4 ms·

There's a lot of complexity to Mandarin grammar and syntax under the surface though. 1. A rather common grammatical gotcha in everyday Mandarin is what is the

by vore 4y ago

There's a lot of complexity to Mandarin grammar and syntax under the surface though. 1. A rather common grammatical gotcha in everyday Mandarin is what is the grammatical function of 把 and when do you use it? Native speakers are able to easily tell when it's correctly and incorrectly used, but for learners it's completely inscrutable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C7%8E_construction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C7%8E_construction 2. Syntax is constrained by prosody, which is also extremely unintuitive to Mandarin learners. For instance, you can say 我在走路 ("I am walking [the road]") but 我在走 ("I am walking") sounds syntactically incomplete, even though it has all the semantics of 我在走路 and you have to insert the meaningless 路 for the prosody to sound correct (you would say "我在走路" even if you weren't walking on a road at all!). 3. 了 is not a past tense marker at all, you can also use it in certain non-past tense constructions, e.g. 他要吃了吗 for "Is he going to eat?" and you must omit it in certain past tense constructions, e.g. 我还没去过北京 for "I haven't been to Beijing yet." 4. 们 is not always a pluralizer: sometimes it is e.g. 同学 (classmate) -> 同学们 (classmates) is fine, but 牛 (cow) -> 牛们 (cows) sounds a little weird. 们 is much more similar in function to the Japanese 達 and means something more like "and company", e.g. you could say 李先生们 to mean "Mr. Li and company" and definitely not "Mr. Lis". In fact, most of the time, plurals in Mandarin are actually completely implicit and you have to figure it out from context!

