Contionary:之
Dan'a'yo
| Fact Table | |
|---|---|
| 中 | HSK/1 |
| 日 | 日本人名用漢字 |
| 韓 | 中 |
| SKIP/4/3/4 | |
| Radical/4 (丿) | |
Alternative Forms
Hanmun: 티 ; Latin: ti; Unacceptable: 㞢, 𠔇, 𡳿, の
Pronunciation
(Dan'a'yo) IPA: /ti/
Postposition
- the possessive/genitive postposition, like English 's
- the adnominalizing postposition (similar to relative pronouns)
Ancient
When reading ancient texts in 漢文訓読, it is important to bear in mind the rich history of this character. It had two primary meanings, both of which are very generic and subject to a broad range of usages.
- to go, to come, to visit, to come about
- this, these, that, those, 's
The first of these is straight-forward enough, if only a little vague and confusing at time. The second meaning is extensively loaded down with semantic freight. Like pronouns in Ancient Hebrew, copula-like usages developed, as well a genitive/adnominalizing usage.
Juxtaposition alone can indicate possession or qualification in Chinese even without this word. The actual purpose of this word is to act like a comma to group the words before it as a noun clause and prevent what comes after from being interpreted as the object of a verb. Consider "上山道" whence "上之山道" (mountain road that is up there) and "上山之道" (road for climbing a mountain). Like 的, unambiguous and popular compounds like 食品 (shípǐn) drop the 之 (zhī). Other grammatical characters also work by enforcing a grouping of words. Modern Chinese fossilizes this word and uses 的 instead, which originated from either 之 or 者 (OC *tjaːʔ, “one who > relativiser”), and took on the "'s"/qualifier meaning.
之 (zhī) as a pronoun, functions like a noun determiner while 然 (rán) is a verb determiner. Consider "食此藥！若不食之, 將死" which would mean "Eat this medicine! If you don't [eat] this (like if you eat some other medicine), you'll die" and contrast "食此藥！不然(=若不食), 將死" which would mean "Eat this medicine! If you don't do this (or if you do something else), you'll die."
