形容词：AABB的用法

[shuoshuo]

今天，老师给我们讲的是关于形容词AABB的用法。比如：甜蜜（形容词），如果很甜蜜的话也可以说甜甜蜜蜜，或者甜蜜蜜。但是，有的形容词用AABB的话就不可以。比如：豪华，我们不说豪豪华华。老师说只是中国人说时候的习惯。

 

我问老师：除了中国人说法习惯以外，有没有语法有关的原因？她回答说：没有。

 

我不相信她，有可能她搞不清楚。

 

我想问你们知不知道哪儿不可以用AABB的地方有什么语法的原因吗？

 

---

 

I was trying to get to a question using Mandarin, I don't know how clear that was but I'll try to explain my question in English in case I've made a complete fool of myself using Chinese.

 

Basically, earlier today the teacher was explaining adjectives and their AABB usage.  E.g. 甜蜜: if you want to say 很甜蜜 you can also use 甜甜蜜蜜 or 甜蜜蜜.  However, the AABB usage does not include some adjectives, e.g. 豪华.  It is wrong to say 豪豪华华.  According to my teacher, it all depends on Chinese colloquial 'habit'.

 

I asked her if 'habit' is the only reason for such usage and she said yes.

 

I find this odd, so I don't believe that 'habit' is the only reason.  Perhaps she is unaware if the usage is supported by grammar rules?

 

I was wondering if anyone here knows whether or not there is any grammar-based reason behind the difference between the AABB adjectives and the non-AABB adjectives? 

 

Thank you!

[tblwbob1]

First of all, I am not a Chinese teacher, so I am not 100 percent sure for my answers, just for your reference only.

Actually, the phenomenon you mentioned, like AABB words, are very often used in daily life. Basically, there are several ways:

1. AA, 天天，红红，悄悄，往往

2. AAB, 慢慢来，天天见，毛毛雨

3. ABB, 水汪汪，眼巴巴，亮堂堂

4. AABB, 高高兴兴，认认真真，三三两两

5. ABAB, 飞快飞快，雪白雪白，漆黑漆黑

6. A一A, 看一看，试一试，热一热，

7. A了A，看了看，试了试，拍了拍

8. A着A着，说着说着，唱着唱着，走着走着

9. A呀/啊A，唱呀/啊唱，走呀/啊走，游呀/啊呦

10. other style, are not used very often, like AABC(楚楚动人)，BCAA（白雪茫茫），ABAC（一举一动）,etc.

 

Obviously, these words are reduplicated. So here is the question, why reduplicated?

My answer is letting the words more vivid and emotionalized, and to  EMPHASIZE its original meaning.

 

E.g., 1) 这些衣服件件都很漂亮。（Each and every of these suits are beautiful.）VS 这些衣服都很漂亮。（All the suits are beautiful.）

and 2) 地里的活她样样都会。(She knows how to do every kind of farm work.) VS 地里的活她都会。（She knows how to do farm work.）

and 3) 学生们三三两两地坐在教室里。(The students their seats in the classroom by twos and threes.) VS 学生们坐在教室里。（The students their seats in the classroom.）

and 4)那是万万不行的。(That's absolutely out of the question.) VS. 那是不行的。(That's out of the question.)

Here the  "件件", "样样", "三三两两", and "万万不行"is to EMPHASIZE the original meaning.

 

Well, back to your question, I must say your teacher is right, there is no grammar rules, as far as I know, to support this. People use these reduplicated words accoring to their accumulation, in anothere words, according to the habit, not the grammer.

 

I hope my answer may help. If you still have questions, please tell me.

[skylee]

Take a look at this. It might help. -> http://wenku.baidu.com/view/b4efdfebf8c75fbfc77db2fc

 

Sections 4.2.1, 4.2.2 and 4.3 are relevant.

[OneEye]

I don't believe that 'habit' is the only reason.

 

Indeed, it's the only reason there is. Grammar "rules" are there to explain the habits, not to dictate them. While it's possible to become adept at communicating in Chinese fairly quickly, learning to express things in the same way as native speakers takes a very long time, unfortunately, as you have to absorb these habits for yourself. And unfortunately, many of the grammars out there for learners present the "rules as they ought to be," as it were, rather than describing authentic usage. Add that to the fact that in "Chinese as a second language" circles, "language training" and "literacy training" get conflated, so a lot of foreigners tend to speak a very stilted, written/formal sort of Chinese because they haven't been told the difference, unless they've spent a lot of time paying more attention to native speakers than to their teachers. Things like “本人今天之所以遲到，是由於交通之不便。” One of my former classmates said that once, and the teacher accepted it without correcting him.

