Chapter 4 A Linguistic Analysis of the Different Functions of xin 信 and Their Historical Development from Late Archaic to Middle Chinese

In: From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs
Author:
Barbara Meisterernst
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78–103
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1 Introduction

In this chapter, I will discuss the different linguistic functions of xìn 信 and their diachronic development from Early Archaic to Early Middle Chinese. The diachronic analysis of xìn reveals that it is not confined to the expression of trustworthiness between persons of equal social standings in the archaic literature (represented by Ex. (1)), which is its predominant meaning within the Confucian concepts of human relations.

According to Xu Shen’s 許慎 Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 (Discussing Writing and Explaining Characters) (1519 言部), the meaning of xìn is chéng 誠 “sincere, really, actually”: xìn, chéng yě. Cóng rén cóng yán. Huìyì. 信，誠也。从人从言。會意. It consists of the character writing rén “human being” and the character writing yán “word, speak”; it belongs to the category of huìyì “joining sense” of the liù shū.1 Bottéro2 has described these characters as ideograms because of their function of “associating ideas.” According to Bottéro and Harbsmeier,3 Xu Shen’s dictionary is interested in the structure of graphs, i.e., in the graphemic characteristics of the respective characters and not in their occurrence in context, the main interest of the commentarial tradition Xu Shen built on. Thus, the character 信 consists of two graphems representing the ideas of “human being” and of “word, speak,” respectively.4

Schuessler5 gives a qùshēng 去聲 reading for Late Han Chinese, sinC, but reconstructs an Old Chinese reading (OCM) in the píngshēng 平聲 *sin, because of Shijing 詩經 (Book of Songs) rhymes that indicate OC tone A. Baxter reconstructs the Old Chinese reading with an *-s suffix *snins, a reading which would result in a qùshēng (cf. Schuessler). The readings provided in Schuessler and Baxter point to the possibility of two cognates written with the character 信, one in the píngshēng reading, and a derived one with an *-s suffix that resulted in the qùshēng reading.6 Different functions have been attributed to this reconstructed *-s suffix; these were consolidated into two different basic functions in recent research,7 i.e., a causative function and an aspectual function. Schuessler gives the following meanings of xìn: “to believe, trust, faithfulness, truth” [Shi] > “something written entrusted to an envoy” 書信 “letter” (Six Dynasties).8 The glosses provided by Schuessler indicate the employment of xìn as a transitive verb “to believe,” and as a noun; Schuessler does not seem to imply a distinction by affixation between verb and noun. Additionally, Example (1) represents xìn’s function as a stative verb, an adjective. In Late Archaic Chinese xìn is also attested as the modal adverb “indeed, truly,” syntactically and semantically comparable to chéng 誠 “sincerely, really.”

In order to trace the linguistic origins of the different meanings xìn could assume within its history, I will lay particular focus in the ensuing discussion on the kinds of arguments, e.g., [+/− HUMAN], xìn selects. The features of xìn’s arguments are of particular interest when it comes to the range of beliefs xìn can express from Archaic Chinese up to Modern times. In the context of this volume, both everyday usages and usages in religious contexts are of interest. Accordingly, I have included a wide range of texts in the data research, including texts from early Buddhist literature. In Buddhist Chinese, xìn is employed to express Buddhist faith, and—in different coordinative structures—terms such as “confidence,” but also “strength of faith.” The only texts chosen to represent the Early Archaic period are the Shijing 詩經 and the early parts of the Shujing 書經 (Book of Documents). Late Archaic Chinese is defined as the period from the fifth to the third c. BCE. Due to numerous grammatical changes in texts such as the Shiji 史記 (The Grand Scribe’s Records), I consider the Western Han period as the starting point of the Early Middle Chinese period. The Buddhist texts included in this study range from the Eastern Han period (second c. CE) up to the sixth c. CE. Additionally, xìn is discussed briefly in an Early Medieval Daoist text. I have adopted my translations for the Early Archaic and Late Archaic examples from those made available in the Thesaurus Linguae Sericae (https://hxwd.org/index.html, henceforth TLS) when they seemed to adequately represent my analysis. All unmarked translations are my own.

