I asked Christoph Harbsmeier (author of _Aspects of Classical Chinese Syntax_) for his view on the use of QI in the QI WU LUN passage I asked about in an earlier posting. I found his response helpful, so I ASKED FOR AND RECEIVED HIS PERMISSION TO POST HIS RESPONSE.
Christoph Harbsmeier wrote
>The disputed sentence must mean something like THERE MUST BE A GENUINE RULER IN THIS PLACE. There is no subjectivity of seeming in qi2, I think, but there is the modal force of tentativeness of assertion.
>I do not see how this sentence could be taken as a question here, and if it were taken in this way, the qi2 would have nothing to do with it. It does not mark questions. The question-nature of the proposition would have to emerge from the context in the broadest sense of that word.
Date created: 10/30/96 Last modified: 10/30/96 Questions? Contact: Stephen C. Angle