Understanding the Aesthetic of the “Trivial”: The Great Music of Dao in the Subtle Melody of Function Words[1]

(Johnson Country Community College, U.S.A)

Understanding the Aesthetic of the “Trivial”: The Great Music of Dao in the Subtle Melody of Function Words

Shudong Chen

(Johnson Country Community College, U.S.A)

Between William James, the eminent American pragmatist philosopher of the nineteenth century, and Liu Dakui （刘大櫆）, the famous Chinese essayist of the Qing dynasty, there should not have been any conceivable connection. Their works however do reveal something particularly compatible and invaluable especially regarding what I call“an aesthetic of the trivial” . From utterly different cultural backgrounds, they both notice the indispensable but often overlooked role of function word （功能词） or “xuci”（虚词）, which influences reading and writing in ways beyond our usual consciousness. As indicated in various related works, （or xuzi虚字） and function word may not be so perfectly interchangeable, but they are used interchangeably in the paper for the convenience of discussion. Function word here, in other words, refers to other than “content word” whether in the name of “xuci” “gongnengci”“zhuci” （助词 auxiliary word）, or “zhudongci”（助动词）, etc. Moreover, even though Feng’s discussions on the formation of “prosodic word” （韵律词） does not focus on “function word”, the undisputable importance of function word is, nevertheless, still acknowledged in the discussions. It is acknowledged, for instance, in a footnote (No. 4) of his discussion on the formation of prosodic word, in which Feng indicates that the subject of function word, given its importance, deserves being dealt with separately with a focus on itself while explaining why he deliberately excludes discussion of function word from his cases on prosody.冯胜利Feng Shengli，《汉语的韵律，词法与句法》 [Interactions between Morphology Syntax and Prosody in Chinese]（北京[Beijing]：北京大学出版社[Peking University Press]，1997），23。The paper thus suggests how to read and re-read the familiar texts with a special attention to the often“invisible” but indispensable role of function word especially with regard to the cases of parallelism in the prosodically “pragmatic” ways that both James and Liu indicate along with the contemporary Chinese linguists, such as Feng Shengli（冯胜利）. With references to the classical Chinese texts and some additional examples from Geoffrey Chaucer, Joseph Conrad, Henry James, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Baudelaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the compatible cases in classical and modern Japanese, the paper argues that the function word, other than their usual grammatical function, also creates the vital narrative impact, such as setting up the live syntactic-prosodic verbal environment, and thus indicates not only a crucially “local” but also “global” phenomenon yet to be further understood.

prosody; rhetoric; comparative literature; translation; function word

1. Introduction: Serendipitously Ubiquitous Dao of the Trivial

Dao

is in “the shit and piss” （道在屎溺） 庄子Zhuangzi, , trans. Martin Palmer, et al (London: Penguin, 2006), 193., which means

dao

is everywhere even in the least noticeable place. To catch

dao

in the texts, it should therefore probably start with the least noticeable whether we identify

dao

with “qi” in terms of Tongcheng Pai （桐城派）’s “因声求气”(understanding

qi

through sound) or with “yi” according to Lu Zongda （陆宗达）’s “因声求义” (understanding meaning through sound). 陆宗达Lu Zongda，《训诂简论》 [On Xun’gu]（北京[Beijing]：北京出版社[Beijing Publishing House], 1983），104—117。Of all sources of inf uences discussed hereafter, the paper is particularly inspired by linguists, such as Feng and Tsai Wei-Tian with regard to their consistent self-conscious efforts in dealing with individual linguistic cases not merely as culturally specific or peculiarly local phenomena but as the important examples of a “universal grammar” which ultimately def nes humanity across cultures. While concentrating on cultural phenomena that ref ect subtle but vital differences beneath well-observed similarities and essential but over looked similarities behind noticeable differences, they both stress the message of balance to avoid, in Tsai’s words, “overgeneralization” or, in Feng’s, “excessively localization of a universal phenomenon”. For Tsai’s argument, see particularly his 1998 essay “On ‘Constancy’ and ‘Change’ in Linguistics: A Methodological Study” and for Feng’s, see especially the second section of Chapter 1 of his 2005 book and the last section of Chapter 6 of his 1997 book.Either way, first and foremost, we go with the least noticeable prosodically, that is, the sound of “trivial” function word. This is perhaps why both William James and Liu Dakui emphasize the importance of function words. For James, to acquire “immediate feeling” or our direct experience with the true rhythms of life, we should take these little things, such as “the conjunctions” as seriously “as primordial elements of ‘fact’ ... the distinctions and disjunctions” . He explains how and why we should pay attention to things that appear as trivial or insignificant as “prepositions, copulas, and conjunctions, ‘is’ ‘isn’t’ ‘then’‘before’ ‘in’ ‘on’ ‘beside’ ‘between’ ‘next’ ‘like’ ‘unlike’ ‘as’ ‘but’” . It is because these function words “compenetrate harmoniously” to make it possible for us to understand how life may “f ow out of the stream of pure experience, the stream of concretes or the sensational stream, as naturally as nouns and adjectives do, and ... melt into it again as fluidly when we apply [the function words] to a new portion of the stream” William James, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996), 95, italics added.. Even though what James emphasizes may not be exactly the importance of sound but the syntactic and psychological significance of the function words, Liu, however, specifically refers to the importance of sounds or rhythms as one of the crucial roles of the function words in “Essay of Occasion”（论文偶记）.Regardless of its characteristic beauty of simplicity, classic writings before Confucius’ times, argues Liu, do not appear as much expressive as those of Confucius’ times. It is because, other than content words, emphasizes Liu, there are simply not enough function words for people to use then（上古文字初开，实字多，虚字少……至孔子之时，虚字详备，作者神态毕出……文必虚字备而后神态出，何可节损？）So when Confucius writes, he has enough function words to make his expression as vivid as he wants. This is why, as Liu further emphasizes, when one writes, there must be enough function words at one’s disposal to bring out he otherwise unutterable spirit or “qi” of composition, which is, as Liu sees it, only alive in the “rhythm” of the words as what is truly essential to writing. Imagine what would happen “should not there be enough ‘xuci’ for us to use?” This is exactly the rhetorical question that Liu makes us think. Indeed, without enough function words at our disposal to create the meaning-making, “qi” -making,

dao

-making, worldmaking, and even human-becoming rhythms of composition Reading and writing for the meaning of life in this way, certainly as Roger Ames and David Hall would so emphasize here, constitute a crucial part of an inf nitely “processual” and “provisional”process in terms of our efforts to understand Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall trans., , 77; the word thus also indicates or stands for a never ending or forever ongoing “meaning-making, “waymaking” “world-making” and even “human-becoming” process, as Ames has so phrased, on so many occasions, this central argument of his philosophy — one of his recognized major contribution to our understanding of ., it would be therefore impossible to depict something as unutterable and intangible as the

dao

-like meaning,

qi

, or the subtly profound emotion the way that Zhuangzi and Sima Qian（司马迁，ca. 145 or 135 B.C. — 86 B.C.） masterfully demonstrate in the eponymous book and in

Shiji

《史记》respectively. Ibid. “理不可以直指也，故即物明理，情不可以显言也，故即事寓情。即物以明理，《庄子》之文也；即事以寓情，《史记》之文也。” Indeed, scholars, such as Chad Hansen, do not believe that , or , ever transcend language or the “ways” we use language, which are often of the most 3“intuitive” and “performative” nature, Chad Hansen, (London: Oxford University Press, 1992), 216, such as Zhuangzi’s “lyricism,” which is, for instance, “f lled with creative onomatopoeia.” Ibid., 274. Such lyricism thus becomes, as Ames and Hall would added here, not only “meaning-making” but also “way-making” or “world-making” in using language.

2. Function Words in Chinese Classics

As in everyday life, a possible way to understand the value of an otherwise barely noticeable string is to see whether or how it makes an exquisite necklace by piecing together the otherwise scattered pieces of pearl. Similarly, to examine the crucial role of function word is to see how it functions in the “verbal context” By verbal context, I mean any combination of words that literally forms a vital verbal environment or “network” of verbal relationship or relatedness, and thus enables words to function as words both syntactically and prosodically. This verbal “context”, “environment”, or “network” could be as extended as in the form of the whole text or as simple as a kind of basic verbal relationship formed by two words, which nonetheless allows the words to express a clear and/or ambiguous idea, such as “Like Jazz”, the title of an album by David Basse, a well-known Kansas City jazz musician, a friend, a former as well as a current student of mine. Does it mean “I like jazz”, “It sounds like jazz”, or “No Jazz, like the elusive but ubiquitous Dao, ever really exists elsewhere but in the music that all sounds in so many different ways merely Jazz”? The two words of the title thus form an intriguing verbal context, from which the meaning, like Basse’s music, becomes so infinitely meaningful or indefinitely ambiguous. Does Basse’s music sound like Jazz that the musician likes so much? Does Jazz mean any type of music, “fantasies impromptu” or“rhapsody”, as long as one plays or improvises, like a virtuoso, the way his/her heart dictates and his/her skills allow? Or does it indicate that Basse humbly suggests that no one can ever play Jazz in ways that his contemporary masters Miles Davis (1926—1991) did or Bill Evens does? Thus, so literally, all could be possible in terms of this two-word verbal con/text in addition to the musician’s actual recording.especially in the form of parallelism, which is so widely used particularly in classic Chinese literature not only as expected in “fu” 赋 or “pian wen” 骈文 but also in “gu wen” 古文 for clear verbal imagery as well as subtle rhythm that enhances expression, even though the latter, represented by prominent writers, such as Han Yu （韩愈，768 —824）, is famous as a critical response to

pian wen

regarding its pervasive interest in parallelism. Regardless, even in Han Yu’s exemplary essays of

guwen

, such as “Yuan Dao” （原道）, parallelism is extensively used to such a degree that it would appear utterly impossible for the author to appear so persuasive without parallelism being so used.

古之时，人之害多矣。有圣人者立，然后教之以相生相养之道。为之君，为之师。驱其虫蛇禽兽，而处之中土。寒然后为之衣，饥然后为之食。木处而颠，土处而病也，然后为之宫室。为之工以赡其器用，为之贾以通其有无，为之医药以济其夭死，为之葬埋祭祀以长其恩爱，为之礼以次其先后，为之乐以宣其湮郁。为之政以率其怠倦，为之刑以锄其强梗。相欺也，为之符、玺、斗斛、权衡以信之。相夺也，为之城郭甲兵以守之。害至而为之备，患生而为之防。今其言曰：“圣人不死，大盗不止。剖斗折衡，而民不争。”呜呼！其亦不思而已矣。如古之无圣人，人之类灭久矣。何也？无羽毛鳞介以居寒热也，无爪牙以争食也。 韩愈Han Yu， 〈原道〉“Yuan dao”[The Original Dao] ，《古文观止》 [Gems from Chinese Classics]，吴楚材Wu Chucai，吴调侯 Wu Tiaohou编（北京[Beijing]：中华书局[Zhonghua Book Company], 1963），321—322。

In ancient time, not until the appearance of

Shengren

(sages), humans were under constant threats of immense dangers. It was

Shengren

who taught people how to survive in ways humanly possible; it was

Shengren

who at once governed and educated people; it was

Shengren

who taught them how to make it a homeland of the central plain cleared of wild animals and insects; it was

Shengren

who showed people how to cover themselves with clothes against cold weather; it was

Shengren

who taught people how to secure food from land; it was also

Shengren

who had people moved from unsafe forests and damp caves and sheltered them in the houses; it was they who made tools that people needed for manufacturing; it was they who advocated trade to let goods be available wherever wanting; it was they who developed medicine to care the sick and the dying; he formulated burial ceremony to cultivate love; he designed rituals to maintain order; it was they who used legal penalty to curb aggressive behavior. To prevent cheating, it was also

Shengren

who standardized systems of measurement; to prevent invasion, it was also they who had the cities well walled and guarded. For whatever might happen, it was they who were always fully prepared. Now listen to what someone still claims, “As long as there are

Shengren

, there would be endless robbery; as long as we do not abandon system of measurement, people would never stop fighting.” How could anyone still say anything such as this? Has he ever used his head? Had not been for

Shengren

, there would have been no human race a long, long time ago. Why? It is because neither did we have feathers or furs to fend themselves against harsh weathers, nor did we have teeth and claws sharp enough to fight for food against the wild beasts.

