走进去

[metlx]

I came across the following sentence (in a notebook):

 

电梯门开了，四人走进去。

Isn't 走进去 phrase redundant? For example, as I see it, 电梯门开了，四人走进 would suffice, no?

Also how do I interpret that structure, 走进+去 or 走+进去?

Both 走进 (to enter) and 进去 (to go in) mean almost exactly the same thing.

[pretendingchinese]

“去” is adverb at here. such as " 去看看“ =” lets go see ( it ) ". " 走出去“ = ” go outside",   it is used to describe where  sb will go.  you can add " particular place" between these phrases. such as " 去 那里看看(lets go there and see something， 去你家看看(lets go your home and see something)， 去前面看看“ ， ”走进 （电梯里面） 去“ . I hope it will be useful...

[BlackBird]

It is used to indicate direction in regards to the speaker

 

走进去: they walked/went inside (the elevator) => the speaker/narrator is outside

 

走进来: they walked/came inside (the elevator) => the speaker is already inside

 

As you can see if you use the verb "walk" to translate those 2 sentences, they would both translate the same way. But in chinese this structures give an additional information. If you translate respectively with "go" and "come" you can tell the difference.

 

How I learned it : http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Grammar%20exercises/DC.htm

[ZhangJiang]

The structure is 走+进去, you can leave out 走 here and it's still an acceptable sentence, though with a slightly different meaning.

走进 is more like to walk into, so you would need something or someplace to follow the phrase.

[Angelina]

ZhangJiang is right. 走＋进去

 

'去' is not an adverb here. 

 

 

 

It is used to indicate direction in regards to the speaker

 

More precisely, it is used to show direction away ( 进去) or towards (进来) a deictic center. In this case the deictic center is the speaker, but it does not always have to be. 

[metlx]

Thanks for explaining it!

 

Would there be any difference in meaning between the following sentences? If so, what exactly?

1) 电梯门开了，四人走进去。

2) 电梯门开了，四人进去。

3) 电梯门开了，四人走进。

 

ZhangJiang already said that 3) would have a slightly different meaning, i.e. an incomplete sentence that would need continuation after 走进, if I understood correctly. I don't see a clear distinction between 2) and 3) though. Why is 2) acceptable and the 3) needs continuation?

[陳德聰]

I think it is more helpful to realize "走進去" as 走+[進 + 去] rather than just 走+進去, since [進+去] makes up the directional complement of the verb 走 in this case, but 進 is itself a verb.

 

Verbs that take directional complements encode two types of directionality: the first part is the more objective directionality of the verb (出, 進, 上, 下, 過) and the second part is the subjective directionality that describes as Angelina says the direction away or towards the object in question (去 or 來). The directional complement is made up of a combination of those two parts, and can't be separated easily (separating them creates different nuance/meaning/general function).

 

走 + 出 + 來

walk + out + (towards the speaker of the sentence)

 

走 + 出 + 去

walk + out + (away from the speaker of the sentence)

 

etc.

 

So then 走進 sounds like it is missing something because it is. It is missing the toward/away information.

 

The reason 進去 is fine without 走 is that 進 is a verb itself, and it expresses the required directionality already and only needs the toward/away portion to be whole. But for all we know they could have flown into the elevator (飛進去), swum into the elevator (游進去), jumped into the elevator (跳進去), etc.

[Tiana]

So then 走進 sounds like it is missing something because it is. It is missing the toward/away information.

 

Just to add: "toward/away information" for this phrase is not always necessary. Simply add a "location" to 走進, the phrase will be fine also.

[陳德聰]

Yeah, and I guess in theory that satisfies whatever constraint that says the target/destination of the action needs to be specified in some way.

 

But also it would have been weird to repeat 電梯 for me here, since it seems redundent.

[Angelina]

 

走進去" as 走+[進 + 去] rather than just 走+進去

 

Makes sense.