Identify who undergoes the action
A subject may be understood as undergoing an action, sometimes without a dedicated marker. Certain patterns with 見, 於, or 為 make this relation explicit. Each pattern has its own historical distribution.
見 · 於 · 為
A reading procedure
- Find the action and its affected participant.
- Look for an expressed agent or a marked construction.
- Keep an unmarked contextual interpretation separate from an overt passive pattern.
見 often simply means “see”. A substring match is not enough to label a passage passive.
Compare
Search finds spelling; it does not automatically label every occurrence with this construction.
zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes · Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed. CC BY-SA 4.0.
Evidence and further study
Linked passages below provide the primary-text evidence for these editorial examples. The readings are not borrowed from, or endorsed by, the further-study references.
Kanseki Repository · pinned primary text witnesses
Textual evidence. Individual examples link to exact source files and lines.
Edwin G. Pulleyblank · Outline of Classical Chinese Grammar
Further study: word order, predication, nominalization, negation and complex sentences. Book content is not reproduced.
Robert Eno · Introduction to Literary Chinese, Part I
Further study: an academic primer with annotated readings and exercises. Not imported.
Introduction to Classical Chinese · Schonebaum and contributors
Further study: function words and reading lessons. CC BY-NC-SA material is not imported into this dataset.
Thesaurus Linguae Sericae
Further research: contextual historical senses and syntactic analysis. No TLS annotation import in this release.
2 examples in context
勞力者治於人
Those who labor with physical strength are governed by others.
勞力者 is the affected group, 治 the action, and 於人 supplies the agent relation. Contrast a simple locative 於 such as 立於沼上. The sentence expresses a social doctrine in the text, not a recommendation from zimai.
Check your reading · What relation does 於人 express in this clause?
The agent of governing: other people.
君子役物，小人役於物
The exemplary person puts things to use; the petty person is put to use by things.
The balanced clauses reverse the relation between person and things. In the second clause 於物 supplies the agent-like relation in a passive reading. The surrounding passage concerns priorities and self-cultivation, so 物 is broader than physical tools alone.
Check your reading · What changes between the two clauses?
Who controls whom: the person directs things in the first, but is directed by them in the second.