Pinyin question (fàngzài dìshang or fàng zài dìshang?)

[ablaze]

What's officially correct? Are "fàng" and "zài" to be written together?

[muyongshi]

Technically written separately. But honestly if it is for your own personal study, what ever will help you remember things better.

[jiangping]

According to the ABC dictionary, if a verb and its complement are both monosyllabic they should be written as one word. For example, gǎohuài 搞壞 "to break/ruin sth". Here I think the 在 is functioning as a complement to 放, so I'd say it should be written as one word. Also, I'm not sure that the 在 takes a tone in complement position... can anyone confirm this? Anyway, my guess would be to write it as “fàngzài" or "fàngzai".

[muyongshi]

It's not a compliment according to my understanding. It is a place word.

[Guest Pipas]

fàngzai is correct

[jiangping]

muyongshi:

I think you'd find it hard to show that 在 is a "place word". 在地上 forms a locative complement here, and is so called because it "completes" the meaning of 放. You can see a similar construction with 寫給他一封信 xiěgei tā yì fēng xìn.

As for matters of pinyin orthodoxy I don't think it makes much difference, and I've seen different books use different ways of writing it.

[ablaze]

Thanks for clearing that up guys, I wondered why it was written together in my textbook - now I know.

[renzhe]

I may be butting in like a total n00b without a deep understanding of pinyin rules, but I've always understood it that words should be written together. Or phrases. 放在 is neither.

搞壞 can stand alone, 放在 can't. 在 on its own is not a complement, and if it forms a complement with other words, then the complement must be separated.

In fact, reading through the rules, I found this:

7. Function Words (xūcí) are separated from other words:

....

7.2 Prepositions:

zài qiánmiàn (in the front),

shēng yú 1940 nian (was born in 1940)

So I'm with muyongshi on this one.

On the other hand, some online dictionaries list 放在 as a word, "to place something at".

None of my paper dictionaries do, though.

Edited October 25, 2009 at 07:47 PM by renzhe

[imron]

I agree with Muyongshi and Renzhe that they should be separate.

[muyongshi]

Oh and whether or not they should be placed together (which they shouldn't btw ) zài should not be said 轻声 in this. 口语 will not emphasize the fourth tone on it as much but it is not a true 轻声.

[gougou]

First of all, I don't think this is something you should worry about too much, as pinyin is just a transliteration and not the language itself its rules are not followed too strictly (Beijing street signs for example don't use an apostrophe before syllables starting with a vowel).

As to your question, I personally would feel more comfortable writing them separately, but then again I also would feel more comfortable not saying 放在了地上 - which apparently native speakers feel very comfortable saying. So I guess jiangping has a point here.

[Hofmann]

What a pain.