Проблемы китайского и общего языкознания. К 90-летию С. Е. Яхонтова

 589  Analysis of “full” words in Classical Chinese based on the Book of Laozi   written in a way conforming to the conventions of the period. This does not exclude specific language expressions of every author, but these must be de- fined against the background of the Classical Chinese as such. No text is an absolute solitaire which would be linguistically incompatible with other texts. Moreover, for the classical period it was significant also a great ex- tent of intellectual compatibility of the authors. The authors of the Analects and Warring States period were discussing similar problems and they based themselves on common sources and commonly shared principles. It is very unlikely that they would wish to write about something which would entirely exceed the intellectual and social discourse of the time, or even natural hu- man common sense. Therefore, if we find the same or similar formulations in the corpus of OC texts, or the same word in different contexts, it enables us to master its usage and to notice its semantic nuances. In fact, this is how we learn Old Chinese. Concordances and databases also compensate our handi- cap in erudition across OC texts in comparison to the old commentators. I will provide an example of such intertextual philology: In Laozi there is the following verse: 慎終如始，則無敗事 “If one is careful at the end as much as at the beginning, one will never spoil the task.” (LXIV). The expression 慎終 shèn zh ng “be careful at the end [of one’s under- taking]” is here put into a very good context which possibly excludes an- other reading of this verse. By checking through the database we find out that the same expression occurs also in Lunyu , where it is by the commenta- tors understood in a very different way: 曾子曰：慎終，追遠，民德歸厚 矣 “Zengzi said: ‘If one is careful as far as the death of one’s parents is con- cerned and if one remembers distant ancestors, the virtue of the people will tend to abundance.’” ( Lunyu , 1. 9). The word 終 zh ng is here interpreted in a specific meaning “death of the parents”, similarly the word 遠 yu n specifi- cally as “distant ancestors”. But if we relate both texts together and according to the rule of Occam’s razor we use a simplest solution, then we should read the given passage from Lunyu in the following way: “Zengzi said: ‘If [the ruler] is careful at the end [as much as at the beginning of his enterprise], pursues in thought the remote matters, then the people, as for its qualities, will incline to tolerance.’” The question is, whether we can assume that the expression 慎終 shèn zh ng does mean in both cases the same, or whether these are two completely different expressions from completely different texts. According to my view, we should put the question in another way: What reason do we have to think that 慎終 shèn zh ng means every time something else? Except of the com- mentary written along the lines of Confucianist ideology, none. (Let us note