Boltz, William G. - Desultory Notes on Language and Semantics in Ancient China

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Review: Desultory Notes on Language and Semantics in Ancient China Author(s): William G. Boltz Reviewed work(s): Language and Logic in Ancient China by Chad Hansen Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 105, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1985), pp. 309- 313 Published by: American Oriental Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/601710 Accessed: 20/10/2008 08:29 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aos . Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].  American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the American Oriental Society. http://www.jstor.org

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Review: Desultory Notes on Language and Semantics in Ancient China

Author(s): William G. BoltzReviewed work(s):Language and Logic in Ancient China by Chad Hansen

Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 105, No. 2 (Apr. - Jun., 1985), pp. 309313Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/601710

Accessed: 20/10/2008 08:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aos.

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the

scholarly community to preserve their work and the materials they rely upon, and to build a common research platform that

promotes the discovery and use of these resources. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

 American Oriental Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of 

the American Oriental Society.

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DESULTORY NOTES ON LANGUAGE AND

SEMANTICS IN ANCIENT CHINA

WILLIAMG. BOLTZ

UNIVERSITYOFWASHINGTON

Professor Hansen takes the observation that all nouns in Chinese are mass nouns as the

starting point for an investigation of how the Chinese view of the relation between things and

their names is fundamentally different from that which is characteristically found in cultures

where Indo-European languages are spoken. In particular he re-analyzes those parts of the Mo

tzu and the Kung-sun Lung tzu that deal with logic and logical arguments, in the light of his

claims about the structure of Classical Chinese nouns. The work suffers from considerable

carelessness and sloppiness in terminology and thesis, as well as being flawed in its presentationof the relevant parts of Classical Chinese grammar.

To KNOW WHAT THE PEOPLE of an ancient culture

believed, and how they thought, it is necessary first to

read what they wrote. Beyond this obvious require-ment it has not infrequently occurred to studentsand scholars of ancient cultures that the languagein which those texts are written, and which, perhapsin a less refined form, those people spoke, may it-

self constitute the next best approach to such ques-tions. Ever since Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf

allowed for the possibility that the structure and cate-

gories of a person's language may impose a certainform on that person's thinking the idea that "language

shapes thought" has held a sometimes irresistibleallurefor critics, analysts, and exegetes of philosophy and

metaphysics.In the case of China, because Chinese differs from

the Indo-European languages in ways that speakers, ofthe latter consider significant, this idea has exerted a

particularly strong influence on Western studies of

language and thought in ancient China.' ProfessorHansen's book presents us now with the most specific,

* This is a review article of Language and Logic in Ancient

China. By Chad Hansen. Pp. x + 207. Ann Arbor: THE

UNIVERSITYFMICHIGAN PRESSMichigan Studies on China

Series), 1983. $25.00.

For a good example of the extent to which notions about

the way in which language is perceivedas influencing thoughtcan be carried, see Hajime Nakamura, Ways of Thinking ofEastern Peoples, rev. English translation edited by Philip P.

Wiener (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1964); for

China, see esp. pp. 175-294.

most sophisticated, and most carefully adumbratedversion yet of this claim.

Hansen bases his claim largely on the consequencesof a single feature of Chinese, namely the suppositionthat all nouns behave in the grammar like mass nouns,none like count nouns. That is to say, all Chinese

nouns are comparable to English "honey," which

designates a universal but discontinuous mass, and canbe neither counted nor made plural without the use of

a measure word of some kind, e.g., "a comb of ... ""two jars of ... ;" and no Chinese noun is comparableto English "beehive,"which stands for a single, count-

able item. Hansen calls this observation about Chinesenouns the "Mass Noun Hypothesis," and makes it thecornerstone of his speculative edifice. He argues for its

validity in general for all varieties of Chinese, ancientand modern alike, but since his hermeneutic interestslie in pre-Han texts the real thrust of his claim iscentered squarely on Classical Chinese.

The Mass Noun Hypothesis is in itself neither espe-cially novel nor particularly controversial; it has longbeen recognized as valid for modern Chinese. But forClassical Chinese it is only partially true. Nouns in

Classical Chinese can be counted directly without theuse of a measure word, and to this extent

theybehave

like count nouns. Hansen acknowledges this fact, butdoes not let it shake his faith in the fundamental statusof the Mass Noun Hypothesis. He says only that thenouns "in the language of the pre-Han philosophersseemed like hybrids," and that "this produced puzzlesfor the pre-Han semanticists, the Neo-Mohists." (p. 33.)Rather than using the term "hybrid,"with its somewhat

inapplicable biological connotations, it might be better

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Journal of the American OrientalSociety 105.2 (1985)

if we describe Classical Chinese nouns as neutral with

respect to the "mass/count" dichotomy. We would

then like to know how their neutrality in this regardaffects the force of the Mass Noun Hypothesis and its

implications.