In the powerful “weizhi” 为之 structure, which sustains the famous piece with its enduring power of persuasive parallelism, the pronoun “zhi” （之）may not be literally stressed as a rule 冯胜利Feng Shengli,《汉语的韵律，词法与句法》 [Interactions between Morphology Syntax and Prosody in Chinese]（北京[Beijing]：北京大学出版社[Peking University Press], 1997），116。, but, as a marker, it is where a pause should occur to pave the way like a stepping stone for the next word to be stressed.

In this way, the function word “zhi” truly mediates for the metrical pattern of parallelism to function in ways so delicately enlivened with the essay’s overall rhythmical structure and beauty. This is why, as Liu Xie（刘勰，ca. 465—520）so emphasizes in 《文心雕龙》, “[], as if not of much use, is actually indispensable; in the hand of those good at using it, one single could make a coherent whole of discrete sentences” （据事似闲，在用实切。巧者回用，弥缝文体，将令数句之外，得一字之助矣）。刘勰Liu Xie，《文心雕龙》 [The Literary Mind and Carving of Dragons]，周振甫Zhou Zhenfu编注（北京[Beijing]：人民文学出版社[People’s Literature Publishing House]，1983），376。Even if Liu does not specify whether he means syntactically or prosodically when he discusses how function word can be so helpful in piecing sentences together to form a “coherent whole” (弥缝文体), its prosodic signif cance is quite self-evident because a coherent whole must be at once syntactically and prosodically coherent, at least according to Zhou Zhenfu（周振甫，1911—2000）, who considers the function word’s major role as coherently suggesting varying tones of sentiments in Note 22. Ibid, 380.In this way, the “weizhi” structure functions like an all-too-ordinary and thus invisible string that makes a perfect necklace out of the scattered pieces of pearl; it adjusts, coordinates, and enriches the rhythmic impact of the parallelism. Changli (Han Yu), According to Ch’ien Chung-shu（钱锺书，1910—1998）in 《谈艺录》, is exemplary of all the best syntactically in using function word (). Yuan Zhen （元稹，779—831）and Bai Juyi（白居易，772—846）are also capable of using function word well but short of the same beauty of inf nite variety so characteristic of Han Yu’s works （昌黎荟萃诸家句法之长，元白五古亦能用虚字而无之神通大力充类至尽穷态极妍）。钱锺书Ch’ien Chung-shu，《谈艺录（补订本）》 [On Arts (Revised Version)]（北京[Beijing]:中华书局[Zhonghua Book Company], 1986），73。Han Yu’s masterly skill with function word is further touched upon when Qian discusses Wang Anshi （王安石，1021—1086）’s strengths in using function word. “Jing Gong (Wang Anshi) is good at using function word (). in composing classic style pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic line poetry, his essay is also poetic in f avor, so profoundly all around to suggest Changli (Han Yuan)’s secret inf uences.”（荆公五七古善用语助，有以文为诗，浑灏古茂之至，此秘尤得昌黎之传。） 钱锺书，《谈艺录》，70。Thus, with “wei” （为）, in the “weizhi” （为之）structure to be slightly stressed to make “zhi” an unstressed pause for the following verbs, such as “shi”（食 eating） or

gong

（工 manufacturing） to be stressed, the rhythm of the narrative in the form of parallelism is set. The “weizhi” structure works particularly well at the very beginning alternating with the phrase “ranhou” 然后 (then, thereafter, or therefore). Similarly,

zhi

in the sentences of “如古之无圣人，人之类灭久矣”(Had not been for “Shengren”圣人, there would have been no human race a long, long time ago) may seem quite redundant since the meaning of the sentences could remain quite intact even without the function word, but the sentences without it may sound flat or some what awkward; the sentences, in other words, would in no way sound equally rhythmical and powerful without the

zhi

, which apparently mediates the sentences for the rhythmical pauses and enhances the expression of the meaning with emphatic rhythms otherwise impossible.But ultimately, regardless of whether or how each “zhi” should be actually stressed or not, especially with regard to what each “zhi” stands for in the text, an issue that certainly justifies further exploration, the very structure of “weizhi”, very much like “it was ... who ...” of the English version, is clearly set up to give the text the indispensable and emphatic rhythmic coherence through the repeated and rhythmically punctuated pauses; the“weizhi” phrases thus piece together or tighten up, even in ways so synaesthetically like a string of sound, the otherwise seemingly scattered sounds of words.Indeed, in Chinese, regardless of what says in theory, the important rhythmmediating and -making pause or stress, as Zhu Guangqian （朱光潜，1897—1986）points out, often occurs with function word, as is the case with Chen Zi’ang （陈子昂，c. 661—702）’s “念天地之悠悠, 独怅然而涕下” 朱光潜Zhu Guangqian，《朱光潜美学文集》 [Zhu Guangqian’s Collected Works on Aesthetics]，第二卷[vol. 2]（上海[Shanghai]：上海文艺出版社[Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House]，1982）, 163。These two famous lines describe how the poet sheds tears emotionally in silence 怅然at the very sight and thought of the immeasurable immensity, immediacy, and intimacy of the great universe 天地 (tian di) that quietly opens up before his eyes as he ascends to the top of a hill, especially with the key words “youyou” of 悠悠, which are also the crucial sounds of onomatopoeia that captures the very moment, both physically and psychologically.。The same is with Tao Hongjing （陶弘景，456—536）’s “山中何所有？岭上多白云。只可自怡悦，不堪持赠君”。In Xue Daoheng （薛道衡，540—609)’s “人日思归” (Thoughts of Home), the function words also suggest and mediate the meaningful pauses in “入春才七日，离家已二年。人归落雁后，思发在花前”。The function word “when”（he ceng何 曾） likewise marks and takes the key position to be stressed in Song Huizong （宋徽宗，1082—1135）’s 燕山亭 (Yanshan Ting), “这双燕何曾，会人言语”。So is the case in modern Chinese “门外 —坐着— 一个穿破衣裳的老年人” (“Outside the door sits an old man in rags”). The word

bei

被 in Su Dongpo（苏东坡，1037—1101）’s “Shui Long Yin” （水龙吟） is another such a case. “梦随风万里，寻郎去处，又还被，莺呼起” This line, along with the whole poem, describes the real as well as the dream-like elusive (or illusive) beauty of catkins f ying and dancing in the air — an exquisite allusion to the very uncertainty of life especially in terms of the poet’s his treacherous political career. Even if 被 may have no other particular function or “sound impact” related with its role as a function word , it still should have a certain “sound impact”; if被 does function, in such a seemingly indispensable way, along with the verb“qi” 起 (to awaken) as 韵脚 (end rhyme) for the function of “协韵” in harmonizing, assisting or coordinating the rhyming pattern of the given line besides the “visual impact” that its presence at this strategic position also creates. In this way, for whatever given “sound impact”, 被 functions very much like the word “暴cruelly” in the phrase “被暴诛 (is cruelly killed)”, which is not added for meaning, such as to depict the way or manner someone is being killed. Rather, it is added, emphasizes Feng Shengli, for the sound, because without “暴bao” being so added, the sentence simply does not sound“right” to stand by itself. So is “们” also according to Feng and Tsai Wei-Tien, deleted, for the right“sound impact”, from the sentence “阿Q很敬重士兵们”(A Q respects the soldiers very much)。 Even though it is grammatically perfect with 们 to indicate plural, as the general rule of grammar would so require, the sentence still does not sound right. 冯胜利Feng Shengli，《汉语韵律语法研究》 [Studies on Chinese Prosodic Grammar]（北京[Beijing]: 北京大学出版社[Peking University Press], 2005）, 166。。In all these cases what becomes further clearer is the enormous rigidity and f exibility of function word that regulates the sentences and adjusts itself for the desirable visual and sound impact; function word enjoys its prosodically significant flexibility and adaptability particularly in poetry. This is why, with reference to the rich cases on function words, especially on 而 (er), 焉 (yan), and 之 (zhi) among many others, Qian Zhongshu comes to emphasize, once again, how “poetry [needs] function word ... whether in terms of

The Book of Poetry

《诗经》and

Li Sao

《离骚》since Zhou and Qin’s era or the tetrasyllabic poems, pentasyllabic long narrative poems, heptasyllabic poems, or mixed syllabic poems since Han and Wei period” because “function word appears so indispensable in adding the rhythmic beauty to almost all these poems”（诗用虚字……盖周秦之诗骚，汉魏以来之杂体歌行……或四言，或五言记事长篇，或七言，或长短句皆往往使语助以添迤逦之概）.Actually, as Feng Shengli has been demonstrated as one of the most crucial focal topics in almost all his major works, stress is an issue so vital for any fruitful prosodic theories; it is an issue, in other words, needs to be suff ciently “regulated”in order for its generally descri

bable

usage to be thoroughly understood or clearly explainable at least in theory. Stress, however, as Feng also so insightfully“stressed,” is very much like air, which is neither “visible” nor “touchable,” but undoubtedly “real”. As a result, how to stress or where to stress, for Feng, varies as subtly as air. With this self-conscious “amendment,” Feng emerges a “radical”empiricist in ways very much as William James does from among the rank of“traditional” rationalists or “ordinary” empiricists, who, as James emphasizes, often tend to dismiss, each in his own ways, the live and vital on-the-spot elements as “trivial” or “insubstantial” for the sake of theoretical consistency or static accountability; “life” , as James puts it, “is confused and superabundant, and what [we now] appear to crave is more of the temperament of life in its philosophy, even though it were at some cost of logical rigor and formal purity” William James, , 30.. These so easily dismissible “trivial” and often rather “messy” elements, such as function words, as James so stresses, are in reality so crucial for the actual understanding or pragmatic grasp of how language really works like the “invisible” but “indispensable” and ubiquitous” air. As if quite coincidently, stress, for Zhu Guangqian, is also a matter of

personal

decision or a business of “improvisation” in accordance with pure cont/textual verbal relations in addition to the general rules. As related to the issue of stress, here is also the problem of pause. Even though every culture has its own explicable general rules on how to make rhythm whether in terms of “foot”“cesura” or “dou” （读） or “dun” （顿） there are however theoretically inf nite ways for “improvisation” on subtle variation as in music, especially in jazz. How each word should be stressed and how long one needs to pause from one word to another, all depend on one’s own understanding, which is inf nitely variable from person to person. With this in mind, the problem regarding where or when pause and stress occur or concur could be as much an issue of art as it is a matter of science. Pause and stress could indeed be of different categories, but their rhythmical concurrence may not be so unlikely as with 之 and 而 in 念天地之悠悠，独怆然而涕下. As with the related cases in , in which the issue of pause and and stress could be as serious as a matter of life and death regarding the result of divination. This ancient political and linguistic scenario, however, could probably be amplif ed a little here for better understanding in terms of such contemporary cases as “involuntary verbal cannibalism”. Just imagine what might happen if the lifesaving pause is not suff ciently executed, with or without simultaneously an appropriate stress, in ways so indicated or marked by the comma in the sentence “Let’s eat, Grandma!” I thank my colleague Professor Jeanne Murphy for reminding me of this “compatible” scenario while having conversation with me on issues concerning students’ composition, such as punctuation, pauses and stress.