haneul 4y ago
My understanding of Mandarin is not strong, so these questions may sound terribly silly: Is “我还没去过北京” considered past tense? It’s something that hasn’t been done, so I’m confused as to how that could be in the past. For things like “我在走路”, is it not just needing a thing to receive the action, even if a filler? Or are there cases where you don’t need a filler? Also, for “他要吃了吗”, is that not a statement from the past perspective of a (desired) completed action? Kind of like “我卖了这些车以后”?
- vore 4y ago
  I would characterize 我还没去过北京 as past perfect tense but in the negative: if "I have been to Beijing" is past perfect in the affirmative, then "I haven't been to Beijing" is past perfect in the negative. Maybe a more straightforward example I should've gone with is "我去过北京" for "I've been to Beijing". Regarding 我在走路, yes, 路 acts as a filler for prosody purposes. If the prosody is fine, then you don't need it, e.g. 他走的很快 (swapping 我 for 他 here because it sounds kind of weird to say such a sentence about yourself) takes no noun just like the fragment 他在走, but mustn't use the filler noun 路 (他走路的很快 is incorrect). "我卖了这些车以后" I think is more like "After I sold these cars", where "sold" is definitely past tense here. "他要吃了吗？" expresses "Is he going to eat?", where 吃 hasn't taken place in the past.
danieltanfh95 4y ago
1. any example on how this is confusing? 把 is "to do to". like 你吃了饭 you ate rice vs 你把饭吃了you did eat the rice etc 2. Its grammatically correct to say "我在走" but it sounds better when its a "pair" so colloquially it uses a 词, which is a pair of characters which may just say the same thing. you could also say 我在走着 which adds no extra meaning but pads it to be a pair 3. 了 is meant for something in the past, past perfect tense is not the same as past tense, past perfect tense is about ambiguity not time. 4. 们 has the 人 radical, so its mean for humans. Otherwise you're to use counting particles instead, plus 很多 or 几 or some other particle to emphasise it.
- vore 4y ago
  1. The interpretation is straightforward but the construction is not: why is 他把饭吃了 grammatical but 他把我帮了 not, despite both being SOV constructions you can make SVO (他饭吃，他帮我）? 2. 走路 I agree colloquially you can say 我在走 even if it feels a bit fragmenty. I do think there’s a lot of difficulty again in the construction: He’s walking: 他在走（路） He walks quickly: 他走路很快/他走得很快 but not 他走很快 He walks to my home: 他走到我家 but not 他走路到我家 3. I guess this one depends on your view of past tense and if past perfect you consider a subset of past tense or separate: in any case 了 is not a past tense marker, since you can use it to talk about the future (e.g. 他要来了 for “he is about to arrive”) 4. I just wanted to point out that 们 is not a generic pluralizer and the generic pluralizer is usually implicit: besides, particles lie all the time in Chinese: half the words with the 纟 radical have nothing to do with silk!
- sowbug 4y ago
  Mandarin beginner here. On #2, my pet theory is that it's easier to disambiguate zǒulù than just zǒu in the spoken language. My teacher often says "word's character" (e.g. yī de yīshēng, 醫的醫生, probably bad example and/or just wrong, to distinguish from other characters that sound like 醫). I once calculated that there are only about 600 different sounds in Mandarin -- not many more than toki pona! -- so if you tend to pair sounds into concepts, that's a much richer pool to draw from.
dwohnitmok 4y ago
> Syntax is constrained by prosody, which is also extremely unintuitive to Mandarin learners. Definitely true, but I don't think your analysis holds. Prosody is an important part of determining when you need bisyllabic or monosyllabic words in Chinese which doesn't have an equivalent in English, but you don't fill it in with what are effectively nonsense words. > you have to insert the meaningless 路 for the prosody to sound correct (you would say "我在走路" even if you weren't walking on a road at all!) Not really. 路 still has some semantic content. E.g. if you're walking about indoors in your house it sounds weird to say "走路." I do agree that a bisyllabic word sounds better there. Other context and emphasis could also make 我在走 work (I am walking for example), but often times that ties back to prosody as you say. > 们 is not always a pluralizer It is generally a pluralizer with the constraint that it must be applied for people. That's why it sounds weird applied to cows. 李先生们 could actually mean "Mr. Lis" (i.e. a group of men all with that surname, or some slang usage of "Mr. Li" in the same way you might say "they're a bunch of Benedict Arnolds"). Indeed that was my first instinct when you wrote that phrase. I don't understand what you mean by "and company." That's not how I would understand 李先生们. Also historically, 们 used to be an even more general people pluralizer that could be applied to demonstratives. E.g. in Song Dynasty Mandarin 那们 is perfectly acceptable and means "those people." It has become more restricted in modern usage. > In fact, most of the time, plurals in Mandarin are actually completely implicit and you have to figure it out from context! This is true.
- vore 4y ago
  > Not really. 路 still has some semantic content. E.g. if you're walking about indoors in your house it sounds weird to say "走路." I do agree that a bisyllabic word sounds better there. Other context and emphasis could also make 我在走 work (I am walking for example), but often times that ties back to prosody as you say. That’s a good point, and I think if you wanted to talk about walking indoors the prosody requirements make it even more difficult (我在我家里走来走去？) > I don't understand what you mean by "and company." That's not how I would understand 李先生们. I’ve definitely seen writings like “毛泽东先生们” but perhaps the usage is a little more archaic than I thought! I do think you’re right in that the usage really is just a pluralizer for people rather than my wackier definition.

by vore 4y ago

haneul 4y ago

My understanding of Mandarin is not strong, so these questions may sound terribly silly: Is “我还没去过北京” considered past tense? It’s something that hasn’t been done, so I’m confused as to how that could be in the past. For things like “我在走路”, is it not just needing a thing to receive the action, even if a filler? Or are there cases where you don’t need a filler? Also, for “他要吃了吗”, is that not a statement from the past perspective of a (desired) completed action? Kind of like “我卖了这些车以后”?

vore 4y ago
I would characterize 我还没去过北京 as past perfect tense but in the negative: if "I have been to Beijing" is past perfect in the affirmative, then "I haven't been to Beijing" is past perfect in the negative. Maybe a more straightforward example I should've gone with is "我去过北京" for "I've been to Beijing". Regarding 我在走路, yes, 路 acts as a filler for prosody purposes. If the prosody is fine, then you don't need it, e.g. 他走的很快 (swapping 我 for 他 here because it sounds kind of weird to say such a sentence about yourself) takes no noun just like the fragment 他在走, but mustn't use the filler noun 路 (他走路的很快 is incorrect). "我卖了这些车以后" I think is more like "After I sold these cars", where "sold" is definitely past tense here. "他要吃了吗？" expresses "Is he going to eat?", where 吃 hasn't taken place in the past.

