Newell Ann Van Auken

The Spring and Autumn is an annals text composed of brief records covering the period 722–479 BCE and written from the perspective of the ancient Chinese state of Lu. A long neglected part of the Chinese canon, it is traditionally ascribed to Confucius, who is said to have embedded his evaluations of events within the text. However, the formulaic and impersonal records do not resemble the repository of moral judgments that they are alleged to be.
Driven by her discovery that the Spring and Autumn is governed by a system of rules, Newell Ann Van Auken argues that Lu record-keepers—not a later editor—produced the formally regular core of the text. She demonstrates that the Spring and Autumn employs formulaic phrasing and selective omission to encode the priorities of Lu and to communicate the relative importance of individuals, states, and events, and that many of its records are derived from diplomatic announcements received in Lu from regional states and the Zhou court. The Spring and Autumn is fundamentally a document designed to enhance the prestige of Lu, and its records reveal a profound concern with relative rank, displaying an idealized hierarchy that positions the state of Lu and its rulers at the apex. By establishing the Spring and Autumn as a genuine Bronze Age record, this book transforms our understanding of its significance and purpose, and also offers new approaches to the study of ancient annals in early China and elsewhere.
ISBN: 9780231206501 
352 Pages
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/spring-and-autumn-historiography/9780231206501

The Commentarial Transformation of the Spring and Autumn (SUNY Press, 2016).
TOC & Introduction
http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6311-the-commentarial-transformation.aspx

The Spring and Autumn is among the earliest surviving Chinese historical records, covering the period 722–479 BCE. It is a curious text: the canonical interpretation claims that it was composed by Confucius and embodies his moral judgments, but this view appears to be contradicted by the brief and dispassionate records themselves. Newell Ann Van Auken addresses this puzzling discrepancy through an examination of early interpretations of the Spring and Autumn, and uncovers a crucial missing link in two sets of commentarial remarks embedded in the Zuo Tradition. These embedded commentaries do not seek moral judgments in the Spring and Autumn, but instead interpret its records as produced by a historiographical tradition that was governed by rules related to hierarchy and ritual practice. Van Auken’s exploration of the Zuo Tradition and other early commentaries sheds light on the transformation of the Spring and Autumn from a simple, non-narrative historical record into a Confucian classic.

Richard VanNess Simmons and Newell Ann Van Auken, eds. 2014 Studies in Chinese and Sino-Tibetan Linguistics: Dialect, Phonology, Transcription and Text 漢語與漢藏語研究：方言、音韻與文獻, Language and Linguistics Monograph Series 53 《語言暨語言學》專刊系列之五十三. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica 中央研究院語言學研究所.
Full text download at http://tinyurl.com/SiCSTL-intro

This study analyzes references to women in the Chunqiu 春秋 and is followed by an appendix of a complete list of Chunqiu records associated with women, plus translations. In NAN NÜ: Men, Women and Gender in China, 24. 1 (2022): 1-69.
Copyright restrictions prohibit posting the complete article; for access, please see:  https://brill.com/view/journals/nanu/24/1/article-p1_1.xml

According to the Zuǒ zhuàn, in 607 BCE Zhào Chuān murdered Lord Líng of Jìn, but the Spring and Autumn ascribes the assassination to Zhào Dùn, senior member of the Zhào lineage and chief minister of Jìn. Remarks attributed to Confucius defend the ascription to Zhào Dùn, stating that had he fled across the border, he would have avoided blame. That Zhào Dùn was assigned responsibility for a crime he did not commit has been a source of much discussion and has been described as “false” or “inaccurate.” An overview of flights into exile (bēn 奔) in Spring and Autumn-period China indicates that although flight sometimes provided a practical mechanism for escaping difficulties, crossing the border without official sanction had substantial political and religious ramifications, including loss of position in the ancestral temple. Confucius’s remark may be understood as framing Zhào Dùn’s failure to flee across the border in terms of ritual or legal rules, implying that crossing the border would have removed him from a position of responsibility. Later versions of the story do not mention border crossing, focusing instead on moral responsibility, and their explanations of why blame was assigned to Zhào Dùn were attempts to rationalize recording practices that were based on earlier, Spring and Autumn-period norms, which no longer made sense in later times.

Van Auken, Newell Ann. “What If Zhào Dùn Had Fled? Border Crossing and Flight into Exile in Early China.” JAOS 139. 3 (2019): 569 – 90.

