Taxonomy of meanings for 勿:　　

  • 勿 wù (OC: mɯd MC: miut) 文弗切 入 廣韻：【無也莫也説文曰州里所建旗也象其柄有三斿雜帛幅半異所以趣民故遽稱勿勿又作𣃦 】
  • AVOID
    • vt{NEG}+.Vt(oN)avoid to, make sure not to
    • vt+V[0]make sure not to Vi
    • deontic> SHOULD NOT
      • vt[0]{NEG} Vt(oN)injunctive: one should not
      • imperative> DON'T
        • vt[0]{NEG}+.Vt[0](+V)don't Vt1 to Vt2 the determinate object
        • vt[0]{NEG}+Vt(oN)don't (verb the object)
        • vt{NEG}.+VtoNobject=actiondon't 勿易之 "do not take this lightly"
        • vt{NEG}.+VtoNimperativedo notDS
        • general> NOT
          • padVinsist on not (doing something in the future)
          • vt{NEG}+:Vtt(+N.)+VN=pivotdon't
          • vt+.Vt[0]oNnot (verb the explicit object) NB: there are surprisingly many examples of this
          • fail to exist> LACK

      Additional information about 勿

      說文解字: 【勿】，州里所建旗，象其柄有三游雜帛幅半異，所以趣民，故遽稱勿勿。凡勿之屬皆从勿。 【文弗切】 【𣃦】，勿或从㫃。

        Criteria
      • CHINA

        睡虎地秦墓竹簡 1978: 226 臣邦人不安秦主而欲去夏者, 勿許. 何謂夏 ? 欲去親屬是謂夏.

        The words for China have this in common that they do NOT designate any one state. 中國 "the central states" is implicitly plural when it does not refer to the capital city. 諸夏 the various Xià (states)" is explicitly plural. The standard Imperium Romanum has no counterpart in Chinese until very late, unless one admits 天下 "all under Heaven" as a designation for the empire. But 天下 does not define any bounded empire. It remains to be seen exactly when a standard term for China was took shape. Compare the problems of finding a term for the Chinese language.

        Based on 顧頡剛 & 王樹民, “ 夏 ” 和 “ 中國 ”— 祖國古代的稱號, Zhongguo lishi dili luncong, Vol. 1 (Xi'an, 1981), 6-22).

        In the Shu and Shi sections relating to the early Zhou, 區夏 (= 夏區 ), 有夏 and 時夏 (= 是夏 ) refers to the place in which the Zhou established their capital after their conquest of Shang, in contradistinction to Zhou 掇 homeland in the West ( 西土 ) and the close Zhou allies ( 一二邦 ). The Zhou referred to their own domain as 烠 he central city-state � ( 中國 ). Since 中國 in this usage refers to the territory directly governed by the Zhou, it is singular and used in exchange with 京師 and in contradistinction with 四方 and 四國. Other states also referred to their capital regions as 啎什縕 (thus Wu in GY 19.09.01/618); a (perhaps late) variant of this word is 啎尹塹 (Yugong).

        After becoming strong, the states enfeoffed by Zhou asserted the community with the 周 by commencing to refer to themselves as 堔 L �, leading to the plural designation 埣悎 L �, used in contrast with designations like 啈 i 狄�. The distinction between the two groups was viewed as cultural, and its precise reference shifted over time, originally excluding states (like 楚 ) from the community of 諸夏 but later including them, or including them in the beginning, whilst later excluding them (like 秦 ). Some of the non- 諸夏 states were viewed as subservient to 諸夏 states, others as their enemies. The membership of 楚 to the 諸夏 circle was always insecure; it was, so to speak, was"always on probation.

        The 東夏 made up a subdivision of the 諸夏, including states such a 齊 and 魯.

        In parallel with the 堔 L � appellations arose the 埽寊 appellations, 埽寊 on its own and 埣捄寊, and, the two words may well be cognate, the common 埽堮 L �.

