Prepositions ‘自’, ‘由’ and ‘从’

介词  自、由、从

Author: Dr Youxuan Wang, SLAS, Portsmouth University

Date: 14 November, 2012

1.1. ‘自’、‘由’表示‘从’时，可以被‘从’取代

1.1. ‘从’, ‘自’ and ‘由’ may belong to different word classes and may convey widely different meanings in different contexts. They form a lexic set, however, when they are used as prepositions to evoke the concept of origin, cause or starting point of a process or a spatial structure. In this set, ‘从’ is the superoridnate, and the other two are hyponyms. Let’s take a quick look at the following passage from an introductory text about Canton Fair:

自2007年4月第101届起，广交会由中国出口商品交易会更名为中国进出口商品交易会，由单一出口平台变为进出口双向交易平台。中国进出口商品交易会由48个交易团组成，有数千家资信良好、实力雄厚的外贸公司、生产企业、科研院所、外商投资企业、独资企业、私营企业参展。 (click here for the whole article)

Here, ‘自’ and ‘由’ are both used as prepositions. In the first two of the three instances, ‘由’ is a synonym for ‘从’ and ‘自’, but in the last instance, it is not a synonym. Our questions now are: When used as synonyms, are they interchangeable? How can we tell whether they are synonyms or not? These questions are important to students of Chinese as a foreign language since we will encounter these words in almost every newspaper article we read on a daily basis.
  

At the most basic level, we would like to make two observations. Firstly, though they are synonyms, they evoke different concepts. Secondly, though it is possible to present a detailed theoretical account, it is propably more useful to learn to use the collocations in which they figure.

1.2. ‘自’多用于描写时间、空间、等级结构的起点

1.2.  As a synonym for the preposition ‘从’(from), the preposition ‘自’ normally signals a starting point in time or space or a hierarchical structure. In this category, the notion of space and time is prominent, e.g.:

(a)自某日开始：自元月一日开始, 我们公司的职工全部加薪一级。

(b)   自从某时期开始：自从孩童时期开始, 李志文就开始对音乐入迷。

(c)自古至今：自古至今, 总是有正义和邪恶之间的斗争，而且总是正义会取得最后的胜利。

(d)   自上而下：民主不是自上而下，而是自下而上的。

Of the above collocations, ‘自’ can be replaced by ‘由’ in (c) and (d), but not typically in (a) and (b). 
  
  

1.3.  由 （多用于描写途径、因果的起点、物体解构的成份）
 

1.3. On the other hand, as a synonym for the preposition ‘从’(from), the preposition ‘由’ normally signals a starting point of a route, a cause-effect chain, or the components as source points in the origination of an object. In this category, the notion of origination is prominent, e.g.:  

(e)    由上而下: 工人把墙壁由上而下地刷成白色。

(f)    由 x 变为/改为/更名为 y:  广交会由中国出口商品交易会更名为中国进出口商品交易会。

(g)    由表及里：认识事物可以由浅入深、由表及里地逐步进行。

(h)   言不由衷：说活时，要实事求是，要说真心话，不可言不由衷。

Of the above collocations, ‘由’ can be replaced by ‘自’ in (e) , but not typically in (f). In the case of (g) and (h), ‘由’ is typically not even interchangeable with ‘从’.
   
 

2. 如果不是‘从’的同义词，‘由’则不能被‘从’代替，更不能被‘自’代替 

2. In the following instances, as the preposition ‘由’ is not a synonym for ‘从’, it cannot be replaced by ‘从’, let alone by ‘自’, e.g.:

 

(i)   由 x  组成/ 构成/合成:  水分子是由氢原子和氧原子合成。（‘由’表示形成某一事物的元素，因此，不能被‘自’代替，也不可以被‘从’代替。）

(j)   由于 x 的缘故:  由于多次缺课的缘故，罗伯特开始感觉学习吃力了。（‘由’表示某一事物的形成原因，因此，不能被‘自’代替，也不可以被‘从’代替。）

(k) 由 某人 安排/ 控制/ 设计/ 决定 /主办 /承办 /创办:  广州交易会石油商务部和广东省政府共同主办，由中国对外进出口总公司承办的。（‘由’表示遵照、任凭，因此，不能被‘自’代替，也不可以被‘从’代替。）

In the case of (i), ‘由’ is used in mentioning the component of a compound material. In the case of (j), it signals a cause or reason. In the case of (k) , it marks a source of authority, meaning ‘following’, ‘according to’, ‘under the authority of’, 'under the auspices of' etc.

As you would encounter these uses on a daily basis, please do make a point of recording new collocations and put them in the right categories. As these collocations are prefabricated chunks of expression that native speakers would typically use, a good knowledge of them will help you speak and write naturally in the way native speakers would do. Once the collocations as lexical chunks are familiar to you through everyday exposure, the question concerning the difference between ‘自’ and ‘由’ will soon cease to bother you. 

3. 讨论

3.  Discussion

Q: How do I know if '由' is a synonym or not for '从' and '自'?

A: If you have learned that the basic meaning of the word '由' is 'to originate from', and if, in a specific context, this word fills the slot which is reserved for a preposition in the syntactic structure of the sentence, you ought not have any problem in appreciating it as a synonym for the prepositions '从' and '自'. 

It is important to find out the basic meaning of any new word that you learn. This is why I am dissuading you from using Chinese-English dictionaries on your mobile handsets, because they do not encourage you to distinguish between the basic and extended meaning of words, or encourage you to investigate the etymology of the specific character. Cheap digital dictionaries makes the language learner lazy.
 

Q: Is it the case that certain words just collocate (配合) with '由'?

A: Exactly. There is no general rules that resolves the question of which word should collocate with which other words. Collocations are the typical lexic patterns that are found in writings/speeches of the native users of the language. 

Section 2 of this article lists some of the collocations that you have encountered in your lessons. You might have observed other collocations which feature the use of "由" as a preposition. You might do yourself a good service by recording new collocations that you come across in your readings. The more typical collocations that you have learned to understand and use, the more natural your Chinese would sound to your listeners.    
    
    

4. 练习  

4. Exercise     

4.1 Fill the each of the gaps in the passage with an appropriate preposition:

小海来___中国西北。去年夏天，他 __ 医学专科学校毕业以后，千里迢迢地乘火车到了厦门，并且在那儿找到了一份临时性的工作。不久，他___互联网上得到一份招聘消息，说南京有一家做医疗耗材生意的公司在招聘一个医学毕业生，比在厦门打工的薪水高许多。于是，他又___厦门赶到南京。他原以为自已已经 ___一个医学专科学生变成了一个做生意的商人。可是，__小到大，他___来没有想到，自己会落入非法经营器官买卖的犯罪集团的圈套。

4.2. Create a separate file in your notebook for the prepositions ‘从’, ‘自’ and ‘由’. Every time you come across a new collocation in which one of these three prepositions features, record the whole sentence (not just the collocation) in the right section of your file. Do this just for the purpose of improving your speaking and writing skills.

Of course, collocations are a much larger lexic set than these three synonymous prepositions. We should broaden our horizon.