你看见<了>吗? = Do you see?

[rtf]

各位好：

 

 

There`s an extract from a book:

 

前面正闪着红灯 (There's a blinking red light ahead), 你看见了吗?  (do you see it?)  
 

 

How come 看见了 is used in the present?  Isn`t 见 enough as a complement of result  in 看见 to mean 'see',not 'look'?  Well,I would render 你看见了吗? as 'Do you see it now (because you didn`t before)'. Or maybe it`s just a rhythm filler here?

 

 

 

谢谢。

[curry]

I would consider 了 in this sentence as indicating a change in status. It signifies, as you said, that the listener did not see the light before.

[stapler]

I read this as asking if you have successfully seen it (hence the 了) where as without the 了 it feels more like its asking if you are "able" to see. To use another example, if I saw "你去吗?" I would read this as "can you go? will you go?" but if I wanted to know if something successfully went or not I would expect to see 你去过了吗？“ or "did you go?" - 了 is asking if you "completed" the verb (看见）

 

Sorry I can't provide any grammar explanations. This is just my instinct...

[yifeng]

Here 了 is a modal particle (语气助词) used to indicate that a action is completed. If it is missed, the sentence has no loss in meaning but sounds a little odd. So you are right.

 

 it`s just a rhythm filler here

 

 

Modal particle is an important feature of Chinese language, its equivalents are difficult to find in English. 

 

To emphasise that the action was completed in a past time, 过 is necessary: 

 

1. 你看见过这东西吗？

2. 你见过这东西吗？

 

Or in the topic-comment (theme-rheme) structure:

 

3. 这东西你见过吗？

4. 这东西你见过了吗？

 

In the last sentence, 了's role as a modal particle is obvious, and it can be dropped absolutely.

[rtf]

Thanks,yifeng. As someone once rightfully noted,in some cases the presence of 了 as a modal particle is more of a tradition than grammar.

 

 

Thanks again and good luck!

[Messidor]

I tend to think 了 in 你看见了吗 can also be taken an auxiliary ( which indicates the aspect ). And it's perhaps more natural to translate 你看见了吗 into have you seen it , the present perfect.