《八佾》 Passage 3.11

someone, some person (indefinite pronoun)

to ask about, inquire

the di sacrifice, a grand royal rite honoring a dynasty's founding ancestors

Roberts and Watson use broader interpretive glosses ('First Founders service', 'the ancestral sacrifice'), reflecting scholarly uncertainty over exactly which rite is meant

possessive/attributive particle: 's, of

explanation, account, theory (of a rite)

noun sense here, not the verb 'to speak'

the Master said

• 子 the Master, Confucius
• 曰 said, spoke

negation with assertive final particle: it is not the case that..., do not

• 不 not
• 也 final particle marking assertion or emphasis

也 marks the negation as a categorical assertion; Lau and Chin render this literally as 'is/is not something that...'

to know, understand

nominalizing frame: the one who knows/understands (something)

• 知 to know, understand
• 者 nominalizing particle: one who, the one who

its, referring back to the sacrifice's meaning

explanation, account

topic-comment frame: as for X in relation to Y

• 之 particle marking the preceding clause as topic
• 於 coverb: in regard to, concerning, at
• 也 final particle marking assertion or topical pause

The classical 之於…也 pattern, setting up 'as for his relation to the world'.

all under heaven, the world, the realm

• 天 heaven, sky
• 下 below, under

rhetorical/modal frame: would it not be that...?, expressing hypothetical certainty

• 其 modal particle introducing a rhetorical question: would it be...?
• 乎 interrogative or exclamatory final particle

as if showing/having it right here, idiom for effortless mastery

• 如 as if, like, as though
• 示 to show, display, manifest
• 諸 fusion particle: it + at, to (= 之於)
• 斯 this, here

包咸 reads 示 as to point out and show, as if the world lay in one's palm; 朱熹 reads 示 as 視, to look at, which Legge follows ('as to look on this').

to point at, indicate

his, referring to Confucius

palm of the hand