A few very simple beginner questions

[renzhe]

I've never seen it printed.

But you hear it in speech. So it's probably right.

[creamyhorror]

This is strange. 没在 sounds weird to me, because I never say it (and don't think I've seen it in years of school material).

I just googled it, and I'm getting stuff like

严格来说“不”是不能修饰“在”的.../...我只知道“不在”后面是不能接动词的

--> i.e. "不在洗澡" is wrong grammatically...I can't believe I've saying it wrongly all these years

Also,

他昨天没在上海

他昨天不在上海

Difference?

Finally, the case of 书没在书架上放着: it took me a moment to realize this was correct because the basic structure is actually 书没(有)放着. I'm wondering if 书不在书架上放着 is correct, and whether it means "the book isn't (usually/to be) left on the bookshelf".

[chrix]

creamyhorror, according to the standard grammar, 不 is the correct way to negate 在 and 沒有 the correct way to negate 著, so what you've been saying is not wrong...

But 沒在 seems to be really frequent online (= colloquial speech), I wonder if this will influence the written language (or if it already has).

As far as 书没在书架上放着 is concerned, you're right, 在 is a location co-verb here, and 着 the aspect particle, thus is has to be 没...

[cababunga]

For what it worth, I was collecting frequencies of n-grams from the dump of Chinese Wikipedia the other day. In the result I see that 不在 occurs 4011 times, taking place 8319, and 没在 happens only 54 times, being 638489 "most frequent" n-gram used there.

I do realize that the content of Wikipedia is not really perfect corpus for analyzing the language, but still should give an idea.

[chrix]

Probably won't tell you much, because that way you get all these cases where 在 is a local coverb, basically everything where 不在 is followed by a noun. That's why you'd need a tagged corpus, where you could search for all cases of 不在 followed by a verb. In untagged corpora you'd need to check for every verb by hand...

[creamyhorror]

creamyhorror, according to the standard grammar, 不 is the correct way to negate 在 and 沒有 the correct way to negate 著, so what you've been saying is not wrong...

It's strange, because on this page the three responders say 不在 is the wrong way to negate an in-progress verb, grammatically speaking. <<说“不在洗澡”不符合语法规范，是因为“不”和“没”词性不同。严格来说“不”是不能修饰“在”的，虽然“不在洗澡”的意思大家都能明白。>> Yet Yip & Rimmington say "the negation of the continuation aspect is usually effected by the use of 不 with 在", giving examples like "她不在接电话。" So are Yip & Rimmington giving the common usage or the traditional/grammarian one?

Apparently 不在 and 沒在 are both acceptable for negating 在 as a main verb, e.g. in 他昨天（没在/不在）上海. Is this also standard?

I looked 不在 and 沒在 up in two web corpora, and found barely any hits for 不在 (all were used with respect to location) and none at all for 沒在. I guess they're not common in writing.

Edited March 10, 2010 at 03:25 PM by creamyhorror

[Shi Tong]

Could it be that my suggestion holds any water?

If someone is not in a town, then I would think I would hear 沒在, but if one expected them to be there, it would be 不在.

IMO, 不在 is more commonly used, and I would have thought that 沒在is colloqiual, but I hear them both from time to time and I think their useage is very slightly different.

[edelweis]

(I hope quoting books is not forbidden? else tell me and I'll delete)

In "Chinese grammar without tears" p181:

1. 不 is used to negate non-occurring or non-completed actions and to negate states.

...

(4) Non-action verbs - mostly copulative verbs and verbs indicating existence (in the past, present, or future)

Examples: 不是，不在，不像，不等于

p183

2. 没 is used to negate the completion of actions or changes. This use of 没 can often be regarded as the negation of 了. The main patterns in which 没 is used are:

...

C. Before 在, referring to past or present (not future)

在 as a main verb example 他现在没在

在 before the verb, meaning "in the midst of doing something" example 我没在吃东西啊

There are no further details about the difference, beyond the fact that one can express the future and the other can not...

Edit: also there is a sample sentence for an unrelated rule (rhetorical questions) on p18. I wonder, could one use 没在 instead?

我刚才还看见他了，他怎么会不在呢？ （他不会不在）

Also, how do you say that someone is not here any more? Is that 他不在了, or 他没在了？

Edited March 10, 2010 at 07:38 PM by edelweis

[Altair]

Interesting discussion on 没 and 不. I think I posed a question about his a long time ago, but worded it badly and did not get much of a response.

In Chinese: An Essential Grammar, Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimington write on page 44 （using only Pinyin that I have converted to characters for ease of reading):

"In negative 'action-in-progress' sentences, which rarely occur, the negator 不 comes before 在:

我不在根尼说，我在跟他说。“

I find interesting both their omission of any possibility of using 没 and their statement that this kind of negation is rare.