What is new here is Hansen's attempt to makesense out of certain parts of the Mo tzu, and the

Kung-sun Lung tzu based on the Mass Noun Hypothe-sis, and its general implications for understandingChinese thinking. "Behavioral Nominalism" is the

term Hansen gives to the Chinese view shaped bythe effect of the Mass Noun Hypothesis. He charac-

terizes this view as follows:

Language onsistsof ming A "names" hichhavea

one-to-onerelation o shih'

"stuffs."Chineseontol-

ogy... ismereological.oreveryabstractetof objectsone can constructa concretemereological bject by

regarding ll of the members f the set as one discon-tinuousstuff. Identifying ifferentmembers f the set

is the same as identifying patio-temporallyifferent

partsof the same stuff. In learningnameswe learn o

discriminate r dividereality nto thesemereologicalstuffswhichnamesname.Naming s notgrounded n

the notion of an abstractconcept, a property,an

essence, or an ideal type, but rather on finding"boundaries" etweenthings. Accordingly,Chinese

philosophers iew mindsnot as repositories f weird

objectscalled ideas,but as the facultyencompassingthe abilities and inclinationsto discriminate tuffs

fromeachother.Thismassstuffviewcan beexplainedby specialfeaturesof the logicalstructure f Chinese

nouns. pp.31-32.)2

2 The translationof shih , as "stuff,"with the solecistic

plural hat Hansen nsistson adding,canonlystrikeone as,at best,peculiar.Millerhas shown hat thiswas an importantpartof the vocabularywhereby he Chineseexpressed heirown view of their language;and that by medieval imes ithad becomea centraltechnical erm in the native inguistictradition, tandingas a complemento hsii , "empty."RoyAndrew Miller, "The Far East," in Current Trends in Lin-

guistics 13.2,ed. ThomasA. Sebeok[The Hague:Mouton,

1973],p. 1227.)Hansen'suse of the technical erm"mereological"s bor-

rowedfrom the workof the Polishphilosopher nd logicianStanisfawLesniewski 1884-1939)who invented the term

"mereology"o designatea theoryof extendedindividualsand of certainspecial kindsof relationsbetweenpartandwhole.Although t has come to refer o any general heoryoftherelationof part o whole, t is notclearhow thetermaddsto the precisionof Hansen'sargumentshere. See also thereviewby ChristophHarbsmeier,n EarlyChina9 (1984).

Given this understanding of nominalism, Hansen

points out that to look for an explanation of the Kung-sun Lung tzu's pai ma fei ma (- .%~ .-. "paradox"based on semantic abstractions like "whiteness" is

irrelevant and pointless since Chinese philosophy is not

based on the assumption that the semantic relation ofnames to things is a one-many relationship."(p. 143.)

Essential to the discussions of the meaning of boththe Kung-sun Lung tzu and the Mo tzu passages is a

clear understanding of two fundamental terms, and

how they apply to the arguments of the texts: t'i 4

(printed scriptum nipponicum, 4, in Hansen's book),and chien ,. The first, in a casual sense means, of

course, "body, substance," but in the formal sense of

these texts Hansen translates if as mass-stuff. The

latter, meaning in simple terms "conjunction, union"

formally designates a "compound"of two t'i such that

it includes anything that is either one of the two. Thus

the expression niu-ma 't- is a chien of the two t'i niuand ma, referringto everything that is either niu or ma.

It is the sum, in other words, of these two t'i, and

Hansen translates the word chien as mass-sum. A. C.

Graham explains t'i and chien as fundamentallynumerical, designating them as "unit" and "total"

respectively. And he goes on to point out that "anychien may in turn be treated as a t'i and counted as one

in a new total."3

The rub comes when we realize, as did the pre-HanChinese, that besides mass-sum compounding there is

also what Hansen calls mass-product compounding,

that is, names that designate the intersection (or over-lapping) of two things, such that the compound X Y

names everything that is both X and Y. The stock

example is chien-pai ( 7 "hard-white." But such

compounds are not chien compounds because the X

and Y terms of a chien compound are t'i "corporealstuffs." Hansen calls these terms"non-corporealstuffs,"and says that compounds of them for the Neo-Mohists

are "mass-products in which the stuffs interpenetrate,"and that the relation between these non-corporealstuffs, and their mass-product compounds "should berelative in the same way the t'i-chien relation is."

