 2

而 ér “and”, “but”, etc.

視而不見，聽而不聞，食而不知其味。
To look without seeing, to listen without hearing, to eat without knowing the taste of food [lit. 'its
taste’].

王笑而不言。
The king smiled but said nothing. / The king smiled without saying anything. / The king smiled and
said nothing.

老而無子曰“獨”。
To be old without children is called 'dú’ (‘alone’).

三過其門而不入。
Three times he passed his door without entering. / He passed his door three times but did not go
in.

Adverbs
In English there is often a lot of freedom about where an adverb goes in relation to the verb it
modifies. "He quickly ran..", "He ran quickly…" etc. In Classical Chinese the adverb goes in the
slot immediately prior to the verb it modifies.

明月初上 忽覺有人隨之 急告其友 大呼以求救

三過其門而不入 大亡其財

所 suǒ (and 者 zhĕ again)

Think of 所 (and 者) as a way of transforming a sentence into a Noun Phrase to be used in

another, bigger sentence. Let's start by considering the analysis of the following simple sentence:

犬 食 肉 “The dog eats/ate meat”

Subject Verb Object
“Dog” “eats” “meat”

We already know how to transform the above sentence using 者

食 肉 者 “The one who eats/ate meat”

We delete 犬 and add 者 at the end. The result of this transformation is a NP that refers to the
same thing as the original Subject, namely the dog. We can now use this new NP in other
sentences:

食肉者，何也？ “What was it that ate the meat?” (何 = ‘什麽’)

Adam Smith

食肉者，犬也。 “It was the dog that ate the meat.”

所 is used in a similar kind of transformation, but the resulting NP refers to the original Object
instead of the original Subject, i.e. to the meat. Delete the Object (肉) and insert 所 in front of the
Verb. (Sometimes an additional 者 is added at the end.)

犬 所 食 （者） “The thing the dog ate”

As previously, we can use this NP as a component of other sentences, like:

犬所食（者），何也？ “What was it the dog ate?”

犬所食（者），肉也。 “It was meat the dog ate.”

Clear? Try the 者-transformation and the 所-transformation on the following sentences, and use
them to ask and answer questions.

王殺其妻。 富人亡其財。 舟過江。

Here are some real examples from the 《孟子》.

所至 所知 所畏

狄人之所欲者，吾土地也。 (狄: Dí, name of a barbarian tribe.)

Note the extra 之 inserted here. This is common.

富，人之所欲。

孟子曰：“魚，我所欲也。熊掌，亦我所欲也。二者不可得兼。舍魚
而取熊掌者也。”
Mencius said: "Fish is what I want. Bear's paws are also what I want. The two can't be had
together. It's a case of giving up the fish and taking the bear's paws."

今之所謂良臣，古之所謂民賊也。
Those called 'excellent ministers' in today's world, are what were called 'robbers of the people' in
antiquity. [In other words, standards have fallen.]

Note that this is a 'verbless (or nominal) predicate construction' (AB也 "A is B"). The structure is:
Today - 's - (what-is-called-"good minister") IS Antiquity - 's - (what-is-called-"people robber")

孟子曰：“人之所不學而能者，其良能也。所不慮而知者，其良知
也。”