本文在中國傳統詩學語境的言、象、意（境）關係中重議中國傳統詩歌的意象問題。循「尋言以觀象」的思路，作者先自「言」入手，討論構成中古山水意象的名詞性質。借鑑漢語學界對中古名詞的最新研究，作者確定其時用於文人案頭詩歌寫作的實體名詞應主要為集名，指稱雖未必個體卻有空間形狀的事物。詩人以極精簡的性狀字修飾集名確非以準確詳切為追求。然這種「不完全」卻成為中國詩最重要的藝術手段之一，與古人「意想」恍兮惚兮的宏大之「象」的思路一脈相承。本文考察了詩人藉助種種「不完全」形式創造的曖曖空間。基於中古詩山水書寫中物質名逐漸增加的事實，本文第三節轉入中古詩歌物質意象的討論，探討了物質名與集名的截搭、將兩個具迷離、模糊語義的性狀字的複合用作體詞的現象等等，提出去精確化、去物質化的傾向旨在指稱詩人類似「場」的感知。而這恰與在「尋象以觀意」中展開一曖曖森森、不見邊際之「境」在光韻形態上相合。本文結論結合同期或稍晚中國山水繪畫的發展，討論其中經歷的「造化思想革命」。

This article re-discusses the matter of image in traditional Chinese poetry, a subject which in particular attracted Sinology of the 1970s. In returning to Chinese poetics, the concept image is contextualized within the trinity of yan 言, xiang 象, and yi 意. The author first follows the approach “to look at xiang by finding yan” 尋言以觀象 and defines the nature of the nouns used for shanshui 山水 (literally, “mountains and rivers”) images in verse. By applying the recent studies of Chinese linguistics to his research, the author determines that at the time, the nouns used in writings of literati to designate numerous entities are mainly set nouns, which denote things that may not necessarily be individual but have a define shape or outline in the spatial dimension. When using an extremely simplified adjectival character, or zi 字, to modify a set noun, the poet was not in pursuit of achieving an accurate or detailed description. Nevertheless, for the poets, this kind “incompleteness” became one of their most important artistic means, which derived from the same origin of the vague greatness of xiang within the thought of ancient thinkers. The article inspects how the various phenomena of incompleteness assisted in creating an obscure and vast space in poetry. Considering the use of mass nouns was gradually increasing during the Middle Ages, the author moves on to discuss this kind of image in the third section. By exploring how mass nouns are compounded with set nouns as well as how two adjectival characters with the meaning of vagueness are compounded as nouns, this article contends that de-accurization and dematerialization were used to designate the poets’ perception regarding something similar to “field” within modern physics. Nevertheless, this awareness in terms of aural form is exactly what we see in jing 境, or the indistinct and limitless inscape of poetry, which could become “visible in the mind by finding xiang” 尋象以觀意. In conclusion, the present article by referring to the development of Chinese landscape paintings of the same period discusses “the intellectual revolution of the creation of nature” within Chinese art.