Re:Tintern 'secret' medieval tunnel system found by accident
by thaumasiotes on Saturday March 06, 2021 @02:59AM
(#26365919)
> Perhaps 上 here acts as a verb or gerund ((going up / on the way) to the ocean)? 下海 means 'going (down) to the ocean'.
This is possible, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the normal way to express that is 下海. The ocean is pretty much by definition both "down"stream and downhill of everything; approaching the ocean by going up is semantically unnatural. My guess above of "get onto the ocean" (i.e. "set sail") was drawing a parallel to 上路 "get on the road" / "start traveling".
> 海上 is closer to the literal meaning of 'on top of the ocean (physically)', which the city is not.
I don't see this as a huge obstacle; "upon the sea" has the same literal meaning but isn't surprising in an English place name, though "by the sea", with the correct literal meaning, isn't surprising either.
So my mother-in-law just said '上海不在海上', i.e. 海上 is closer to the literal meaning of 'on top of the ocean (physically)', which the city is not.
Perhaps 上 here acts as a verb or gerund ((going up / on the way) to the ocean)? 下海 means 'going (down) to the ocean'.
The rabbit hole here can get deep (and thanks for drawing me in!), this book [2] goes in-depth about how word class and word order influenced one another as Chinese developed.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Chinese_grammar#Word...
[2] https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/r9WO6g5mqi8C?hl=en&gb...