2 The Different Grammatical Functions of xìn 信 from Early Archaic to Early Middle Chinese

The nominal and verbal functions (transitive or intransitive) of xìn expressing belief are already attested in Early Archaic literature. The function as a stative verb in the meaning “trustworthy, reliable,” which became the predominant meaning in Confucian ethics, is also attested with a small number of examples in the Shijing. In the early literature, xìn is not attested as an adverb; the earliest instances date from the Zuozhuan 左傳 (Zuo’s Commentary).

2.1 Verbal xìn 信 from Early Archaic to Early Middle Chinese

The earliest instances of verbal xìn in the transmitted literature are attested in the Shijing, where it appears as an unaccusative intransitive and as a transitive mental attitude verb;9 these two functions are contrasted in Example (2).

“Few indeed are we brothers, there are only we two; do not believe people’s talk, people are truly not to be believed.” (translation TLS)

An unaccusative verb is characterized by a theme subject, i.e., the internal argument (direct object) appears in the subject position: “X is believed >> can be believed, is reliable, trustworthy.” A transitive mental attitude verb is generally characterized by a non-theme subject and a theme object: X believes Y. Mental attitude verbs are to a great extent similar to psych verbs, such as “fear.” The semantic role of the subject of these verbs is frequently classified as “experiencer.”10 Cheung and Larson11 have proposed the term “cognitive agent,” “someone holding a certain stance or an attitude toward a proposition,” for psych and mental attitude verbs including the Modern Mandarin equivalent of xìn, xiāngxìn 相信, because “individuals do not, as normally described, ‘experience’ thought and belief.”12 They have classified the Mandarin equivalent of xìn, xiāngxìn, as an Experiencer Subject Psych verb. Such verbs are characterized by the fact that they can be constructed with clausal complements. Cheung and Larson13 argue that the objects of these verbs are actually not theme arguments: “[R]ather they are arguments of a separate thematic domain within a concealed complement clause.” Cheung and Larson claim that even simple nominal complements of these verbs have an underlying clausal structure. An example of this would be:

Another feature of these verbs is that they are intensional, meaning that the proposition is true even if the object is non-denoting. This would imply that the sentence “I believe in vampires” is true, although vampires do not exist in the real world. Additionally, these verbs do not allow passivization.15 They provide the following example for xiāngxìn, in which passivization is infelicitous:

The mental attitude verb xìn in Archaic and Early Middle Chinese seems to belong to the same category as the modern Chinese xiāngxìn, despite some obvious differences. The most conspicuous difference is that xìn, unlike xiāngxìn, allows passivization. The features xìn shares with the verbs discussed as Experiencer Subject Psych verbs in Cheung and Larson are that it also seems to be intensional, and that the underlying structure of the complement of xìn may very well be clausal: “believe that NP predicate.” However, overt clausal complements first seem to occur to the end of the Late Archaic period.

In the following section, I will discuss some instances of xìn with particular regard to its argument structure. In Example (2), repeated as (5) from the Shijing, the internal argument of xìn appears in the object position in the first clause; in the second clause, it appears in the subject position in an intransitive unaccusative construction. Both subjects are [+HUMAN]; in the first instance the object is [−HUMAN], but related to humaneness. A [+HUMAN] experiencer or cognitive agent is the default case for mental attitude verbs. The unaccusative verb phrase is negated by bù 不; this is the typical negative marker for intransitive, unaccusative verbs and adjectives in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions17 and Early Archaic Chinese. Although bù regularly appears with intransitive verbs, it is not confined to them. In Example (6), which is of the same structure as the unaccusative verb phrase in (5), the internal argument in subject position is [−HUMAN]. In Example (7), the subject is a non-theme [+HUMAN] second-person subject, i.e., a cognitive agent (or experiencer) typical for mental attitude and psych verbs in a deontic context, i.e., in a demand. The term “cognitive agent” is certainly more appropriate for verbs of belief, because they might be higher on an agentivity spine than a typical psych verb such as “fear.” This implies that a cognitive agent is more agentive and more in control of the situation than the subject of a verb such as “fear.” Karlgren translates xìn in (7) as a transitive verb; bù probably functions as a variant of fú 弗 in this case, which marks the verb as transitive. In Example (8), xìn is explicitly marked as transitive by fú, the negative marker for transitive verbs in OBI and in EAC;18 both the experiencer subject and the theme are [+HUMAN].19 In Example (9), xìn appears as a transitive verb with an overt object in a rather informal non-normative reading; the object is [−HUMAN].