 

Rant over.

[skylee]

“本人今天之所以遲到，是由於交通之不便。”

 

 

Cute.

[陳德聰]

This is a pretty comprehensive paper:

http://gsil.sc-ling.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/2003_1_feng.pdf

[skylee]

Re #6, it seems that the paper is about the comparison of ABAB and AABB / AAB, rather than AABB and ABB in the OP's post.  Am I right?

 

PS - Ah, what the OP asked about was not specifically the reasons of the difference between AABB and ABB, but the reasons of the differences between AABB and non-AABB adjectives.

[Webber King]

Most of AABB are used to describe action, or something moving, such as:

红火 - 红红火火 的景象

热闹 - 热热闹闹 的集会

疯癫 - 疯疯癫癫 的样子

勤恳 - 勤勤恳恳 的/地工作

幸苦 - 辛辛苦苦 地工作

日夜 - 日日夜夜 的/地工作

[陳德聰]

My bad, it looks like I also misunderstood the question.

 

I can't find an electronic version of the paper that apparently everyone who talks about this cites...

 

But it's called:

 

Tang, Ting-chi. 1997. On reduplication of adjectives in Chinese: a comparative study of Mandarin and Southern Min. In: Cheng, Chi-chuan et al. (eds.). 1997. Proceedings of the Eighth North American Conference on Chinese Linguistics. Los Angeles: GSIL, University of Southern California, vol. 1, pp. 314 - 331.

 

What I gather from the other papers that consider his research sound is that the adjectives which you cannot AABB-style reduplicate are going to be monomorphemic. This would include both native adjectives (豪华、窈窕、苗条 etc.) and phonetic borrowings (摩登、幽默 etc.)

 

So... That. I'll come back to this later and try to find a better paper which will likely include tests you can do to check if something is monomorphemic or not.

[Webber King]

豪华、窈窕、苗条、摩登、幽默 

They are not used to describe ACTION, when saying it we don't need to have strong mood.

Furthermore, 优美、柔美、温柔、奢侈、华贵 etc,. are same.

[Webber King]

But I think all of this are not important, a key point of learning Chinese is your vocabulary, there is nothing totally correct with the certain rules. If you want to communicate more, you may add my QQ. it's 43904410, I'm a native speaker and a writer.

[Webber King]

For example, 我真的爱你 this is correct, but in grammar we should use 地, not 的. It should be 我真地爱你, but no one uses it.

BTW, 我真的爱你 means I really love you.

[陳德聰]

It has nothing to do with whether it describes an action. The examples you've given are mainly stative adjectives which don't generally form adverbs anyway. But it can't be a stative/dynamic adjective distinction, 'cause what about dynamic adjectives that can't reduplicate?

 

Eg. 耐心地等待, but 耐耐心心地等待 sounds pretty over the top.

 

What about ones that have absolutely nothing to do with actions?

酸酸甜甜的滋味...

 

But then consider:

幽默地对待活 vs. 幽幽默默地对待生活

温柔地爱我，温柔地说话 vs. 温温柔柔地爱我，温温柔柔地说话 which the love one is passable because I can imagine it happening in a song, but the second one sounds ridiculous.

[Webber King]

In fact, what I did is just to try to find out their relationships, but not all words follow this kind of rule. It's like English, not all adjective words can be transfer to adverbs by ad 'ly', such as 'quick' to 'quickly', but 'fast' cannot transfer to 'fastly'. AABB words are the same, they are certain, usually we don't create any new AABB word by ourselves. You can remember all AABB words you've seen instead of trying to find a regular rule of transfering AB to AABB.  

 

I said action, it's not accurate due to my poor English. I mean it's something with big wave, dynamic or vivid, etc,. If I explain it in Chinese it will be: 

当要修饰富有动感的东西如（动作、景象、声音和味道等）时，常常会将AB形式的形容词转变成AABB以加强语气和情感。因此，AABB的作用就是【强调、加强语气和加强感情等】

When we need to describe something dynamic (like action, scene,  sound, taste, etc,.), we often transfer AB to AABB to make the mood stronger or emphasize something. So, I think the usage of AABB is to EMPHASIZE, MAKE MOOD STRONGER and SHOW STRONG EMOTION.

 

I don't know whether it's correct to say 'strong emotion/mood', what I want to say is EXCITING, ANGRY, SAD, GLAD, HAPPY,or something similar.