        In the Warring States period the cultural distinction gave way to a geographical distinction, and the 中國 states were now the state occupying the Central Plain

      • AVOID

        [[BASIC/DERIVED]]

        [ABSTRACT/CONCRETE]

        [DELIBERATE/INVOLUNTARY]

        [GENERAL/SPECIFIC]

        [GRAMMATICALISED/LEXICAL]

        [HIGH-DEGREE/LOW-DEGREE]

        1. The general word is miǎn 免 (ant. zāo 遭 "encounter"), and this refers to any voluntary or involuntary process leading to one's escape from what otherwise might occur, especially one's being spared a negative experience.

        [CONCRETE], [GENERAL]

        2. Bì 避 (ant. mào 冒 "expose oneself to"), unlike miǎn 免, is always deliberate and describes a strategy of action which successfully avoids an undesirable impending danger.

        [DELIBERATE]

        3. Yuàn 遠 (ant. jìn 近 "move close to") is a specific strategy of avoidance which is well within one's control and consists in keeping what is undesirable at a long distance from one.

        [DELIBERATE], [HIGH-DEGREE]

        4. Lí 離 differs from yuàn 遠 in the fact that no great distance, concrete or abstract, is implied in the word.

        [DELIBERATE]; [[DERIVED]]

        5. Chú 除 refers to the avoidance or removal of something that is perceived as posing a powerful threat. See REMOVE

        [CAUSATIVE], [DELIBERATE]; [[DERIVED]]

        6. Qù 去 (ant. lí 罹 "get exposed to") is avoidance through getting rid of what is threatening.

        [CAUSATIVE], [DELIBERATE]; [[DERIVED]]

        7. Jué 絕 refers to avoidance through getting rid completely and definitively of what is threatening.

        [ABSTRACT], [CAUSATIVE], [DELIBERATE], [HIGH-DEGREE]

        8. Tuì 退 refers to avoidance by withdrawing from what exposes one to what is threatening.

        [DELIBERATE], [SPECIFIC]

        9. Wù 勿 is a negation referring to an instruction to avoid doing something, and the word often has an object pronoun understood. See NOT.

        [GRAMMATICALISED]

      • DON'T

        1. The most common prohibitive particle is wù 勿, which usually precedes transitive verbs with omitted objects.

        2. Wú 毋 is a prohibitive particle which normally requires that any transitive verb it precedes must retain its object.

        3. Wú 無 appears often used for wú 毋, but there is a clear tendency for the word to indicate a generalised "one should not" rather than a "don't" hic et nunc.

      • NOT

        1. The general all-purpose pre-verbal negation is 不 which generally has the whole predicate it precedes as its scope. 不 can be inchoative "not get to begin", continuative "not continuously", discontinuative "stop doing" or resultative "not get to complete doing". By the rhetorical device of litotes 不 can create antonymic opposites as in 不少 “quite a lot".

        2. Fēi 非 negates categorising subsumptive judgments when it precedes predicative nominals; when preceding verbs 非 "it is not as if" negates not the verbal verbal proposition but metalinguistically the making of a statement that can usefully be paraphrased as "the claim is not that".

        3. Wú 無 "in no way; in no way i.e. regarding no object", when used as a straight negation (contrast SHOULD NOT) is descriptively generalising and not straightforwardly narrative or descriptive.

        4. Fú 弗 "would not; could not" prototypically refers to a refusal or inability to do something which in principle one might intend to do.

        5. Wèi 未 "not yet; not quite" refers to either temporal or logical incompleteness in verbal predication.

        6. Fǒu 否 "It is not the case" is a negative pro-form, and there remains a suspicion that the graph 不 is to be read as fǒu 否 when it is used as a pro-form.

        7. Mò 莫 "none" is protoypically resumptive of an explicit or implicit subject.

        8. Wú 毋 "don't" and wù 勿 don't the object" when not used injunctively, are negations restricted to the position after such causative verbs as 使.