Grammar pattern 給...拿來

[ThatBlokeDave]

Hello All,

I came across the following sentence:

今天老李給我拿來了一瓶法國酒。

Today Old Li brought me a bottle of French wine.

I don't have a problem understanding it but I do have a problem reproducing this kind of grammar pattern naturally.

If I had tried it off the cuff, I would have probably come out with something like:

今天老李拿來了給我一瓶法國酒

Which is probably incorrect... In all honesty I would have probably omitted the 拿來了 all together but then I guess I would have lost the clarity that (s)he brought / carried the wine and gave it personally.

So my questions boil down to these, what are the rules behind using both 給 and 拿來 in a sentence?? Must something /someone always go in between? can they appear next to each other? can 給 ever come after 拿來? etc

Ohh and on an unrelated note: Who is the subject in this? me or 老李? I can never decide when trying my poor attempts at parsing sentences

Thanks in advance!

[SiMaKe]

给 can be a verb or a preposition (even a particle used for emphasis). In the first sentence, it is a preposition ("for the benefit of" or simply "to") while 拿 is the action verb with the directional complement 来. The subject is 老李.

To me, 拿来 here means "bring" while 给 would mean (as a verb) "give". Slightly different meanings.

So the pattern is: subj 给 receiver 拿来 object being received.

You could also say 他给我一瓶酒。

[陳德聰]

To kind of piggyback on SiMaKe's post, this is a pattern you can use with more verbs than just 拿. We can use 给 to show when we do things for other people.

我给她买了花儿

她给我带来了快乐 (hehe )

[count_zero]

This seems pretty easy to me. Just get used to using 给 a bit more than you would "give"

给我推荐以下 Give me a recommendation

给我开发票 Print out an official receipt for me

给我拿来一瓶酒 Bring me a bottle of booze

[creamyhorror]

We can use 给 to show when we do things for other people.

This here is what I would recommend for learning this use of 给 - think of 给 as 'for [someone]'. The following is a good example:

给我开发票 Print out an official receipt for me

There can be a commanding/imperative tone to this usage of 给 (e.g. in the example above), so make sure you use it carefully. You can accompany it with 请 or 可以...吗? to make it a request.

Even more undemanding is to substitute 帮 for it and throw in a 请/可以:

可以帮我拿来一瓶酒吗? Could you get me a bottle of booze?

帮 and 给 play the same grammatical role, in this case.

[ThatBlokeDave]

Thanks everyone...

I guess I am overcomplicating it in my mind since "giving" is implied in English when someone "passes" or "brings" you something.

The understanding is not a problem, I am just having trouble reproducing it naturally and was hoping there might be a nice memorable rule to learn

[creamyhorror]

I guess I am overcomplicating it in my mind since "giving" is implied in English when someone "passes" or "brings" you something.

给 here does not mean give. It's acting as a grammatical marker equivalent to English 'for'.

Ohh and on an unrelated note: Who is the subject in this? me or 老李? I can never decide when trying my poor attempts at parsing sentences

老李給我拿來了一瓶法國酒。

Strip out the 給我, and you have the basic sentence

[老李 subject] [拿來了 verbal] [一瓶法國酒 object]

給我 isn't really an object, but I'm not familiar enough with technical grammar to give it a proper label. Coverbal? It's basically the same thing as "for me" in the sentence "Li brought a bottle of beer for me."

[ThatBlokeDave]

That is a good way of thinking about 給 being "for" rather than give in this scenario.

I sometimes get lazy with words I think I know and assign the wrong meaning to them.

[neverending]

I find the Allset Grammar Wiki useful for quick reference on rules like these. It describes most of the grammatical patterns you'll encounter at beginner/intermediate levels:

http://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/ASG3ORNN

That webpage seems to indicate that the two orderings given have no different effect on the meaning of the sentence, which answers another of your questions.

[creamyhorror]

http://resources.all...rammar/ASG3ORNN

I don't think that's a very suitable explanation of this pattern, in this case. The explanation on that page is for another structure that has the same form but means something else. Consider:

你给我站住！ (standard)

你站住给我！ (nonstandard)

给 here means "for the sake of [person]" rather than "at/to [thing/person]". The "for" usage generally requires 给X to be placed before the relevant verb, as shown in the example above. An exception would be structures like

"我 [跳舞] 给 [他看]" = Person [verb] for [person+clause]

[dwq]

I usually take (1) "給A...(verb)" to mean "do something for A", while (2) "(verb)...給B" to mean "Bring/Give/... something to B".

I think this also works, correct me if I'm wrong:

今天老李給我拿來了一瓶法國酒給小王。

Today Old Lee brought Little Wong a bottle of French wine for me.

(Maybe I asked him to before, and now Old Lee is doing this for me)

你給我打個電話給小張。

Make a call to Little Chang for me.

[imron]

你給我打個電話給小張。

Make a call to Little Chang for me.

I'm not a native speaker but this double usage of 给 seems strange to me. In those two cases, I think it would be better to say something like

今天老李替我给小王拿来了一瓶法国酒

and

帮我给小张打电话

[David Wong]

100% agree with imron. 赞同！