Where it came from
What 者 first meant, how it became a function word, and where it stands today.
This is an old character of uncertain origin, and it was already doing this nominalizing work in the earliest classical prose. It’s one of the survivors. Modern Chinese still builds agent nouns with it exactly the way The Analects does: 作者 the writer, 讀者 the reader, 記者 the reporter, 學者 the scholar, 受害者 the victim. Same “-er” this page teaches. The topic-marking use, X者，Y也, died with classical Chinese. Modern Mandarin holds a topic up with a pause instead, or with 的話.
Across the books
Densest in Book 14 (27 occurrences).
- 16
- 22
- 35
- 413
- 57
- 619
- 712
- 82
- 918
- 109
- 1115
- 1212
- 1311
- 1427
- 1515
- 1611
- 1717
- 186
- 1912
How it works
Every job 者 does, counted over its 219 occurrences in the Analects — commonest first. Tap a passage number to see the whole passage.
1Agent nominalizer197× · 90%
Put 者 after a verb or a quality and you get the person it fits. This is the same nominalizer you use in modern Mandarin every day.
- After a verb phrase: 好仁者, “one who loves 仁”. Think of the English “-er”
- After a quality: 知者, “the wise”. Think of putting “the” in front of an adjective: the knower, the near, the far
- Keep it apart from 所: 者 names the doer, 所 names the thing done
Gloss one who⋯, those who⋯, the ⋯-er
Look for after a verb phrase or quality; contrast 所, which names the thing done rather than the doer.
Technical attaches to a verb, clause, adjective, or number to form a noun phrase naming the person or thing that fits it, singular or plural depending on context
6 examples
子曰：「有德者，必有言。有言者，不必有德。仁者，必有勇。勇者，不必有仁。」
The Master said: "The virtuous will be sure to speak correctly, but those whose speech is good may not always be virtuous. Men of principle are sure to be bold, but those who are bold may not always be men of principle."
Legge 1861
仁者 is the person who has 仁. Everyone makes a person of it, in four different shapes:
- “Those who are humane”: Watson, Roberts; Slingerland has “those who are Good”
- “A person who is humane”: Chin
- “The authoritative person”: Ames & Rosemont
- “The benevolent”: Legge, with the article doing the 者’s work
Then the passage reverses the pair: 勇者，不必有仁, the brave are not necessarily humane. Same nominalizer, now sitting on 勇 instead of 仁.
葉公問政。子曰：「近者說，遠者來。」
The Duke of She asked about government. The Master said: "Good government obtains, when those who are near are made happy, and those who are far off are attracted."
Legge 1861
A matched pair on two adjectives of place: 近者 the near, 遠者 the far. Seven translators write “those”. Legge: “those who are near” and “those who are far off”, and Ni rebuilds the sentence around “people”: “Make people happy, if they are nearby”.
This is 者 at its most basic. A quality, and the people it picks out.
子曰：「知者樂水，仁者樂山；知者動，仁者靜；知者樂，仁者壽。」
The Master said: "The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long-lived."
Legge 1861
Six 者, three pairs, and every one of them turns a quality into the person who has it. Most translators fold the 者 into a bare “the wise” and “the humane”, and in those versions the “the” is doing the nominalizing. Roberts writes it out, “men of knowledge, men of humanity”, which is why his version is the one shown here.
子曰：「知之者不如好之者，好之者不如樂之者。」
The Master said: "They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it."
Legge 1861
Four 者 in two matched pairs, and each one turns a verb phrase, know it, love it, delight in it, into the person who does it. One camp keeps the people: Slingerland “one who knows it is not the equal of one who loves it”, Legge and Roberts “they who” and “those who”. The other camp drops the people and compares the verbs: Watson “To know it is not as good as to approve it”, and Ni, Ames & Rosemont, Lau, and Chin do the same. The second camp has what the sentence means. It’s just not what it says.
有子曰：「其為人也孝弟，而好犯上者，鮮矣；不好犯上，而好作亂者，未之有也。君子務本，本立而道生。孝弟也者，其為仁之本與！」
The philosopher You said: "They are few who, being filial and fraternal, are fond of offending against their superiors. There have been none, who, not liking to offend against their superiors, have been fond of stirring up confusion.
The superior man bends his attention to what is radical. That being established, all practical courses naturally grow up. Filial piety and fraternal submission! — are they not the root of all benevolent actions?"
Legge 1861
好犯上者 is “one who likes to offend his superiors”, and 好作亂者 is its partner in the second half. Two ways to put the 者 into English. Legge renders each one as a bare “who”, so you get a relative clause: “few who, being filial and fraternal, are fond of offending”, and Ames & Rosemont write out the noun the nominalizer makes: “someone who has a sense of filial and fraternal responsibility”, “those who have no taste for defying authority”.
The second is what 者 actually does, which is why they’re the ones shown here.
