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

 610  David Sehnal   n “life” 蓋聞善攝生者，陸行不遇兕虎，入軍不被甲兵 (L) n specif. “living conditions” 夫唯無以生為者，是賢於貴生 (LXXV) vt “live something up”, “live for something” 以其生生之厚 (L) 所生 su sh ng np “living conditions” 無厭其所生 (LXXII) 4. Vi “grow” vi “grow” 師之所處，荊棘生焉 (XXX) vi in inchoative aspect “start growing” 草木之生也柔脆，其死也枯槁 (LXXVI) vtprep “grow from a certain stage” 合抱之木，生於毫末 (LXIV) From the material excerpted from Laozi it seems that the character 生 in pronunciation sh ng can represent at least four different lexemes: 1) “come to birth”, “come into existence”; 2) causative Vt “give birth to something or somebody”, “produce something”, “generate something”; 3) Vi “live” and 4) Vi “grow”. The lexeme 2. is derived from lexeme 1. as causative Vt from Vi, because there is another secondary categorial meaning derived: Vt > vi. Meanings of the lexemes 1., 3. and 4. cannot be derived one from another according to some common rules, therefore they are arranged under the representa- tion 生 sh ng separately. Between them there will be thus postulated a mere etymological relation, for the time being without unveiling the derivational processes in behind. If there are disyllabic lexemes derived from the monosyllabic ones, at the end of each entry I give their representation and syntactic function with the corresponding meaning, the exemplification, often also their etymologi- cal structure. In the example given above there are disyllabic words 出生 chūsh ng vpi “come to birth” which I regard as being derived from the lexeme 生 sh ng Vi “come to birth”, “come into existence” and 所生 su sh ng np “living conditions“ which is derived from the lexeme 生 sh ng Vi “live”. I will show an example of using analogy in the Dictionary: In the Chapter XXII there is the following expression: 聖人執一 . How to interpret the word 一 yī in this sentence? After having considered all possible variants, I think that it must be a kind of „universal principe“ or „single fac- tor“. As it was said already, abstract nouns are often derived from adjectives. We have detected e. g. a typical adjective 白 b i “be white” in its specific nominal meaning “bright side”. Therefore I suggest that the noun 一 yī “uni- versal principle” was also derived from and adjective 一 yī “be universal”,