3. Function Words: The Cases in Non-Chinese Classics

Thus, whether or how a function word is actually stressed, unstressed, or slightly stressed, the indispensable pause, so prosodically crucial, is often such a pragmatic occurrence especially when it is mediated, marked, or facilitated by the function word.Again, quite serendipitously, as Zhu already suggested, this is not just something of a local phenomenon but rather a global one, especially regarding the importance parallelism and the indispensable role of function words in making parallelism.The function words

la

and

de

, for instance, as Zhu points out, suggest pauses in the line from Alfred de Vigny (1797—1863)’s “La maison du berger” “J’aime/la majesté/de la souffrance/humaine” (I love the majesty of human suffering). Similarly, in the following sentence from Maupassant’s novel

Mont-Oriol

as a part of depiction of Marquis of Ravenel, father of Christiane Andermatt, the main character, the function words “pour” and “des”, whether to be slightly stressed or not, clearly indicate a crucial rhythmic pauses in the ref ned parallelism

Tantôt ... Il se passionnait pour l’égalité des hommes; pour les idées modernes; pour les revendications des pauvres; des écrasés; des souffrants. Guy de Maupassant, Mont-Oriol: Romance (Paris: Ernest Flammarion, 1886), 21.Since this syntactic-prosodic f avor so peculiar to this novel by Maupassant, not even there elsewhere, that is to say, in his other f ction, no translation, such as this one in English, could therefore trans-late the peculiar flavor, even with the best possible attempt to mimic the original syntactic-prosodic structure. The repetition of the function word “of” as underlined, for instance, may not even seems natural in English but does sound somewhat “comically” redundant. Guy de Maupassant, Mont-Oriol or A Romance of
Auvergne, trans. Walter Dunner (Akron, Ohio: St. Dunstan Society, 1903), 17. At another time ... he would become a passionate advocate of human equality, of modern idea, of the claims of the poor, the oppressed, and the suffering.
Here are a few more examples from the novel so deliberately inf ated with such an intensive and extensive use of parallelism mediated or facilitated with function words. So characteristic of this particular novel, everything finally turns out to be so beautifully fake and frivolously serious of the resort community and conveys a highly subtle but unmistakably comic sense of organized emptiness via the extensive of parallelism built on the repeated use of the function words where prolonged pauses occur, stressed or unstressed, and with recurrent and echoing rhythmic patterns also set along with the repetition of other musical elements inherent in French, such as its rich vowel sounds.
Il faut toujours chercher, trouver, inventer, tout comprendre, tout prévoir, tout combiner, tout oser. (Guy de Maupassant, Mont-Oriol: Romance, 49.) (It is necessary to be always searching, finding, inventing, to understand everything, to foresee everything, to combine everything, to dare everything.) (Guy de Maupassant, Mont-Oriol or A Romance of Auvergne, 53.) Paul suivit ses yeux et il dit: ... Quoi de plus triste que de se lever sans espérance ardente, d’accomplir avec calme les mêmes besognes, de boire avec modération, de manger avec réserve, et de dormir comme une brute, avec tranquillité. Ibid., 96. (Paul followed the direction of her glance, and said ... what more depressing than to rise up without any ardent hope, to go through the same duties dispassionately, to drink in moderation, to eat with discretion, and to sleep tranquilly like a mere animal?) Ibid., 112–113.
Il entre en vous, dans le regard et dans le cœur, par sa voix, par tous ses gestes, par ce qu’il dit et par ce qu’il pense. On l’absorbe, on le comprend, on le devine dans toutes les intentions de son sourire et de sa parole. Ibid., 102. (He enters into you, into your eyes and your heart, by his voice, by all his gestures, by what he says, by what he thinks. You absorb him; you comprehend him; you divine him in all the meanings of his smiles and of his words.) Ibid., 120.
Alors, sans un cri, sans révolte, sans résistance, elle se laissa tomber sur l’herbe, comme si cette caresse lui eut cause les reins en brisant sa volonté. Et il la prit aussi facilement que s’il cueillait un fruit mûr. Ibid., 106. (Then, without a cry, without revolt, without resistance, she let herself sink back on the grass, as if this caress, by breaking her will, had crushed he physical power to struggle. And he possessed her with as much ease as if he were culling a ripe fruit.) Ibid., 126.

With the indispensable assistance of function word, the parallelism is used here to suggest how everything of the resort community depicted in the narrative eventually appears so beautifully fake or seriously frivolous as to become a symbol of our scientif cally progressive modern world, which is, as Maupassant sees it, so full of civilized debauchery and ref ned emptiness often in a manner so tragically comic. Thus, set so intimately in the pervasive syntactic-prosodic environment, which vividly recreates via mimics the problematic modern world, the depiction of the marquis in the refined parallelism is indeed one of so many such comic innuendos not only of the marquis’s credulous character but also of the frivolous modern world that the marquis helps to personify. Thus, along with many others of equally ref ned parallelism so extensively used in the narrative, the overall pattern of the ref ned parallelism indeed often appears slightly over ref ned or surreptitiously inflated to suggest prosodically a hidden sentiment or motif of the novel, that is, a pervasive sense of fakeness beneath the exquisite surface of perfection and suffocating hollowness behind the façade of substance, which is emphasized, again and again, with each single pause on the “trivial” or “frivolous” function word that pieces together the fragmented elements in the form of perfect parallelism mimicking the real world. The prosodic mimics of the real world by Maupassant in this not so well-known novel often seems to come in sharp contrast with Maupassant’s own equally painstakingly stylistic teacher Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880)’s masterpiece , which is like a beautiful mirror that reflects the ugly reality but no has part in it. The vulgar reality, so realistically depicted or reflected with no parallelism whatsoever but the clear-cut “le mot juste”, in other words, often appears to have nothing to do with what it is being so accurately described , the purely aesthetic language.

Undoubtedly, in French, as in Chinese, the importance of function words must also be understood prosodically in terms of the thematic expressiveness of parallelism other than their syntactic function. As in the cases of Chinese poems and French cases here, the function words therefore function not only grammatically for the syntactic coherence but also prosodically for the live structural rhythm that enriches the text for the thematic expressiveness otherwise impossible; the function words must function, in other words, as the indispensable markers in activating rhythmical pauses and/or stresses even in places where these pauses and stresses may not be deemed “legitimate” theoretically. In English, such thematically expressive subtle musical quality, as shown in the passages below from Conrad, is also conveyed prosodically through intensive use of parallelism, which suggests not only vivid visual imagery but also the intense audio impact. The elaborate use of parallelism in the depiction of James Wait in “The Nigger of the Narcissus”, for instance, intensif es a profound sense of mysteriousness, which the very appearance of “Jimmy” is made to provoke; this particular effect of parallelism, however, would not be possible without the deliberate verbal arrangements that prosodically activate reader’s visual and audible senses through the repeated use of the function words, i.e., “through” and “from”.

And in the confused current of impotent thoughts that set unceasingly this way and that through bodies of men, Jimmy bobbed up upon the surface, compelling attention, like a black buoy chained to the bottom of a muddy stream. Falsehood triumphed. It triumphed through doubt, through stupidity, through pity, through sentimentalism. We set ourselves to bolster it up, from compassion, from recklessness, from a sense of fun. Joseph Conrad, “The Nigger of the ‘Narcissus’”, (New York: Vintage), 106–108.

Similarly, to suggest such a unique experience as “[one] had approached near to absolute Truth, which, like Beauty itself, f oats elusive, obscure, half-submerged, in the silent still waters of mystery” Joseph Conrad, (New York: Bantom, 1981), 139., intensive parallelism is also used in

Lord Jim

for the otherwise impossible rhetorical impact that enables the readers to sense, to feel, and simply to “smell” the calm but uncertain life on the sea with all their five senses set in motion following the mysterious rhythm of narrative punctured surreptitiously by the function words.

Only once in all that time he had again the glimpse of the earnestness in the anger of the sea. That truth is not so often made apparent as people might think. There are many shades in the danger of adventures and gales, and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of facts a sinister violence of intention — that indefinable something which forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, that this complication of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty that means to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of his fatigue and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy, to annihilate all he has seen, known, love, enjoyed, or hated; all that is priceless and necessary — the sunshine, the memories, the future, — which means to sweep the whole precious world utterly away from his sight by the simple and appalling act of taking his life.

With such intensively orchestrated use of parallelism so monotonously punctured with function word at each critical moment, the eerie stillness and insidious silence of circumstances that deceive and disarm Jim become so real and sensuous to make not only Jim but also the readers hallucinated.

Jim on the bridge was penetrated by the great certitude of unbounded safety and peace that could be read on the silent aspect of nature like the certitude of fostering love upon the placid tenderness of a mother’s face. Below the roof of awnings, surrendered to the wisdom of white men and to their courage, trusting the power of their unbelief and the iron shell of their fire-ship, the pilgrims of an exacting faith slept on mats, on blankets, on bare planks, on every deck, in all the dark corners, wrapped in dyed cloths, muffled in soiled rags, with their heads resting on small bundles, with their faces pressed to bent forearms: the men, the women, the children; the old with the young, the decrepit with the lusty — all equal before sleep, death’s brother. Joseph Conrad, , 10.

Clearly, the deceptive stillness and disarming quietness of nature is not exactly conveyed through any individual word or single image but rather via the grouping effects of words. The smooth velvet-like and moonlit watery surfaces of the mysterious stillness of the sea, in other words, is conveyed at once visually and audibly with words orchestrated in the refined parallelisms, which, via the indispensable mediation of the function words as underlined, precisely mimic the quiet rhythmic sounds of the sea. Such an intensive use of parallelism could f nd no parallel but in classic Chinese or where parallelism is used for both semantic and aesthetic purpose.With such a rhetorical strategy, what takes effect is not something of a clear picture but a strong and vague image, which however conveys so clearly the otherwise impossible sublime mood and feeling as Edmund Burke (1729—1797) would so suggest.If poetry, indeed, as Edgar Allan Poe (1809—1849) argues, is the “rhythmical creation of beauty” Edgar Allan Poe, (London: Everyman’s Library, 1969), 98., it is not just poem but the prosaic narrative as well, which equally reveals or becomes such rhythmical creation of beauty, as in Conrad’s cases, via the seemingly insignif cant sound of function words.

4. Further Cases in Chinese and Non-Chinese Classics: Yao Nai, Liu Dakui, and Others

The same is true with the essay “Reply to Lu Jiefei” （复鲁絜非书） by Yao Nai （姚鼐，1731—1815）. With its rhythmic beauty through creative use of function words, it reveals, in his essay as in poetry, as says in Chinese idiom, the same rhythmic beauty of different tones （异曲同工之妙）.

