mysterious sample sentence

[edelweis]

This is a sample sentence from dic.cn

比赛刚刚开始就下起雨来。

is there a mistake? Else could someone explain 就下起雨来 ?

thanks!

[renzhe]

It's a combination of 下雨 and the complement 起来 -- it started raining.

[Caidanbi]

I agree. I've seen this type of pattern used quite a bit, I'm sure you will too...

[monsterhaha]

no mistake .下起雨来means it begains rain .

there are some examples:吃起饭来，唱起歌来，读起报来，睡起觉来，ect .in here'…起…来'means start or begain.it is a good and useful structure,haha

[edelweis]

thanks all

Actually I encountered both 下雨 and 起来 before but I didn't expect them to be mixed up this way so I was wondering about a possible typo.

Is there a way to say the same thing without mixing the words, or is this mixing mandatory in this kind of sentence?

Does this kind of mixing happen also with other words besides 起来?

Is there a grammar rule name that I can look up? (I mean like "verb reduplication")

[edit] ok I found it in "extended meanings of the compound directional complement" (in the section right after the last section I studied ). It says the object (person or thing, not place) can be placed either before or after lai or qu. I guess this means 雨 is the object in 下雨? (for some reason I thought it was the subject...)

Edited March 5, 2010 at 07:56 AM by edelweis