Once again Old Chinese yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].

• Author: Pulleyblank, Edwin G.

In a recent number of this journal, harking back to one of the late George Kennedy's important contributions to Old Chinese grammar, Paul Goldin proposes, as if it were a brand new idea, that the hypothetical pronoun *an that Kennedy supposed had fused with the preposition yu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'in' to give yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] in the meaning 'in it' was none other than "an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] itself" (Goldin 2003). As it happens he was anticipated in the first part of this suggestion by my very first publication on Old Chinese grammar entitled "A Case of Sandhi?" (Pulleyblank 1958). I suggested that the expression ruo gan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'a certain number; how many?' could be interpreted as combining ruo [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'like', reconstructed by Karlgren as niak, and an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], which, like Goldin. I thought might be the hypothetical pronominal element posited by Kennedy as combining with yu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'in' to form yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'in it' or with ru [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'like' to form ran [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'like it'. I assumed that the final *-k of the first syllable ruo [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] had attached itself as a sandhi phenomenon to the onset of the second syllable an.

My purpose here is not, however, to claim priority in interpreting Kennedy's hypothetical pronoun as an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], a view that I no longer hold. What I do want to point out is that in more recent times I have proposed what I am sure is a much better solution to the morphology of yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'in it' and ran [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'like it'; to which must be added yun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'say so' derived from the root in yue [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'say' (introducing a quotation) a yuan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'thereupon' in the Shijing, bearing, as Kennedy showed, the same relation to the non-occurring *yuzhi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'to it' as yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'in it' does to the non-occurring *yu zhi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'in it' (Kennedy 1964: 75). My conclusions on these matters are summarized in my Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar (Pulleyblank 1995: 80-83). As I say there, yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] is probably derived from yu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] by the means of a suffix *n inherited from Sino-Tibetan which was originally a mark of non-perfective or durative aspect, the anaphoric meaning 'in it' being a secondary development.

This idea was first developed in an article published in a volume in honor of the late Angus Graham (Pulleyblank 1991). Graham had previously pointed out that in the Odes, yun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and yue [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] mostly appear not as verbs of saying but as particles meaning "prospective" aspect in the case of yun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and "actualizing" aspect in the case of yue [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (Graham 1983). He also referred to Zhou Fagao's demonstration that in preverbal position in the Odes yu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] is a marker of inceptive or continuative aspect so that yu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], yun [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and yue [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] together form a three-term aspectual system (Zhou 1962). As I was able to show, there is good reason for thinking that the suffixes *-n and *-t go back to Sino-Tibetan and are found in Chinese not only in these particles but also in many content words. In Tibetan there are such sets as drod 'heat' and dron-mo 'warm' from dro-ba 'to be warm'. In Chinese there are such cases as yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] EMC [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] 'word' derived from yu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] EMC [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]? 'speak'; zhe [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] EMC triat 'wise' from zhi [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] tria...