鼐闻天地之道，阴阳刚柔而已。文者，天地之精英，而阴阳刚柔之发也。惟圣人之言，统二气之会而弗偏。然而《易》《诗》《书》《论语》所载，亦间有可以刚柔分矣。值其时其人告语之，体各有宜也。自诸子而降，其为文无弗有偏者。其得于阳与刚之美者，则其文如霆，如电，如长风之出谷，如崇山峻崖，如决大川，如奔骐骥；其光也，如呆日，如火，如金谬铁；其于人也，如冯高视远，如君而朝万众，如鼓万勇士而战之。其得于阴与柔之美者，则其文如升初日，如清风，如云，如霞，如烟，如幽林曲涧，如沦，如漾，如珠玉之辉，如鸿鹄之鸣而人寥廓；其于人也，谬乎其如叹，邈乎其如有思，暖乎其如喜，愀乎其如悲。观其文，讽其音，则为文者之性情形状，举以殊焉。

I learned that the

Dao

of the universe can be best understood in two words gentleness and forcefulness as

yin

and

yang

. Writing consists of the best of the universe and originates from both gentleness and powerfulness. But a perfect balance of the two sides is rare except for in

Shengren

’s writing, and even

Yijing

,

Shijing

,

Shangshu

, and

Lunyu

reveal differences with regard to gentleness and powerfulness. Styles vary in accordance with times and persons. Since the emergence of different philosophical schools, there is always reference of one over another. Those who prefer the power of the sublime, their writing could be as powerful as thunders, as lightening, as the wind gushing through deep valleys, as the breaking waves of great river, and as the galloping horses; its light could be as dazzling as the sun at noon, as fire, and as gold over ordinary metals; for the audience, its power could be as far-reaching as viewing on the top of high mountains, as exemplary as an enlightened monarch over the masses, and as inspiring as the thundering drum to the thousands of battling soldiers. For those who prefer beauty of its soft and gentleness, their writing could be as subtly beautiful as the rising sun, as fresh breeze, as flowing clouds, as colorful mists, as light smoke, as quiet and shaded woods and little winding mountain stream, as subtle ripples on the water, as gentle waves in the river, as pearl and jade glittering, and as songs of geese and swans echoing in the sky. For audience, its meanings could be as ambiguous as a simple sign, as immense as a meditative mind, as warming as with a delightful experience, as melancholy as in a sorrowful mood. Judging by their textual composition and rhythmic patterns, writing differs so much in moods and in forms from one person to another.For the same reason, imagine, just as if Liu Dakui himself would so suggest here, without these function words, such as

si

似 (like, as),

zhe

者 (-ist, -er, that which),

zhi

之 (of, him, her, it), “ze”则 (then, therefore), so vital or indispensable simultaneously for the syntactic-prosodic-thematic order, coherence, and rhythm, would this brilliant piece from Zhuangzi’s “Qiwupian”（齐物篇） possible?

The Great Clod belches out breath and its name is wind. So long as it doesn’t come forth, nothing happens. But when it does, then ten thousand hollows begin crying wildly. Can’t you hear the, long drawn out? In the mountain forests that lash and sway, there are huge trees a hundred spans around with hollows and openings like noses, like mouths, like ears, like jugs, like cups, like mortars, like rifts, like ruts. They roar like waves, whistle like arrows, screech, gasp, cry, wail, moan, and howl, those in the lead calling

yeee

, those behind calling out

yuuu

! In a gentle breeze, they answer faintly, but in a full gale the chorus is gigantic. And when the fierce wind has passed on, then all the hollows are empty again, Have you never seen the tossing and trembling that goes on? 庄子Zhuangzi, , trans. Burton Watson (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 31–32.

These function words, particularly, “si” 似 (like, as), are apparently not so used just for meaning or for the clarity of meaning but for the rhythm, which suggests the very f uidity of “qi”. This may further explain why Liu considers that “rhythm is the key of composition” （文章最要节奏）. This is why even though “the primary focus of classic writing is originally not on but sound; however”, emphasizes Zhu, “because is so essential in making meaningful sound, it then draws primary attention”（古文讲究声音，原不完全在虚字上面，但虚字最为紧要.朱光潜，《朱光潜美学文集》，第二辑[vol.2]，303。

Such expressively poetic or musical quality revealed through the creative use of function words and parallelism that it helps in building, can even be found in the texts by Henry James, an author generally considered quite insensitive to both music and poetry. As “ref ected in his rare and mediocre references to music and poetry”, what James says about Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882) “also applies to himself because there are undoubtedly certain chords in James either‘wholly absent’ or ‘not vibrat[ing] at all’” 陈曙东Chen Shudong, (New York: Edwin Mellen, 2003), 18.. Indeed, “other than his passion for pictures”, James, as Graham Clarke depicts him, “showed surprisingly little interest in any other form of art” and “with poetry he had little to do [while] music meant nothing to him” Graham Clarke, (London: Routledge, 1992), 143.. For a man so “indifferent” to music, James however not only have “made liberal use of musical metaphors to convey the ‘shades’ of emphasis in the condensation of his characters”but also have depicted his characters in such expressive ways, which undoubtedly suggest not just his life-long interest in clearcut visual impact but subtle musical quality as well, especially in his earlier works as revealed in the following passage from

The Portrait of A Lady

. In the passage, James vividly indicates a process of self-reconstruction through Isabel Archer’s agonizing transformation from her willful girlhood to her wise ladyship. It describes how Isabel falls victim to the grim reality because of her passionate adherence to untested principles and how she then redeems herself through her tempered idealism, acquired pragmatism, and intensif ed self-knowledge. Isabel’s self-knowledge, for instance, begins with her painful discovery of her fatal mistake of marrying Osmond, but the mistake proves to be the immediate result of

her

self-cultivated illusions, her “fictitious theories” of life, and her own willful personal character. Isabel’s mistake, as James tries to specify, springs from her own ignorance, her vigorous but undisciplined mind,

[H]er meagre knowledge, her inflated ideals, her confidence at once innocent and dogmatic, her temper at once exacting and indulgent, her mixture of curiosity and fastidiousness, of vivacity and indifference, her desire to look very well and to be if possible even better, her determination to see, to try, to know, her combination of the delicate, desultory, flame-like spirit and the eager and personal creature of condition. Henry James, (London: Oxford University Press, 1981), 53.

In the passage, James does have his quite liberal use of musical quality of words with the parallelism so punctured rhythmically via the repetition of “her” “at once”and the inf nite structure, as Clarke would probably also agree here, “to convey the‘shades’ of emphasis in the condensation of his characters” Graham Clarke, , 143.for the otherwise impossible metaphorical effect. There is undoubtedly a subtle but unmistakable note of situational irony in this passage with the f xed rhythm that metaphorically mimics Isabel’s prim and dogmatic way of seeing the world. Isabel thus deceives herself in ways comparable with that of Christiane Andermatt as so suggested in the following passage from Maupassant’s : In both passages, the repetitions of“her” and “leur” quite musically deliver the message, that is, it is her own eye that Paul Brétigny comes to “possess” qualities, in ways so compatible to Isabel’s initial perception of Osmond. Once again, the repetition of “the”, though not necessary, if not awkward, in English, is carried out with a kind of comically satirical implication.
Il avait a l’excès le vrai tempérament des femmes, leur crédulité, leur charme, leur mobilité, leur nervosité, avec l’intelligence supérieure, active, ouverte et pénétrante d’un homme. (Guy de Maupassant, : , 78.) (He possessed to an excessive degree the true feminine temperament, the credulity, the charm, the mobility, the nervous sensibility of a woman, with the superior intellect, active, comprehensive, and penetrating, of a man.) (Guy de Maupassant, , 89.)James is therefore, after all, not so deaf as to be utterly indifferent to the musical quality of words or, as we may say, no great authors, such as James, could be so truly insensitive to the expressive musical quality of words as the effective and indispensable part of the artistic language.

The function word therefore appears not only so instrumental in organizing parallelism but also so indispensable in adjusting narrative rhythm in accordance with the actual rhetorical situation where a stress or pause deems most necessary —often contrary to the rules in theory. The function words, as a result, often become such active elements that can be stressed, unstressed, added or deleted for the rhetorically most desirable and prosodically most probable narrative. The case in point is the passage from “the Miller’s tale” from Chaucer’s

Canterbury Tales

, where “who” and preposition “with” are not only added for the required number of meters but also are stressed in such a way to convey the subtle shades of emphasis with a comic sense by slightly altering the usual iambic pattern. In the tale, a priest by the name of Absalom went out flirting with his neighbor Nicholas’s wife. He wanted a kiss on her lips but “fared neither better nor worse than with his mouth to kiss her naked arse with much relish” because she fooled him by sticking out of the window not her lisps but her buttocks while “the night was as pitch or coal”. But when Absalom eventually realized what he had actually done, he became such a furious person, “who now rubs, who wipes, his slips/With dust, with sand, with straw, with cloth, with chips ... (175)”.We can certainly read the sentences especially the second part, as usual, as regular iambic pentameter, with stress on the content words. But if we let stress fall on the preposition

with

and pause for a prolonged duration, the rhythm would become so “syncopated” to suggest further dramatically humorous effect.With stress falling on “with” this way, the sentence therefore sounds, in other words, quite jazz like or syncopated to convey effectively the subtly comic sense the situation is so intended. If the seemingly redundant

zhi

in “如古之无圣人，人之类灭久矣” (Had no been for

Shengren

, there would have been no human race a long, long time ago) from Han Yu’s

Yuan Dao

, as previously discussed, must be kept for the otherwise impossible rhetorical power, so are

with

and

who

in this context for exactly the same reason. If the function words in the brackets were simply deleted to make the sentence more concise as “who now rubs, [who] wipes his slips/With dust, [with] sand, [with] straw, [with] cloth, [with] chips”, there would be no difference, grammatically and thematically, but the original sense of humor and drama would disappear. Thus, by parallelism, I mean phrases or sentences of similar or identical grammatical patterns that parallel one another in ways not only in terms of their syntactic-prosodic structures but also in meaning. Parallelism could be as extended as the cases with Han Yu’s and Yao Nai’s essays or as brief as a poetic couplet. By this broad working def nition, parallelism should also include noun phrases, verb phrases, prepositional phrases, and the sentences as ordinary as the ones that I selected as examples from Conrad, H. James, and Maupassant, such as « Il avait a l’excès le vrai tempérament des femmes, leur crédulité, leur charme, leur mobilité, leur nervosité, avec l’intelligence supérieure, active, ouverte et pénétrante d’un homme ». Guy de Maupassant, : , 78. In Chinese, parallelism could certainly sometimes without any assistance of “xuci”, such as Du Fu’s 无边落叶萧萧下，不尽长江滚滚来 (wubian luoye xiaoxiao xia, bujin changjiang gungun lai) and Li Qingzhao’s 寻寻觅觅冷冷清清，凄凄惨惨戚戚 (xunxun mimi lengleng qingqing, qiqi cancan qiqi)。But, in certain cases, parallelism, without the indispensable assistance of “xuci”, will be, for instance, so out of f avor as the cases with Chaucer’s, Han Yu’s, and Sima Qian’s texts discussed in the paper. Also, as to how much parallelism relies on the assistance of , this is the issue that varies from language to language. English seems to be more f exible than Japanese and French in terms of the omission of function words, such as “and” or “or”. In Japanese, such conjunctions as “to” と (and, with), “ya” や (and, or), and “ka”か (or), for instance, must be repeated for each verbal item it links with, whereas in English they may not be. Therefore, as I will further discuss in another paper, with references to the cases, such as this one below from Maupassant’s , regarding whether or how much such a repetition of “leur”appears as a result of grammatical or prosodic consideration in the same way as the repetition of “the”in its English version, which is apparently meant to “mimic” its French original as to sound slightly off the way natural in English, “Il avait a l’excès le vrai tempérament des femmes, leur crédulité, leur charme, leur mobilité, leur nervosité, avec l’intelligence supérieure, active, ouverte et pénétrante d’un homme”. Guy de Maupassant, : , 78. (He possessed to an excessive degree the true feminine temperament, the credulity, the charm, the mobility, the nervous sensibility of a woman, with the superior intellect, active, comprehensive, and penetrating, of a man.) Guy de Maupassant, , 89. Indeed, it needs to be further discussed in great detail as to whether the very presence of these function words in such contexts could be considered as purely “rhetorical” or as much of a sheet grammatical necessity as “that” in Wright’s poem “A Blessing” which, nonetheless, so “coincidentally” also happens to be prosodically indispensable especially in terms of the way it is so conspicuously positioned — upfront.This is also the case with such sentences “择焉而不精，语焉而不详” once again, from Han Yu’s “Yuan Dao”. The sentences can certainly be simplified as“择焉不精，语焉不详” or “择而不精，语而不详” by keeping only one of the two function words. But if so, without the smoothly mediated pause especially of

