What is this 予以 doing in my sentence?

Question

From the meanings I find for '予以 = give, grant' I can't really see what it is doing here. Maybe the Chinese is '予以推进 = give/produce advancement'， but 予以 may also mean 'impose' I believe. Maybe the sense is 'force advancement'??

李记者：您认为我国在发展“低碳经济“方面，可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进。 吴先生： 我国在推进“低碳经济”时，。。。

Which policy/political measures do you think it is possible to adopt to advance China's 'low carbon economy'?

Edit：Just got a suggestion: Can I replace '予以‘ with '帮助‘？

Edit again:

What is not clear to me from your comments is: Is 予以 a particle or a word with meaning, or both at the same time? In wpt's example sentence below, I see no unavoidable reason to interpret '表扬‘ as a verb. It can equally be considered a noun and 予以 just means give. Why invoke special properties for 予以？

有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚 have special contributors should give praise. There are special contributors (who we) should give praise to.

Answer 1

予以 is a conjunction-like thing that is something like English "as a means of", "for purposes of", and is often used in officialese to keep things comfortably vague. Use it when you are writing a report to your boss.

Postscript:

My answer works when 予以 occurs between two verb phrases. I would call the phrases I used 'functional equivalents', not literal translations.

As Shawn's answer notes, 予以 sometimes occurs between noun phrase and verb. In this case, you will have to translate a different way. Here is another example:

• 有特殊貢獻者應予以表揚
• Those who have made special contributions should be recognized.

The grammar used here is literary Chinese, and the original meaning of 予以 as 'give + indirect obj marker' is very clear. The subject is the direct object, hence in English, the whole thing is passive. Many native speakers don't really know how to use this type of literary construction.

Answer 2

予以照顾 makes you put the object before the predicate, like 我对她予以照顾. Without the 予以, you should put the object after 照顾, like 我照顾她. Besides 予以照顾 is more formal than just 照顾.

Answer 3

I think you would better treat 予以 as 把, 被 kind of word. You can not replace it with 帮助 simply, it is a very complex sentence particle, does not mean any actual things, just for structure.

I have tried to replace it with 帮助, but the result is odd.

记者：您认为我国在发展“低碳经济“方面，可能会采取哪些政策措施帮助(我国)推进(于彼)。 吴先生： 我国在推进“低碳经济”时，。。。

As you can see, 予以 help you imply object and object complement, both of them are in subordinate clause and omitted. The revised one is right for grammar but very uncomfortable. Thank you for this question, I've never realize this word have such powerful quality.

Answer 4

I don't know whether 予以 is one word or two, but to better comprehend phrases using these two characters, I suggest treating them as two words, namely 予(give/provide) and 以(with).

The direct object is the preposition object following the word 以.

The indirect object is usually (sub)topicalized, and thus moved to the front, as in your example:

您认为我国在发展“低碳经济“方面，可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进 (a sub-subtopic)

Below are semantically equivalent rewordings:

您认为在发展“低碳经济“方面，我国可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进 (a subtopic)

在发展“低碳经济“方面，您认为我国可能会采取哪些政策措施予以推进 (the topic)

您认为我国可能会采取哪些政策措施給发展“低碳经济“方面作推進 (normal word order, replace archaic 予 with modern 給)

您认为我国可能会采取哪些政策措施推進发展“低碳经济“方面 (normal word order, with normal (verbal) use of the word 推進)

In cases where the indirect object is not topicalized, the normal word order prevails and this object should follow the verb 予. However, because 予 is archaic, we usually use its modern equivalents like 給, or use the archaic pronoun 之 as the indirect object, as in:

欲終取之必先予之

授之以鱼不如授之以渔.

授 and 予 are synonyms and mean give/provide. The second 授, however, means teach.

Note that 予以 tends to be followed by a verbal although that position accepts a nominal. Compare: grant us your approval and approve us.

Answer 5

I think the most important thing to help you understand the word "予以" is that this word comes from ancient Chinese. It's not a ordinary word in nowadays, rarely used in formal Chinese articles or government documents. Since it's from ancient Chinese, we'd better separate the word into "予" and "以". In ancient Chinese(文言文)，“予” means give/provide, and usually uses independently in sentence. See below:

予人口实 Give testimony (usually implies by accidentally)

“以” means with So, “予以推进”, could be translated into "give resources to help advancement" here.

By the way, there is a very useful site named 辞洋

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