The appearance of the first-person singular personal pronoun 吾 wú in 6th-century BCE texts is one manifestation of the transformation of the personal pronoun system discussed above.
However, the widespread use of this pronoun began later. It is rare during the period under consideration. Its use reveals characteristics of later personal pronouns. This is primarily due to the use of the same pronoun as both a subject, object, and attribute. Previously, as we already know, these functions of personal pronouns were clearly distinguished.
This pronoun, already known to us from the Shangshu texts, appears in inscriptions only in the late preclassical period. It exhibits the same characteristics as 吾 wú. The text of this lesson notes the use of this pronoun in a possessive sense: 予 孫 子 yú sūn zǐ "my grandchildren and children."
It is characteristic that the older pronoun 余 yú is used simultaneously with 予 yú.
In the Archaic and Early Preclassical languages, the function word 眔 dà was widely used, serving as a conjunction connecting nouns and a preposition denoting togetherness. In the Late Preclassical language, 眔 dà is almost completely abandoned. It was replaced by new function words, in particular 與 yǔ.
與 yǔ can connect names or noun phrases: 女 與 士 nǚ yǔ shì "girl and warrior"; 邑 與 邑 之 民 人 yì yǔ yì zhī mín rén "cities and city dwellers".
Furthermore, the function word 與 yǔ, like 眔 dà, can function as a preposition meaning "with," "together with," or "together with." In this case, 與 yǔ shares a characteristic of the 以 yǐ prepositional group: if the indirect object it forms is placed before the predicate, the object itself can be omitted. This means that 與 yǔ is not necessarily followed by a noun. With the omitted object, the preposition 與 yǔ can precede the predicate: 不 可 與 處 bù kě yǔ chǔ "It is impossible to live together [with him]."
The preposition 於 yú, which appears in the late preclassical language, is similar to the earlier 于 yú, which, beginning in the second quarter of the 1st millennium BCE, is falling out of use.
According to B. Karlgren, who studied the language of the Zuozhuan Chronicle, the differences in the use of the prepositions 于 yú and 於 yú are due not to chronological but to dialectal differences: a number of classical period texts (the Analects, the Mengzi) were written in one dialect, while the Zuozhuan was written in another. Therefore, the Mengzi predominantly uses the preposition 於 yú, while the Zuozhuan Chronicle uses both 於 yú and 于 yú.
It is difficult to agree with this opinion. The preposition 於 yú, completely unknown in the archaic and early preclassical languages, first appears in inscriptions of the Eastern Zhou era, where it often coexists with the earlier 于 yú (which is the case, for example, in the text of lesson 24). The same is observed in the Zuozhuan, where the ratio of the prepositions 於 yú and 于 yú is 19:17. In the Analects, this ratio is 21:1, and in the Mengzi, 96:4. Moreover, three out of four times the preposition 于 yú is used in the Mengzi in quotations from the Shangshu and Shijing. Thus, the occurrence of both prepositions in the Zuozhuan text most likely only indicates that this work was written earlier than the Analects and Mencius.
The predicate 可 kě is used in the same meaning as the earlier 克 kè "to be able," "to be able." 克 kè is not found in texts of the late preclassical period. It is also not found in the classical language.
The predicate 使 shǐ means "to force," "to make so that..."; it requires another, primary predicative after it.
Some scholars suggest that the text refers to one of the famous figures of the Kingdom of Qi, Bao-shu Ya. He was a friend of Guan Zhong, the first minister of the "hegemon" Huan-gong.
The beginning of the text, which seems to speak of "the ruler of Qi, Pao-shu," raises some doubts about this meaning. But Bao-shu Ya, being an aristocrat of the rank of dafu, could well be called “the ruler of Pao-shu from the kingdom of Qi.”