General Literary Chinese from Scratch/Pronoun Table

This is a quick reference for Literary Chinese pronouns. Table The following pronouns are grouped by their reconstructed Old Chinese groupings; they are always used together. Person Period or group Subject/agent bias Object/patient bias Possessive bias 1st ŋ-series 吾 我我 can be used as a general-purpose "we" in later Literary Chinese. Because Literary Chinese does not count number, it can be read as a singular or plural. 吾 j/l-series 余Pre-Qin rulers usually used 余 as a "royal we," which is particularly visible in Shang oracle bones. From the Qin dynasty onward, Emperors would use 朕. 予我, 予, and 爾 can be used in the subject position emphatically; this is often read as conveying strong emotion, but it is more about whether or not the event is affecting the individual mentioned. 朕During the Shang dynasty, 朕 was used as a general possessive; later, especially post-Qin dynasty, it became an Emperor-exclusive pronoun. pre-Classical 卬 ? 台台 super-rarely appears in a subject/agent position. Medieval 儂 — — 2nd Classical 汝 爾 爾 pre-ClassicalPre-Classical pronouns are very rarely seen and are typically reserved to quotations from the Book of Documents and Classic of Poetry. As these are very commonly quoted, though, it is worth remembering them. 若／如／而 若／如 — 3rd Classical omitted 之 其 pre-Classical — — 厥 Medieval 伊、渠 — — Grammar Earlier Literary Chinese prefers different pronouns according to their grammatical position. For example, whereas we use "I" in English, in Literary Chinese, 吾 is especially common as a subject or possessor, whilst 我 is common as an object. For example, in "Confucius said to Zi Lu," Confucius would be the Subject, and Zi Lu would be the Object. Therefore, to say "I kicked the ball," you would need the Subject-biased pronouns, whilst to say "The ball was kicked by me," you would need the Object-biased pronouns. Of the pronouns in the table, it is recommended to use 吾/我 or 余/予 and stick to them. The former is more common, though the latter still survives and can be seen even in Song and Ming dynasty work. Prior to the Han dynasty, the decision between using 吾/我 was largely about whether or not the event was affecting you. It is, however, easier to think of it as before or after a verb starting out. Think of it this way: If something affects you, that is when you 我!In linguistics, we therefore call Classical Chinese an ergative-absolutive language. Putting this into practice, using the common Classical pronouns: 吾適周 — I went to Zhou. 孔子見我 — Confucius saw me. 汝為誰 — Who are you? 汝何如 — How are you? 田中氏有爾貓 — Tanaka has your cat. 世宗作諺文，以之書韓語 — Sejong created Hangul and used it to write Korean. We use "bias" here as these rules were not rigid: The rule was being forgotten come the late Classical era (around the end of the Qin dynasty), but can still be seen being followed even during the times of the Ming dynasty, such as in Jibong's Discourses (芝峰類說) from Korea. Therefore, it is still reasonable to follow. 子 and 君 are also sometimes used as honorific second-person expressions, while 妾 and 臣 may function as humble first-person expressions. Strictly speaking, however, these remain nouns rather than personal pronouns. Notes References Tong 童, M. 梦园, & Lu 鲁, F. 方昕. (2025). 上古汉语“吾”“我”的句法语义分工 [The Syntactic and Semantic Roles of wu (吾) and wo (我) in Archaic Chinese]. 语言学论丛 [Luncong], (2), 3–13. https://ccj.pku.edu.cn/article/info?aid=699397347119173 Aldridge, E. (2018). Inherent case in Archaic Chinese. Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America, 3, 3. https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v3i1.4284 Barnes, A. C., Starr, D., & Ormerod, G. (2009). Du’s handbook of classical Chinese grammar: An introduction to classical Chinese grammar. Alcuin Academics. Pulleyblank, E. G. (2000). Outline of classical Chinese grammar (Repr). UBC Press. Takeshi, N. (1994). On the Differences of the Usages of First person Pronouns between the Chuci and other Texts in Classical Chinese. In 第一届国际先秦汉语语法研讨会论文集 (pp. 364–382). 岳麓书社出版. https://catalog.lib.kyushu-u.ac.jp/opac_download_md/18275/p364-382.pdf Yang, B. (2016). 文言语法 [Literary Chinese Grammar] (1st ed). 中华书局 [Zhonghua Book Company].