你家房子拆是不拆！

[enaskitis]

你家房子拆是不拆！

That's a phrase hurled at a home-owning family by a 黑社会人员 who works (along with 30-50 others) for a 开发商。 It comes from the subtitles of this

(0.48). I don't understand the 拆是不拆 syntax. Thanks for you help.

[creamyhorror]

I assume it's a shortening of 拆还是不拆 (threatening "are you gonna let us knock it down or not?").

[enaskitis]

I see; a typical shortening of the every-day language or just a mistake of the subtitler?

[creamyhorror]

I don't think it's a proper shortening, but it might acceptable in some forms of regional speech. It might be a mistake in the subtitles, as you say. (The subtitles themselves actually seem to be a descriptive message of the events of that day, or possibly a news report narrative, rather than a translation of the actual speech in the video.)

[imron]

I think it's an acceptable regional shortening, and is not a mistake of the subtitles.

[skylee]

I don't think it is a shortening (but I don't know what is taught in text books). I think it is proper and clear. I looked at the title of this thread and I knew what it means (as explained in #2).

[enaskitis]

Thank you all! Maybe this shortening is compounded by the fact that in this specific case 拆 and the missing 还 have the same -ai diphthong ending. Anyway, when inputing this sentence on the keyboard, the IME doesn't recognize/propose 拆是不拆; instead, being clueless, it proposes the incongruent 差事不拆。

[imron]

Maybe this shortening is compounded by the fact that in this specific case 拆 and the missing 还 have the same -ai diphthong ending.

I don't think so. This structure (regardless of whether or not verb in question ends in -ai) is not uncommon - at least not where I used to live in Hebei. This video was from Hebei also, hence the reason I figured to be a regional thing. If others say it's proper and clear elsewhere too, then I would take that over the output of an IME which though mostly good is still prone to mistakes.

[enaskitis]

I see. So it's almost identical to 你拆不拆，ｉ．ｅ．拆还是不拆 -> 拆是不拆 -> 拆不拆。All practically the same.