verb sequences and 了

[freefall]

听见铃声他立即下地，穿上鞋去开门 (Chinese Grammar without Tears, 66)。

According to the book, you have a sequence of verbs so you cannot use aspectual 了。Is this correct? What about a modal 了 at the very end?

听见铃声他立即下地，穿上鞋去开门了。 ?

The other example:

早上起床以后，我刷牙，洗澡，梳头，半小时以后才去吃早饭。

So you really cannot say:

早上起床以后，我刷了牙，洗了澡，梳了头。。。

Also, I know modal 了 can be used to indication completion of situation / emergence of a new one in the future. For example:

下个月这个孩子就一岁了。

Okay, now take this example:

我明天写完了三封信就去睡觉。

I was told by a native speaker that modal 了 CANNOT be inserted at the end:

X 我明天写完了三封信就去睡觉了。

What gives?

And finally........

我写完了三封信就去睡觉。

If you remove the time expression, it refers to the present: "After I've written 3 letters, I'll go to bed" (according to my grammar book). Question: how do you distinguish this with the past tense? Could this sentence also mean: "After I wrote 3 letters, I went to bed"?

[trien27]

X 我明天写完了三封信就去睡觉了。

Invisible rule: Cannot have 2 了in the same sentence.

Either it's:

X 我明天写完了三封信就去睡觉。(construction based on English translation) = X 明天我写完了三封信就去睡觉。(Usual Chinese construction)

or

X 我明天写完三封信就去睡觉了。(construction based on English translation) = X 明天我写完三封信就去睡觉了。(Usual Chinese construction)

Usually in Chinese grammar, the subject (我) is put after the time phrase (明天), & most of the time, the time phrase is put at the beginning of the sentence.

[Shadowdh]

Invisible rule: Cannot have 2 了in the same sentence.

I think this isnt correct... In my Chinese class we have been told that you can have two 了in the same sentence... one follows the verb and the other placed at the end of the sentence... I will look up the exact reasons and refresh my memory as to why...

[HashiriKata]

In my Chinese class we have been told that you can have two 了in the same sentence...

你在伦敦住了几年了？

[YuehanHao]

Not to sound smart, since I am just copying out of a book(!), but when the verb-了and sentence-了 are combined, it indicates a past action has progressed to the present or has current relevance. This sentence form is often used with 已经：

我们已经学了一年的中文了。 （I have already been studying Chinese for one year now.)

已经下了三天雨了。 (It has already been raining for three days now.)

Those are my own English translations, so they may be screwed up a little bit, but it should be something close to what I wrote.

约翰好！

[Altair]

According to the book, you have a sequence of verbs so you cannot use aspectual 了。Is this correct?

The term "sequence of verbs" can mean different things. As I think you are using it here, I think the rule would be 70% correct. I think a better way of stating it would be to say that when you have an introductory clause with no conjunctive adverb (e.g., 以后 yi3hou4), it is not usual for the verb in that clause to use aspectual 了. Aspectual 了 is possible, however, if there is an intent to have the two verbs express separate events that are clearly separated in time. In such a case, the first verb could be rendered in English with the equivalent of "having [verb]ed,".

In the above sentence, even though we know that 听见铃声 clearly precedes 他立即下地, they are expressed as a single event. One way to test this is whether you could say "upon [verb]ing" in English. Notice that "upon" requires an imperfect form in English and corresponds to an absence of 了; whereas "having" requires a perfect form and requires the presence of aspectual 了.

What about a modal 了 at the very end?

听见铃声他立即下地，穿上鞋去开门了。 ?

In my view, there is no rule against adding modal 了 at the end. In this particular case, I think it would be more likely that modal 了 would not be necessary, but his depends on your meaning and the full context.

So you really cannot say:

早上起床以后，我刷了牙，洗了澡，梳了头。。。

I agree that this sentence is not really correct, but I do not think it is because of the multiple occurrences of aspectual 了. The problem is that there are only very narrow circumstances in which verb object compounds will allow the presence of aspectual 了 between the two parts of the compound. Aspectual 了 does not indicate past time, but rather indicates a focus on the fact that the action of the verb is concluded with respect to something else. If that "something else" is the present, then modal 了 would be necessary (and the aspectual 了 could even be deleted in most cases).

I was told by a native speaker that modal 了 CANNOT be inserted at the end:

X 我明天写完了三封信就去睡觉了。

The problem with this sentence is that it refers to the future. When modal 了 is used with future events, it means that everything is concluded and the scene is set for the future event to occur. In other words, nothing will intervene between now and the future event. This is why grammar books say that one use of 了 is to indicate the imminent future. In this sentence, 我去睡觉了 is not imminent.

我写完了三封信就去睡觉。

If you remove the time expression, it refers to the present: "After I've written 3 letters, I'll go to bed" (according to my grammar book). Question: how do you distinguish this with the past tense? Could this sentence also mean: "After I wrote 3 letters, I went to bed"?

This meaning of 就去睡觉 is ambiguous. It does not refer to any specific time frame. Although the most frequent meaning would indeed be: "I'll go to bed," it could also mean: "I used to go to bed," "I headed for bed," or even "I went to bed." If you add modal 了 at the end, it would indicate that nothing else relevant happened until after you went to bed or up until the moment of speaking. Without 了, it suggests that there is more to say about what happened as you went to bed.