Elements of Chinese Grammar: With a Preliminary Dissertation on the Characters, and the Colloquial Medium of the Chinese, and an Appendix Containing the Tahyoh of Confucius with a Translation

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Printed at the Mission Press, 1814 - 622 pages

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Page 215 - How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains and seeketh that which is gone astray ? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep than of the ninety and nine which went not astray...
Page 2 - In the first section, this idea is thus developed in a circle peculiarly Chinese. " The ancients, who wished to restore reason to its due lustre throughout the empire, first regulated the province which they each governed ; desirous of governing well their own kingdoms, they previously established order and virtue in their own houses ; for the sake of establishing domestic order, they began with self-renovation ; to renovate their own minds, they first gave a right direction to their affections;...
Page 167 - He is called the sun, for he is the soul of all beings ; (and) that is declared by the sage, ' the sun is the soul of what moves, and of that which is fixed.
Page 168 - Thus his terror departed from him ; for what should he dread, since fear must be of another ? ' He felt not delight; and therefore, man delights not when alone. He wished [the existence of] another; and instantly he became such as is man and woman in mutual embrace. He caused this his own self, to fall in twain; and thus became a husband and a wife.
Page 34 - Exclusive of the 214 elements, the number of characters from which another is formed amounts to 3867. From these, by the addition of a single element to each, is formed the great body of the language, in nearly the same manner as the great mass of the Greek language is formed from about 3500 primitives, and that of the Sanscrit language from about 1700 dhatoos or roots.
Page 3 - Now this enlargement of knowledge consists in a most thorough and minute acquaintance with the nature of things around us. A thorough acquaintance with the nature of things renders knowledge deep and consummate ; from hence proceed just ideas and desires ; erroneous ideas once corrected, the affections of the soul move in a right direction ; the passions thus rectified, the mind naturally obeys reason ; and the empire of reason restored in the soul, domestic order follows of course ; from hence flows...
Page 33 - ... a third ; and of that for the element denoting water, a fourth. It further appeared that the characters thus formed from the same primitive by merely adding one element, generally took the name of the primitive with some slight variation.
Page 33 - Sanskrit dhatoos, form the bulk of the language by associating to themselves certain of the elements, was long suspected by the writer. This idea was strengthened by his observing in a manuscript Latin-Chinese Dictionary, which classed the characters according to their names, that in numerous instances, one character was the root of ten or twelve others, each of which was formed from it by the addition of a single element...
Page 191 - Barma language,2 like the Rukheng, in its original state, appears to be purely monosyllabic, but it has borrowed freely from the Bali, and in imitation apparently of that language it has sometimes formed words of some length by the coalescing of its original monosyllables. Being completely devoid of every species of flection, whether in nouns, pronouns, or verbs, its construction is extremely simple, and depends almost solely on the principle of juxtaposition, like its cognate dialect the Rukheng,...
Page 18 - ... and quadrupeds. In this manner passions and sentiments were traced by the pencil ; and ideas not subject to any sense, were exhibited to the sight, until by degrees new combinations were invented, new expressions added ; the characters deviated imperceptibly from their primitive shape ; and the Chinese language became not only clear and forcible, but rich and elegant in the highest degree.

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