yan

焉, stressed or not, the sentence would sound too “dry” too direct, too f at, or too abrupt; the sentence would be then somewhat out of tune with the expressive subtlety of both the overtone and overall rhythmic pattern built through the extensive and elaborate use of parallelism with repetitive or “redundant” verbal structures, such as 为之。The f rst two lines of Ouyang Xiu （欧阳修，1007—1073）’s “On Hua Jin Hall” （画锦堂记），“仕宦至将相，锦衣归故乡” (Ascending high to the off ce of supreme responsibility, and returning home happy with honors and glory) is another case in point. After he already sent away the manuscript, he suddenly realized that he needed to add 而“er” to the f rst two lines to make them sound better. He then immediately dispatched his aide on horseback to catch and get back the manuscript, which was already on the way for a long while. With er added to each part of the two line, the meaning of the revised version 仕宦而至将相, 锦衣而归故乡 may not seem to have changed much, if at all, but they sound better. Indeed, at least according to Zhu, without the added “er”, the original ones, indeed, sounded rushed and abrupt （局促）; with the added “xuzi”, they sound relaxed （舒展）. Whether theoretically or pragmatically, there are indeed the issues regarding ’s own rhetorical effect and its “role in allowing something else to have a rhetorical effect” particularly in terms of parallelism.. As a matter of fact, these differentiated roles regarding , for me, are actually quite inseparable. “Xuci”’s role in “allowing something else to have a rhetorical effect” is unquestionable especially in terms of what William James argues with regard to his “radical empiricism”. “Xuci”’s role in this way, nonetheless, could not be “effective” if without its own “materiality” or its potential/ actual sound quality in the overall scheme of things. At this point, one may come across with the crucial question regarding whether “pronouns (such as 之in‘为之君，为之师’) function esthetically the same way as a conjunction (like 而 in ‘仕宦而至将相，富贵而归故乡’)”. Theoretically, they should by no means be the same given the different sound quality of each word, the length of each pauses, or whether stressed with pauses, etc. In actual reality, they could sound with not much difference, if at all, because who can really hear the subtle differences of sound vibrations other than some simple beautifully rhythmic pauses unless their being scientif cally shown through high-tech facility?Furthermore, they not only sound rhythmic “抑扬顿挫” but also has additional layer of meaning due to an additional function word （意思多了一个转折，要深一层）.While scholars, such as Zhu, all consider that the current version sounds much better than the original one, but no one specif es why it is so. The reason, from a prosodic point of view, however, is of an otherwise impossible subtle but crucial pause occur before and due to the added er, which, likes a timely “speed bump”, which slows down the pace, gives the indispensible rhythm to an otherwise merely speeding reading, and improves the expression of the meaning by bringing out its full flavor with well measured rhythms. This is exactly “meaning and sound”, argues Zhu, “cannot be arbitrarily separated [because], improved sound effect means automatically the improved expression of meaning” （音义不可强分，更动了声音就连带地更动了意义）. 朱光潜，《朱光潜美学文集》，第二辑，302。Clearly, as Zhu as emphasizes, The diff cult part of classic writing is , the most important of which, however, exceeds no more than these types, that is, expression of transition and connection, positive and negative, exclamation and questioning. These are the“xuzi” that mark the basic sentiments when one speaks. This is why classic writing, which is so particular about sound, pays special attention to “xuzi” （古文难于用虚字，最重要的虚字不外承转词……肯否助词……以及惊叹疑问词……几大类。普通说话声音所表现的神情也就在承转，肯否，惊叹，疑问等地方见出，所以古文讲究声音，特别在虚字上做功夫）。The same is with Liu Zongyuan（柳宗元，773—819)’s “On Gu Mu Pond”（钴姆潭记）, “于以见天之高，气之迥，孰使予乐居夷而忘故土者，非兹潭也欤？”(With the sky striking so magnif cently as high and far as toward inf nite, is it not this very pond that makes me enjoy everything here so much in the foreign soil and forget my our own homeland?) Without the function words, or rather without the function words mediated pauses, the line would sound equally too flat and speedy to be prosodically and thematically effective.Sometimes we even need redundant content words such as adjectives for crucial prosodic consideration as with the famous sentence from

Shiji

《史记·韩信传》 司马迁Sima Qian，〈韩信列传〉“Han Xin liezhuan”[The Biography of Han Xin]，《史记》 [The Records of the Historian]（北京[Beijing]：中华书局 [Zhonghua Book Company], 1959），798。“狡兔死，走狗烹，飞鸟尽，良弓藏，敌国破，谋臣亡” (Once the cunning bunnies are no longer available for hunting, the dogs for the spot is then useful only as food; when the swift-f ying birds are one day completely cleared of the sky as games, it is the time for the high-quality bows to be put away; after the enemies are wiped out, the days of those courtiers good for war strategies and tactics are truly numbered). For the same prosodic reason, once the sentence is simplif ed or made less “redundant” as 兔死，狗烹，鸟尽，弓藏，敌破，臣亡，the f avor would never be the same, even if the meaning may not be altered or probably be more concisely expressed. Why do we need the word“flying” to describe “birds” here? Do not birds usually fly? Does not a dog ever run? This simplified version however does not sound as nice or “right” as the original. Furthermore, if it seems to be such a necessity to use the adjective “cunning 狡” to describe what kind of“bunnies” are referred to, it then also seems to be prosodically justif able to use the adjectives of “running (走)” and “f ying (飞)” in the same sentence for the sake of the effective meaning-assisting f ow of sound and rhythm, even if these adjectives may sound so redundant or unnecessary — semantically speaking.We need these “redundant” adjectives in the sentence from Sima Qian for as much the same reason as we need the “redundant” function words, such as “who”and “with”, in the sentence from Chaucer, that is, we need the expressive music of words for the nuanced flavors and hues of the meaning otherwise impossible; the music of words so mediated by the function words inevitably “add” so much to the narrative power that the texts demonstrate. In this way parallelism through the mediating power of function word speaks for a ref ned syntactic-prosodic verbal environment, which occasions to bring out the best of all the elements both visually and audibly in ways compatible to a tasty dish with its f avor always coming out of the actual process of cooking not from something merely added onto it like “salad dressing”. Our understanding of such prosodically possible meanings may sound a bit fuss-making because this kind of linguistic consideration or maneuver may appear simply too subtle or too trivial to sound creditable. We however not only what we eat but also what we dress because the clothes we put on could be as much revealing as the food we like regarding our character and identity even beyond our own full consciousness; what otherwise seems as trivial as merely decorative, such as the adjectives and the def nite articles, could thus also be truly revealing especially in terms of a certain particular syntactic-prosodic verbal environment especially functioning in the form of parallelism.So indispensable therefore is the role of function words in creating the vital syntactic-prosodic verbal environment, without which no meaning could be fully understood and for which no rule is virtually unbreakable.As in the sentence that Qigong （启功，1912—2005） refers to “不我信 （伸）兮” for instance, all the rules are literally broken for the function word “xi”兮to put there at the end of the sentence and stressed to sustain the syntactic-prosodic verbal environment so critical for the effective actualization of the emphatic meaning regarding the sentence“You don’t believe me!” It is because the end of a phrase and sentence, as a rule, is the most stressed position. Thus, with the function word “xi”兮 so positioned not only does it become stressed but also is stressed in the prosodically most important position in Chinese （重中之重zhong zhong zhi zhong）to give the meaning of“xin”信 an additional push for the very emphasis it so intends. This phenomenon could probably be best understood in terms of this often mentioned case. Ibid. When a certain military commander of Qing dynasty had to present his case to the emperor after having lost one battle after another, he prepared his presentation with this famous statement of fact as“屡战屡败” (lv zhan lv bai), which means “every time I fought, I lost”. But he was advised to revise the statement with a simple reversal of word order. So instead of stating his case as “屡战屡败” (lv zhan lv bai), he described his situation as “屡败屡战” (lv bai lv zhan), which means “Every time I lost, I fought ”. So the emperor was very pleased by his courage and tenacity. It is because with “fought”（“zhan” 战） instead of “lost” （“bai” 败） put at the end of the sentence, the strongest position of a sentence in Chinese, “the last of being the strongest” （最后的最强）, as Zhao Yuanren（赵元任，1892—1982） so sums up, what became automatically stressed or emphasized in the revised statement was the message on the general’s unyielding courage and tenacity. Otherwise, the general’s incompetence as a military commander, among many other negative possibilities, would have become the central message in the original word order. But, when translating the sentence“屡败屡战”into English, there seems to be no better alternative than adding the word “again” to bring out the emphatic f avor, which , however, so naturally there in the word order of Chinese original. While explaining why the last word of each line in a Chinese poem is where not only a pause but also a rhyme is expected as below, Zhu also touches on the same issue. “In most Chinese poems one ‘sentence’ (line) forms a unit. A pause at the last word of each sentence is necessary for the pattern of both sound and meaning. In case of occasional run-on line (enjambment), such a pause is still required even if just for the sake of sound not meaning. The last word of the sentence is thus where a pause is absolutely expected; it is therefore the most important position regarding a poem’s overall rhythmic and metric pattern.”（中文诗大半每“句”成一单位，句末一字在音义两方面都有停顿的必要。纵然偶有“上下关联格”者，句末一字义不顿而音仍必须顿。句末一字是中文诗句必顿的一个字，所以它是全诗音节最着重的地方。）朱光潜，《朱光潜美学文集》，第二辑，175。As a result, it makes perfect sense why the last words of Chinese poems are expected to be rhymed; it is because each last word stands for the strategic position for the meaningful prosodic coherence and unity otherwise impossible, or, in other words, a place where the sound and meaning hit the brain more memorably than anywhere else in the same line.Even with all its incredible rule-breaking and rule-improvising flexibility so characteristic of the function word the way we have observed so far, the indispensable syntacticprosodic verbal environment is often ironically maintained as much through omission or absence of the function word as through its presence; the function word is omitted or deleted literally as often as it is added for the vital syntacticprosodic verbal environment, the existence or maintenance of which, in other words, depends so much upon the mediation of function word via its presence as well as absence. Consequently, we must read with our eyes and ears acutely open for the“usual” function of the function word whenever or wherever it is not even present. Otherwise, we may, for instance, misread an exquisite rhetorical question as a plain narrative sentence as with the poem “Yang zhi Shui” of

Zheng Feng

《郑风·扬之水》 from

Shijing

. Judging by the overall context, while the poetic line “扬之水，不流束楚” may indeed sound like a perfect narrative sentence by itself, it is, nevertheless, an implicit rhetorical question, with the function word “hu”乎 omitted at the end. 陆宗达，《训诂简论》，42。This is, for instance, Zengcai An’s translation: “Slowly are the waters f owing, /So slowly that a bundle of thorns they cannot carry away.” 安增才， , 223.

