Resultative Complement

[LaoDing]

So the term 'resultative complement' only applies to Chinese? 

http://comet.cls.yale.edu/mandarin/content/result/grammar/result.htm

[lips]

Chinese has no verbs for hear and see?  How about 闻 and 见？ As in 视而不見，听而不聞。

[Chen Tang]

The English verbs such as "hear" and "see",when we Chinese translate them,we usually use "听见”"看见“,which include the results of the actions.That is,in Chinese,看 is different from 看见. 看 means "look",看见 means "see".So I guess English doesn't need  'resultative complement',because English has some verbs which can play the  'resultative complement' role.And 视而不见,听而不闻   不見 and 不聞 are the results of 视 and 听, "fail to see" and "fail to hear".

[lips]

I was commenting on the assertion in the link  in the first post, "... there are no such verbs as ‘hear’, ‘see’, ‘find’, ‘kill’ and so on in Chinese ...".  見 is see and 闻 is hear.

[yosondysh]

"看" and "見" are of the same meaning. The so-called "resultative complement" may refer to "到" in "聽到" and "看到", but "看見" is not the case. If "看" does not indicate whether the object has been seen, then how should we understand the phrases "看書" and "看見書".

 

"看" is used when things are seen as a whole, while "看見" and "看到" are used when focusing on certain part of the scene.  It works like this: 我在房裡看見一本書. 我看了這本書. 看見書裡有個好句子.

 

Then, why are "看" and "見" combined into another verb? I really don't know. One interesting fact is that a phrase combining two words are more preferable than a single word in modern Chinese. It is more like rythmical reason than grammatical reason.

 

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[朱真明]

看 and 看見 mean to see and 看書 means (to see + object that is seen). Although 看 means to see, if in a sentence you do not have a direct object like 書 then you have to say 看見 or 看到, you cannot just say 看. If you do have direct object then 見 and 到 are redundant, so 看見書 is grammatically incorrect. 

 

In the example : 我在房裡看見一本書, 見 is redundant. 

 

Common Resultative Complements that take the place of direct objects are:

飽, 錯, 倒, 到, 掉, 懂, 對, 光, 過, 好, 會, 見, 開, 膩, 清楚, 死, 完, 著, 住, 走

[lips]

我在房裡看見一本書, 見 is redundant.

我在房裡看見一本書 and 我在房裡看一本書 have different meanings.

 

看 in 看書 means "read".

[eddyf]

 

 

If "看" does not indicate whether the object has been seen, then how should we understand the phrases "看書" and "看見書".

看 means "to look at" and 看见 means "to see". Pretty much the same distinction exists in English. "To look at" also does not indicate whether the object has been seen, but it can often be assumed that it has. Consider these two sentences: "He looked at me." vs "He saw me." These sentences are not interchangeable and the difference between them goes beyond just stylistic/rhythmic considerations. It's the same with "他看了我“ vs "他看见了我". As for “看书” it's more like another usage of 看 that means "read", which is related to but distinct from the meaning "to look at". And "看见书" means something like "to see books". In short, there are many situations where 看 and 看见 can't be used interchangeably and the difference is a semantic one, not just a rhythmic one.

[Michaelyus]

Japanese and Korean are both well known for having resultative verb-like constructions. Because their basic syntax is different, they are not usually called resultative complements, although I suppose you could...

[yosondysh]

Sorry, I did not mean "看" and "看見" can be used interchangeably. That's my bad. Because my mother tongue is not English, I can not always express myself precisely in English. That may be exactly why I am here, trying to figure out how differently we think with our own languages.

 

When I talked about the rhythmic issue, I was indicating a more general phenomenon in modern Chinese language, such as "奔跑", "聽聞", "通過", "抵達", "建構" ,etc. You can make a list as long as you like. Some of them are of the same meaning, others are not. In Chinese language, sentences are made of "詞", and "詞" are made of words. I guess some of the users in this forum simply ignore the structure of "詞" when learning Chinese, since there is no equivalent structure in English.  Most of "詞" are composed of two words (in modern Chinese), and some are of just one word;  the three-word "詞" are fewer and often sound exotic.

 

Until now, I often have a hard time figuring out when to use "see", "watch", and "look". We think so differently through these two different languages. Let me demonstrate it to you with this interesting example--"看書". "看" in "看書" is not  another usage of "看". Like I said in my previous post, "看" is used when things are seen as a whole. Generally, we read a book because we would like to catch the concepts of the book, rather than a single sentence. So, in Chinese, we use "看" in this situation. "看" in "看書", however, is not equivalent to reading. There is another "詞" with similar meaning -- "讀書". When we say "看書", it can be browsing, reading, or even studying, while "讀書" indicate reading (serious) books, studying, or hard working. 

 

Well, I have to admit "看書" is a confusing example. Maybe you guys would like this...lol

在森林裡, 我看見 (a house in the forest) 一棟無人的房子, 走近一看 (seeing the house as a whole), 看見 (the door of the house) 房子的門沒關上, 我好奇地看看 (the whole space inside) 房子裡頭, 看見 (a room in the house) 一間典雅的房間, 走進房間內, 我看見一本書, 我看了這本書, 看見了個好句子, 忍不住流下淚來。

Sounds like the beginning of a creepy story, haha.

 

I am not saying "resultative complement" is a bad way to understand Chinese grammar. Don't get me wrong. If it helps you to learn this language, that would be great. I simply do not think  the statement, "看" does not indicate whether the object has been seen ", makes sense to me. 

[yosondysh]

Then, how to say "look at me" in Chinese, I think it would be "看著我" ("看了我" should be a typo  ) or "看向我".

 

As summarized below...

 

看我 -- to see me (as a whole) doing something. eg. 他來看我, 看我忙, 看我笑 

           or to judge me, to view me as. eg.看我窮 看我小氣

 

看見我 -- to see me within the scene, to witness.  eg. 路上看見我, 看見我偷東西

 

看著我 -- to look at me

 

Oh~ 我又窮又小氣又會偷東西. I am a bad guy. 

[朱真明]

1) 看書 does mean to read, that was a bad example, I should of said something like 看房子

 

2) 詞 are words, they are made up of 字 characters. 

[eddyf]

Thanks for the detailed response!

 

Then, how to say "look at me" in Chinese, I think it would be "看著我" ("看了我" should be a typo   ) or "看向我".

Yeah I think I was going for something like 他看了我一眼, I guess it sounds weird without the 一眼?

 

From everything I've seen, 看见 pretty much always translates to "see" and never to "look" or "watch". As for 看 it's more complicated. I think of 看书 and 看我 as different usages because we wouldn't use the same word in both situations in English. But I suppose trying to find mappings between between Chinese words and English words can only tell us so much.

 

It's worth pointing out that 看见 is classified as a resultative complement not just because of what it means but also because it has a corresponding potential complement (看得见/看不见). That makes it objectively different from any of the various 2-character words which cannot form potential complements. The idea of resultative complements is not just a "helpful way to learn the language," it's an objectively observable grammatical feature.

[boctulus]

I don't see the point in see/watch/look

 

They are just verbs...... what is the special distinction ?