In the examples in (10), the complement of xìn is [−HUMAN]. Since zuì “guilt” usually appears as the complement of the existential verbs yǒu 有 “have” and wú 無 “not have,” an analysis of the complement as a nominalized verb phrase is not possible. The case is different in (10b), where the complement of xìn can be analyzed as an embedded complement clause, marked for nominalization by zhī 之. In both examples in (11), the complement is clausal; in (a) the unexpressed subject of the clausal complement is [+HUMAN], and in (b) the overt subject of the clausal complement is [−HUMAN]. (11b) is also a good example for the intensional reading of the mental attitude verb xìn, meaning that the proposition can be true, although the internal argument does not denote anything in the real world.

In the examples in (12), xìn is passivized; this distinguishes it from its Modern Chinese successor xiāngxìn. In (12a) it appears in the jiàn 見 passive, one of the passive constructions typical of Late Archaic Chinese; in (12b) it occurs in its passivized (unaccusative) form following the modal verb kĕ 可; the object of trust, “heaven,” the inner argument of the verb, appears in the subject position; this is also the case in Example (13). In the early example in (12b), the object of the negated verb “trust” tiān 天 is [−HUMAN] and [+SUPERNATURAL/SPIRITUAL]. The same theme subject appears in Ex. (13), but it is here employed metaphorically for a person with heaven-like attitudes.

In Ex. (14) xìn appears in connection with DAO and with zhōng 忠 “loyal, loyalty.” The theme of xìn is [+HUMAN], but the goal to which faithfulness is directed, shén 神, is [−HUMAN] and [+SUPERNATURAL/SPIRITUAL]; the subject in (14) is the complement of xìn, raised to subject position: “trustworthy, reliable >> the one one can believe in.” In the Early Middle Chinese example in (15), xìn’s complement is the abstract term fǎ 法 “law”; in Example (16) it is [+HUMAN].

At the end of the Late Archaic period and in Early Middle Chinese the range of complements of verbal xìn seems to increase from [+HUMAN], or from the utterances of a [+HUMAN], to more abstract and general theme subjects or objects, which can be believed in an informal and a formal manner. It can also select clausal complements, and we can certainly claim that clausal complements underlie the nominal complements of xìn on a regular basis. Example (9), partly repeated here as (17), may serve as an example: The underlying structure of “If Qin believes my words is” << “if Qin believes the words [I am saying are true].”

The verb xìn 信 is evidently an atelic verb; depending on its argument structure, it refers either to the state of “believing in sth.” or to the state of “being trustworthy, believable, reliable.” This analysis is supported by the fact that in Late Archaic Chinese it is not modified by one of the perfective adverbs jì 既 and yǐ 已 “already,” which by default modify telic verbs.20 However, as the combination with the final sentence particle yǐ 矣, expressing perfectivity, perfect, and change of state, demonstrates, it refers to a changeable state, i.e., it is a stage level and not an individual level predicate.

2.2 Nominal xìn 信 from Early Archaic to Early Middle Chinese

Similar to the verbal usage, nominal xìn is already attested in EAC. It occurs relatively frequently as a complement of the existential verbs yǒu 有 and wú 無.21 Whereas wú xìn is already attested in Shijing, yǒu xìn does not appear before LAC with the earliest instances in the Zuozhuan. In Example (20) from Zuozhuan, it first appears in the complement of wú and then of yǒu. The nominal xìn has two possible readings: faith, confidence <> good faith, trustworthiness. These two readings are derived from the two different verbal sources: transitive/causative (intransitive) “believe (something, in something)” >> “faith, confidence;” unaccusative/adjective: “be reliable (can be believed, trusted), trustworthy” >> “good faith, trustworthiness.” In both examples the subjects are [+HUMAN].

The following examples provide more instances of xìn as the complement of yǒu 有. In most cases, it is employed as a derivation of the adjective “trustworthy, reliable.” The theme of xìn is always [+HUMAN] as in examples (21) and (22). In Example (23) from the Shiji (Early Middle Chinese), the nominal xìn is derived from the transitive verb “believe.” The subject is [+HUMAN], the theme of xìn is not mentioned. In Example (24) the noun is derived from the unaccusative/adjective verb “trustworthy,” the theme subject is [+HUMAN].