5. Special Cases in Chu Ci and Yi Jing

There are numerous examples regarding not only how the regular position of function word can be altered or adjusted for the sake of sound but also how f exible the function word, such as

xi

, can really be used in so doing, at least in six possible ways，according to Zhu. As with the case of “不我信（伸）兮” that Qigong refers to regarding how the function word “xi”兮, which is usually not to be stressed becomes instead stressed when it is put at the end position of a sentence, that is, the most stressed position in the whole sentence, so is兮used in the lines of Qu Yuan （屈原，ca. 340 B.C.—ca. 278 B.C.）’s

Li Sao

① for the prosodically stressed pause, i.e., “惟草木之零落兮，恐美人之迟暮” which expresses the poet’s concern that his life may end too soon like the withering f owers and quickly faded beauty prior to his dreamed accomplishments. ② The same function word “xi”, however, is then used to separate what is normally inseparable as verb and object for the desired rhythms in “穆将愉兮上皇”(to please in earnest the higher authorities) and “盖将把兮琼芳” (to present fragrant f owers) from “Dong Huang Tai Yi” of

Jiu Ge

《九歌·东皇太一》and “旦余济兮江湘” (at dawn I cross the rivers of Yangtze and Xiang) from “She Jiang” of

Jiu Zhang

《九章·涉江》。③ Then “xi” is used as a preposition “yu” 于, which separates the verb and the object while mediating the whole sentence for the coherence of rhythmic pattern in these lines, such as “悲莫悲兮生别离” (nothing is sadder than to part while alive) from “Shao Si Ming” of

Jiu Ge

《九歌·少司命》, “搴芙蓉兮木末” (to seize the f owers of lotus by ends) from “Xiang Jun” of

Jiu Ge

《九歌·湘君》 and “遗余珮兮澧浦” (to leave girdle ornaments in the River Li) from Qu Yuan’s

Li Sao

. ④“Xi” is used to mediate a pause between adverb and verb as in “时不可兮骤得” (time is not easy to hold) from “Xiang Fu Ren” of

Jiu Ge

《九歌·湘夫人》 and “荃独易兮为民正” (to hold justice alone to all) from “Shao Si Ming” of

Jiu Ge

. ⑤ So does “xi” separates the main parts from the complements in the complementary sentences in “今湘沅兮无波” (now calmly f ow the rivers of Xiang and Yuan) from “Xiang Fu Ren” of

Jiu Ge

, “望夫君兮未来” (to wait for you yet to come) from “Xiang Jun” of

Jiu Ge

and“子慕予兮善窈窕” (I am so taken by your grace and beauty) from “Shan Gui” of

Jiu Ge

《九歌·山鬼》。⑥ “Xi” is here used as “zhi” 之 in these lines from

Jiu Ge

, such as “采芳洲兮杜若” (to pick yabumyoga on the island of fragrance) of “Xiang Jun”, “抚长剑兮玉珥” (to touch gently the jade earrings on the long sword) from“Dong Huang Ta Yi”, and “望涔阳兮极浦” (to hold Cen Yang’s river in view from distance) of “Xiang Jun”.Indeed, the irreplaceable theme-enlivening role of function word inherent in the syntactic-prosodic pattern could be traced back to

Yijing

when presence of function words in the texts is still much less than common. But this less than common presence of function word in the text does not diminish its importance; rather it indicates its indispensability because the text would not function without a few most commonly used ones in

Yijing

, such as 其“qi” (the, this, its, his, their, your, etc.) and 之“

zhi

” (it, this).The presence of the underlined function words in the following hexagram text in

Yijing

, as I have also argued elsewhere, for instance, is so crucial in making this piece quintessentially “poetic” to rival anyone from

Shijing

.

鸣鹤在阴， There is a crane calling on the shady northern slope

其子和之。 Its offering answers it

我有好爵， We have a fine beaker (of wine)

吾与尔靡之。 I will empty it together with you. Richard Alan Kunst, “The Original : Texts, Phonetic Transcription, Translation, and Index, with Samples Glosses”, Dissertation (University of California, Berkeley, 1985), 53.

Compared with any piece from

Shijing

, the hexagram text often at least appears as much aesthetically appealing not only in terms of its visual but also audible imaginary with a rich and intimate theme on friendship, love, and sharing. Its rhyming pattern is def nitely so instrumental in brining the hexagram all the poetic flavor or making it a poem par excellence. So instrumental are particularly the function words in constructing an aesthetically and meaningfully rhythmic syntacticprosodic pattern that gives a sense of well-sounding coherence to things that may not seem to be so connected, if at all, in the natural sequence of events. The function word “zhi”之 (it, this) of the last line, for instance, is syntactically and prosodically indispensable in the context. Along with “qi”其 (this, that), “wu”吾 (we; I), “er”尔 (you), and “yu”与 (and, with) not only is “zhi” so instrumental in enabling the hexagram text to rhyme so poetically as a whole for the aesthetic coherence but also in making the text pause in ways that its syntactic-prosodic structure encourages and facilitates for the utmost poetic f avor. What makes this hexagram text particularly poetic, however, are the two key words “wu” and “er”.

Wu

could certainly be omitted and the omission of “wu” could apparently make the hexagram text more smoothly of “regular” sounding especially in terms of how everything of the last line could then be so evenly well-rhymed with the whole poem. When “wu” is kept the way it is, a slight and yet emphatic pause might be required or necessary on both“wu” and “yu”; it is particularly so on “er”. The line may thus sound poetically emphatic, meaning it is

you

, no one else, whom

I

would like to enjoy sharing the wine and the moment — regardless of “who” we are, “where” you are, “whether”we like each other or not previously, “whether” we will ever meet again in this or other world ... But, to make such a reading with

wu

and

er

even possible in the f rst place, a hinge-like function word “yu” is irreplaceable because it must be there not only to make the required syntactic connection but also to mete out the adequate amount of duration and stress that “wu” and “er” must work out to ensure a successful full landing on “zhi” at the most stressed end position （重中之重）. Thus, within this specif c context, the addition of “wu” in this regard becomes so crucial in making the hexagram text truly a poem the way it deserves especially regarding its entire subtly extraordinary visual and addible f avor in addition to its emphatically

personal

f avor.

6. Compatible Cases in Chinese and Non-Chinese Classics

Thus, with such f exibility on position and possibility for pause, stress, addition, or deletion, the function word indeed helps create the crucial syntactic-prosodic verbal environment, which is, once again, particularly effective in the form of parallelism. The rhythmic pattern of parallelism as indicated in the Baudelaire’s“Correspondences” below is often created not only for decoration but also as lifegiving context of vital verbal environment. Without such a syntactic-prosodic verbal environment built on the active and effective mediation of function word, there would be, as Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864) would say, no real butterf y but the impaled and dried up specimen on the wall; neither would there be, as Herman Melville (1819—1891) would emphasize, any live phenomenon of the spectacular leviathans in the ocean but the sets of hollow skeletons in the museums; nor would there be any real fish in the water but the stranded dead ones on the dry land, as Martin Heidegger (1889—1976) would so add here as well In his famous preface to , Hawthorne emphasizes the importance of how not “relentlessly to impale the story with its moral as with an iron rod — or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterf y — thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffen in an ungainly and unnatural attitude” Nathaniel Hawthorne, (New Jersey: Watermill, 1983)(One of the unnumbered pages that precede the main text). For Melville, “the living whale, in his full majesty and signif cance, is only to be seen at sea in unfathomable waters” because“most of the scientif c drawings have been taken from the stranded f sh; and these are about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship” . Herman Melville, , ed. Charles Feidelson, Jr. (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., Inc., 1964), LV 350. In “Origin of the Work of Art”, Heidegger also illustrates his points by referring to Van Gogh’s work. Just like Van Gogh (1853—1890)’s “Shoes”that could not without the world it connects with, whatever aesthetic message of a poem, as Heidegger would emphasize, might not even be possible without the fundamental subtle relationships that condition and motivate it in the form of the syntactic-prosodic verbal environment. Like Melville who wants his readers to see the whale in the sea not just in the museums, Heidegger also emphasizes in“Letter on Humanism” the importance of “evaluat[ing] the nature and powers of a f sh [not] by seeing how long it can live on dry land”. Martin Heidegger, “Letter on Humanism”, ed and introd. David Farrell Krell, (New York: Harper, 1977), 195. By this, he means and calls for “the effort [to] return thinking ”, Ibid., 195, italics added, and, in our case, it means a timely return to the syntactic-prosodic verbal environment for the “elements” we might have missed., The effectiveness of function word therefore could only be understood in terms of this live linguistic context or its syntactic-prosodic verbal environment, which is literally not given but born naturally out of the process of verbal action, and the function word itself plays such an instrumental role in the making of this vital process through its variable or multiple function as mediator, coordinator, and facilitator. In Baudelaire’s“Correspondences” the indispensable and often “invisible” role of function word in the making of such a vital life-giving syntactic-prosodic verbal environment once again becomes self-evident.

La Nature est un temple ou de vivants piliers

Laissent parfois sortir de confuses paroles;

L’homme y passe à travers des forets de symboles

Qui l’observent avec des regards familiers.

Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent

Dan une ténébreuse et profonde unité,

Vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté,

Les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent.

Il est des parfums frais comme des chairs d’enfants,

Doux comme les hautbois, verts comme les prairies,

— Er d’autres, corrompus, riches et triomphants,

该栏目旨在：在新时代下，继续坚定不移地以“八八战略”为指引，以“八八战略”实施15周年为新起点，秉持与传承浙江精神，坚守初心，践行使命，进一步发挥期刊在全省气象事业发展中的学术导向、科技引领、科技评价等重要作用，刊载与传播生态环境气象领域的创新成果，打造期刊特色品牌，促进学术进步，推动提升气象服务生态环境保护及服务绿色发展的保障能力与水平，助力浙江气象为生态文明建设、“两山建设”保驾护航，助力在“两个高水平”建设中做出气象新贡献，助推“八八战略”再深化、改革开放再出发。

Ayant l’expansion es choes infinies,

Comme l’ambre, le musc, le benjoin et l’encens,

Qui chantent les transport de l’esprit et des sens. Charles Baudelaire, (Boston: David R. Godine, 1982), 193.

Clearly, without these seemingly insignificant function words as underlined, the mysterious sense of nature that Baudelaire tries to convey through his creative verbal expression would not take place. It is these trivial function words i.e., qui, ou, comme, which make nature mysteriously alive in correspondence coherent not only in meaning but also in sound. Like

ru

如（as, like） in Yao Nai’s essay “Reply to Lu Xiefei”, the function word “comme” (as, like) also further ref nes the poem with all life-like noises, sounds, and hushes of harmony and unison in addition to the syntactic coherence. These function words, as William James would comment here, indeed acquire life “

as primordial elements of ‘fact’

as ... the distinctions and disjunctions”; they, indeed, “compenetrate harmoniously” to make it possible for us to understand how life may thus “f ow out of the stream of pure experience, the stream of concretes or the sensational stream, as naturally as nouns and adjectives do, and ... melt into it again as f uidly when we apply [the function words] to a new portion of the stream” William James, , 95. emphasis added.. The mysterious correspondence among all the elements of nature, in other words, would be utterly impossible without being, f rst and foremost, so syntactically and prosodically coordinated or orchestrated through the seemingly unnoticeable role of the function words, which provide all the indispensable coherence to make the tapestry of the most beautifully intricate imagery of the mysterious nature

live

.

What however proves to be most exemplary regarding the indispensable role of “function word” is probably of James Wright (1927—1980)’s much celebrated poem “A Blessing”, in which a function word”, such as “that”, is not just there merely for the rhythmic flow of sounds but for the syntactic-prosodic-thematic necessity as well. If the poem’s theme is of the magic or majestic moment of returning to nature and humanity, it is therefore fully revealed particularly via the last two lines with the simple function word “that” mediating the lines for an“indispensable” pause that dramatizes or highlights the “sea changing” moment even without a comma. For the revelation of dramatic moment, whether we call it“dun wu”（顿悟）, “satori”（悟り）, or any zen-like experience, the simple “that”becomes not only syntactically but also prosodically a must for the theme to be fully revealed — in ways as truly magic as such a life-giving gentle touch of brush, which, as says the Chinese idioms “画龙点睛，神来之笔”gives life not only to its eye but also to the painted dragon itself.