子曰：「我未見好仁者，惡不仁者。好仁者，無以尚之；惡不仁者，其為仁矣，不使不仁者加乎其身。有能一日用其力於仁矣乎？我未見力不足者。蓋有之矣，我未之見也。」
The Master said: "I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue, would esteem nothing above it. He who hated what is not virtuous, would practice virtue in such a way that he would not allow anything that is not virtuous to approach his person.
Is any one able for one day to apply his strength to virtue? I have not seen the case in which his strength would be insufficient.
Should there possibly be any such case, I have not seen it."
Legge 1861
Three 者 in one sentence. 好仁者 is one who loves 仁, and 惡不仁者 is its mirror image, one who hates the lack of it. Then a third 者 sits on a quality instead of a person, 不仁者, and the translators split on what it makes. Legge takes it as a thing, “anything that is not virtuous”. Watson keeps it human, “those who lack humaneness”, and so does Chin, “any inhumane person”. Both are fair readings. 者 can make a person or a thing out of what comes before it, and the sentence doesn’t tell you which.
2Topic marker22× · 10%
After a noun or a time phrase, 者 holds it up as the topic before the sentence says anything about it. It works like opening an English sentence with “As for⋯”, and nothing gets turned into a person.
- 政者，正也: “governing, that means correcting”
- 魯無君子者: a whole clause held up as a condition
- 昔者, 古者: a time word held up as the setting
This is the use that didn’t make it into modern Mandarin, so if you’ve only ever seen 者 as “-er”, this one will look strange the first few times.
Gloss as for X⋯ (no English word)
Look for followed by a pause, with 也 often sealing the sentence: X者，Y也.
Technical marks a fronted noun phrase, clause, or time word as the topic the rest of the sentence defines, comments on, or conditions on, including the X者Y也 definitional pattern and fossilized time adverbs like 昔者 formerly
4 examples
季康子問政於孔子。孔子對曰：「政者，正也。子帥以正，孰敢不正？」
Ji Kang asked Confucius about government. Confucius replied: "To govern means to rectify. If you lead on the people with correctness, who will dare not to be correct?"
Legge 1861
The definitional frame X者，Y也: 者 holds up 政 as the term to be defined, and 也 seals the definition. English makes the term with an infinitive. Legge writes “To govern means to rectify”, and Watson writes “To govern is to put to rights”.
That “To” is the 者. It’s what turns the verb into a thing you can then define. The “means” and the “is” after it belong to the 也. The reason the frame is here at all is the pun: 政 and 正 sound exactly the same.
子謂子賤，「君子哉若人！魯無君子者，斯焉取斯？」
The Master said of Zijian: "Of superior virtue indeed is such a man! If there were not virtuous men in Lu, how could this man have acquired this character?"
Legge 1861
Here 者 closes a whole clause, 魯無君子者, “Lu has no gentlemen”, and holds it up as the condition for the question that follows. English marks a condition at the front instead. Seven translators: “If there were no gentlemen in Lu⋯”, and Roberts puts the verb first: “Were Lu without true princes⋯”.
That “If” is the 者’s work. The “there were” next to it is the 無. And the 斯 right after is a demonstrative, “this man”, meaning Zijian.
曾子曰：「以能問於不能，以多問於寡；有若無，實若虛，犯而不校，昔者吾友嘗從事於斯矣。」
The philosopher Zeng said: "Gifted with ability, and yet putting questions to those who were not so; possessed of much, and yet putting questions to those possessed of little; having, as though he had not; full, and yet counting himself as empty; offended against, and yet entering into no altercation; formerly I had a friend who pursued this style of conduct."
Legge 1861
昔者, “formerly”. A time word held up as the setting for what the sentence is about to say. 昔 is “the past”, and the 者 is what turns it into “back then”. English does the same thing with a suffix, former-ly:
- Legge: “formerly I had a friend”
- Slingerland: “once”; Roberts: “Long ago”; Ames & Rosemont: “in the old days”; Watson and Chin: “in the past”
- Ni and Lau skip the time word entirely
古者 in 17.16 works the same way, and there all eight translators write “In ancient times” or something close to it.
有子曰：「其為人也孝弟，而好犯上者，鮮矣；不好犯上，而好作亂者，未之有也。君子務本，本立而道生。孝弟也者，其為仁之本與！」
The philosopher You said: "They are few who, being filial and fraternal, are fond of offending against their superiors. There have been none, who, not liking to offend against their superiors, have been fond of stirring up confusion.
The superior man bends his attention to what is radical. That being established, all practical courses naturally grow up. Filial piety and fraternal submission! — are they not the root of all benevolent actions?"
Legge 1861
也者 after a noun: the topic gets named, then held up, before the sentence says what it is. Ames & Rosemont write the holding-up: “As for filial and fraternal responsibility”, and the other seven start straight in on the noun.
Notice that no person is made here. 孝弟 stays the abstraction it was, and that’s the whole difference between this use and the one above.