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Article: The old Chinese particles yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and an [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].
- Article from:
- The Journal of the American Oriental Society
- Article date:
- January 1, 2003
- Author:
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In a brilliant article published in this journal over sixty years ago, George A. Kennedy (1901-1960) laid out, for the first time in English, the sense and usage of the clause-final particle yan [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]. (1) Briefly put, his conclusion was that the word represents a fusion of the preposition yu [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and an unidentified pronoun an, with a variety of resulting meanings, such as "in it," "on it" "from him," etc. Kennedy called this pronoun an "hypothetical," implying that it was not otherwise attested in the ancient Chinese language (with the exception of another productive fusion, ran [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], ...