Suddenly I realize

That if I stepped out of my body I would break into blossom.

This “that” thus becomes thematically, syntactically, and prosodically a crucial point where two otherwise utterly different worlds instantly merge and “break into blossom” . The function word “no” のin Matsuo Basho (1644—1694)’s famous frog haiku is in fact as much indispensable both syntactically and prosodically as“that” in Wright’s “A Blessing” because, semantically or thematically, it gives an equally vital all-echoing, sudden mode-switching, moment-shifting, mood-twisting pause that simultaneously disrupts and reconnects everything which contextualizes the haiku as “that” does in “A Blessing”. The importance of the function word “ya”however often emerge as not suff ciently noticeable as in the English version below in which it is simply not even translated. The unique poetic flavor of this haiku, however, could certainly be considered as simultaneously the result of the strategic absence and presence not only of the content words but also of function words that make a “creative syntax” with its poetic spatiotemporal free expression and imagination. Should the haiku be returned to the corresponding prosaic syntaxes, as below, out of numerous possibilities, it is clear not simply what or how many content words are omitted to make room for a “creative syntax” indispensable for the spatiotemporal free expression and imagination or “beauty of ambiguity” that this little poem is famous for; it should also be clear how crucial but barely noticeable is role that function words play in the scheme of making creative syntax, i.e. ya and no.
1. 古池で蛙が飛び込む音がした (In the ancient pond, there was a sound of frog jumping in the water).
2. 古池で蛙が飛び込む音が聞こえた (In the ancient pond, I heard the sound of frog jumping in the water).
3. 古池の方から蛙が飛び込む音がした(From the (direction of) ancient pond, there was a sound of frog jumping in the water).

蛙飛び込む (kawazu tobikomu) A frog jumps in —

水の音 (mizu no oto) Sound of water.

In the little piece of pure beauty, such as Goethe’s “

Wandrers Nachtlied

” as below, the seemingly insignif cant function words, such as “über” “im” “du” “auch”also appear to provide so timely the key support in rhythmically activating the crucial syntactic-prosodic verbal pattern that enlivens each content word at the crucial vantage positions regarding

where

and

how

things truly are and

will

soon be thereafter in addition to the consistent and coherent hushing effect of the poem mediated through them. The last two words “du” and “auch” particularly exemplify how the meaningenriching and beauty-enlivening vowel and consonant sound these words sustain and echo with the metric pattern of the piece. Literally, the immeasurable impact of the museum effect with synesthetic subtlety could be identif ed prosodically in line with“auch”, the last word of the last line, which suggests how thing may f nally quiet down in as much the same way as “h-sounding” word “auch” may so suggest especially in accordance with the metric pattern of the poem where the words with soothing vowel and consonant sounds, such as “Ruh”, “Spurest”, “Ruhest”, “du”, “Kaum”,“Hauch” and “auch”, come in resonant chords of echoes. The poem thus enables us to hear and to see simultaneously how silence may ultimately overtake the whole universe.

Uber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh’ On all the hilltops there is peace

In allen wipfeln Spurest du In all the treetops you feel

Kaum eine Hauch Hardly any breeze

Die Voglein schweigen im Walde, The birds are quiet in the woods

Warte nur, balde Just wait, soon

Ruhest du auch You too will be in peace.

Of the amount of twenty four words that makes up the poem, the six function words, approximately thirty three percent, literally emerge as the crucial relay points where rhythmic pause and stress occur right at the moment in making the little piece a lyric marvel for the unusual visual and audial pleasure aesthetically. Goethe’s piece sums up everything in silence, in motion and in stillness. It does not“dissolve, diffuse, and dissipate” but “re-creates” everything, or, as if of an instant Zen moment, in the spirit of “Dasein” of “Ding un Sich”, reconciles afresh the otherwise irreconcilable.

But the function word’s unique capacity in the making of such a vital lifegiving syntactic-prosodic verbal environment is ultimately often a simple matter that concerns not how much but how little the function word is actually used for a pure aesthetic of “less is more” as the case with “Tian Jing Sha”（天净沙·秋思） by Ma Zhiyuan （马致远，ca. 1260—1325）.

枯藤—老树—昏鸦，A few withered vines, an old tree, a crow at dusk,

小桥—流水—人家，A small bridge, a flowing river, plus a cottage,

古道—西风—瘦马，An ancient road, the west wind, and a gaunt horse —

夕阳—西下，Down on the horizon is the evening sun, and,

断肠—人在—天涯。Alone, in the wild open field, stands a heart-broken man.

Of various other possibilities, one appropriate way of further appreciating this poem prosodically requires or depends on how and where we pause and stress, particularly with the last sentence, in ways permissible regarding the syntactic-prosodic verbal environment that poem itself at once creates and is created with — especially through the crucial variable ways of pausing mediated by the indispensable chameleonlike 在

zai

with its multifunctional roles also at once activating and is being activated by the syntactic-prosodic verbal environment.Thus, varying with the key word

zai

在regarding whether it can be identif ed as a function word, i.e., a preposition (at, in, on, or by, etc.), or a verb within the given syntactic-prosodic verbal context, the poem’s last line, which is undoubtedly the climax of the whole poem, suggests at least two possible ways of pausing and stressing with consequently different variations of meanings.

1. 断肠人—在天涯

2. 断肠—人在—天涯

With the first possibility, the pause is emphatically between the first and the second phrase. A pause therefore is required to indicate the absence of the auxiliary verb

shi

是;

zai

becomes in this case a special verb that forms a “prepositional phrase” as a “noun of place” （处所名词） and the “object” of the absent auxiliary verb. A pause therefore is not only grammatically necessary but also prosodically indispensable to activate empathically a particular metrical pattern and sentiments of the last line as well as the entire poem. The empty-verb structure thus grants an additional flexibility in Chinese in making parallelism for desirable metric/ prosodic effect; it allows extra leeway for preposition to function in ways otherwise impossible.In contrast, with a slight twist, such as an additional pause between 断肠 and 人在as well as between 人在 and 天涯 as of the second possibility, the last line no longer stands for a judgment sentence but a narrative sentence 叙述句. If so, the phrase“heart broke” 断肠, in other words, may not be thus necessarily read or understood as adjective for “ren” 人; rather it can be read as an adverbial phrase describing the ways of the person “in the wild open f eld” （在天涯

zai tian ya

） as well as explaining why or how the action of “heart-broken” occurs the moment the persona is so situated alone there at that particular moment and place. If so, 在 should neither be considered as a regular preposition nor a special verb that forms a “noun of place” but a verb, par excellence;

zai

is, in other words, as much legitimately a verb in “断肠人在天涯” as in “他在家” (He is at home) in accordance with Feng. 冯胜利，《汉语的韵律，词法与句法》，95。If so, 在 should neither be considered as a regular preposition nor a special verb that forms a “noun of place” but a verb, par excellence; is, in other words, as much legitimately a verb in “断肠人在天涯” as in “他在家” (He is at home) in accordance with Feng Ibid. The title 爱在苍茫大地 (ai zai cang mang da di) of the 2010 TV Drama series starred by Youbing Li, for instance, could be equally translated as “Love is in the Vast Wilderness” with 在苍茫大地 as prepositional phrase used as noun. It could equally be translated as “love to be in the vast wilderness”.With this possibility of reading, not only does the pause fall perfectly in line with the traditional “iambic” or

yi yang

抑扬 pattern but the whole poem may also sound very “existentialistic” in flavor and processural in the sense that heart-broken is the result of the very situation of 在天涯 (in the wild open f eld) rather than a pre-determined given as the phrase断肠人 (heart-broken man) may otherwise so suggest. The mood of “heart broken” is thus very much like the genuine f avor of a delicious home-cooked dish not prepared with any sauce ready-made and added on afterwards but truly “fixed” with ones that come naturally out of the actual process of cooking. Similarly, the very “essence” of “ren”人 is very much situational as revealed through the action or experience of being/becoming heartbroken that occurs upon the very situation. The heart-broken person is therefore not necessarily associated with any predetermined causes but with the peculiar mood that strikes him on the spot, and he, as a result, is no longer so centralized as the center of action that causes the situation but only a part of event who personif es the contextualized outcome.The person, in other words, may not necessarily sad or so sad,

a priori

, but the moment he is so situated in the wild open f eld he instantly or gradually becomes sad or hear-broken; he becomes so submerged in everything that touches his heart

a posteriori

; he becomes philosophically melancholic for no particular reasons. He is not sad for any trivial, immediate, and personal everyday life situation. This situation does sound like what Wittgenstein tries to remind us of because our mental picture of reality often resembles a picture that pictures a of reality, the way we see it — the way of an opaque mirror that reflects not only an ambiguous image of reality but also our actual capacity and motivation to see or to it. It is because “the possibility of describing the world by means of Newtonian mechanics”, as Wittgenstein explains, “tells us nothing about the world; but what does tell us something about it is the precise in which it is possible to describe it by these means” or“the fact that it can be described more ‘simply’ with one system of mechanics than with another”. Therefore, “mechanics” for Wittgenstein, is only “an attempt to construct according to a single plan all the propositions that we need for the description of the world”, even though “the laws of physics, with all their logical apparatus, still speak, however indirectly, about the objects of the world”. Ludwig Wittgenstein, D. F. Pears. and B. F. McGuinness, , trans. Bertrand Russell (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1961), 139, italics added.What makes the persona so “heart-broken” could therefore be such an“existentialistic” situation that suggests something as magnificent as Chen Zi’ang’s emotional response “念天地之悠悠, 独怅然而涕下” at the sight of the immeasurable immensity, immediacy, and intimacy of the great universe that so quietly opens up on top of a hill, as motivational as Albert Einstein (1879—1955)’s “cosmic religious feeling” Albert Einstein, (New York: Crown, 1982), 39., as aesthetically sublime as Immanuel Kant (1724—1802)’s“purposive without a purpose” Immanuel Kant, , trans. Werner S. Pluhar, Fwd. Mary J. Gregor. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), 27: 115., or simply as trivial but real as Paul Verlaine (1844—1896)’s nameless and “causeless” mood of sadness, i.e. “C’est bien la pire peine/De ne savoir pourquoi” as so expressed in his poem of “Il pleure dans mon cœur.” With

zai

now capable of being so “f exible” or “adaptable” due to this syntactic-prosodic verbal context to form a nominalized prepositional phrase as well as an actual “verbal” sentence, the special phrase 在天涯 literally suggests a sense of “actionless action” or the aesthetic effect as Liang Zongdai（梁宗岱，1903—1983）would refer to it here as “abstract concreteness” （抽象的具体化） and“concrete abstraction” （具体的抽象化）. 梁宗岱Liang Zongdai，《诗与真》 [Poetry and Truth]（北京[Beijing]: 外国文学出版社[Foreign Literature Press]，1984），136。The poem also becomes so exemplary of “pure poetry” （纯粹的诗）, which, according to Zhu, indicates not only the pure state of “contemplation” （凝神注视） but also “purely isolated or independent imaginary” （孤立绝缘）, which often provokes one to see “eternality in the instant”（刹那中见终古）. 朱光潜，《朱光潜美学文集》，49—50。This poem indeed could offer so much for reader’s response as from T. S. Eliot (1888—1965)’s “The Love of J. Alfred Prufrock”, especially the famous initial line, i.e. “LET us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherized upon a table”. T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, ed. M. H. Abrams, , vol. 2(New York: Norton, 1986), 2174, to the existentialistic scene in Robert Frost (1874—1963)’s deceptively simple poem “Stopping by the Woods on the Snowy Evening”, which is literally so suggestive of a hidden spiritual crisis and dilemma. The may also suggest the eternalized instant of a probably never ending process of what William Wordsworth (1770—1850) would call as the moment of getting one’s “emotion recollected in tranquility” William Wordsworth, “Preface to Lyrical Ballads”, () (New York: Norton, 1986), 168. or such an occasion, as it says in Chinese, of “feeling the pain that stings more in tranquil recollection” (痛定思痛痛更痛 ). With nature so personif ed with the pre-determined mood, the natural scene comes to resemble at once a “mirror” and“window” for us to catch a true glimpse of the “still life” picture of humanity otherwise unlikely.Whichever way one may choose to read the poem following whatever likely suggestions from Feng’s prosody theories, what ultimately remains clear is the crucial function of the key word “zai”, which enjoys such an at once context-dependent and context-enriching chameleon-like adaptability in making subtle but often signif cant alternations of meaning in any syntactic-prosodic verbal environment it f ts in.

