of which the bald equivalents
might be given as: "Few what see, many what Strange." To say that
"strange" is the literal equivalent of [Ch] does not mean that [Ch] can
be definitely classed as an adjective. On the other hand, it would be
dangerous even to assert that the word here plays the part of an active
verb, because it would be equally permissible to translate the above
"Many things are strange to one who has seen but little."

Chinese grammar, then, so far as it deals with the classification of
separate words, may well be given up as a bad job. But there still
remains the art of syntax, the due arrangement of words to form
sentences according to certain established rules. Here, at any rate,
we are on somewhat firmer ground; and for many years the dictum that
"the whole of Chinese grammar depends upon position" was regarded as a
golden key to the written language of China. It is perfectly true that
there are certain positions and collocations of words which tend to
recur, but when one sits down to formulate a set of hard-and-fast
rules governing these positions, it is soon found to be a thankless
task, for the number of qualifications and exceptions which will have
to be added is so great as to render the rule itself valueless.
[Ch][Ch] means "on a horse," [Ch][Ch] "to get on a horse." But it will
not do to say that a preposition becomes a verb when placed before the
substantive, as many other prepositions come before and not after the
words they govern. If we meet such a phrase as [Ch][Ch], literally
"warn rebels," we must not mentally label [Ch] as a verb and [Ch] as a
substantive, and say to ourselves that in Chinese the verb is followed
immediately by its object. Otherwise, we might be tempted to
translate, "to warn the rebels," whereas a little reflection would
show us that the conjunction of "warning" and "rebels" naturally leads
to the meaning "to warn (the populace or whoever it may be) _against_
the rebels." After all our adventurous incursions into the domain of
syntax, we are soon brought back to the starting-point and are obliged
to confess that each particular passage is best interpreted on its own
merits, by the logic of the context and the application of common
sense. There is no reason why Chinese sentences should not be
dissected, by those who take pleasure in such operations, into
subject, copula and predicate, but it should be early impre