《子張》 Passage 19.17

Master Zeng (disciple Zengzi, 曾參)

• 曾 surname Zeng
• 子 honorific suffix meaning 'Master', attached to a surname

said, spoke

I, me

to hear

contraction of 之於: it from, from (him)

諸 here fuses the object pronoun 之 and the preposition 於.

the Master (Confucius)

• 夫 honorific term of address: sir, master
• 子 master, teacher (honorific, referring to Confucius)

people, a person (generic)

there has never been one who..., negated-existential + nominalizing frame

• 未 not yet
• 有 to exist, there to be
• 者 nominalizing particle: one who, a case in which
• 也 sentence-final particle of assertion

未有...者也 is a fixed classical pattern, 'there has never been a case in which...'; 者 nominalizes the preceding clause and 也 asserts it, work that English does through modals (never, not yet, hardly) rather than through separate words.

to exert oneself to the utmost

• 自 oneself (reflexive)
• 致 to bring to the utmost, exert fully — translators split between an effort sense ('exert oneself fully') and an expression sense ('give full expression to oneself')

自致 is the crux of this line. Translators split between an effort/exertion reading (Slingerland, Peimin Ni, Roberts, Ames & Rosemont, Chin: 'exert/give one's utmost') and an emotional self-expression reading (Legge, Watson: 'give full expression to what is in them'), with Lau's 'realize himself to the full' occupying middle ground.

surely, necessarily (introduces the one exception)

• 必 surely, necessarily
• 也 pausal particle after an adverb, adding emphasis
• 乎 exclamatory final particle

必也...乎 is a recurring Analects frame introducing the single case where a rule holds; the 也 here is a pausal, emphatic particle after the adverb 必, distinct in function from the sentence-final assertive 也 earlier in the passage.

mourning the death of one's parent(s)

• 親 parent, parents
• 喪 mourning, funeral rites