I understand its usage as a possessive or modifying particle. Example, my = wode, his = tade, etc.
I have been studying on my own (Practical Audio-Visual Chinese, book 1), but I am really stumped! On page 100 it states:
I can not seem to grasp the meaning of this and when or where to use “de” in a sentence. I used to always say “Ni nianshu henhao” (You read very well) until a Taiwanese person told me I needed to say “Ni nianshu, niande henhao” (You read book, read’de’ very well).
Other examples: “Wo xie zi, xiede bu man.” (I don’t write slowly.)
“Wode laoshi jiaoshu, jiaode henhao.” (My teacher teaches very well).
Can anyone explain this to me? Any helpful replies would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
That’s a different ‘de’. The de you refer to is 得, known in my classes back home as the “complement of degree”. You put 得 after a verb and follow it with a description of the performance of the verb. The difference between 你念書很好 and 你念書念得很好 (or its short form if ‘book’ is already understood by context, 你念得很好), is the difference in English between “You read good” and “You read well”.
In its full form, where the object isn’t clear by context, it goes:
(subject)(verb)(object)(verb)得(degree)
In the short form:
(subject)(verb)得(degree)
Also, note of caution: if you say (verb)好, that actually means “completed (verb)ing” - 你寫好了沒? “Have you finished writing that?”
Hmm… they have the same pronunciation but are written with different graphs and do different things gramatically. But does its follow that they are different words? Anybody know if they diverged phonetically in early Mandarin?
Hi,
For completeness (not just to confuse everyone), there are three “de”-which should be mentioned together:
的 as an adjective particle, as in 紅色的帽子 “red-colored hat”
地 as an adverbial particle, as in 踴躍地參加 “take part enthusiastically”
得 as this complement of degree Tetsuo was talking about, which can follow a verb as in zuodehenhao “well done”, or redeyaoming “wicked hot”.
An important rule to remember is that the 2nd “de” is optional and may be omitted, while the others cannot.
There you go, more indisputable evidence that Chinese has grammar, and a good example why you cannot just study pinyin without at least becoming familiar w/ the characters.
There you go, more indisputable evidence that Chinese has grammar, and a good example why you cannot just study pinyin without at least becoming familiar w/ the characters.[/quote]
I agree that Chinese has grammar. Your second statement is unfounded. The three graphs you cite may simply be an orthographic convention designed to differentiate between three uses of the same particle. If the three are really different words, we would look at their phonetic history to see if they had different pronunications at one time.
Also, you could have easily given your examples and explanations in pinyin and the original poster could have understood what you meant.
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The particle ‘de’ has three distinct uses:
‘de’ as an adjective particle, as in “hongse de maozi” “red-colored hat”
‘de’ as an adverbial particle, as in yongyue de canjia “take part enthusiastically”
‘de’ asthis complement of degree Tetsuo was talking about, which can follow a verb as in zuodehenhao “well done”, or redeyaoming “wicked hot”.
An important rule to remember is that the 2nd “de” is optional and may be omitted, while the others cannot.
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There is some kind of subtle modal difference when your second example is used with or without the ‘de’. For example, you’ll often see people being urged to “Yongyue canjia”. In this case I think the ‘de’ cannot be used. Any native speaker care to weigh in?
And if I remember correctly. China does not use three different characters to distinguish these different uses–more evidence that this orthographic distinction is arbitrary rather than necessary.
Hi Feiren, just a friendly suggestion for you to consider – I think it’s easier to read pinyin if you include the tone marks (as numbers, if not diacriticals), at least for less well known words, e.g., yongyue in yongyue de canjia would be easier to read with numerals added as yong3yue4. Better yet, add both the graphs and pinyin with tones, e.g., “踴躍 yong3yue4”.
Actually, IIRC, they do use the same three different characters, although I have seen 的 and 地 used interchangably for the second.
I think there’s a little support that I know of for at least part of Feiren’s proposition that they may be arbitrary distinctions - I do recall in Hong Kong Cantonese, where a similar particle to “de” number 2 is used, the character varied between being 地,的, either of those two with a 口 radical, and the English letter D pretty much at random, which to me implies that there’s no distinct, definite reason for the character being what it is. Yes, I know Cantonese != Mandarin, but the parallel is there.
