A Set of “以” Indicating “Consider” —A Proposal of “以” Without “Too” in The Meaning (in Chinese)

Abstract

In “三月无君则吊，不以急乎” (Did not this condoling, on being three months unemployed by a ruler, show a too great urgency to you?) from Mencius, “以” is commonly interpreted as 太 (too), bearing the same connotation with the “以” in “不以泰乎” (is it too excessive), also from Mencius, in an identical structure “adverb+ 以+adjective(+ 乎)”. The contexts of “不以泰乎”, “如其道，则舜受尧之天下，不以为泰。子以 为泰乎” (Shun accepted the Empire from Yao without considering it to be excessive, when it was in accordance with the Way. Or perhaps you consider even this to be excessive?) could provide an indication that “不 以泰乎” means “consider even this to be excessive” and further suggests that “不以急乎” means “consider it to be a great urgency”. There has been a myriad of sentences with the pattern of “以...为...” (consider... to be..) in the synchronic literature. The pattern “以为...” (consider as...) arose from the cases where the objective of “以” in “以...为...” referred to something or event that had appeared shortly prior to the context. The pattern “以...” (consider...) derived from the pattern of “以为”. It could be well demonstrated in the similar distribution in “以+adjective” and “以为 +adjective”. In some dictionaries of ancient Chinese function words, “以” and “已” as two synonym adverbs indicating “too” 太. And yet the instances gave in the dictionary could all be dissembled: in the first cases, “以(consider)” could be regarded as omitted expression of “以为”; in the second, it could be seen as a preposition in Chinese; or it should be seen as the equivalent of “已”, bearing the meaning of “already”.