Two excellent grammar books that take almost diametrically opposite positions without so much as a nod to the existence of different patterns, even though both books make a point of discussing many variant patters in in other situations.

In A Practical Chinese Grammar, which I generally find quite comprehensive and informative, Hung-nin Samuel Cheung writes on pages 161-162:

"To negate a progressive sentence, we need to use 没有 mei2you instead of 不before the verbal unit, with or without 在. The final 呢,however, has to be dropped. 没有 may be shortened to 没 when standing before a verb, but it has to appear in its full form when used as a short answer. As a compound negative marker, mei2you is spelled as one word, the following are some examples."

Here are the examples, without numbering, labels, or Pinyin.

Q 你在看电视呢吗？

Are you watching T.V.?

A 没有，我没（有）在看电视。

No, I'm no watching T.V.

Q 早上八点钟的时候，你在打电话呢吗？

Were you using the phone this morning at eight o'clock?

A 没有，我没（有）(在)打电话，我在听新闻呢。

No, I wasn't using the phone, I was listening to the news.

Q 他在睡觉呢吗？

Is he taking a nap?

A 他没（有）(在）睡觉，他在整理房间呢。

He isn't taking a nap, he is in the midst of cleaning his room.

They go on further to say:

"The optionality of 在depends on whether the negative answer is followed by a positive description of what actually took place instead at the time in question."

I find interesting both his omission of any reference to the possibility of using 不 and the description of omitting 在in some cases.

So I'm not so sure about this "time topic" thing, wouldn't it just be enough to say that whereas English encodes both tense and aspect in its predicates, Chinese only does aspect? It's clear that languages also have time expressions typically expressed as adverbials, but I think you get this across the board.

I agree with this statement in a sense, but I think it can mislead.

First, I do not think that "tense" and "aspect" are always clearly defined in opposition to each other. I think it is clearer to think of "reference time" (i.e., time relative to the time of the utterance) and "relative time" (i.e., time relative to the reference time). Chinese aspects also have other subtleties, of course, but I think these are not so confusing.

Second, if you just say that Chinese verbs do not encode tense or that Chinese encodes tense in adverbs, it is hard to account for certain facts in a neat and concise way. For instance, while adverbial expressions like 很 can be focused in structures that appear after the verb, time expressions never can be. In my view, this is because time expressions are part of the topic and must normally be included within it.

Also, consider a sentence such as: "He is my friend" (他是我的朋友). English uses the present tense as a default, but this sentence has little or no emphasis on the present and does not exclude the applicability of the past or future. It really means something more like: "He = my friend", which is exactly the information transmitted by the Chinese. If I say: "He was my friend," the use of the past tense can mean that he is my friend no longer or simply that the context is in the past. As far as I can tell, these differences do not exist in the Chinese equivalent and cannot be clarified simply by using adverbials.

Also, consider a sentence such as: 他是我的朋友了。 Is it easier (as part of the theory, even if not in practice) to hunt for an implied tense, figure out what kind of 了is involved, and then guess at what change of state is indicated?

or...

To convert the 是 into something like a tenseless equal sign and know that 了 clarifies that the start of the state relative to the the time reference is important?

In the first instance, you guess at the proper tense and its hidden implications in English and guess that the change of state referenced is the change in knowledge of the hearer. In other words, you think of something like "He is my friend, but you may not have known that."

In the second instance, you think of something like: "He = my friend, and update the time reference with this additional background."

Lastly, I think if we say things like: "Chinese has no tenses." People simply will not believe it or will ignore it, since Chinese function words seem to behave like the tense affixes of other languages. I prefer saying something like: "Time reference is an obligatory characteristic of main verbs in English and similar languages. In Chinese, time reference is handled by the topic phrase, which may be expressed or implied. Chinese verbs may also be accompanied by additional function words that give further information about the time reference and how the rest of the statement relates to it."

Edited March 14, 2010 at 01:12 PM by Altair

[chrix]

Wow, this is actually quite interesting. Sorry I didn't mention my "standard grammar" above by name, it was Li and Thompson (p. 436f.). They're quite adamant about this that 沒 is out of the question. (And Yip and Rimmington largely seem to agree though they have a slightly different approach as they don't regard 著 as an aspect marker)

But after reading your post I checked my copy of Cheung, and he really says it must be 沒. So I went and looked up some others:

實用現代漢語語法, a grammar for CSL teachers, doesn't mention it at all, but 外国人实用汉语语法 takes the same stances as Cheung, in chapter 6, section 1, subsection 2, subsubsection 4, they say it has to be 沒 as well. Very interesting indeed, so in this the standard seems to be ill-defined. Without further research we won't be able to determine whether this was a regional difference or an instance of language change.

