The Constructive Regularities of the Text of Lao Tzu

This paper aims to uncover the formation of the text of Lao Tzu not through the perspective of history and philosophy, but through the perspective of language and cognitive psychology. We begin with a comparison of all extant texts of Lao Tzu, including the bamboo version, the silk version, and all the other versions that we can find nowadays. We then proceed to analyze the text from various levels, such as word, sentence, chapter and volume in Lao Tzu. Our analytical perspective is derived from two propositions of Lao Tzu itself, namely daoheng wuming(道亙亡名）and zhengyan ruofan(正言若反）. We propose that there exists a “zhengruofan”(正若反）cognitive schema between dao(道）and yan(言）. Our conclusion is that this cognitive schema determines the constructive regularities of the text of Lao Tzu on different levels, such as word, sentence, chapter and volume. With this study we wish to demonstrate a new approach combining linguistics and psychology to the study of classical Chinese texts.