When two people of different social status are involved in a conversation, politeness dictates that the inferior address their superior 君 jūn "lord" (cf. English "my dear sovereign") and themselves 臣 chén "servant" (equivalent to English "your humble servant"). If a subject addresses a king, they call him 王 wáng "ruler," who in turn will call them 子 zǐ "wisest," and refer to themselves 寡人 guă rén "a man devoid of virtue."
The last phrase is only possible in the mouth of a ruler, and it always unmistakably identifies, firstly, that the text contains direct speech and, secondly, that the speaker is a wang, the ruler of the kingdom.
The inverted indirect object, introduced by the preposition 於 yú, can in classical Chinese occur not only before the subject but also before the predicate. In the latter case, such inversion requires additional grammatical construction, which distinguishes it from the inversion of the indirect object in archaic and pre-classical Chinese.
An indirect object with the preposition 於 yú in preposition to the predicate does not immediately follow the subject, but is separated from it by the function word 之 zhī; after the inverted object, there may be the particle 也 yě; the addition is duplicated using the word 焉 yān at the end of the sentence:
湯之於伊學焉,而後臣之,故不勞而王,桓公之於管仲學焉,而後臣之,故不勞而霸 tāng zhī yú yī xué yān, ér hòu chén zhī, gù bù láo ér wáng, huán gōng zhī yú guăn zhòng xué yān, ér hòu chén zhī, gù bù láo ér bà “[Cheng] Tang studied under Yi Yin and only secondarily considered him his subject, so he became a wang without difficulty; Huan Gong studied under Guan Zhong and considered him only secondarily as his subject, so he easily became the hegemon" (usual word order: 湯學於伊尹而後臣之，桓公學於管仲而後臣之 tāng xué yú yī yǐn ér hòu chén zhī, huán gōng xué yú guăn zhòng ér hòu chén zhī).
Note that the two variants of indirect object inversion we have analyzed differ in their communicative load.
By inverting the indirect object, which is placed before the subject, the author seeks to emphasize this object and draw special attention to it:
二王我將有所遇焉 èr wáng wǒ jiāng yǒu suǒ yù yān "Of the two wangs, I will certainly reach mutual understanding with one of them."
The purpose of inverting an indirect object placed before a predicate is different: to emphasize the predicate, not the indirect object:
寡人之於國也盡心焉耳矣 guă rén zhī yú guó yě jìn xīn yān ěr yǐ "I expend all my spiritual energy for the good of the state!" (With these words, the ruler of the Liang kingdom characterizes his activities in governing the state and emphasizes that he devotes himself entirely to this; hence the restrictive particle 耳 ěr; the sovereign has no other intentions).
Unlike English, ancient Chinese numerals most often act as predicatives: not "one," "five," or "ten thousand," but "to be counted in the quantity of one, five, or ten thousand," or "to be available in such-and-such quantity."
The sentence 或百步而後止 huò băi bù ér hòu zhǐ has two predicates—百 băi and 止 zhǐ, and 步 bù is the object of the predicate 百 băi. However, such a sentence cannot be grammatically translated into English (in English, a numeral is always a noun). Therefore, this sentence must be translated without taking into account its original grammatical structure: "Some ran a hundred steps and only then stopped."
This word is one of the most polysemantic function words in ancient Chinese.
Furthermore, in addition to its function, it can be used in the notional meaning "to go" (in this case, it must be followed by the name of the destination without a preposition):
宋牼將之楚 sòng kēng jiāng zhī chǔ "Song Keng was about to go to Chu."
The word 之 zhī has at least four functional meanings:
a) a demonstrative pronoun denoting the object of an action: 或聞之 huò wén zhī "Someone heard about it";
b) a functional word formalizing the relationship between the definition and the defined: 王之臣 wáng zhī chén "subjects of the wang";
c) a function word placed between the subject and the inverted indirect object:
湯之於伊尹學焉 tāng zhī yú yī yǐn xué yān "[Cheng] Tang studied under Yi Yin";
d) a function word placed between the subject and predicate, turning the sentence into a noun phrase:
寡人之用心 guă rén zhī yòng xīn "the way I give all my strength" (derived from 寡人用心 guă rén yòng xīn "I give all my strength").
Because of its polysemy, the word 之 zhī is one of the most commonly used in classical Chinese.
In classical language, any type of phrase can be used as an object, including an indirect one.
In this text, the predicative phrase 刺人而殺之 cì rén ér shā zhī "to stab a person and kill him" functions as an indirect object with the preposition 於 yú:
是何異於刺人而殺之 shì hé yì yú cì rén ér shā zhī "How is this different from killing a person by stabbing him?"
We already know 斯 sī, which is a synonym for the subordinating conjunction 則 zé in its two meanings.
Recall that the first meaning of 則 zé and 斯 sī is the introduction of a main clause with a relative clause:
我欲仁,斯仁至矣 wǒ yù rén, sī rén zhì yǐ "[If] I strive for humaneness, then humaneness is achievable!"
The second meaning of 則 zé and 斯 sī is to indicate a logical turn in the development of events, indicating some unexpected result:
苗則槁矣 miáo zé găo yǐ "And the shoots have dried up!"
Furthermore, the function word 斯 sī is used as a demonstrative pronoun "this," which can be an object:
某在斯 mǒu zài sī "Someone is here."
In this sense, 斯 sī is also used as a modifier of a noun:
使斯民死 shǐ sī mín sǐ "to cause this people to die."
The pronoun 斯 sī is not used as a subject.
The predicative 如 rú "to be similar," "to be alike" is used in combination with the interrogative 何 hé and forms a predicative phrase, often functioning as a complete sentence. It is often the main clause in a complex sentence with a conditional clause. In this case, it is preceded by the conjunction 則 zé:
...則何如... zé hé rú "[if]... then what is it similar to?"
For example:
以五十步笑百步則何如 yǐ wǔ shí bù xiào băi bù zé hé rú "What happens if people make fun of those who ran 100 steps because they ran 50 steps?"
The capital of the Wei Kingdom, which emerged as a result of the division of the Jin Empire, was located in Daliang (near modern-day Kaifeng in Henan Province). After moving its capital there, the kingdom became known as Liang. Its ruler, Emperor Hui, reigned from 369 to 318 BCE. He met Mencius in 335 BCE.
The eastern part of the Wei Kingdom was located in a bend of the Yellow River. The region north of the Yellow River in its middle reaches was then called 河内 hé nèi (literally, "inside the river"), and the territory east of the bend was called 河東 hé dōng "east of the river."
During the Zhangguo period, when individual kingdoms waged constant wars among themselves, state borders were unstable. Therefore, the country's population depended less on natural growth than on other factors. The ruler of the Wei kingdom, in particular, is surprised that, despite all his efforts, the population of his kingdom is not increasing, while that of neighboring kingdoms is not decreasing. He believes that, upon learning of the "just rule" of his state, people from neighboring kingdoms will migrate to his territory and thereby increase Wei's power.