When there’s no object possible, the structure is just like the above-mentioned short form (in which the object was implicit), with the verb or stative verb (adj.) followed by the particle and complement, e.g.,
Well done, and thanks for the excellent post. I’m particuarly interested in how you go about researching these sorts of questiosn and where you learned some of this information. For example, I’m quite interested in oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions, as well as bamboo strips. I’d be interested in hearing any advice you might have or suggestiosn for learning more about those subjects.
Maybe we can figure out what’s going on by approaching the problem from a different perspective. It seems that the grammatical word(s) “de” enters into Chinese first, where a character(/s) is then applied to it. Since “de” is borrowed or a result of influence from a late Song/ early Yuan influence-- Mongolian would be a good guess.
[quote]Shenmu dialect is an important representative of Jin dialect of North Shaanxi and it is in a transition zone from Jin dialect of Shanxi and North Shaanxi to Inner Mongolia. . . .
The author analyzed the origin structure auxiliary words, aspect auxiliary words and tense auxiliary words. By combining auxiliary words and syntactical structure, the author finds many unusual auxiliary words and usage were found, when I made an analysis. For example,
Yes, excellent point, and one which I aways try to remain aware of when doing my etymology homework. It’s true of every single word in the language, since spoken language is more basic than the written.
[quote=“TaiOanKok”] Since “de” is borrowed or a result of influence from a late Song/ early Yuan influence-- Mongolian would be a good guess.
[/quote]
Very interesting point. I don’t know how much pre-conquest influence there would be, though, based upon commerce, immigration or political contact. I would expect it to be minimal, so to the extent that we see Song origins, I’d more readily accept an internal evolutionary origin. The Shenmu transitional-region dialect you mention is also a very interesting notion. I wonder to what extent it was already fully developed in pre-Yuan times, vs. the possibility that it represents or incorporates conquest-period influence.
This is not my forte, and unfortunately, I don’t have good sources for digging into this any more deeply. My own hasty analysis above was based almost entirely upon a cursory reading of the Hanyu Da Zidian entries, along with comments by an Academia Sinica scholar friend of mine. More careful research will likely lead to a better picture.
Looks like you’ve come up with a fine idea for a Master’s thesis, my friend.
Actually, I designed it so as to be able to indicate the pronunciations in a dictionary I’m writing, so I really only use it to type single, occasional syllables, for which it’s perfect.
Feiren said:
"Hmm… they have the same pronunciation but are written with different graphs and do different things gramatically. But does its follow that they are different words? "
Subsequent (im)posters seem to have somewhat eluded that question.
Although digging into the offerings of the past is a respectable and no doubt rewarding addiction, I believe the answer to the “different words” question should be based on current usage, both spoken and written, not on the past, however recent or worthy of consideration.
According to this, if it is accepted that they have indeed different functions, then they are different words.
If the pronunciation and graphic representation are the same, the only difficulty is whether the function is indeed different.
For example, it is debatable whether the DE marking “possession” and the DE marking “adjectival modification”, although they are pronounced the same and written using the same character, are really the same word.
Conversely, structures with “adjectival modification DE” and structures with “adverbial modification DE” may be both regarded as “modifier - modified word” structures, making the two DE the same word although they are differently written.
Similarly, the structure “verb + DE + complement” could be interpreted as the more general structure of " modified word + DE + modifier complement ", i.e. as a “modifier - modified word” (order not significant) structure, making “verb complement DE”, “possession DE”, “adjectival modification DE” and “adverbial modification DE” the same word.
Since it would be absurd to base our definition of words on the most abstract among possible structures (any structure can be interpreted as a “signifier + signifier + etc.” structure, making all words basically one and the same), the remaining option is to use the most detailed structure.
If this option is accepted, then all four DE are different (if you count the two DE, one marking “possession”, the other marking “adjectival modification”, as different).
The difficulty of using only this approach comes out in your post. Depending on how one catagorizes the words by function, you get a different number, 3 or 4. Also, if there were a sudden change (such as May 4th) that suddenly changed the writing system and conventional understanding of the function or meaning of two des (的&地), we might realize that simply looking only at current useage might not really tell you what you want to know.
Which is generally true, but history won’t tell you whether current usage is 3 or 4, or may even give the wrong answer.
I would go for 4 myself but I accept that people may have a different opinion here as they do on any subject as is put before them.
Thanks.