danieltanfh95 4y ago

1. any example on how this is confusing? 把 is "to do to". like 你吃了饭 you ate rice vs 你把饭吃了you did eat the rice etc 2. Its grammatically correct to say "我在走" but it sounds better when its a "pair" so colloquially it uses a 词, which is a pair of characters which may just say the same thing. you could also say 我在走着 which adds no extra meaning but pads it to be a pair 3. 了 is meant for something in the past, past perfect tense is not the same as past tense, past perfect tense is about ambiguity not time. 4. 们 has the 人 radical, so its mean for humans. Otherwise you're to use counting particles instead, plus 很多 or 几 or some other particle to emphasise it.

vore 4y ago
1. The interpretation is straightforward but the construction is not: why is 他把饭吃了 grammatical but 他把我帮了 not, despite both being SOV constructions you can make SVO (他饭吃，他帮我）? 2. 走路 I agree colloquially you can say 我在走 even if it feels a bit fragmenty. I do think there’s a lot of difficulty again in the construction: He’s walking: 他在走（路） He walks quickly: 他走路很快/他走得很快 but not 他走很快 He walks to my home: 他走到我家 but not 他走路到我家 3. I guess this one depends on your view of past tense and if past perfect you consider a subset of past tense or separate: in any case 了 is not a past tense marker, since you can use it to talk about the future (e.g. 他要来了 for “he is about to arrive”) 4. I just wanted to point out that 们 is not a generic pluralizer and the generic pluralizer is usually implicit: besides, particles lie all the time in Chinese: half the words with the 纟 radical have nothing to do with silk!
sowbug 4y ago
Mandarin beginner here. On #2, my pet theory is that it's easier to disambiguate zǒulù than just zǒu in the spoken language. My teacher often says "word's character" (e.g. yī de yīshēng, 醫的醫生, probably bad example and/or just wrong, to distinguish from other characters that sound like 醫). I once calculated that there are only about 600 different sounds in Mandarin -- not many more than toki pona! -- so if you tend to pair sounds into concepts, that's a much richer pool to draw from.

dwohnitmok 4y ago

> Syntax is constrained by prosody, which is also extremely unintuitive to Mandarin learners. Definitely true, but I don't think your analysis holds. Prosody is an important part of determining when you need bisyllabic or monosyllabic words in Chinese which doesn't have an equivalent in English, but you don't fill it in with what are effectively nonsense words. > you have to insert the meaningless 路 for the prosody to sound correct (you would say "我在走路" even if you weren't walking on a road at all!) Not really. 路 still has some semantic content. E.g. if you're walking about indoors in your house it sounds weird to say "走路." I do agree that a bisyllabic word sounds better there. Other context and emphasis could also make 我在走 work (I am walking for example), but often times that ties back to prosody as you say. > 们 is not always a pluralizer It is generally a pluralizer with the constraint that it must be applied for people. That's why it sounds weird applied to cows. 李先生们 could actually mean "Mr. Lis" (i.e. a group of men all with that surname, or some slang usage of "Mr. Li" in the same way you might say "they're a bunch of Benedict Arnolds"). Indeed that was my first instinct when you wrote that phrase. I don't understand what you mean by "and company." That's not how I would understand 李先生们. Also historically, 们 used to be an even more general people pluralizer that could be applied to demonstratives. E.g. in Song Dynasty Mandarin 那们 is perfectly acceptable and means "those people." It has become more restricted in modern usage. > In fact, most of the time, plurals in Mandarin are actually completely implicit and you have to figure it out from context! This is true.

vore 4y ago
> Not really. 路 still has some semantic content. E.g. if you're walking about indoors in your house it sounds weird to say "走路." I do agree that a bisyllabic word sounds better there. Other context and emphasis could also make 我在走 work (I am walking for example), but often times that ties back to prosody as you say. That’s a good point, and I think if you wanted to talk about walking indoors the prosody requirements make it even more difficult (我在我家里走来走去？) > I don't understand what you mean by "and company." That's not how I would understand 李先生们. I’ve definitely seen writings like “毛泽东先生们” but perhaps the usage is a little more archaic than I thought! I do think you’re right in that the usage really is just a pluralizer for people rather than my wackier definition.