(p. 158.) By that he means that such a compound, like

a chien compound, can also be a single term in a higherlevel compound.

It is the different way that these entities, and these

compounds, are understood that characterizes the dif-ferent "concepts of language" underlying the Mo tzuand the Kung-sun Lung tzu, the latter being the more

uncompromising of the two. For the Neo-Mohists niu-

3 A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science

(HongKong:ChineseUniversityPress,1978),p. 265.

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BOLTZ: esultory Notes on Languageand Semantics in Ancient China

ma as a chien compound names the stuff that is consti-

tuted of all niu plus all ma in the universe; or some

designated portion thereof. So both niu and ma are t'i

"corporeal stuffs." But since the mass-sum niu-ma can

function as a single t'i in a higher level chien com-

pound, say niuma-hsiungt J' ,. ? ;, ox-horse andelder brother-younger brother" (= "draft animals

and brothers"), it must at times be conceived of

as a unitary entity. It is this variability between

"now compound, now unitary" in the interpretationof terms like niu-ma and hsiung-ti that disturbed

the Kung-sun Lung tzu partisans, who preferredto insist that a term be taken consistently one way or

the other in all of its occurrences.

Hansen's discussion of these matters is spread

throughout the last third of the book, making it

sometimes difficult to get a clear picture of his explana-tion or a clear sense of the direction of his arguments.

Things that to him may be perfectly apparent, because

they are so familiar, may be very obscure to those of us

who do not truck in the argot of the philosopher on a

daily basis. Had the University of Michigan Press

editors given more attention to this aspect of the

presentation, it would have made for a less confusingbook. The problem is compounded by the haphazard

way Chinese characters are sometimes present, some-

times absent, and sometimes wrong. A particularlyunfortunate case of the last is the appearance of ~ on

p. 150 in the heart of one of the explanations of chien

and t'i when 4, is meant. Given the stock example of

chien-paiJ

7"hard-white" o illustrate mass-productcompounding we are faced with a plethora of chien's

on these pages, mostly without any characters given,and the consequent confusion to which this gives rise.

Hansen's frequent references to the chien-pai "hard-

white" issue raises a further,and more significant issue,viz. the problem of the authenticity and reliability of

the texts. Graham showed already in 1956 that the

Kung-sun Lung tzu essay on "hard-white"was a late

concoction, done sometime after A.D.300, perhaps as

late as A.D.600, and further showed in 1967 how that

"forgery" had colored all efforts to understand the

Mo tzu references to "hard-white" for the next millen-

nium and a half.4 The Mo tzu text itself is widelyrecognized as being substantially corrupt, and efforts

4 A. C. Graham,"TheCompositionof theGongsuenLongTzyy,"Asia Major, n.s. 5.2 (1956), 147-183 (erroneouslygivenas 1957 n Hansen's SelectedBibliography"),nd "The'Hard and White' Disputationsof the ChineseSophists,"Bulletinof the School of Orientaland AfricanStudies30

(1967),358-368.

at emendation to make it understandable have been

legion. The problem with this, as Hansen correctly

points out (p. 103) is that the "understandableness"

invoked to justify these emendations is no more than a

particularperson's opinion about what the text "ought"

to mean, often based on no more than her or his ownphilosophical and linguistic predispositions. Hansen

suggests that "theory-based constraints" on both the

emendation and interpretation of the text will keep the

kind of free-wheeling conjectural emendations that

have traditionally characterized textual studies of the

Mo tzu and the Kung-sun Lung tzu in check.

Emendation, unctuation, ndthe likeoughtnot to

be triggeredby a test of what makes sense to the

interpreter,utbywhatwouldhavemadesense o the

author,giventhe dominantoutlook of hisphilosophi-cal milieu,the presuppositions,ontemporary evel-

opments n philosophy, ndso on. (p. 103)

But this simply substitutes one kind of a priori presup-

positions for another. Guesses about how a particulartext conforms to the "dominantoutlook" of the author's

"philosophical milieu" are no better bases for textual

emendation than are the textual critic's own biases, in

spite of the formal sounding name, "theory-basedconstraints," that Hansen invokes. In practice Hansen

has relied, as he freely acknowledges, on Graham's

very thorough and very detailed textual studies, thereby

avoiding having to confront that complicated issue

himself. His concluding part of Chapter 5 is a transla-tion and commentary of the "White Horse Paradox"

(pp. 161-170), and here also we see a strong relianceon Graham's earlier work. While Hansen has made oneor two changes in the order of the text, his translationfollows Grahamvery closely. His discussion, of course,does not; because Graham included many textual

arguments of no interest to Hansen who is concernedrather with the "philosophical exegesis" of the text.

