Is it just me or are the PAVC grammer sections not that useful? I just need a sanity check on this sentence from Book 2, page 39:
Why cant you say 中邊, the above sentence doesn’t make it clear. if 中＝centre/middle and 邊＝region, in English you can say centre/middle region can’t you?
Simple answer - 邊 doesn’t correspond to region at all. 邊 refers to the edge or side of something (see 邊界 border, 邊緣 edge, 旁邊 beside, etc.). 西邊 and 西部, for example, mean different things.
None of my English to Chinese dictionaries have 邊 as a meaning for “region.” A very odd explanation.
The explanation is horrible. But I can imagine saying "西邊 " for the western area of something, maybe I’m wrong but that’s my feeling. My interpretation is that the “area” sense of 邊 is an extension of the border/edge sense. As there’s no “central edge” of something, 邊 can’t be used to say “中邊.”
I’d say you can translate “邊” more or less directly as “side”, as in left side, western side, the side (of the road/one’s body/etc). Works for me anyway.
西方is Western area
Maybe it’s a misprint: “side or border or region” perhaps should have been “side or border region”.
I just got my first PAVC book.
Integrated Chinese > PAVC
This kind of thing shouldn’t even be a “grammar pattern” – even if you think teaching grammar patterns works!
I don’t know what works.
Someone enlighten me, please.
Search the Learning Chinese forum for “comprehensible input” if you want to know more. It is not a grammar-based approach, since acquisition of languages does not happen through the application of grammar rules in the first place.
Terry, got any good online links to discussion of the relation of “sentence patterns” to grammar in the Western linguistic sense? I’m sure there must be a few hefty boring academic tracts on the matter, but I’d rather avoid those…
Hi,
I do not teach grammar per se, so I’m afraid I don’t. I’m not sure if anyone has ever really sat down and thought about the relationship (if there is one… 
)
There are a number of “grammars” of Chinese if one likes grammar – Li and Thompson was pretty popular awhile back. In my way of thinking, though, studying grammar or reading a grammar book as a student of Chinese isn’t something to do when one is more advanced, to help you learn faster – it’s something to do if you feel like learning about linguistics. Most of the mistakes I hear in learners are nothing more than their good-faith effort to apply the rules they’ve been taught.
Been busy with enrolments and placement tests and what not. Thanks for the replies!
My original reason for expressing my frustration in the form of a forumosa post is that I was just getting a bit frustrated having to read and re-read the grammar explanations as many as three or four times before I can understand the English, sometimes just reading the chinese example text (after the english explination) is an easier way to learn what they are trying to say 
I agree that “side or border or region” should probably just be replaced with either “side or border” or “side or border region”. That was my initial assumption.
I agree comprehensible input is a much better way to learn grammar, but thats not the way it is taught where I am studying (: I steady/regular classes are going to help me overall, I can cope with rote learning grammar patterns (:
Terry, I was more interested in the linguistic theory angle rather than for any practical application… as for actual language study, nothing I hate more than grammar books, especially the idea of using the Western grammatical tradition (which came out of latin and Greek) to analyse Chinese.
But I am interested in the linguistic status of a “sentence pattern”.
That’s what I’m trying to say – I’m not aware that there is any formal relationship between a “sentence pattern” and any unit of grammar, large or small.
Grammar analyses are done by linguists. Sentence patterns are set up by teachers and publishers. The twain rarely meets.
Well, there is a link, although its by no means explicit…
By teaching “sentence patterns”, Chinese teachers/books are attempting to teach exactly what their counterparts in the West are up to when they teach grammar… which is how to follow the rules for correct sentence production…
but clearly Chinese “grammar” does not easily fit into Western conceptions of grammar, so we get sentence patterns instead…
eg instead of teaching the “past tense”, we get told how to use the various particles that do the equivalent job, as practically demonstrated by sentence patterns that employ them.
grammar analyses may well be set up by linguists, but its teachers that write books like “Side by side”.
I just think its weird that no one seems to think about this…
No, steev, the concept a teacher has of what “grammar” is is not the same as the concept a linguist has when he uses the same word.
Chinese grammar can be discussed in precisely the same linguistic terms as Western grammar if one wishes. The problem is ill-prepared teachers who do not know Linguistics and often have a weak knowledge of how the language they are teaching (and often their own native language) really works.
And BTW, the reason no one teaches the past tense in Chinese is that there is no tense in Chinese. There is aspect, showing the status of an action in terms of completion, not time. What passes for “past tense” in English is really the particle “le*” indicating that the action has been completed with regard to a certain point in time.
[quote=“ironlady”]No, steev, the concept a teacher has of what “grammar” is is not the same as the concept a linguist has when he uses the same word.
Chinese grammar can be discussed in precisely the same linguistic terms as Western grammar if one wishes. The problem is ill-prepared teachers who do not know Linguistics and often have a weak knowledge of how the language they are teaching (and often their own native language) really works.
And BTW, the reason no one teaches the past tense in Chinese is that there is no tense in Chinese. There is aspect, showing the status of an action in terms of completion, not time. What passes for “past tense” in English is really the particle “le*” indicating that the action has been completed with regard to a certain point in time.[/quote]
I’m just finishing PAVC I :yay:
Would you say that subject… yi3jing1… verb “le” … “le” is roughly equivalent to present perfect tense? Seems so to me. :s
The temporal marker is the “yijing”, but the “le” still only indicates completed action.
But that’s getting all linguistic and technical. The important thing is, what does it mean to an average bear on the street? If you want to express the idea that something has happened (I have eaten already [today]) you might well use that pattern. (Of course, the past perfect emphasizing experience would use the “guo” particle instead…)
I’m glad I don’t teach grammar, nor see the need to do so.