Xìn is also attested as the object of other verbs. In the two following instances it appears in its transitive nominal function as object of qǐ 起 “raise,” and in its intransitive nominal function as the object of the 彰 zhāng “display.” Both subjects are [+HUMAN] and function as themes of the “belief” caused and induced by the verb. In Example (27), xìn appears in coordination with zhōng 忠 as object of the verb huái 懷 “worry, be concerned about.”

In Liji, a text probably dating from the Early Middle Chinese period, a considerable number of nominal instances of xìn is attested, frequently in contexts determining proper behavior and the relevance of reliability in human relations. In these contexts, it is predominantly listed in combination with other nouns referring to related concepts of proper social behavior. In Example (28), all instances of xìn, including those following the function word yǐ 以, have to be analyzed as nominals derived from the adjective (unaccusative) variant of xìn. In Example (29), it occurs in unmarked coordination with chéng 誠 “sincerity”; the coordinated nouns then appear in marked coordination with another pair of coordinated nouns, consisting of zhōng 忠 “loyalty” and jìng 敬 “respect.” It also appears in direct unmarked coordination with zhōng 忠, as in Example (30), and in marked coordination with yì 義 “righteousness” in (31).

In Example (32), xìn appears as the complement of a prepositional phrase with the preposition yú 於 in a list of attitudes required by representatives of the different social strata; this is its predominant meaning within the Confucian concepts of human relations. (see also Example (1)).

In the following instance xìn is attested as a nominal predicate marked by yĕ.

2.3 Xìn 信 as a Modifier from Late Archaic Chinese to Early Middle Chinese

Xìn can also function as a verbal or sentential modifier, i.e., an adverb, and as a nominal modifier, i.e., an attributive adjective. In the EAC literature this kind of employment of xìn is not attested, it is evidently a LAC development; first instances occur in the Zuozhuan. Wei24 argues that xìn belongs to the adverbs expressing realis (biǎo shí 表實): These are guǒ 果 “really,” gù 固 “certainly,” chéng 誠 “really, actually,” xìn 信 “truly,” and shí 實 “really.” These adverbs must be distinguished into different subcategories, including epistemic, evidential, and evaluative adverbs.25 They are all speaker-oriented and appear in a high position with regard to other adverbs, wh-words, and negative markers. In Example (34) it appears preceding the negative marker bù, in Example (35) it follows the topic of the sentence, and in examples (36) and (37) (from Early Middle Chinese) it follows the subject/topic.

In Example (38), xìn occurs as the modifier of a noun phrase, i.e., as an attributive adjective.

3 Xìn 信 in Early Middle Chinese Non-secular Texts (Mostly Buddhist Texts)26

According to the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/), xìn’s basic meaning is “faith.” It appears in the sense of “conviction; trust; to believe in” and is “one of the ten wholesome mental factors 大善地法 enumerated in Abhidharma; one of the eleven wholesome mental factors 十一善 in Yogācāra.”27 It implies “facing the environment with clarity and calmness, thereby calming and quieting the other mental functions. Accepting the world as it is.”

Within the system of practice of Mahāyāna works that take a “buddha- nature” 佛性 or tathāgatagarbha 如來藏 approach to the explication of the process of salvation … faith tends to become the most critical factor in the attainment of deep religious insight, or liberation, as a conviction that the basic composition of one’s own mind is not different from the Buddha is the mainspring of practice. The importance of the realization of a deep, radical form of faith is the main focus of the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith 大乘起信論, which became one of the most influential texts in all of East Asian Buddhism.28

Example (25) demonstrates that the combination qǐ xìn 起信 “raise faith (confidence),” chosen to refer to the “awakening of Mahāyāna faith,” is already attested in the Shujing.