Apart from the vexing problem of textual authen-

ticity and reliability there is one other primary con-

sideration that must be commented on in such a

study: the author's approach to and understanding

of Classical Chinese grammar. In the course ofhis presentation of the Mass Noun Hypothesis in

chapter 2 we are given some fairly detailed commentson how Hansen understands Classical Chinese gram-mar, and this reveals, regrettably, some serious mis-

conceptions. For example:

In Chinese hedistinctionsbetweenwhat we woulddescribeas nounsandadjectives rerather ubtle....Most graphscan occureitheras terms or predicate

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Journal of the American Oriental Society 105.2 (1985)

expressions.A celebrated xample s Confucius's en-

tence, "fu 'father'fu 'father'."There is no is, no

predicate xpressiondenoting dentityor inclusion, n

Chinese, p.45.)

To say that "the distinctions between . .. nouns and

adjectives are rather subtle" is like saying "the distinc-

tions between poker chips and gambling are rather

subtle." A poker chip is a thing, and gambling is one of

the things you can do with it. In a parallel way a"noun" is a thing, i.e., a word-class label, and "adjec-tive," to the extent that it has any meaning in Classical

Chinese grammar at all, designates one possible func-tion of the things we call "nouns."Hansen has confused

"word-class," which is entirely independent of sentencestructure and usage, with "function," i.e., the way aword may be used in a sentence. There is no word-class

"adjective"in Classical Chinese, nor are there any so-called "predicate adjectives" (e.g., "green," "great,"

"garish" in English). In Classical Chinese these are

"verbs," no different from other verbs like "jump,""kick,"and "dance."What Hansen means by "graphs"

occurring "either as terms or predicate expressions" is

a mystery, since, first of all, "graphs"are elements of a

writing system, not of a language, secondly, "terms" snot a well-defined term, and in any case any "term"or

"graph," if by these we mean "word," can occur in

Classical Chinese as a predicate expression.Hansen has misunderstood the "celebratedexample"

from Lun vii X 1.I I fuu fu precisely because he

fails to recognize the distinction between word-classand function. Both fu's belong to the word-class

"noun," indeed they are the same word. This is aninherent lexical property of the word fu "father,"and

has nothing to do with the word's use here or anywhereelse. In the sentence Hansen cites the first fu is

functioning as "subject,"the second is functioning as a

predicate. The reason "there is no is, no predicateexpression denoting identity or inclusion" is becausethis is not an "identity" (i.e., equational or apposi-tional) sentence. It is a predicative sentence where the

predicate happens to be a word that belongs to theword-class "noun." It is a fundamental and

generalrule in Classical Chinese grammar that when a nounfunctions as a predicate the meaning is "the subjectbehaves in the way typical of, proper to, or expected ofthe noun." The sentence means "Thefather behaves the

way fathers are expected to behave," or ". . . ought to

behave...," or in the larger context of the wholeLun uii assage "If (or when) fathers behave in the wayproper to fathers . . .". This, like all Classical Chinese

predicative sentences, attributes an action, or a state

(not equal to an identity!) to the subject of the sen-

tence. If the sentence were equational as Hansenassumes it to be, it would have to end with a sentence-final yeh e according to the rules of Classical Chinese

grammar. Hansen does comment on this, and seems to

regardthe sentence asjust a defective, or grammaticallywanting, equational sentence. While such sentences do

occur, of course, the pre-Han Chinese being no lessvulnerable to grammatical lapses than anyone else,that this is not such a sentence is proved beyonddispute by the form of its negated counterpart a fewlines later in the same Lun yii passage: viz. fu pu fu

3-?- 3 . The negative marker I/, as is well-known,can only' negate predicate sentences; the negative for

identities, i.e., equational sentences, is fei .

The foregoing brief grammatical excursus is not

merely pedantic rambling or gratuitous fault-finding,

but pertains directly to Hansen's understanding of thenature and structure of Classical Chinese, which in itsturn determines how he arrives at, and conceives of,the Mass Noun Hypothesis, the cornerstone of hisendeavor. That these misconceptions do not affect his

subsequent discussions of the Mo tzu and the Kung-sun Lung tzu passages more than they do is largelybecause, as we have said, Hansen has relied heavily onthe work of A. C. Graham for the textual and gram-matical aspects of his study.

