Placement of words

[iMeng@Meng]

A man is being questioned by police in connection with the attack.

:

一名与该袭击有关的男子正受到警方盘问。

Ok so when I chopped up the sentence it really is kinda confusing, can someone explain the word order pleasse.

[imron]

A man is being questioned by police in connection with the attack.

:

一名与该袭击有关的男子正受到警方盘问。

一名男子正受到盘问。A man is being questioned. Questioned by who?

一名男子正受到警方盘问。A man is being questioned by police. Why?

一名与该袭击有关的男子正受到警方盘问。A man connected with the attack is being questioned by police.

or, reworded slightly: A man is being questioned by police in connection with the attack.

[iMeng@Meng]

hmm I see but um why is it broken up like that (I see where you are going though)

[imron]

Which part is causing you the most difficulty, the first half (一名与该袭击有关的男子) or the second half (正受到警方盘问), or the way the two halves are put together?

[iMeng@Meng]

how they are put together

[imron]

If we were to strip out the other stuff and just say: 一名男子正受到盘问, would this cause you any problems?

[iMeng@Meng]

no problems there ...

[imron]

Ok, so that statement doesn't really tell the reader much, in the same way that the English "a man is being questioned", doesn't really tell the reader much either, but that's how those two parts of the sentence get put together.

If we flesh it out with some more information, the first thing we may want to know is who is doing the questioning. In this case it is the police (警方) who are questioning him. I can't explain the grammar, but the only place we can put 警方 in that smaller sentence that makes sense for that context is 一名男子正受到警方盘问.

Now we need to think about describing the man.

The pattern typically followed is to place the description between the measure word and the noun, e.g.

一个人 - a person. What kind of person? 一个澳大利亚人 an australian person

一条鱼 - a fish. What kind of fish? 一条很大的鱼 - a big fish

And going on from that

一名男子 - a man. What kind of man? 一名 与该袭击有关的 男子 a 'connected with this attack' man (or in better English, a man connected with this attack).

The main structure of the larger sentence is still 一名男子正受到盘问 (a man is being questioned), but now we flesh it out with the other pieces of information to get:

一名与该袭击有关的男子正受到警方盘问。 A man is being questioned by police in connection with the attack.

[iMeng@Meng]

ohhh thank youuu xie xie ni

[yeut]

So does 与该袭击有关的 all mean "in connection with the attack"?

or is it just 袭击有关的? In which case what does 与该 mean?

[creamyhorror]

该 = this

与 = with

与 X 有关 = with a relationship to X

与 该袭击 有关 的 = with a relationship to this attack

与 该袭击 有关 的 男子 = a man related to this attack

vvv sorry dude

[imron]

in this context, 与 means 'with' and 该 means 'this'.

edit: creamyhorror beat me to it, and with a better answer to boot.

[歐博思]

与=with 该=this/that are both needed here. So yeut your first sentence is indeed that meaning.

edit: same as above

[OneEye]

I think of 該 as being "the aforementioned...", which is clumsier in English but maybe more accurate in regards to the function. 國語辭典 says 「指上述提到過的人或事物」。 Just at least keep it clear in your mind that 該 ≠ 這個 or 此.

[Kenny同志]

I would write 警方正在盤問一名與該襲擊有關的男子.

[OneEye]

Eh, 差不多, I think. To me, the original feels like the emphasis is on the man, and particularly that he has something to do with the attack. Yours feels like it's emphasizing the police and their action, so if I were translating yours to English I'd say "The police are questioning a man connected to the attack", while the original I'd translate as "A man connected with the attack is being questioned by the police".

The translation given in the first post isn't as clear as it could be, IMO. Are the police the ones in connection with the attack? Because that's what it sounds like.

[Kenny同志]

I am sorry I didn't read the English in the OP's post. I thought he was only asking for help to parse the Chinese sentence.

The original can be put this way in Chinese:

一名與該襲擊有關的男子正在接受警方盤問。

PS: The English sentence isn't quite good; it gives me the impression that it's the police who is in connection with the attack.

Why not say a man in connection with the attack is being questioned by the police?

[OneEye]

No sorry, I was just re-wording the English translation because it's not the best sentence anyway. I went off on a tangent.

[Kenny同志]

One Eye, I was referring to the original sentence in the OP's post.

[OneEye]

I'm going to shut up now.