3.1 Verbal xìn 信 in Early Buddhist Chinese

I will provide only a few instances of xìn 信 in Early Buddhist texts to display the similarities and differences with regard to its employment in the traditional non-Buddhist literature. Xìn can in general appear in the same functions as in the LAC and EMC non-Buddhist literature, i.e., as a transitive verb “believe,” as an intransitive adjective “believable >> reliable, trustworthy,” and as a noun derived from either of the two functions. The basic meaning “faith” is a derivation from the transitive variant of xìn. In contrast to the EAC and LAC literature, the verb xìn frequently appears in coordination with other verbs, usually with other psych verbs. The theme of xìn is often [−HUMAN], but connected to human activities or abstract concepts in the widest sense; the variety of theme subjects and objects evidently increased in comparison with LAC. The same has been demonstrated for the secular Chinese texts. Examples (39) and (40) are from Eastern Han Buddhist translations and belong to the earliest Chinese Buddhist texts; in (39) xìn appears in the complement of the modal verb kě 可, i.e., it is passivized/unaccusative. In Example (40), a wide range of objects, including clausal ones, appears following the transitive verb xìn.

In Example (41) from the Lotus Sutra (406 CE), xìn appears as an unaccusative intransitive verb in the complement of nán 難 “difficult.” Both serve as modifiers of the noun fǎ 法 “dharma.” The theme of “belief” is [−HUMAN] and [+SPIRITUAL], the cognitive agent is [+HUMAN].

In most instances, though, the verb appears in the transitive (intransitive) variant with a cognitive agent as its subject. In examples (42) and (43), the complements are nominalized relative clauses, the subjects of which are [+HUMAN]. In Example (43), the object of belief is [−HUMAN], i.e., an abstract clausal complement, which can probably also be qualified as [+SPIRITUAL].

In early Buddhist literature, xìn increasingly occurs in coordination or combination with other verbs of similar or cognitively related semantic contents. Some of these coordinations are already attested to a certain extent in the LAC literature, but most are innovations. They can appear as single words, but they can also still occur separately. In Example (44), xìn is coordinated with xiàng 向 in an example from the Eastern Han period in the meaning “believe and be dedicated”; the number of instances of this coordination seems to increase over time; in (45), xìn is coordinated with jìng, this combination is already attested in the archaic Chinese literature. No object appears, but the subject is clearly a cognitive agent. The DDB lists the meaning “venerate” for jìngxìn. The cognitive agent is [+HUMAN], the inherent theme, expressed in the preceding topicalized clause, is [+SPIRITUAL]; however, the reference to the Buddha’s speech is coded in the same manner as are utterances of [+HUMAN] cognitive agents or themes in the LAC literature.

Xìn occurs relatively frequently in combination with jiĕ 解 “explain,” in (46) as a transitive verb with a cognitive agent, in (47) with an implied theme, and in (48), the two morphemes xìn and jiĕ appear separately, respectively modified by nán 難. In Example (49), xìn is combined with the verb guī “rely on” > xìn guī. The reverse order guī xìn is also possible.

In Example (50), xìn appears in a passive construction in combination with the verb yòng. As already mentioned, according to Cheung and Larson,29 the Modern Mandarin equivalent xiāngxìn is not permitted in passive constructions.

3.2 Nominal xìn 信 in Early Buddhist Chinese

Similar to LAC, xìn can also appear as a noun; it is frequently attested as a noun following the existential verb yǒu 有, as in Example (51). In Example (52), xìn appears in the meaning of “credential” in combination with yìn 印 “seal.”30 In Example (53), it occurs in the combination xìnrěn 信忍, for which the meaning “cognitive faith” is listed in the DDB; in the first clause of (53), the telic verb rù 入 “enter” is already modified by the aspectual adverb yǐ 已 and the adverbial xìn functioning as a manner adverb. The position following the aspectual adverb excludes an analysis of xìn as a sentential adverb. In this function, it had to precede yǐ.

In Example (54), xìn occurs as an adjective modifying the noun xīn 心 “heart, mind.”

3.3 Xìn 信 in an Early Middle Chinese Daoist Text, the Xiang’er Commentary31

In comparison to the vast variety of occurrences of xìn in the early Buddhist literature, the Xiang’er 想爾 commentary to the Dao de jing only constitutes a very confined corpus with few syntactic variations of xìn. Assandri32 notes that the thirty-four surviving chapters of the Xiang’er commentary contain thirty-one instances of xìn, nineteen of them occurring in the combination xìndào 信道. This combination describes one of the possible relations between humans and the DAO. From a linguistic point of view, the occurrences of xìn in the Xiang’er commentary do not yield any results different from what we found in the early Medieval Buddhist literature; in the Buddhist corpus, the attested coordinations, but also complement structures, are certainly more significant. Both functions, the verbal and the nominal usages, are attested in the Xiang’er corpus. In both transitive examples in (55), xìn’s complement is [−HUMAN]. In (55a), the complex nominal complement evidently has an underlying clausal structure, comparable to Example (17); (55b) is one of the numerous instances of DAO in the complement of xìn. Example (56) represents nominal xìn. The nominal predicate dà xìn is concluded by the marker of nominal predication yě 也, similar to Example (34) from LAC.

