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Literary Chinese word for "but"
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 5:15 am
by Mark Yong
In Michael A. Fuller's "An Introduction to Literary Chinese", he provides a full list of function words (虛詞) used in 文言文. There is, however, one function word that is not listed, i.e. the word for "but/however" (the equivalent of the modern Mandarin 但是, 不過, 可是, etc.).
Does anyone know what it is?
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 7:09 pm
by Mark Yong
Oops, I overlooked it - it was one of the last entries in Fuller's appendix (ordered by number of strokes): 顧. Is this correct?
Posted: Sun Apr 30, 2006 5:58 pm
by Andrew
Surely 而 er3 is the most common.
Posted: Tue May 02, 2006 1:32 pm
by Mark Yong
Andrew wrote:Surely 而 er3 is the most common.
True, I have seen 而 er3 used in the context of "but", in addition to its normal use as "and". Was just wondering if there was another auxiliary word that exclusively meant "but".
Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 12:44 pm
by ong
Re: Literary Chinese word for "but"
Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2009 5:49 am
by tharane
I have seen 而 er3 used in the context of "but", in addition to its normal use as "and". Was just wondering if there was another auxiliary word that exclusively meant "but".