Jo Chih Ho 若之何→Nai Ho 奈何

本文討論的是吉田惠氏在一九五四年提出的一個觀點即「奈何」一詞中的「奈」是「若之何」這一較長的表達方式中前兩個字「若之」的合音。兩詞表達的意思相同。本文說明，就這兩種表達方式在周朝文獻中出現的先後時間看，「奈」為「若之」的合音這一假設有其道理。盡管缺乏與「奈何」這一合音完全相同的詞例，從而難以作出定論，但是，如果接受本人在其他文中所提出的關於古漢語再構成的某些觀點，語音方面的問題將會有所減少。本文還討論了與「如」、「若」、「奈」等屬於同一詞族的其他成分的有關問題。

This paper discusses the proposal made by Yoshida Megumi 吉田惠 in 1954 that the word nai 奈 in the expression nai ho 奈何 is derived from a phonetic fusion of the words jo chih 若之 in the longer expression jo chih ho 若之何 that means the same thing. It is shown that this hypothesis makes sense in terms of the relative chronology of the two expressions in texts of the Chou period and that the phonetic difficulties are lessened if one accepts proposals that I have put forward elsewhere for Old Chinese reconstruction, though lack of an exact parallel for this particular fusion makes it difficult to come to a firm conclusion. Some related problems concerning other members of the word family of ju 如, jo 若, nai 奈, etc. are also dicussed.