shuo1 cuo4

[freefall]

Hopefully it's okay that I'm inundating the grammar forum with questions... it's just that I have so many and can't always get answers that satisfy me from people around me.

So today a native speaker used shuo1 cuo4 to mean speak badly. This confuses me because I read that Chinese adverbs always come before the verb: "In Chinese the adverbs can be used only in front of the verbs or adjectives" http://tecfa.unige.ch/staf/staf-e/sun/staf15/cgrammar/cgrammer.html.

So what's up?

[skylee]

"shuo1 cuo4 " (note that it is not "shou1") is ok.

I don't know how to explain grammar of Chinese. But do you think this, from the webpage you quoted, might shed light on your question -

complementary structure: Similarly, in this kind of structures the organised characters or other grammatical units also have subordinations and they form a complementary relationship, e.g. in 说清楚 (say clearly), 清楚 (clear/learly) serves as a conplementary part to show the effect of 说 (say). This kind of structure is different from the above one in that the complementary part always appears after the main part (the verb here).

[gato]

说清楚 (say clearly), 清楚 (clear/learly) serves as a conplementary part

I don't understand why "清楚" is called a "complementary part" here when it clearly functions as an adverb when translated into English.

[HashiriKata]

Adverbs vs Complements:

In Chinese grammar, it's customary to refer to the modifier of the verb either as an adverb or a complement depending its position relative to the verb it modifies:

Ta manmande shuo. (He speaks slowly (adverb))

Ta shuo de hen man. (He speaks slowly (complement))

[gato]

Is there a good reason for this custom?

[HashiriKata]

Off my head, I can only say this:

1. The syntactic behaviours of the two types are very different.

2. It's more difficult to tell the subtle difference in terms of meaning but in short, the adverb describes the manner of doing things as intended by the subject whereas the complement tends to describe the manner as observed from the outside.

From the ealier examples:

Ta manmande shuo (by intention)

Ta shuo de hen man (I think)

[FSO]

I'm pretty sure 说错 is actually a verb+object phrase representing what in English would be a verb in an intransitive role. Other examples would be "to sing" (唱歌) and "to dance" (跳舞). For 说错, the object, 错误 (error, mistake) is shortened to a single character.

我说错了 can mean "I misspoke" or "I spoke incorrectly" (note the intransitive verb in English.)

[HashiriKata]

I'm pretty sure 说错 is actually a verb+object phrase

No, 你说错了，FSO!

说错 is not a long the line of 唱歌, 跳舞 but is along the line:

说对

做好

听见

看完

You'll have noticed that the 2nd character in each of the units is not a noun but is an adjective, and so 错 in 说错 should also be an adjective (错 of course can be a noun, but not in this combination).

Hope this helps

[freefall]

The complementary structure you mentioned would be like "shuo de hen cuo" I assume. This is different...

I can't see chinese chars on this computer so sorry if you already explained it.

[HashiriKata]

The complementary structure you mentioned would be like "shuo de hen cuo" I assume.

Freefall, it's common to say "shuo de hen man" but it's not common to say "shuo de hen cuo", because "shuo cuo" already exists to express the same idea.

[FSO]

No, 你说错了，FSO!

说错 is not a long the line of 唱歌, 跳舞 but is along the line:

说对

做好

听见

看完

You'll have noticed that the 2nd character in each of the units is not a noun but is an adjective, and so 错 in 说错 should also be an adjective (错 of course can be a noun, but not in this combination).

Hope this helps

Ahh, HashiriKata, your point is well-taken.

说错 is indeed a "resultative complement", where the adjective following the verb describes the "result" of the action.

Hope I didn't cause any undue confusion!