 

幽默、温柔、耐心，these words are used to describe something soft, slow or immovable. When we talk about these things we don't have 'strong mood'.

More: 优美、柔美、轻柔、舒缓、沮丧，etc,.

But some words don't follow this, such as 平静 can be transfer to 平平静静, 安心 can be 安安心心

 

More AABB words for your learning:

酸甜->酸酸甜甜(you've known that)

Acid and Sweet, when we taste it's like our sense is 'jumping'. Let me show you more:

高兴->高高兴兴

Glad

开心->开开心心

Happy

结巴->结结巴巴

stumble

摇晃->摇摇晃晃

wave

完整->完完整整

complete

完全->完完全全

total

清楚->清清楚楚

clear

干净->干干净净

clean

 

And some AABB words are usually not transfer back to AB:

轰轰烈烈、吞吞吐吐、堂堂正正、跌跌撞撞、密密麻麻，etc,.

 

As I said, the best way for you to make it clear is to remember more words and improve your vocabulary.

 

I'm not a teacher, I can't ensure the information I told you is same with the grammar on your book. But, I'm a writer who work with Chinese every whole day, and I write novels in my spare time. If you want to communicate with me personally, you can add my QQ 43904410 or contact me with my email: yw8911@gmail.com

[Webber King]

Are you willing to chat with me in Chinese?

[陳德聰]

I'm not questioning the diminishing and emphasizing properties of AABB structures, and I'm not going off of anything in any grammar book.

 

But I think it's pretty questionable that you are saying adjectives that belong to an abstract category that includes "动作、景象、声音和味道等", which... by the way I'm wondering why 豪华 doesn't count as describing 景象... It's very broad.

PS. You really really really don't need to 'teach' me Chinese.

[Webber King]

汉语里所用到的AABB词汇，大多是出于使用习惯形成的。我只是尝试列举一些词并尽可能地挖掘出它们之间的共性，这样才能产生语感，因此我说那些可转变成AABB的词汇多数是用来描述动作、景象、声音和味道的。而要说有没有像数学公式一样绝对可行的转变法则，那是不存在的。比如“勤劳”不能被转变成“勤勤劳劳“，而”勤恳“可以被转变成”勤勤恳恳“。”勤劳“与”勤恳“是比较相近的词，也不能套用AABB的形式，就很能说明问题了。

 

如果硬要从语法层面上来说，名词、动词、形容词中都有词语可以变成AABB形式，但没有一个绝对通用的语法法则。这个就和英语中的形容词变换成副词一样，并没有绝对规律可循，只能说大部分是加”ly“变成副词。但是这些可以变换的词中间是不是真的没有联系呢？答案是否定的，因此我才会试着找出一些它们中间的关系，并且期望这样做可以增强汉语学习者的语感。

 

另外，说下”豪华“这个词吧。就使用习惯来说，”豪华“大多数时候都是形容物件的，比如豪华（的）游轮/轿车/宾馆/酒店/餐厅/晚餐/阵容等等，而我所说的”景象“，并不是指所有眼睛看到的东西。一般我们所说的”景象”，着重于“景”的概念，也就是比较大、宏观和众多的物件集合所产生的抽象感知。而豪华这个词，用于形容这种大场景时语气略弱，表达效果不理想，因此我们会更倾向于使用“富丽堂皇”和“灯火辉煌”这样的词语来修饰“景象”。但很少有用”豪华“来形容大场景的。

 

汉语最重要的还是语感，语感不好，就算是中国人也不一定能说好汉语。举个例子，我女朋友虽然是中国人，但是她的汉语也不怎么好，经常会自造一些词，或是不恰当地使用形容词来修饰。虽然她说的话的确可能符合语法规则，但是会在交谈中造成别人的曲解或误解，不论怎样都会让人感到交流不顺畅。

[陳德聰]

而要说有没有像数学公式一样绝对可行的转变法则，那是不存在的。

The basic premise of the scientific field of linguistics is that there will be 像数学公式一样的法则.

 

I went and found a better paper that combines work done by the person I cited earlier with various others, including one that supports part of what you said before.

 

Reduplication of Adjectives in Chinese: A Default State

The first section where it gives a typology of the adjectives 'amenable' to reduplication is really enough.

 

Essentially:

 

Gradability (has degrees), Perceptibility (to the 5 senses), Commendatory vs. Derogatory, Internal Structure of Compound Adjectives, and Rhetoric & Style