As for the tense/aspect issue, I actually agree with most of what you say.

As for the time adverbials, it's clear that they can express the time reference, but they do this in most languages. For me where the languages differ is whether they (obligatorily) encode tense in the verb as well or not. Even though the time reference is usually clear from context, many languages nevertheless encode tense explicitly (even though it's usually a mixture of tense and aspect), and that's where English differs from Chinese.

I'm of two minds about the didactic issue, as I still remember with a shudder when our instructor from China told us that 了 was a past tense marker. But how you should teach it is a separate issue from how you'd analyse it linguistically.

Edited March 13, 2010 at 10:26 PM by chrix

[jachristen]

This discussion has reminded me of another point of confusion for me. What's the difference between 没 and 没有? My grammar book keeps doing exactly what the quotes from some of the above posts do, writing 没 ( 有 ) in front of other verbs, but never really explaining why, or when to use the second character along with the first.

[Altair]

As far as I understand, 没有 and 没 are interchangeable, except that 没有 is always or almost always used by itself as a one-word answer to a question and 有没有 is also the usual or only way to ask a question using these words. I think 没有 is also the preferred form if it is used by itself without any other verb.

I think I hear 没 most often and just use this almost to the exclusion of the longer form, except for the two circumstances I mentioned.

I know that in some other parts of Chinese grammar there are mandatory or subtle differences between the use of one- and two-syllable equivalents (e.g., 读书 vs 阅读书籍）, but I do not recall hearing this about 没有 and have no advice as to whether there is any significant rhythmic difference.

I also wonder if there might be some preference between the two when you are trying to give different tones and different emphasis to a sentence, but I do not recall this either. Maybe some native speakers or someone with better Chinese than me can correct me or comment further.

[Shi Tong]

Hello everyone

Altair, very interesting.

Allow me to elaborate on something else that caught my thoughts about 没 and 不.

It seems to me that 没 is almost exclusively used after an accusation. So for instance, say if someone is accusing someone of stealing, they would almost definately say 没 instead of 不.

They may even just say 我没有 to suggest that they are not doing something.

Also, you can ask people: "你有在看电视吗", to which you can use the nagation 没有.

I wonder, however, what the official useage is, since this is anecdotal evidence from how people actually speak to each other in Taiwan.

[renzhe]

你有在看电视吗

I'm pretty sure that this is not correct on the Mainland. I believe it's an influence of the Taiwanese/Minnanese dialect, we had a thread on it some time ago.

EDIT: For example here though I admit that I'm not exactly sure what "completive aspect auxiliary" is

Edited March 17, 2010 at 02:21 PM by renzhe

[Shi Tong]

I'm pretty sure that this is not correct on the Mainland. I believe it's an influence of the Taiwanese/Minnanese dialect, we had a thread on it some time ago.

EDIT: For example here though I admit that I'm not exactly sure what "completive aspect auxiliary" is

Yes, this is a definate possibility.. and I agree.. what is completive aspect auxiliary?:lol:

I must say that the way that the Taiwanese use 没 and 不 definately defines it down to an art, so it's quite easy to know the differences, and you can definately say 没 instead of 不 in some specific situations to help with the definition of what's happening at the time.. so that's pretty useful.

I doubt that I would get full marks on a test though, since I think it's probably coloquial!

[Glenn]

I think a completive aspect auxiliary is the same as a perfective aspect marker, but we'll need chrix to verify that.

[chrix]

Joan Bybee draws a difference, see here, some linguists treat "completive" and "perfective" as the same, but due to the confusion between "perfective" and "perfect" aspect (as drawn in Slavic linguistics, for instance), and to the fact that boundedness plays an important role in Chinese, I prefer the term "completive".

Two questions for Shi Tong:

1. are you sure it's not 你又在看電視嗎

2. are you sure you can negate that this way: 我沒有在看電視, in the sense of "I haven't" rather than "I'm not"?

[Chris333]

Hello. I recently started studying Chinese as a hobby.

Sorry- I don't have anything constructive to add, but I just wanted to complement you on your interest in Chinese. I find it impressive that anyone would want to study Chinese as a hobby.

-Chris

[Shi Tong]

Hello Chrix.

Yeah, I know the difference between 有(3rd tone) and 又 (4th tone), the implication in sentance one being "you're watching TV again?!".

And yes, IMO you can negate this with 沒.

Of course, you can negate BOTH with 沒, but again, this may be coloquial use which isn't really standard.. but I've heard it a lot.

[roddy]

Also, you can ask people: "你有在看电视吗", to which you can use the nagation 没有.

You can use that as much as you want, but people outside of your living room are going to think you're wrong, not colloquial.