Taxonomy of meanings for 請:　　

Additional information about 請

說文解字: 【請】，謁也。从言、青聲。 【七井切】

Criteria
• ASK
  

  [ASCENDING/DESCENDING]

  [[COMMON/RARE]]

  [GENERAL/SPECIFIC]

  [INFORMAL/OFFICIAL]

  1. The general word is wèn 問 "open a dialogue by consulting someone with a question" (ant. duì 對 "reply to a superior") which typically refers to the consultation of a person who is supposed to know something. When the adressee is explicit, the questioner is typically of higher status than the addressee, and the reply is correspondingly often phrased politely as duì yuē 對曰. When there is no explicit addressee (X asked about Y), the addressee often is of higher status (e.g. a teacher).

  [SPECIFIC]; [[COMMOM+]]

  2. Qǐng 請 is occasionally used to refer to polite requests for information.

  [[RARE]]

  3. Nàn 難 is to ask intellectually hostile questions regarding something which the person questioned has said or maintains as true, to make objections. See DISAGREE and REFUTE which are difficult to distinguish from each other and from this.

  [SPECIFIC], [HORIZONTAL]

  4. Fǎng 訪 typically refers to questioning addressed to superiors.

  [ASCENDING]

  5. Xún 詢 typically refers to rather formal questions addressed to inferiors.

  [DESCENDING], [OFFICIAL]

  6. Zī 諮／咨 refers to questions addressed to a specialist.

  [SPECIFIC]

  7. Zōu 諏 all refer to some kind of official soliciting of formal opinions.

  [OFFICIAL]; [[RARE]]

  8. Yuē 曰 is regularly used to introduce related questions as reactions within an ongoing dialogue.

  <div>9. Wèi 謂 may introduce what are in fact questions rather than statements.</div><div><br></div><div>10. Wèn yuē 問曰 introduces a a question that opens a new dialogue or a discrete new phase in a dialogue.</div><div><br></div><div>NB: ASKing in Chinese us always dialogic: one cannot ask oneself any question 問己, and one cannot abstractly just raise an abstract question as an intellectual issue worthy of discussion. There seems to be no word in classical Chinese for "asking a question" without addressing this question to an audience.<br></div><br>

• APOLOGISE
  

  NB: There is, so far, no sufficient basis to distinguish between the meanings of these words, which are rare in this meaning.

  1. Xiè 謝 is the standard word to use, but, surprisingly, the word is quite rare.

  2. Cí 辭 can perhaps be taken to emphasise the explanations made on the occasion of apologising, but examples are too few to be sure.

  3. Qǐng 請 emphasises, perhaps, the implicit request for the apology to be accepted, but examples are too few to be sure.

• REQUEST
  

  1. The current general word for a request is qiú 求 (ant. dé 得 "obtain"), which however can also come to mean demand and is therefore not a particularly polite term to use.

  2. Qǐng 請 is the polite term for a request addressed to a superior or an equal; and this term is currently used in early texts to refer to a suggestion made in the superficial rhetorical form of a request.

  3. Suǒ 索 is a strong request for someting one takes to be due to one.

  4. Yè 謁 refers to (inappropriate) special requests made to acquaintances in high office, and the term can come to have negative overtones when used as a noun.

• INVITE
  

  1. An ordinary general word for a ritualised invitation is yán 延.

  2. Yāo 要 refers to a rather formal invitation to a meal, a feast, or a stay, and the word never refers to an invitation to join a political movement or the like.

  3. Pìn 聘 refers to a strictly formal diplomatic invitation.

  4. Qǐng 請 comes to refer to a general social invitation by SHIJI times, but the word can also refer more generally to an invitation to join any activity or movement.

• ARMY
  

  [ARCHAIC/CURRENT]

  [GENERAL/SPECIFIC]

  [IMPERSONAL/PERSONIFIED]

  [MOBILE/STATIONARY]

  [LARGE/SMALL]

  1. Bīng 兵 "armed force" focusses on the weapons ready for use and may refer to any military grouping.

  [GENERAL]

  2. Jūn 軍 is a complete army as a unit, from Spring and Autumn times onwards, normally attached to an army camp. Complete parts of an army are always jūn 軍, rarely shī 師. Hence the expressions sān jūn 三軍, zhōng jūn 中軍, shàng jūn 上軍, xià jūn 下軍. An army is counted by the number of jūn 軍 in it, where each jūn 軍 is said to be 10 000 men, at least in the Qi system. Systems have varied in different states. For detals of the early history see the monograph by KOLB.

  [IMPERSONAL], [LARGE], [OFFICIAL]

  3. Shī 師 refers generally to troops a military force on a campaign, not necessarily a complete army. ZUO Ding 4.1.6 commentators quantify an armed force as consisting of 2500 men, in one exceptional context. One often speaks of 三軍之師, never of 三師之軍. One asks for troops 請／乞師, and not for jūn 軍 which would be asking for the whole army of a friendly state. The troops of another state one uses are always shī 師 (e.g. 衛人以燕師伐鄭 ), one's own troops can be described as jūn 軍 or shī 師 almost indifferently. One offers food to the enemy shī 師, not to their jūn 軍. (HF 23.27:01) There are ruì shī 銳師 "crack troops" but no ruì jūn 銳軍 "crack army". Similarly, 楚師之良. The shī 師 may be said to hear about something 師聞之, not the jūn 軍.

  [GENERAL], [MOBILE], [PERSONIFIED!]

  4. Lu# 旅 is an archaic word for armed forces in any combatant or non-combatant function, and in ZUO Ding 4.1.6 it is quantified to consist of 500 men, and.

  [ARCHAIC], [SMALL]

  5. Duì 隊 is common in Han texts for a division in the army, the size of this division could vary, but did not exceed the hundreds. SEE ALSO BATALLION

  [SMALL]

Word relations
• Assoc: (REQUEST)謁/REQUEST Yè 謁 refers to (inappropriate) special requests made to acquaintances in high office, and the term can come to have negative overtones when used as a noun. 3 Attributions
• Oppos: (REQUEST)自/SELF Zì 自 is preverbal and typically makes any transitive verb it precedes reflexive. 1 Attribution