Track speakers and addressees
First- and second-person expressions depend on who is speaking. 子 can be a respectful address as well as a noun; quoted speech may shift reference several times within a passage.
吾 · 我 · 汝 · 子
A reading procedure
- Mark the boundaries of reported speech.
- Assign a speaker and addressee where the text supports them.
- Recheck each pronoun when the speaker changes.
Modern fixed equivalences can conceal differences of register and syntactic distribution.
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.
9 examples in context
吾日三省吾身
Each day I repeatedly examine myself.
吾 is spoken by Zengzi, named before the quotation. 三 can be read numerically as three times or with a repeated-action force; the three following questions also invite comparison. “Repeatedly” leaves that interpretive issue visible.
Check your reading · Who does 吾 refer to in this quotation?
Zengzi, the speaker introduced by 曾子曰.
何以利吾國
By what means can I benefit my state?
何 precedes its governing 以. 吾 is spoken by the king within Mencius’s quoted scenario; it does not refer to Mencius. The following social ranks repeat the same frame with 家 and 身.
Check your reading · Who is the referent of 吾 in this quoted question?
The king in the scenario being quoted.
吾不知誰之子
I do not know whose child it is.
誰 asks for the possessor or source linked by 之 to 子. The object of 知 is the unresolved question. The metaphor of parentage leaves the discourse referent unstated; it does not identify a historical human parent.
Check your reading · What noun does 誰之 modify?
子.
功成事遂，而百姓皆謂我自然
When the work is complete, the people all say, “We are so of ourselves.”
我 belongs to the people’s reported perspective. 自然 can be read compositionally as being so of oneself; importing the modern noun “nature” would hide that reading. This translation is an editorial interpretation of the reported speech boundary.
Check your reading · Whose perspective does 我 express here?
That of the people in the reported statement.
彼且奚適也
Where is that one going?
彼 points to the other bird from the small bird’s perspective. 奚 supplies the questioned destination associated with 適. The repeated question dramatizes the limit of the speaker’s frame of reference.
Check your reading · Whose perspective supplies 彼?
The small bird speaking in the quotation.
昔我往矣，楊柳依依。今我來思，雨雪霏霏。
When I departed, the willows swayed; now I return, snow falls thickly.
昔 and 今 organize the contrast between departure and return. 思 after 來 is read here as a verse particle, not automatically as the verb think. The seasonal imagery frames the returning speaker's experience without giving a precise elapsed duration.
Check your reading · Which paired expressions establish the temporal frame?
昔我往 and 今我來.
哀哀父母！生我劬勞。
Oh, my parents! In bringing me into life, how they labored.
我 is the object of 生, while the parents remain the understood subject. The exclamation directs attention to their hardship; it does not by itself specify every circumstance behind the speaker's grief. The preceding plant comparison should be retained when reading the full stanza.
Check your reading · Who performs 生 and who is its object?
The parents are the understood subject; 我, the speaker, is the object.
彼亦一是非，此亦一是非
That side too has its right and wrong; this side too has its right and wrong.
The paired demonstratives shift the viewpoint without naming fixed parties. Repeated 一 presents each perspective's distinction; the surrounding questions then probe their relation. This does not by itself prove that the chapter regards every assertion as equally justified.
Check your reading · What remains the same as the viewpoint changes?
Each side makes its own distinction between right and wrong.
子非魚，安知魚之樂？
You are not a fish; how do you know the fish's enjoyment?
子 addresses Zhuangzi from Huizi's speech. 安 challenges access to the claimed knowledge, and the later exchange turns on how that question is understood. Reading this line alone as the narrator's final verdict would erase the dialogue's shifting positions.
Check your reading · Whose challenge is this, and to whom?
Huizi challenges Zhuangzi.