4 Conclusion

Linguistically speaking, xìn 信 appears in three different functions from Early Archaic to Early Middle Chinese, including the early non-secular (Buddhist) literature. These functions are:

  • a) As an unaccusative intransitive verb; unaccusative verbs are characterized by theme subjects: “believable >> reliable, trustworthy” (“X is believed >> can be believed, is reliable, trustworthy”)

  • b) As a transitive or intransitive mental attitude verb; mental attitude verbs characteristically have a cognitive agent (experiencer) subject; the transitive variant has a theme, or an underlying or overt clausal complement (“X believes [that] (Y)”) (to a certain extent comparable to psych verbs such as “fear”).

  • c) As a noun: the nominal functions can be derived from both verbal functions.

In Late Archaic Chinese with first instances in the Zuozhuan, a function as a speaker-oriented adverb developed based on the unaccusative, adjectival use of xìn.

In Early Archaic and Late Archaic Chinese, the internal argument of xìn (subject of the unaccusative and object of the transitive variant of xìn) is predominantly [+HUMAN]; a few instances of [−HUMAN]/[+SUPERNATURAL / SPIRITUAL] complements such as tiān 天 are attested.

In the Early Middle Chinese period, and particularly in the Buddhist literature in Early Middle Chinese, the frequency of [−HUMAN]/[+SUPERNATURAL / SPIRITUAL] complements increases considerably; in addition, the number of overt clausal complements also increases. However, this tendency is not confined to the Buddhist literature; an extension of usage to [−HUMAN], more abstract and conceptual complements can also be observed in the non-Buddhist EMC literature in informal and formal contexts. In these instances, xìn is predominantly employed with the basic verbal meaning “believe.” The basic nominal meaning is “faith,” the derivation from the transitive variant of xìn “believe.”

The regular employment of xìn with a [−HUMAN] complement—though usually connected to human concepts—is an evident innovation in Early Middle Chinese. In the Buddhist literature, this frequently extends to complements, which have the feature [+SPIRITUAL]. This may imply that the usage of xìn extends from a more colloquial reference to trust and belief in human behaviors in different social (mostly Confucian) contexts to a reference to beliefs in abstract spiritual concepts, while the informal sense of believing still prevails. This development is supported by the fact that xìn belongs to what Cheung and Larson34 label Experiencer Subject Psych verbs, which are characterized by an intensional reading, meaning that the proposition is true even if the verb’s complement does not have a reference in the real world, i.e., it is non-denoting. The employment in contexts with spiritual content may then lead to its integration into the Buddhist religious terminology35 “faith, belief.” The fact that xìn did not appear as a singular conceptual term36 predefined in the philosophical Confucian tradition, but—as a singular term—rather occurs in a colloquial way in all its basic meanings, may have facilitated its usage as referring to all kinds of beliefs, including belief in spiritual concepts. Even in Archaic Chinese, it already occasionally appears with tiān “heaven” as its complement. It is evidently the transitive meaning “believe” and its derived nominal meaning “faith” that serve as basis for xìn’s usage in the Buddhist literature referring to Buddhist faith, rather than the unaccusative reading “trustworthy” and its derived nominal reading “trustworthiness.” It is only the latter reading in which xìn appears in component terms in LAC, according to Gentz. This certainly needs more investigation, but as a first result, it can be proposed that the development of xìn’s usage in Buddhist contexts is related to the colloquial single term employment of xìn in LAC and not to its appearance in component terms. The fact that the verb xìn “believe” as an Experiencer Subject Psych verb allows an intensional reading may also have supported its usage in religious contexts.

