拿是把吗？

[Pedroski]

In this sentence, is 拿 = 把？

 

您不要拿我开玩笑了，这可不行！

[Basil]

No, it is take.

 

You no want take me to joke, it's really not fair.

 

Because the teaser has taken, or pulled that person out of the group to tease in front of others.

 

Or takes the teasable aspects of that person.

[Preston Yan]

No, 拿 is not equal to 把

you cann't use 把 here

[陳德聰]

Do you think "不要把我开玩笑了" makes sense? (hint: it doesn't)

 

把 is 把, 拿 is 拿.

 

"不要把我拿来开玩笑了" <- hopefully this doesn't give you a conniption.

[russmeier]

Hi Pedroski,

As #2 said, 拿 doesn't operate as 把. The 拿 does indeed mean take or pickup. I tend to read the sentence a bit differently though. I see the 开玩笑了 as joking or making fun of something. So, when I read the sentence I see "Don't make fun of me."

不要 = don't

and to me

这可不行 = this isn't ok.

So, "don't make fun of me, it's not right."

Please note that I am not a native speaker. I'm sure native and advanced speakers will help parse this if needed.

Russ

[ZhangJiang]

拿 is not 把.

拿 can be translated into English as "take" or "use" but 把 can't. I don't think I know a corresponding word for 把.

I find 拿 means either 1) take/use something as, where the following verb is 作、当作、当, 2) take/use something as the object of, or 3) take/use something as the instrument of, depending on the appropriate meaning.

 

Examples:

1. 别拿鸡毛当令箭 Don't take chicken feather as 令箭.

2. 拿你开玩笑呢 (I was) just taking you as the object of fun-making.

3. 拿钥匙开门 To use the key as the instrument of door-opening.

[Tiana]

您不要拿我开玩笑了，这可不行！

 

 

The above above discussion has reminded of what Red Riding Hood said to Wolf: 

 

您不要把我吃了，这可不行！

 

I wouldn't blame anyone for mixing up the use of 拿 and 把, and at the same time I think the difference is worth thinking about.

 

PS:  拿钥题开门: is 钥题 a typo (of 钥匙), ZhangJiang ?

[ZhangJiang]

Yes, Tiana, it's a typo and I've fixed it. I should have typed them as one word instead of two characters.

[陳德聰]

The reason there is no corresponding word in English for 把 is that it is just an object marker.

 

Like ZhangJiang said, 拿 attaches to an instrument or object used in the action, something oblique. It's more similar to 用 or 以.

 

But 把 is only used with the object of the verb itself. Not the things used in the action, but the thing targeted by the action.

 

拿鑰匙開門 <- the object is 門 because it's what is getting 開'd, and 鑰匙 is the tool being used for that action. You couldn't understand this as *把鑰匙開門 because you can't "open door" a key.

[Pedroski]

I just ask because I read that sometimes 拿 is used like 把。I can't find many examples, here's one:

 

我拿你当亲人看待。

 

您不要拿我开玩笑了，这可不行！

You shouldn't make fun of me like that, it's not nice.

 

别拿鸡毛当令箭 This one intrigues me. What does it really mean? 'Don't mistake the unimportant for the important.'???

[陳德聰]

Your example in #10 is one where you could substitute 把, but I hope you can tell that this is because of the syntactic structure of the sentence and not because 拿 and 把 are interchangeable.

 

Your original example is not one such example.

[Pedroski]

I wonder if you can elaborate. How should I know this?

 

Compare:

 

我拿你当亲人看待。

我拿你开玩笑。

 

The word order, ie the syntactic structure, is very similar, albeit different words are involved. What clues tell you one 拿 is 把 and one is not?

[陳德聰]

拿你當親人<->把你當親人

 

拿你開玩笑<->把你開玩笑

 

I consider verb type to be part of syntax and to inform the structure but that might be too abstract since I know you don't like that idea.

 

開玩笑 is an intransitive verb. You simply can't make a 把 sentence with it as the main verb. That's why I know that that 拿 is not carrying out the same function as 把.

[Pedroski]

As far as I can tell, 

 

(我）把你当。

(我）把你看待。

(我）把你当亲人。

 

我开玩笑你

 

are also all not good. There is something missing. As in

 

*I make fun you.

 

I can't quite follow 我拿你当亲人看待。

 

Assumption: Any Chinese sentence using 把 can be rewritten without 把 by moving the noun following 把 to another place in the sentence.

 

Would you agree? How would that look in 我拿你当亲人看待。?? Can it be done?? I think 当 here is 当作， and we have a typical Chinese doubling up of the meaning with 当作看待 = regard as。That is to say, the sentence only really has the one verb. Can it be seen this way??

？我当你亲人看待。

？我当亲人看待你。

我看待你似我的亲人。

[ZhangJiang]

 

 

别拿鸡毛当令箭 This one intrigues me. What does it really mean? 'Don't mistake the unimportant for the important.'???

Yes it means something like that and is used when someone is giving orders or being aggressive thinking they have the "order-giving arrow" but you think/know it is just plain feather.

 

Why 我把你当亲人 is OK? I think because this sentence can be rewritten as 我当你是亲人 where 你 become the direct object of 当. Fundamentally, A当B and B当A should have the same meaning, so 拿你当亲人 can be considered as a surface structure of 你当亲人, and 把你当亲人 a variation of 当你是亲人 which is then a surface structure of 亲人当你.