There is both in this chapter and throughout thework a somewhat dismaying failure to recognize thedifference between a language and a writing system,

and this muddies a good deal of Hansen's discussionon these matters. Not only does this include the simplesloppiness of saying "graph"or "character"when hemeans "word" but it leads to such startling misrepre-sentations of, and apparent misunderstandings of, theChinese language and script as the following:

There resome inesofthought boutmental ntitieswhich seem to be generatedby reflectionson our

ability to master an inflectedphonemic language which

would lack appeal if one's model of language were

nonphonemic, that is, "pictographic"or "ideographic."

and

Each haracter asa one-syllable ronunciation....The charactersprovided a sharedmode of communica-

tion amongthe differentChinese anguages ince it

(sic) did not represent any particular pronunciation.(both p. 47, emphasis added.)

What on earth is meant by "an inflected phonemic

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BOLTZ: esultorYNotes on Language and Semantics in Ancient China

language" as opposed to a "nonphonemic... 'picto-

graphic' or 'ideographic'" one? "Phonemic" has to do

with the systematic analysis of the sounds of a

language, according to some (but not all) phonologicaltheories. "Pictographic" and "ideographic," to the

extent that they are relevant to language at all, have todo with writing systems.

All languages in the world, we make bold to assert,have sounds, and thus can be analyzed phonemically.

Comparatively few languages have writing systems of

any kind, and none has an "ideographic" writing

system for the simple reason that there is in fact no

such thing. In footnote 25 to this passage Hansen

admits that he does not understand why "Chinese

linguists" (and careful scholars of all kinds, I might

add) "seem to prefer the term logographic" (p. 179,

emphasis original.) A writing system by definition is a

system for representing the sounds of a languagegraphically. It just so happens that individual graphs,or characters, in the Chinese script represent those

sounds at the level of the word, like our numbersdo, 1,

2, 3, .. ., not at the level of the single sound, as we are

generally accustomed to because of our familiaritywith the Roman alphabet. Writing represents the

utterances of a language. Words may stand for ideas in

some sense that satisfies the yearnings of philosophersand poets. But writing is a more mundane business,and stands only for the sounds of those words. In anycase, in a society that is predominantly pre-literate, as

all ancient societies must have been, and many modern

ones still are, clearly the way the language is writtencan have virtually no effect on the way the speakersthink, since it is entirely beyond the ken of the vast

majority of them.

In chapter 3, "Background and Theories of Lan-

guage," Hansen identifies four categories of implicit

assumptions that he thinks can be attributed to Chinese

"classical thought about language"; (1) assumptionsabout the function of language, (2) about the way in

which language relates to the real world, (3) aboutthe origin and status of language, and (4) "miscella-

neous contrasts in assumptions about the relationbetween

languageand mental or

abstract objects"(pp. 57-58.) Beyond this, the chapter is a singularlyconfusing concatenation of short excurses on one or

another of these assumptions as they appear to applyto various pre-Han texts, e.g., the Lao tzu, Chuangtzu, Lun yi, etc. Each short excursus is headed with a

title, sometimes in italics, sometimes orthic, rangingfrom such benign captions as "The Tao Te Ching" to

dizzying abstractions like "Nominalism in the Philos-

ophy of Mind" (orthic) and "Monism and Mysticism"

(italic). The problem in general is that Hansen has

tried to cover too many complex issues too superfi-

cially. For him the attitudes toward language seen in,

e.g., the Lao tzu or the Lun yii are "background,"but

in fact they are of comparable interest, comparable

depth, and comparable significance, to those of the

Neo-Mohists and Kung-sun Lung tzu that he deals

with here. Much of the discussion in this "background"

chapter, especially the sections dealing with "Confucius

and the Rectification of Names," "Conventionalism,"

and "Nominalism" (pp. 77-82) could have profitedfrom a reading of Roy Andrew Miller's substantialtreatment of linguistic traditions in the Far East.5

In spite of the many criticisms raised about specific

points in the foregoing pages, we must in conclusion

see that the single most important general considera-tion is that Hansen has tried to see Chinese on its own

terms, and to understand the texts more sinico, an

approach that ought to seem the most natural, butone that in practice has not always been effectively

pursued in the past. It is to Hansen's credit thathe has forced the issue here. By scrutinizing the lan-

guage in as great detail as he does, Hansen puts

his understanding of the texts, and of the logic thatunderlies them, squarely on the nature of the languageitself, resisting the impulse to see in the texts mean-

ings, theories, concepts, and ideas of general philo-sophical currency that he does not find expresslyattested in the language of the texts themselves. Han-sen is not always careful, nor is he always right, buthis motives and his seriousness of purpose, togetherwith the many thought-provoking and provocativeremarks and observations that he introduces through-out the work make this a book that repays careful

reading.

5Op.cit., n. 2.

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