please help me with "有什么事儿吗"

[Alchemist]

Hello,

I'm having some troubles with sentences ending with the words 有什么事儿吗.

This is a small example in a dialog:

A: 现在王军在不在教室？

B: 不在。你找他有什么事儿吗？

A: 我还他这本词典。

Reading the whole dialog, I get the feeling that B is asking the reason why A is looking for Wang Jun. So, is it like asking "为什么你找他？" I just can't understand the structure of the sentence "你找他有什么事儿吗".

Can anyone enlighten me please? Thank you!

Lucio

[skylee]

Is "that's the way we speak" an acceptable answer?

Yes it is like "why do you want to speak to him". But I would say B is a friend of 王軍's and would like to help you with your "事兒" if he could. So after A's answer, B would probably say, "你給我吧，我替你交給他。"

Probably this doesn't help explain the sentence structure.

[beirne]

You understand the sentence correctly. I believe this is an example of a purpose serial construction. A serial construction has two clauses without any particle or other connective word in between them. All that goes between the two verbs are noun phrases, such as 他 in this case. In a purpose serial construction the second clause explains the reason for the first clause. So here "有什么事儿吗" is the explanation, in interrogative form, for 你找他.

Other examples, from Intermediate Chinese by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimington, are:

Peng2youmen lai2 wo3 jia1 kan4wang4 wo3

My friends came to my house to visit me.

Wo3men quan2 jia1 qu4 hai3 bian1 du4jia4.

The whole family went to the seaside on holiday/to take a holiday.

These samples aren't that much different from English. Insert "to" between the Chinese clauses and you have a reasonably literal translation. I had to read Alchemist's sentence a few times myself, though, because "have what matters?" is phrased differently than how it would be said in English. That's just idiom, as skylee says. The sentence is otherwise a simple purpose serial construction.

[Alchemist]

Thank you for your explanations... Now I see things a bit more clearly, but there's something that still puzzles me...

Please compare the dialog of my previous post with this one:

A: 请问，王军在不在？

B: 不在。晚上他在。您有什么事儿？

Here, the 吗 is missing, as is usual with sentences already containing an interrogative item such as 什么. Yet, in the previous example, the sentence does end with 吗. Why is that? Would it be possible to say "你找他有什么事儿？" or not?

[beirne]

Good point. I didnt' think about the 什么 and 吗. I would guess that in the original sentence the question translates "do you have something for him" and the second is "What do you have for him?".

I could be wrong on this, but posted my thoughts so I can be corrected if necessary.

[Alchemist]

Uh oh... I read the first dialog on my book again and... I found out I was reading a 什么 where there was none...

So sentence I wrote in my first post was actually "你找他有事儿吗？" The sentence construction still looks a bit "funny" to me, but at least I canceled the 什么/吗 problem. :-)

[Quest]

The sentence construction still looks a bit "funny" to me

It's just a reversed way of saying 你有什么事需要找他？What problem do you have (what's the matter) that you come look for him?

or 你有事要找他吗？Do you have some problems/issues/things/matters so that you need to look for him?

[xiaomawang]

"你找他有事儿吗？" could be interpreted as 'You look for him for something?'

[BeijingSlacker]

Another thing you might wanna know is that "为什么你找他?" is a fairly rude sentence. No native speakers would normally use it in this kinda of situations.

[sandra_49202@yahoo.com]

how can I read these theard [] and know what it mean.

[geraldc]

how can I read these theard [] and know what it mean.

This link should help you see Chinese characters rather than empty boxes. But whether or not you can read and understand them is another thing altogether.