There is another restriction of Chinese: the noun before the verb should be definite (consider the difference between 客人来了 and 来客人了). 

They make 拿亲人当你 or 把亲人当你 impossible. (I believe there is also a rule of narrow scope v.s. broad scope words' sequence, but I'm not sure)

 

 

As far as I can tell, 

 

(我）把你当。

(我）把你看待。

(我）把你当亲人。

 

我开玩笑你

 

are also all not good. 

Actually 我把你当亲人 is good.

 

Regarding 看待 in 我拿你当亲人看待, syntactically 看待 can be viewed as the second verb (predicate) of the subject 我, so it's 我拿你当亲人 and 我看待 combined. Semantically, 看待 has a certain relationship with 你 in the first predicate. Just like the simpler sentence 我请你吃饭, where 吃饭 has a semantic relationship with 你 in the first predicate 我请你.

 

Hope I've explained clear enough and it helps.

[Pedroski]

Thank you for your trouble. At the mo, it is about as clear as mud to me, but I am somewhat dense （understatement of the year). I'll try and break it down.

 

'我把你当亲人' 的‘当’就是什么？？ 觉得？？

[ZhangJiang]

'我把你当亲人' 的‘当’就是什么？？ 觉得？？

当is 当作, the verb form of "as", "be as", maybe?

I was trying to explain why 把A当B and 拿A当B are both OK and have similar meaning while other verbs are not the case. And the reason, I think, is that A当B (A is as B) and B当A (B is as A) happen to have the same meaning. Maybe 德聰 can comment on this?

[陳德聰]

OP, at least you know you're dense. Acceptance is one of the first steps to something something.

 

ZhangJiang, I hadn't given it nearly as much thought as you in #15, to be honest. I think you have something with your "definite before verbs" argument, but I don't think that is going to be enough to explain to someone who doesn't understand what 當 means.

 

There are some key problems here. One is that OP does not understand the basics of what 把 is. Another is that OP does not know what 當 can mean (multiple senses). And then another is that OP has trouble with grammar-based explanations.

 

把 crash course:

In cases where the verb is ditransitive (i.e. requiring two objects)...

 

[subject] + [把Direct Object] + [Verb] + [(Preposition+)Indirect Object]

我 + 把書 + 放 + 在桌子上

 

But not...

 

我把書放 or 我放書

 

In cases where the verb is transitive (i.e. requiring one object), 把 is optional.

 

我扔垃圾 can become:

 

[subject] + [把Direct Object] + [Verb] + [Complement (e.g. 完，掉，好，etc. or 了)]

我 + 把垃圾 + 扔 + 掉(了)

 

But not...

 

我把垃圾扔

 

 

把 is never used with intransitive verbs (i.e. verbs that have no object).

 

In sum, 把 is required for some verbs, and optional for others, but never available for certain verbs.

當 crash course:

當 definitions are many.

Relevant ones for this discussion:

當 = (to take/treat/regard/consider etc.) ... as if to be ...

當水喝 - to drink (something) as if it were water

當親人看待 - to look upon (someone) as if they were family

當真 - to treat (something) as if it were true

Notice these are all fragments because the "something" or "someone" is not given.

 

We can't say...

 

我當水喝
我當親人看待

我當真

 

Because the direct object of 當 is missing. Hint, 當 is ditransitive.

Given what we know about ditransitive verbs and how they require 把...

It should make sense that 把你當親人看待 separates the words into discrete categories:

 

把你 = 你 is a direct object

當親人 = 當 verb with object 親人, but we should know that 親人 is the indirect object since 把 targets direct objects
看待 = main verb

The only thing that is left to puzzle over is what the underlying structure of the sentence is, but I don't know if you like the abstract theory stuff that I imagine would look something like:

我把你_i當你_i親人看待你_i

[陳德聰]

Just realized I didn't answer ZhangJiang's question at all. I treat the 當 in A當B and A把B當作C as different 當, one transitive and one ditransitive.

 

A當B and B當A are similar because this 當 means something really close to "=". But 學生當老師 and 老師當學生 are clearly different from each other.
 

In my understanding, 當 has two theoretical slots after it as a ditransitive verb:  當 _Direct Object (A)_ _Indirect Object (B)_, but since there is a limit on the number of things that can occupy the position after a verb (the limit is 1), we need to enact some strategy to fix that. Here, using 把 will pull the Direct Object (A) out of that position, leading to 把A當B which is fine, or we can do what you suggested in #15 and insert 是, giving 當A是B. Both of those strategies avoid the ungrammaticality of 當AB. But we can't reverse A and B with either strategy and preserve the original relationship of Direct Object and Indirect Object.

[ZhangJiang]

德聰, thanks for explaining the problem so clearly and I agree with your understanding that 当 takes two object. One example of the grammaticality of 当AB occurred to me though, which is only an fun example: 你当我傻子啊？

What puzzled me was that since 把 pulls the Direct Object out of position and 拿 doesn't, why 拿你当亲人 is good. That's why I thought maybe "你" in it isn't or doesn't have to be the Direct Object so it permits being pulled out by 拿. Then I found A当B and B当A (or 当AB and 当BA) have a certain symmetrical quality. You see 学生当老师 and 老师当学生 somehow both resulted in a person being both a teacher and a student. So I thought maybe that's why "你" can be pulled out by 拿 because if the symmetry stands, it is not the Direct Object in the 拿 case but that of the 把 case.

Hope I've said things clear.