著

[82riceballs]

著 (zhe) adverbial particle

I encounter this word very often, but my IQ is not high enough to understand what "adverbial particle" means.

I'll provide examples to explain:

他瞇著眼睛（,）瞪我. He squinted his eyes and stared at me. (past tense, 過去式）

My questions:

1. is there supposed to be a comma there? I wrote the sentence, so I'm not quite sure about the reliability
   
2. would it also be correct to say "他瞇眼睛瞪我." ？ What is the purpose of the 著？Does it show past tense?
   

她過著量入為出的生活。 She lives within her income. (simple present tense; habitual action, 現在式)

Does 著 imply habitual action too? Here, I think it does, but I'm not sure.

Thanks in advance!

[rootfool]

is there supposed to be a comma there?

No,it needn't a comma here.

would it also be correct to say "他瞇眼睛瞪我." ？ What is the purpose of the 著？Does it show past tense?

It's wrong."瞪"means stare to sb with wide open eyes,and "瞇" means narrow eyes.So you can say "他瞪著我". And I advice you to use "眯" instead of "瞇",because the latter is more common,although they're absolutely the same.

"著" means the action is lasting or the state is keeping as a prep.

In the sentence "他瞪著我","瞪" is an action---"stare",so "著" means action is lasting---"is/was staring"

"她過著量入為出的生活","著" means the keeping the state(live within her income.)

hope it helps and it's a personal opinion.

[文言訓開班]

I'm not a native speaker, but my guess is that 着 is an adverbial particle here for two reasons. First, it's a "particle" because it's pronounced detoned, which would translate into PinYin as "zhe" (as opposed to "zhou4", "zhe2", or whatev). It's also the ongoing action suffix for the squinting, 眯着眼睛地.

Second, it's "adverbial" because saying 他眯着眼睛盯我 makes the sentence 他眯眼睛 into something that is not the focus of conversation, or not the active verb in the sentence. 他眯着眼睛地盯我. Also, 盯 means to stare at, or to ding someone.

[xianu]

the 著 is the -ing when following another verb. In both examples you have a S-V著-O MAIN V-O. I think they are calling it adverbial, because the first V+著 is descriptive of the main verb in the sentence, effectively making it an adverbial phrase.

Think: Squinting his eyes, he stared at me

and

Living a life within her means, she...

[Ari 桑]

Whats the difference between 他眯着我 and 他在眯我？

[rootfool]

Whats the difference between 他眯着我 and 他在眯我？

All of them are wrong in grammar.You can only say "他眯着眼睛" or "眯眼睛",and the later is a seldom usage."眯+sb" is wrong.

hope it helps and it's a personal opinion.

[文言訓開班]

他眯我 literally means "he's squinting me". doesn't make sense in English, doesn't make sense in Chinese. Maybe you want 他压扑我 (i think it's 扑) - he crushed me!

[xianu]

Whats the difference between 他眯着我 and 他在眯我？

Aside from what rootfool said, if we change the sentence to 她眯着眼睛and 他在眯眼睛"the difference between V+著 and 在+ is that the first is descriptive and is a fragment, "squinting his eyes, he..." the latter is active and can make a complete sentence, where the V after 在 is the main verb of the phrase/sentence, "He is squinting his eyes."

[82riceballs]

I think if you want to say "He is squinting at me" (i'm pretty sure you could say that in english), you would say 他在向我瞇眼睛. I think you could also say 他在對我瞇眼睛. I'm not sure if they make sense or not, but i know that the particles 向 對 indicate direction, i.e. "towards".

[Quest]

Slightly off topic, 著(zhu,zhe,zhao)住(zhu) I wasn't aware of the particle's etymology until now. The original "zhu" sound, which is written with 住, had shifted to "zhe" because of the 者 radical in the synonym 著.

[82riceballs]

cool!