meaning of 着 in the example

[metlx]

她从她的包拿出一把手枪，然后把枪口对着他。

 

What does 着 mean in the example above?

[lips]

pointing *at* him, in this case.  Strictly by grammar, 着 when used after a verb is to be interpreted as indicating a continual action, as the "-ing" in English.  However, in this particular sentence, personally I think "at" is more appropriate.  In the sentence 对着他开了一枪 (fired a shot at him), there is no sense of continual action yet one can stil put 着 in there.  Similarly, in the imperative sentence, 把枪对着他 (point the gun at him),  着 must be used, you cannot say 把枪对他.

[metlx]

Hmm.. I thought 着 acted as some kind of axillary verb in this case to fill the place of a verb in a 把 sentence construction (把＋object+verb) since there is no other verb in the sentence (然后把枪口对着他).

 

But if 着 is acting as an "-ing" thing, then how come it comes after "对"? As far as I know, 着 can only be attached to verbs, and to my knowledge 对 (in the sense of "at/towards") is not a verb.

 

Is 对着 an idiomatic expression? I'm asking because it makes little sense to me, and oftentimes idioms aren't supposed to make sense in reference to the grammar. I mean, why add 着 when 对 already means "towards"?

[metlx]

Scratch that first thought above.. that can't be a ”把“ sentence pattern

[lips]

对 can be a verb, meaning "to direct, to face".

[陳德聰]

对着 here is like "facing" or "pointing at", but I would disagree that it emphasizes "at". The gun Is in a state of pointing-at-him-ness, but in English we simply do not represent that situation in the same way. The barrel is pointed/pointing at/towards him. In my opinion, the 对 means "point at/towards; face", not the 着. The 着 encodes the "is ... ed/ing" information. Couple that with the 把 and the person brings about the situation where the gun is pointed/ing at the other person, which in English we can represent simply in the active voice: "He pointed the gun at him." Whereas the Chinese version is more literally: "He made it so the gun was pointing at him."

[metlx]

Got it. By the way, are 对着 and 对准 interchangeable in all situations？ 

[lips]

no. 对着 means point(ing) at, 对淮 means pointing accurately at.

[Messidor]

Two typical uses of auxiliary 着 are: 屋外下着雪 / 门开着；沿着街走. In the former example 着 is usually taken as a mark of continual aspect / continuation of a state; in the latter one 着 is an auxiliary attached to a type of verb (only a few) that will make a prepositional phrase, e.g. 沿着、朝着、挨着 etc.(they are idiomatic). 

Compare the 4 examples

沿着街走

对着他开枪

把枪口对着他

她指着他破口大骂

对着 straddles the fussy boundary between the two usages

[Altair]

Just to try to repackage what has already been said, I think there are three different topics being talked about here.

 

First, as Messidor alludes to, many coverbs are part way on an evolutionary path from being full verbs to being pure grammatical words used as "prepositions."  As such, they can appear with aspect particles even when used as coverbs.  A partial list from Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Grammar by Charles N. Li and Sandra A. Thompson includes:

 

按

冲

朝

对

往

沿

逆

凭

顺

向

为

挨

 

The presence or absence of the aspect particle (usually 着, but 了 for a few coverbs) no longer has any affect on the meaning, but the presence of the particle was probably once thought necessary when the coverbs were still felt to be more like full verbs.  Some of the words, such as 沿 normally appear with the particle, except in fixed phrases.

 

Second, 对 in particular can still be used as either a coverb (with or without a following 着) or as a full verb, as mentioned by lips.  In this case, it is being used as a full verb.

 

Third, a 把 construction requires more than a simple, one-syllable verb, but can be used with a one-syllable verb followed by 着 used as an aspect particle.  As 陳徳聰 explains, this is how 对 is used in this case, where the direct object (抢口) is prominent in the flow of discourse and its final state or position (from her breast to pointing at him) is what the point of the discourse is.

 

 

By the way, are 对着 and 对准 interchangeable in all situations？

 

no. 对着 means point(ing) at, 对淮 means pointing accurately at.

One of my Pleco dictionary uses both terms while defining 对准 as follows:

 

准确地对着（目标）

 

I think that 对着 is more like "pointing at"; while 对淮 is more like "aim at."

[metlx]

Thanks!

I've got ahold of Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Grammar by Charles N. Li and Sandra A. Thompson. Seems like a very useful book.