Scholars Zhu Dexi 朱德熙 (1920–1992) and Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭 (1935–) are the earliest to have pointed out that tun 屯 in unearthed documents of the Warring States period has the usage of a universal quantifier, with Zhu later giving a more thorough investigation on its usage, origins, and evolution in both unearthed and passed-down texts. After the publication of Zhu’s and Qiu’s articles, more bamboo slips of the Chu State containing the universal quantifier tun have been released, and some scholars have raised doubts about Zhu’s views. Based on the unearthed materials that have been published, this article re-examines the usage of the universal quantifier tun in early Chinese literature. In the inventory slips from the tombs of Marquis Yi of Zeng 曾侯乙 and in Xinyang, the universal quantifier tun mainly appears in front of the predicate, highlighting the commonality of a certain aspect of the things referred to by the plural subject, a usage which is equivalent to the universal quantifier jie 皆; in those of the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, tun is also used after a singular subject to express the purity of a certain aspect of the thing(s) referred to by the subject and is thus equivalent to quan 全; in the divinatory and ritual slips from a tomb in Xincai, tun mainly occurs before the quantity structure between the objects in double object constructions, and in the inventory slips from a tomb at Yancang, tun mostly appears in front of quantity structures that include a unit of measure in the predicate, both of which are equivalent to ge 各; tun in Shanhai jing 山海經 (Classic of Mountains and Seas) can be interpreted as jie or ge, which is related to the complexity of the source of the book; and finally, there are problems in interpreting tun in the tallies of Lord Qi of E 鄂君啟 as either jie or ge, as tun can also contain the meaning of mei 每. Zhu’s views on the differences between tun and jie are still valid: first, tun has the semantic feature of highlighting the whole, whereas jie has the semantic feature of highlighting the individual; second, tun is a content word, and jie is a function word; and third, the difference between the two is similar to that between quan 全 and dou 都 in Modern Standard Chinese. Moreover, the difference between tun and ge is similar to that between mei and ge. Ultimately, the universal quantifier tun contains some of the semantic features of “all,” “every,” and “each,” and in early Chinese literature, has both dialectal and colloquial properties.
universal quantifier; unearthed documents; tun 屯; jie 皆; quan 全; all; every; each
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