7. Conclusion: With Function Words, Less Means More

As the most rigid and the most flexible, the most “trivial” and the most crucial textual elements, the function words, such as “zai” in Chinese and “that”in English, thus do function, as William James so puts it, as the very “primordial elements of ‘fact’” that “f ow out of the stream of pure experience ... as naturally as nouns and adjectives do, and ... melt into it again as f uidly when we apply them to a new portion of the stream” William James, , 95.; the f owing stream of “primordial elements of‘fact’” as Liu Dakui would also suggest, could be something as compatible as

qi

of composition that function words help so much in keeping it live and f owing. Referring to Han Yu, Liu Dakui, Yao Nai, and Zeng Guofan（曾国藩，1811—1872）, especially with regard to Zeng’s famous 《家训》(Instructions for Family Members), Zhu emphasizes the importance of reading aloud as one of the most essential approaches to understand and the text thereby because apparently “has so much to do with sound and rhythm” （气与声调有关）, 朱光潜，《朱光潜美学文集》，第一辑，219—220，522—533。and thus explains why these famous authors all consider reading aloud as primary of understanding and then the text.The function words therefore not only mark but also mediate the narrative for the indispensable stress or pause that indicates text-specific and context-peculiar meanings and flavors in accordance with the variable or diverse live rhetorical situations in ways often so different from what is theoretically permissible. As such, each function word also thus enlivens, enriches, and exemplifies the classic Chinese aesthetic stated as “大音稀声” (da yin xi sheng) of

Daodejing

(ch. 41) “Da yi xi sheng” and“绘事后素” (hui shi hou su) of the

Analects

(3: 8). Whether the word “xi 稀” is translated as “faint” “muted” “subtle” or “silent” the quantity or quality of the sound itself is ref ective of the very physical and human environments that define or contextualize the great sound as meaningful and beautiful because the great sound is clearly “relational” and “contextual” Should the Chinese character “yin 音” be therefore translated as “sound” or “music”? Indeed, the word “yin 音” does mean harmonious sound or music, while “sheng 声” however, indicates inharmonious sound. If this is the case, the great music is the one that is of the most harmonious relationship with the natural and human environment, which echoes it in ways most appealing to the sensitive ear. For a similar argument, 赵世民Zhao Shimin，《汉字：中国文化的基因》 [Chinese Character: The Gene of Chinese Culture]（南宁[Nanning]：广西人民出版社[Guangxi People’s Publishing House], 2003），103—106。. The great music of the great texts, which may sound faintly but beautifully to the sensitive ear and soul, thus often depends on the “trivial” note of function words but so vital in cultivating the syntactic-prosodic milieu that enlivens or echoes the great faint music. What makes the often faint but great music sound or heard are also geographically and culturally significant phenomena. According to Dr. Mikako Ichikawa, Professor of English, the City University of Osaka, Japan, whom I invited to visit our college for a two-week Scholar-in-Residence program in April 19–30, 2004, it is certainly the size of Japan besides its history that makes the “sound of water” of audible and meaningful. Illuminating her points with photos taken where Matsuo Basho（松尾芭蕉, 1644—1694）’s famous frog haiku was supposedly written, Professor Ichikawa suggested that the size of Kansas, for instance, would not make the sound so audible. Neither would people in Kansas appear as responsive to the sound the way Basho did. America is simply, as Professor Ichikawa so implied, too large for the little sound to be heard or paid attention to. But one of my students, Kathleen B. Walsh, indeed heard the “unheard sweeter music” that haikus suggested and in response she wrote one herself, for the f rst time in her life, after one of these inspiring lectures by Professor Ichikawa.
On the highway’s edge
Still, wild creatures of KansasIf so, what

dayin

requires is not only

xisheng

but also

housu

as is so indicated in

The Analects

. But, when Confucius says to Zixia 绘事后素, what does he really mean? Whatever we choose to interpret it Does it mean “the colors are put in after the white” D. C.Lau. trans., s (London: Penguin. 1979). “painting starts from a plain white silk” Leys Simon trans., The Analects of Confucius (York: Norton, 1997), “the application of color is to the unadorned” Roger T. Ames, and Henry Rosemont, Jr. trans., (New York: Ballantine, 1998), or “the application of colors comes only after a suitable unadorned background is present” ? 孔子Confucious，, trans. Edward Slingerland (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2003). Does Confucius suggest one should leave background unpainted or blank while finishing a painting? Imamichi今道友信，《关于美》 [Essay on Beauty]，鲍显阳Bao Xianyang、王永丽Wang Yongli 译（哈尔滨 [Ha’erbin]：黑龙江人民出版社[Heilongjian People’s Publishing House]，1983），72。Does it simply state, “The beauty deliberately worked out by human is behind which by nature”, because huishi绘事 stands for what is good and beautiful created through human deliberation, while su素 indicates everything that is beautifully original and natural, and thus implies a comparison embedded in such a verbal structure as “after ...”, “behind ...”, or “next in order ....”. 杨润根Yang Rungen，《发现论语》 [Discover ]（北京[Beijing]：华夏出版社[Huaxia Publishing House], 2003）。Therefore, does it mean ren 仁 is like su 素, unadorned, like plain silk, to be applied on and referred to by li? Does it suggest that we do not overpaint but leave the background blank, not to obscure su素, which is our implicit but primary goal to elevate and to which we should direct all our viewers’ attention through each of our brush stroke, as we need to reach ren through the guidance of li 礼?, whether we apply colors or brush strokes on the plain white silk or leave it as unadorned space, between what is painted and what is left unpainted, as between sounded notes and silent pauses often so mediated via function words, there is always a meaningful dialogue or dialogic relationship that, while subtly in balance or delicately in motion, enlivens and enriches great faint music whether visually or audibly or synaesthetically. Within such a relationship, everything painted or sounded points not only to itself but also

is

meaningfully left unpainted, unadorned, or unsounded for the imaginative minds to engage with all that is invisible, intangible but essential or beautiful. Therefore

dayin

so def ned by “xisheng” and “housu” also depends on, as Keats would suggest here, the “more endear’d pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone”, which

is

the “sweeter music” audible only to the usual “sensual ear”. John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, ed. M. H. Abrams, , vol. 2 (New York: Norton, 1986), 822. Of whatever intricate music “unheard” but“sweeter” or “faint” but “beautiful” notes, there must be places with “unheard” and “sweeter” or “faint or muted” but “beautiful” notes （必有希声窈渺处）also “play[ing] on; not to the sensual ear, but more endear’d pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone”. These very places 处for such beautifully faint/muted notes or 希声 are right there with the function words. This is probably why, for Liu, rhythm is so essential of composition （文章最要节奏） and why function words are so crucial in setting up rhythm（文必虚字备而后神态出，何可节损？）. It looks as if Keats and Liu should have collaborated to make a clearer case of the important relationship regarding rhythm节奏, composition文章, and function word or“xuzi” 虚字.In this way, the function word is like “more endear’d pipe” of faint “sheng” or unpainted “shi” for us to hear the“sweeter music” of “dayin” and “housu”. If so, “dayin” and “housu” that we need to understand is simultaneously def ned by a local and global context, especially in a meaningfully “glocalized” way.As is quite “coincidentally” indicated by both James’s and Liu’s emphasis on the importance of function word in addition to the cases discussed above, the aesthetic of the “trivial”, in other words, does not merely suggest a few isolated local cases but a global or universal phenomenon, which is exactly what insightful contemporary linguists and philosophers try to capture in their narrative for the understanding of our common humanity, which is ultimately the “dayin” and “housu” par excellence.

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领略虚词的微声妙义：中西文学经典中虚词的运用及其韵律学意义上的美学现象

陈曙东

（美国堪萨斯州约翰逊县社区学院）

19世纪美国著名实用主义哲学家威廉·詹姆斯与中国清代文论大师刘大櫆之间并无任何可能的联系。但他们的著作却暗示着某种特别相通而且价值无量的观点，尤其是称之为 “不起眼现象的美学”。两人从截然不同的文化背景各自注意到了功能词或虚词在不知不觉中影响我们阅读与写作的不可或缺却又常被忽略的作用。本文就詹姆斯与刘大櫆以及当代语言学家，诸如冯胜利等人的观点，应用韵律学理论探讨如何品读或重新诠释我们所熟识的作品，特别侧重“毫不起眼”却又十分关键的功能词的影响，尤其是功能词在排比结构中的作用。根据中国经典诗文作品以及杰弗雷·乔叟、约瑟夫·康拉德、亨利·詹姆斯、夏尔·波德莱尔、居伊·德·莫泊桑、约翰·沃尔夫冈·冯·歌德等人的作品和现代日语中的实例分析，本文强调功能词除了通常的语法功能外还起着诸如产生于句法韵律的活氛围和活磁场的至关重要的叙述效应，但这并非是一种“区域性” 的个别现象而是一种有待于进一步研究的“全球性”的普遍现象。

韵律学；修辞学；比较文学；翻译学；虚词

陈曙东，美国堪萨斯州欧弗兰帕克约翰逊县社区学校人文系教授。

[1] When Laozi says “大音希声” (da yin xi sheng) in

Daodejing

《道德经》(ch. 41), what does he mean? Does he mean “the great note sounds

muted

”? 老子Laozi,

Tao Te Ching: The Classic Book of Integrity and the Way

, trans. Victor H. Mair (New York: Bantam, 1990), 7. Does he imply “the greatest sound is ever so

faint

”? 老子Laozi,

Daodejing

(

Making This Life Signif cant: A Philosophical Translation

), trans. Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall (New York: Ballantine, 2003). Regardless, “faint” for 稀is undoubtedly a favorite choice as we can also see it there in Wing-Tsit Chan’s translation, i.e., “great music sounds

faint

”, see 孔子Confucious,

Analects: A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy

, trans. Wing-Tsi Chan (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1963). as well as in Philip J. Ivanhoe’s,“The great note sounds faint”.老子Laozi,

The Daodejing of Laozi

, trans. Philip J. Ivanhoe (Indianapolis/ Cambridge: Hackett, 2002). The great music (dayin 大音) that Laozi refers to, however, is clearly made of the faintest or subtlest notes (xi sheng稀声), and no wonder, for John Keats, “heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter”, see John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn” ed. M. H. Abrams,

The Norton Anthology of English Literature (5th ed)

, vol. 2 (New York: Norton, 1986), 822. It is not only because the great or sweeter music is of “soft pipes, play[ing] on; not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone”, Ibid. Therefore, to listen to the great music of words, we need not only our ear but also our spirit or soul; we need our understanding of

xuci

, the often simultaneously “invisible” and “inaudible” marker/note of the subtle melody of the great music of our literary texts.

Notes of Author:

Shudong Chen is professor of Humanities at Johnson Country Community College, Overland Park, Kansas, U.S.A.