Another innovation, which I will briefly mention here, is xìn’s frequent occurrence in coordination with other verbs, usually psych verbs. This may be part of the general process of disyllabification observed in Early Middle Chinese, where the number of compounds in the language increases considerably due to different linguistic and sociological factors.

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  • Zhang Yujin 張玉金. 2002. Jiaguwen yufaxue 甲骨文語法學. Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe.

1

For another reading of this passage, see Max Deeg’s chapter in the present volume.

2

Bottéro 1996, 22.

3

Harbsmeier 2008.

4

However, this does not imply that the label ideogram (or ideograph) applies to Chinese characters in general. Boltz (1999) argues strongly against a classification of the Chinese writing system as ideographic, a classification based on the early conception of the Chinese writing system by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: “[A]n ideograph ought to mean a graph that writes an idea. But such a graph, whatever it may be, cannot be a kind of writing, Chinese or otherwise …” (Boltz 1999, 112). Bottéro and Harbsmeier support Boltz’s analysis in noting: “The fact that the Chinese writing system was very far from being a conceptually based writing system in Leibniz’s sense comes out very clearly in Shuowen.” Bottéro and Harbsmeier 2008, 262.

5

Schuessler 2007, 539.

6

This was first proposed by Haudricourt (1954) on the basis of Chinese loanwords in Vietnamese.

7

Jin Lixin 2006.

8

Xìn is also attested as a loan writing for a different word, shēn 伸, cognate of yǐn 引, OCM *lhin “stretch, prolongue, continue, repeat” [Shi], “extend” [Li] > “straighten”; a third meaning is “be staying one more night, staying two nights” [Shi] Karlgren GSR 384 (Schuessler 2007). This is unrelated to the present discussion.

9

This term is an adaption of the term “Emotional Attitude Verb” proposed in Cheung and Larson (2015: 184) for verbs such as “think,” “believe,” and “fear.”

10

Cheung and Larson (2015, 181f) distinguish between Experiencer Subject Psych verbs, such as “fear,” and Experiencer Object Psych verbs, such as “frighten.” Xìn evidently belongs to the former class of Subject Experiencer Psych verbs.

11

Cheung and Larson 2015, 184,

12

Ibid.

13

Cheung and Larson 2015, 148.

14

Cf. Cheung and Larson 2015, 133.

15

Cheung and Larson 2015, 138.

16

I have changed the original citation because the names were confused in the translation.

17

Zhang Yujin 2002, 42f.

18

Djamouri 1991; Zhang Yujin 2002.

19

Traditional translations have been added when they reflect the meaning indicated by the glosses. All unmarked translations are mine.

20

Meisterernst 2015. There is one instance of jì xìn 既信 in the Huainan zi, and one in the Hanshu. Yǐ xìn 已信 is not attested in the Shanggu corpus of Academia Sinica (http://hanji.sinica.edu.tw/), which includes numerous Early Middle Chinese texts.

21

Yǒu xìn yields 43 hits in the Shanggu corpus of the AS database including those with attributive xìn; wú xìn yields 55 hits, most of them can be analyzed as VO. The total number of instances is slightly higher, because one hit may include more than one attested instance.

22

Translation by Legge 1879, 105.

23

This combination is further listed around 100 times in the corpus of Archaic Chinese in the AS corpus, always in direct coordination, never in coordination marked by yǔ 與.

24

Wei 1999, 261.

25

Meisterernst 2016, 110f.

26

For a more content-oriented interpretation of xìn in early Buddhist scriptures, see Tam’s chapter in this volume.

27

For more on both these lists, see Tam’s chapter in this volume.

28

Charles Muller, ed., Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, http://www.buddhism-dict.net/ddb/, http://www.buddhism-dict.net/cgi-bin/search-ddb4.pl?Terms=%E4%BF% (accessed 2 April 2018).

29

Cheung and Larson 2015, 159.

30

For a discussion of this usage, see Assandri’s chapter in this volume.

31

For a comprehensive discussion of xìn in Early Medieval Daoist literature, see Assandri’s chapter in this volume.

32

See Assandri’s chapter in this volume.

33

Translated by Bokenkamp 1997, 113.

34

Cheung and Larson 2015, 139.

35

See Assandri’s chapter in this volume.

36

See Gentz’s chapter in this volume.