Judgments of the Gentleman:  A new analysis of the place of junzi comments in Zuo zhuan composition history
Newell Ann Van Auken

ABSTRACT: This study examines Zuo zhuan narrative accounts that conclude with evaluations ascribed to the “Gentleman” (junzi 君子). The Zuo zhuan is one of the earliest extant Chinese works of narrative history, and in the past many scholars assumed that narrative accounts formed its core, dismissing subjective evaluations of those accounts, such as the Gentleman’s comments, as secondary, later additions. This study demonstrates that narrative account plus Gentleman judgment function together as a unit, contending that these units were likely introduced into the Zuo zhuan as such. It further proposes that the perception that the Gentleman’s concluding comments were later, independent additions was likely influenced by the practice of capping narrative accounts with quotations borrowed from other sources, and furthermore, suggests that this perception may have led compilers on occasion to insert material between the narrative accounts and the Gentleman’s evaluations of them.

KEYWORDS: Zuo zhuan; Chunqiu; commentary; historiography; textual criticism

Van Auken, Newell Ann. “Judgments of the Gentleman: A New Analysis of the Place of Junzi Comments in Zuozhuan Composition History.” MS 64, no. 2 (2016): 277-302.
Copyright agreement with the publisher prohibits authors from posting published articles online. You may have access through your home institution:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02549948.2016.1259819
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02549948.2016.1259819
If you do not have access and would like an electronic offprint of this paper, please contact me directly and I will be happy to send you one.

The Spring and Autumn, which covers 722 BCE- 481 BCE, is recognized to have been an official record of the ancient Chinese state of Lǔ. The present study focuses on records of killings and assassinations, and explores the question of the original function of the Spring and Autumn records. The first part of this study focuses on the records themselves, and examines the significance of the regular form of killing and assassination records. The second part explores the records in light of narratives concerning the same events in the Zuǒ zhuàn, finding a regular pattern of discrepancies between the records and the Zuǒ zhuàn accounts that illuminates certain Spring and Autumn recording principles. Killings of noblemen were typically sanctioned responses to wrongdoing, and records of such killings indicated judgment on the victim, whereas killings of rulers and heirs apparent were crimes, and by identifying a killer, the Spring and Autumn labeled him an offender.  The third part is concerned with the practices involved in recording events such as killings, especially the proposed link between reports and records, and considers the possibility that both reports and records may have served to publicize and register judgments within Lǔ and among the ancient Chinese states. This study concludes that Spring and Autumn records of killings were not merely logs of events, and although they did not express Confucian moral judgments, they nevertheless registered judgments on the recorded events, and suggests that this early function may have been the seed of what later developed into the traditional reading of the Spring and Autumn as a work that conveyed the judgments of Confucius.

Newell Ann Van Auken, 2014, Killings and Assassinations in the Spring and Autumn as Records of Judgments. Asia Major (3d series) 27.1: 1–31.

Spring and Autumn Use of jí 及 and Its Interpretation in the Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng Commentaries: A note on three listing patterns in the Chūnqiū and their later interpretations
The Chūnqiū 春秋 is a chronological record of events in ancient China from 722-481 BCE, recorded in Lǔ  魯 , home state of Confucius. The records are written in formulaic language and employ grammatical, lexical and stylistic features that elevate Lǔ above other states. Traditional wisdom has it that the Chūnqiū was composed or edited by Confucius, and that special phrasing or terminology was used to convey Confucian moral judgments, and this view is espoused by the earliest complete commentaries, Gōngyáng zhuàn 公羊傳 , and Gǔliáng zhuàn 穀梁傳 . This study focuses on three grammatical patterns used to list participants from multiple states in records of meetings, covenants, or military actions, and contrasts Chūnqiū usage with later Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng interpretations. The basic, unmarked pattern simply lists agents, and is used when Lǔ is not a participant. When a Lǔ agent is involved, one of two marked patterns is used. The Lǔ agent is listed first, and followed by a coverb or preposition, jí 及 (for two or three participants)  or huì 會  (three or more participants) , after which all other participants are listed. These marked patterns apparently serve to elevate Lǔ above other states. Although Chūnqiū usage is regular and unambiguous, Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng commentaries propose a range of explanations that reveal limited or incorrect understanding of the three formulae. What gave rise to the conspicuous discrepancy between actual usage and later Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng interpretations? This study concludes that the three-way distinction so closely observed in the Chūnqiū was no longer a feature of the language of Gōngyáng or Gǔliáng, and therefore it was necessary to find an alternative explanation. Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng were influenced by the view that the Chūnqiū employed special phrasing to convey Confucian judgments, and thus they interpreted this unfamiliar and archaic grammatical pattern as imbued with moral significance.


Newell Ann Van Auken, 2014, Spring and Autumn Use of jí 及 and Its Interpretation in the Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng Commentaries. In Studies in Chinese and Sino-Tibetan Linguistics: Dialect, Phonology, Transcription and Text 漢語與漢藏語研究：方言、音韻與文獻, Language and Linguistics Monograph Series 53, ed. by Richard VanNess Simmons and Newell Ann Van Auken. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, 429–56.

