Sinographs 102 · Chapter 03

Having and lacking

English says there is; Literary Chinese says 有, “has” — with nobody doing the having. 無 is its shadow, “there is not.” 在 places a thing: X 在 Y, “X is at Y.” And the language keeps two separate words for no: 不 denies what something does, 非 denies what something is. One chapter, and you can assert or reject nearly anything:

Sign	Key	Says	Means	How to see it
非	is-not	fēi	is not; wrong	two wings beating apart — divergence made a negative
在	be-at	zài	to be at, be present	a sprout over earth 土 — presence as the seedling's "here"
牛	ox	niú	ox, cow	a horned head face-on — the farm's biggest possession
物	thing	wù	thing; kinds of things	the ox 牛 beside a sound-half — the herd-beast standing in for everything ownable
萬	myriad	wàn	ten thousand; all	a scorpion, pincers up — borrowed whole for the biggest round number
白	white	bái	white; plain, bright	by the received account a ray of light — the plain and the bright in one word

萬物, “the ten thousand things,” is the classical name for everything there is — and this chapter can finally read where everything there is comes from.

There is, there is at

The patterns on your own characters:

有牛，有物。yǒu niú, yǒu wù"there is an ox; there are things" — 有 asserts existence with no subject at all

王在上，民在下。wáng zài shàng, mín zài xià"the king is above, the people are below" — 在 places; what follows it is the where

民非臣也。mín fēi chén yě"the people are not servants" — 非 negating a nominal sentence: deny what a thing IS with 非, never 不

白日出，萬物明。bái rì chū, wàn wù míng"the bright sun comes out, and the ten thousand things grow clear" — 白 as an adjective sits before its noun, no glue needed

Practice lines assembled from taught characters.

Where everything comes from

The Laozi runs the having-words backwards to the source:

天下萬物生▢有，有生▢無。tiān xià wàn wù shēng yú yǒu, yǒu shēng yú wú"the ten thousand things are born from having; having is born from not-having" — everything concrete comes from something that exists, but existence itself stands on the empty ground of what does not. The boxes are the small "from" — four chapters ahead

Laozi 40. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR5c0057:040:1a · license: attribution.

The wrong kind of ghost

非 in the field — Confucius on empty piety:

非其▢而▢之，▢也。fēi qí guǐ ér jì zhī, chǎn yě"to sacrifice to an ancestor who is not your own — that is flattery" — the ghosts here are one's own dead, owed remembrance; honoring somebody ELSE'S ancestors is social climbing dressed as reverence. The boxes are "ancestor-spirit", "sacrifice", "flattery"; 非其…, "not one's own…", is this chapter's word at work

Analects 2.24. urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1h0004:002:25a · license: attribution.

The oxen come home

The Odes’ evening scene, readable now but for two boxes:

日之夕▢，▢牛下來。rì zhī xī yǐ, yáng niú xià lái"the sun is setting; the sheep and oxen come down" — a woman watching the herds come home while her husband is away at the war: everything returns at dusk except him. The boxes are a sentence-final "by now" (five chapters ahead) and "sheep"

Odes, "My lord is on service." urn:nabu:kanripo:KR1c0001:006:9a · license: attribution.

Where this leaves you

You can now assert existence, place, and identity — and deny each in its proper register. Next: the numbers, and what counting does to a sentence.