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From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs

Changing Concepts of xin 信 from Traditional to Modern Chinese

Series:  Religion in Chinese Societies, Volume: 19
Cover From Trustworthiness to Secular Beliefs
E-Book ISBN:
9789004533004
Publisher:
Brill
Print Publication Date:
22 Mar 2023
Front Matter
Introductory Part Western, Chinese, and Global Genealogies of Faith and xin 信
Part 1 Setting the Stage: Traditional Uses in Confucian, Buddhist, and Daoist Contexts
Part 2 Early Channels of Transfer: Monotheistic Uses of the Term xin 信 from the Seventh to the Seventeenth Century
Part 3 From the Christian Milieu to the Entry into the General Lexicon of Modern Chinese: Late-Qing to Republican Uses and the Role of Japan
Chapter 13 Negotiating between Chinese Religious Beliefs and Christian Faith: Timothy Richard’s (1845–1919) Understanding of “Faith”/xin 信 and Approach to Comparative Religion
Chapter 14 From Missionary Doctrine to Chinese Theology: Developing xin 信 in the Protestant Church and the Creeds of Zhao Zichen
Chapter 15 Shin 信 as a Marker of Identity in Modern Japanese Buddhism
Chapter 16 The (New) Buddhist Semantics of xin 信 in the First Half of the Twentieth Century: Arguments from China and Taiwan
Chapter 17 Religious Concepts and Evolutionary Theory in the Early Thought of Liang Qichao: from “Religion” via “Faith” to the “View of Death and Life”
Chapter 18 From Universal Faith to Religious Experience: Usages of xin 信 in Early Chinese Religious Studies (zongjiaoxue 宗教學)
Chapter 19 “Our Believing in the Three People’s Principles Requires a Religious Spirit”: xin(yang) 信仰 and the Political Religion of the Guomindang, 1925–1949
Chapter 20 Belief in the Dao, or Knowledge of the Truth? Contested Interpretations of xin 信/xinyang 信仰 in Yiguandao Discourses
Part 4 Contemporary Usages in Special and Everyday Language Discourses in Mainland China and Taiwan
Back Matter

  • Bokenkamp, Stephen R. 1997. Early Daoist Scriptures. Berkeley: University of California Press.

  • Boltz, William G. 1999. “Language and Writing.” In Cambridge History of Ancient China, edited by Michael Loewe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 74–123.

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  • Bottéro, Françoise. 1996. Sémantisme et classification dans l’écriture chinoise. Paris: Institut des Hautes Études Chinoise.

  • Bottéro, Françoise, and Christoph Harbsmeier. 2008. “The Shuowen Jiezi Dictionary and the Human Sciences in China.” Asia Major, Third Series, 21, no. 1: 249–271.

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  • Cheung, Candice C.-H., and Richard K. Larson. 2015. “Psych Verbs in English and Mandarin.” Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 33: 127–189.

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  • Djamouri, Redouane. 1991. “Particules de négation dans les inscriptions sur bronze de la dynastie des Zhou.” Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 20, no. 1: 5–76.

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  • Harbsmeier, Christoph. 2013. “The Birth of Confucianism from Competition with Organized Mohism.” Journal of Chinese Studies 56: 1–19.

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  • Jin Lixin 金理新. 2006. Shanggu Hanyu xingtai yanjiu 上古汉语形态研究. Hefei: Huangshan shushe.

  • Legge, James, transl. 1879. The Sacred Books of China: The Texts of Confucianism. Part I: The Shû King, the Religious Portions of the Shih King, the Hsiâo King. Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Vol. III of The Sacred Books of the East, edited by F. Max Müller).

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  • Meisterernst, Barbara. 2015. Tense and Aspect in Han Period Chinese: A Linguistic Study of the Shǐjì. Trends in Modern Linguistics Series 274. Berlin: DeGruyter.

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  • Meisterernst, Barbara. 2016. “The Expression of Epistemic Modality in Classical and Han Period Chinese.” In New Aspects of Classical Chinese Grammar, edited by Barbara Meisterernst. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 195–129.

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  • Pearson, Hazel. 2015. “Attitude Verbs.” Ms, submitted to Semantics Companion.

  • Schuessler, Axel. 2007. ABC, Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.

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  • Zhang Yujin 張玉金. 2002. Jiaguwen yufaxue 甲骨文語法學. Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe.

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