This paper attempts to show that the word sì 巳(祀) used after the negative wù 勿 or wú 毋 functions as a “Vintransitive” (all the abbreviations and references used in this paper are given at the end of Part I). As such, it forms a VP, 勿/毋V1V2, where V2 is always one of the six “Type-A ritual Vs”—one being dăo 禱 ‘to pray’, the rest given in the paper. The semantic relationship between V1 (巳/祀) and V2 is closely examined. There are also inscriptions in which V1 is used before yú 于, a “multidirectional” preposition. This is labelled as “Nloc in the sense of ‘in, at’ (not ‘to, for’)” in the construction given in the title. The paper accounts for its motive principle. The paper argues that 巳/祀 is a Vaction meaning “conduct sì-providential ritual”. It was done at a place to seek divine direction and guidance from the deity or Power believed to have dwelt in situ. Originally presented in Takashima (2009a), this paper delves further into linguistic, philological, and cultural aspects of the 巳-ritual couched in the VP, 勿/毋V1(=巳/祀)V2. A major reason for its use is to contrast the 巳-ritual with other rituals and sacrifices. The details will be explained with examples. Part I covers “Examination I: Zhū Shēngyù’s Questions and Zhāng Yùjīn’s Interpretation”. The paper answers the former and evaluates the latter. Part II begins with “Examination II: Qiú Xīguī’s Interpretation” and ends with the conclusions of the entire paper.

As Alex Schuessler (2009, 34–39) has articulated, it is difficult to know the real reason for the choice of a particular graphic element within a composite graph. This is often due to “mental or cultural associations” that tend to interfere with the choice. Even with a simple graph it is not easy to discern what we call “graphic design” that must have guided the original scribes to create the graphs to express words. These are important issues in Chinese paleography. We will use terms like “pure phonetic”, “quasi-phonetic”, “quasi-phonosignific”, “etymonic”, “quasi-etymonic” that are not commonly used in the literature (we will define them in the paper). The Old Chinese (OC) rimes comprised of a relatively few words such as *-əp, *-en, and *-ui suffer a shortage of graphs to write the words with such rimes. This implies the existence of graphs with only a segment or segments of an OC syllable that suggest its entire phonological form with a meaning or function. For example, the top portion of (=羊 *jaŋ~*laŋ, i.e., ) seems to serve as quasi-phonosignific in (=羌 *khaŋ~*khiaŋ—cf. 西戎, 牧羊人也, 羊亦聲—SW). That is, 羌 were “sheep herders”, and the grapheme can be taken as partial phonetic, not really “亦聲” it would seem, because only the rime of 羊 agrees (“quasi-phonetic”). When we pay attention not only to the rimes but also to the initials, we may, if cogent analysis can be made, come to understand why a word was written in a certain specific way. This interfaces between paleography and historical phonology, further involving historical lexicology. We shall also assess some traditional paleographical interpretations of nǚ 女= ‘woman’ and mín 民= ‘people’ and try to descry “graphic designs” by the original scribes. Here, however, we first need to figure out the underlying meanings of the words nǚ and mín in their early history. Their semantic fields could range from synonymy, near/quasi-synonymy, antonyms, and near/quasi-antonyms to members of some large word-family. In this paper, we limit our analysis to some “graphic minimal pairs” and the words represented by them. For example, “ (女 ‘woman’) and (卩 ‘joint’)”; “ (如 ‘follow, go’) and (訊 ‘interrogate’)”; “ (目 ‘eye’) and (臣 ‘servant’)”; “ (民 ‘people’) and (見 ‘see’)”; and a few related graphs.