Biography of W. South Coblin.
In Studies in Chinese and Sino-Tibetan Linguistics: Dialect, Phonology, Transcription and Text, ed. by Richard VanNess Simmons and Newell Ann Van Auken. Taipei: Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica, pp. xvii-xxvii.

This article examines the use of the word rén 人, “person” in Spring and Autumn records and considers related commentarial assertions in the Zuǒ zhuàn, Gōngyáng, and Gǔliáng. It demonstrates that in the Spring and Autumn, rén typically referred to a single unnamed leader, “someone”,  that these unidentified individuals were often lower-ranking nobility or rulers, and their identity was deliberately withheld. Leaders from the margins of the Zhōu culture sphere were typically only referred to as rén when mentioned in conjunction with rulers of Central States. These observations are consistent with claims made in the three commentarial traditions, which assert that rén was employed to withhold recognition, that it was associated with low rank, and that mention of another, higher-ranking person in the same record could affect whether an individual was called rén.  The commentaries also understood rén as signaling moral inferiority, a claim not clearly supported by the Spring and Autumn. This study concludes that although later commentaries were invested with the norms and morals of later times, and were often distorted or inaccurate, their interpretations warrant serious consideration, as language identified by the traditions as conveying judgments may indeed have encoded norms of an earlier era.

Newell Ann Van Auken. 2012. Who is a rén 人? The Use of rén in Spring and Autumn Records and Its Interpretation in the Zuǒ, Gōngyáng and Gǔliáng Commentaries. JAOS 131.4 (Dec. 2011): 555–590.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41440512

The Spring and Autumn (Chūnqiū) is a highly formally regular chronicle of apparently objective entries recorded in the state of Lǔ for the period from 722 to 479 (or 481) B.C.E. The present study is a formal analysis of the Spring and Autumn, showing that its records were written in adherence to strict prescriptive rules governing what types of events could be recorded and the form of those records. Entries recording the same type of event were recorded using the same form, including the same degree of specificity in date notation, style of reference to individuals, as well as main verb and sentence pattern. Other variables affecting the form of records included the rank of individuals mentioned in the record and their home state. Regular diachronic changes in form may also be identified, and their presence demonstrates that the Spring and Autumn accrued over time and was not the product of a single author or editor. Classes of records associated with events, persons, or states deemed to be of greater importance were marked by inclusion of more detail such as names or precise dates, or use of special (honorific or euphemistic) verbs. The use of formal marking to indicate the exceptional significance of classes of records apparently extended to individual records, suggesting that the value judgment associated with the class had been applied to an individual event. While the Spring and Autumn contains no explicit value judgments, formal irregularities may indeed have been used to express value judgments on the events recorded in the Spring and Autumn.

Van Auken, Newell Ann. 2010. Could “Subtle Words” Have Conveyed “Praise and Blame”? The Implications of Formal Regularity and Variation in Spring and Autumn (Chūn qiū) Records. Early China 31 (2007), 47–111.
Stable url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23354212

The Classical Chinese modal negative wu, which may be represented by the graphs 毋, 無, or 无, has traditionally been labeled “imperative” or “prohibitive,” but its use is not restricted to negative commands.  Modal wu is not simply an “imperative” or “prohibitive” negative, but rather, that it is modal in the sense that it is associated with the speaker’s perception that the agent is able to exert control over his actions.
Sentences with modal WU can be divided into four broad categories: prohibitive or imperative sentences; sentences in which someone is caused, ordered, or requested not to do something and in which the clause negated with modal wu follows a verb such as shyy 使 ‘to cause’, minq 命 ‘to command’, linq 令 ‘to order’, or chiing 請 ‘to request’;  sentences in which someone expresses a desire not to do something and in which the negated clause follows a verb expressing desires such as yuh 欲 ‘to want’; and sentences in which modal wu occurs after auxiliary verbs expressing ability such as neng 能 ‘can, be able’, keeyii 可以 ‘can, may’, or der 得 ‘be able, get to’. In transmitted/received texts, modal WU is often represented by the same graph as the verb WU 無 ‘lack’, but the two negatives were semantically, syntactically, and phonologically distinct.

PLEASE NOTE ERRATA AT THE END OF THIS PAPER; ERRORS WERE INTRODUCED AFTER CORRECTED PROOFS HAD BEEN SUBMITTED TO THE JOURNAL.

In the pre-Hann era, the graphs 望 and 朢 were used interchangeably to represent two homophonous words, 'full moon' and 'look into the distance', both read wanq < *mjang(s). While the phonetic component of 望 is obviously 亡, it is not easy to identify a phonetic component in the form 朢, and more difficult still for the earlier shell and bone inscription (SBI) form 𦣠. In this paper I discuss the distribution of the three forms in inscribed and manuscript texts and in the transmitted pre-Hann corpus, the words represented by these graphs together with their associated word families, and the function of the graphic constituents of the three forms of the graphs.