Laozi · Daodejing · 第十一章
Read the witness. Inspect a construction. Follow the evidence.
Original source spelling · punctuation belongs to the digital witness · pronunciation tools follow your language focus.
當其無，有車之用
Where it is empty, there is the usefulness of the cart.
zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes · Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed · CC BY-SA 4.0A route through this passage
49 Han characters · 24 distinct forms · 11 units separated by the witness’s punctuation
- Establish the frame. Read the surrounding chapter. Who speaks, what is being discussed, and which earlier words supply the context?
- Test one unit.
三十輻共一轂，
Mark a possible predicate and its participants. Record what you have supplied rather than found explicitly in the text. - Reconstruct the argument. Connect the units in your own words. Where does a description, question, contrast, or consequence depend on your interpretation?
Investigate 6 written forms in this passage
Matched by spelling. These are candidate reading procedures, not assigned grammatical analyses.
Watch recurrence: 之 × 5 無 × 4 有 × 4 用 × 4 以 × 4 為 × 4. Repetition of a graph need not mean repetition of a sense.
Computed from this exact witness · 1 contextual editorial excerpt also available. The guide is a set of reading prompts, not a translation. Sources & methods
Make this passage yours.
Use the reading guide above, build your interpretation, then test what you can recover. Your notes and schedule stay on this device.
1 · Explain it in your own words
2 · Recover the wording
Select a source unit, then hide the passage and reconstruct it. This checks textual recall, not understanding.
3 · Explain, then revisit
What supplies the referent of 其?
Compare the editorial answer
The wheel and hub described immediately before it.
zimai editorial draft · not independently reviewed. Applies to 當其無，有車之用
.
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Follow a connection
Shared teaching construction · an editorial learning connection, not evidence of common authorship or origin.
論語 · Track whose, which, and whose perspective父在，觀其志；父沒，觀其行論語 · Connect a modifier to a head禮之用，和為貴論語 · Track whose, which, and whose perspective觀其所由，察其所安論語 · Track whose, which, and whose perspective慎言其餘，則寡尤Edition, source, and reuse
- Work
- 老子 · Laozi · Daodejing
- Attribution
- Traditionally attributed to Laozi; composition and textual history are debated.
- Digital witness
- Kanseki Repository · KR5c0057 · base edition tls
- Contributors
- Kanseki Repository (Kanripo) contributors; upstream base-edition labels retained in each original file.
- Source position
- KR5c0057_011.txt, lines 14–25. LAO 11.1; tr. D.C. Lau 19i2: 15; here tr. Karlgren 1975
- Version
8f585085ff4ef2580eeb0f4376a763a62bcc7a95- Reuse
- CC BY-SA 4.0. Text extraction and teaching additions share this licence.
- Text policy
- Source spelling and punctuation retained. Encoding headers, page markers, paragraph markers, whitespace, and leading section numbers are removed from the reading view. No silent script conversion or textual correction.
- Teaching
- zimai · AI-assisted editorial notes. English renderings are excerpt-level reading aids, not a full published translation. Editorial pilot · not independently reviewed.
Source-file SHA-256: f358e2528f9f7ac67410c4939b2fe3d3313507f6d61e77e702862e5bea43a7b4. A source comment that cites a translator is an upstream reference, not the attribution of a translation imported here.