Is this correct and why? Negation word order

[ralphmat123]

Hello,

 

I recently found this example sentence on About.com and I'm a bit confused about the word order:

 

要是我和咖啡我会睡不着

'If I drink coffee I won't be able to fall asleep'.

 

My question is why is 'bu' placed between 'shui' and 'zhao'. I thought it would be placed after 'hui' to be 不会

 

Any help would be appreciated.

 

Thanks

[陳德聰]

Should be 喝咖啡.

This is an example of negating the potential complement: 睡得着 -> 睡不着. The 会 is just expressing the likelihood of the situation happening.

[会弹钢琴的狼]

Hi,ralphmat.

 

if you put '不' before '会', the meaning will change to '我不会睡着'(I will not asleep), and this part can be individually, not related you drink coffee.

 

and '不' can be placed between a lot of verbs make it negative, such like 

'听到' => '听不到'  heard => can not heard

'看见' => '看不见'  see => can not see

'捡起' => '捡不起'  pick it up => can not pick it up.

[ouyangjun]

我会睡不着 is correct.  睡着 is what is called a separable verb, or a 离合词.  Essentially in a 离合词 what you have is a verb + object structure that is turned into a verb when the two are put together.  Due to this structure you are able to add another word in between.  Often you can add a 了, 过, or a number of measure words depending on the 离合词.  Unfortunately, just because there is a verb + object verb structure does not mean it can be a 离合词, to my knowledge there are not set rules on defining what types of these verbs are 离合词, so you will just have to learn by experience what is and isn't a 离合词 verb.  This is fairly simple once you get used to it.

 

I don't think that 我不会睡着 would be incorrect.  我会睡不着 just expresses it in a different structure.

[li3wei1]

I think that

我不会睡着 would mean that whenever I drink coffee, I cannot get to sleep

我会睡不着 would mean that if I drink coffee, there is a strong possibility that I won't sleep

[Demonic_Duck]

I'd take it as the difference between:

 

要是我喝咖啡我不会睡着

"If I drink coffee, I won't fall asleep"

...and...

要是我喝咖啡我会睡不着

"If I drink coffee, I won't be able to fall asleep"

[jobm]

For me,

comparing 要是我喝咖啡我不会睡着 and 要是我喝咖啡我会睡不着, there is an effort in the latter one to fall asleep like you would do everything to fall asleep (there is a conscious effort) but because you have drunk coffee, you could not go to sleep.