Use of 之 in Mandarin Chinese

[biritululo]

 你们好(ni3menhao3)，

Can anyone explain to me the use of 之 (zhi1) in Mandarin? Is it like 的 (de)？What does it indicate? I know it's a particle but I'm not sure when or how it's used.

谢谢 (xie4xie4)！ 

Comments

[muckefuck]

之 is a Classical Chinese particle corresponding to (and probably ancestral to) 的. Nowadays, I only see it used to lend a somewhat formal/archaic flavour to the titles of books, songs, movies, etc. (For instance, the Jet Li blockbuster 笑傲江湖之東方不敗.)

[biritululo]

So it's not very commonly used then? I can't think of the exact contexts in which I've seen it, but I know I've seen it used commonly enough somewhere that I wanted to learn what it is.

谢谢！

[muckefuck]

Actually, there is one other Classical usage that occasionally crops up. 之 also functioned as a third-person direct object, e.g. 知之為知之 ("What [you] know, [you] know", Confucius).

[akibare]

As a pure point of trivia for anyone reading, that character corresponds to の "no" in Japanese and in old timey stuff you can see の written as 之 frequently.

...to which I should add, that の "no" in Japanese is very much like 的 (de) in Mandarin (from what I recall of college Chinese class) so this makes sense.