住得并不近

[Nox01]

I’ve come across this 2-line dialogue:

 

张：你每天都来得这么早，你住的地方很近吗？

李：我住得并不近，不过我都很早出门。

 

Is that a mistake in "住得并不近“？I’ve read up on 得 before posting here, and here I think 得 (as a complex stative construction particle) doesn’t describe any of the following situations:

 

(i) Inferred manner (E.g. 他走得很慢)

(ii) Inferred extent (E.g. 他笑得站不起来)

 

住得并不近 doesn’t seem to fit in any of those. Am I mistaken? Or is that a typo in the book and it should be 的 instead of 得？

[lips]

得 is correct. What follows 得 describes the verb before 得.

[anonymoose]

"住得并不近“

 

并不近 describes the manner of 住. Possibly what's confusing you is using the word "manner" - usually this would imply a dynamic process in English, but from a Chinese grammatical point of view, the structure can also be used for static verbs, for which using "manner" seems less appropriate in English. Nevertheless, 并不近 "not at all nearby" describes how he 住 "lives".

[Nox01]

so the meaning is essentially the same regardless of which one you use in this example?

 

我住得并不近，不过我都很早出门。I live in the manner that is not at all close, .... (to me it sounds like he’s constantly changing the location where he lives)

我住的并不近，不过我都很早出门。The place where I live is not at all close, ....

[Lu]

I'd add a 地方 to that second one: 我住的地方并不近，不过我都很早出门。 And it's a bit clunkier than the first example.

[lips]

我住的并不近

Not properly written Chinese.

[Messidor]

Chinese(mainland) use 3 characters to represent different usages of de : 的；得；地。

的 is the mark of adj. or adjective phrase.

<他家很近的。>

得 is the mark of complement.

<他家近得很。><他住得很近。>

地 is the mark of adv. or adverbial.

<他大声地喊话。>

 

...though the using of 的 instead of 得 as a mark of complement is quite common in informal texts, it's never been taken as "correct"...(yes it's easier to write or type 的...)

 

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<我住的并不近> can be proper in certain contexts, e.g.

A.（我有两套公寓，）我朋友住着的这套离车站近，我住的Ø并不近。

B.（我有两套公寓，一间做仓库一间住人，）做仓库的这套离车站近，我住的Ø并不近。

There's usually a stress on 我 in (A) and a stress on 住 in (B). But <*我住的并不近> is improper as the answer in your example because 地方 is indefinite, whereas <Ø并不近> is proper because the whole NP(我住的地方) is definite (just like 那套 in (A) AND (B)). The mechanism of ellipsis is rather complex sorry it's beyond my ability to expound it.

[skylee]

I think I have to disagree with #6 and #7. Please see my post #12 (and also #2 and #5) of this thread -> http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/37142-little-phrase-%E6%B4%BB%E5%A4%9A%E7%9A%84%E5%81%9A%E4%B8%8D%E5%AE%8C/

[muyongshi]

I think I have to disagree with #6 and #7. Please see my post #12 (and also #2 and #5) of this thread -> http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/37142-little-phrase-%E6%B4%BB%E5%A4%9A%E7%9A%84%E5%81%9A%E4%B8%8D%E5%AE%8C/

Don't disagree with Skylee... Not wise.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[dwq]

Nevertheless, at least 4 people in this thread will write 得 and not 的 in this situation, so it might be worth it to learn the difference mentioned in #7.

[Messidor]

There's only one de in spoken Mandarin (which is based on northern dialects), so the scholars (or the authority) of the mainland assigned three different characters to its three usages to make the learning easier the the written text clearer.

 

Another interesting example:

The "correct" pronunciation(in mainland) of 标识(n.) in 5th version of Xiandai Hnanyu Cidian is /biāo zhì/, however, since most people(including students poor at 语文) in mainland pronounce it as /biāo shí/, the compilers added /biāo shí/ and one more part of speech in the 6th version ---- now the word has two pronunciations, either /biāo zhì/ or /biāo shí/ when used as a noun, and /biāo shí/ when used as a verb.

 

It's possible that there'll be only one character(whatever it is) of de in written Mandarin in the future, but there're three characters for the moment and replacing 得 with 的 in formal text is not recommended.

[Publius]

Yes, 得 is the correct form. But as pointed out by #8, 地 and 得 are both losing ground to 的 in informal communications.

I guess it's just that languages change.

#11 gave an interesting example. Here's another one:

When I was a kid, the correct pronunciaton of 呆板 was ai2ban3, and it was almost a fixture in all kinds of tests. But the vulgar pronunciation of dai1ban3 was so prevalent it had the last laugh. Starting from late 80s, the scholars capitulated and 《現代漢語詞典》 began to list dai1 as the only pronunciation of 呆, effectively made dai1ban3 offical and ai2ban3 obsolete. When we mentioned this to our high school Chinese teacher, he said to our amazement that when he was a kid, the correct way to say 白璧微暇 was bo2bi1wei1xia2. Since there was no pinyin around, I can only deduce from 《康熙字典》 (薄陌切音帛) that indeed 白 was once read bo2.

Looking back in 100 years from now, maybe we'll see the differentiation between (or should I say among) 的, 地, 得 as a lost cause, just like your English speakers' fight against the sentential adverbial use of 'hopefully'.

[skylee]

Think also Li Bo vs Li Bai for 李白 the great poet.

[Lu]

Was recently discussing a sentence with my language partner that happened to also contain the word 給與. I have trained myself over the years to read it as jǐyǔ. She is a normal Taiwanese person. So we went back and forth over another aspect of this sentence, with me consistently pronouncing 給與 as jǐyǔ and she just as consistently reading it as gěiyǔ. I could hardly correct the native speaker on this, and when I did bring it up her reaction was a bit like that of Publius above: oh, yeah, I guess it used to be pronounced jǐyǔ.

 

All my efforts for nothing. And of course I can't bring myself to change my reading of this.

[skylee]

Also jiaose vs juese for 角色.

And this reminds me of our old thread "Characters with different pronunciations on Mainland / Taiwan" -> http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/7007-characters-with-different-pronunciations-on-mainland-taiwan

[lips]

There's only one de in spoken Mandarin (which is based on northern dialects), so the scholars (or the authority) of the mainland assigned three different characters to its three usages to make the learning easier the the written text clearer.

The three different uses of 的、得、地 were already present in the 白话 literature from the Ming dynasty or earlier. Just do a seasrch of 红楼萝 or 水浒传。The use of 的 for all three purposes in literature is not a modern phenomenon and not only in informal writing. Look at works by any famous 白话文 writer (鲁迅、老舍、……) and you will find plenty of examples. 红楼萝 always has 的 instead of 地。In 李白《越女词》: “白地断肝肠”, 白地 means 平白地。

[Messidor]

The three different uses of 的、得、地 were already present in the 白话 literature from the Ming dynasty or earlier. Just do a seasrch of 红楼萝 or 水浒传。The use of 的 for all three purposes in literature is not a modern phenomenon and not only in informal writing. Look at works by any famous 白话文 writer (鲁迅、老舍、……) and you will find plenty of examples. 红楼萝 always has 的 instead of 地。In 李白《越女词》: “白地断肝肠”, 白地 means 平白地。

There is only one de of neutral tone when people are speaking, and the de has three usages; the scholars (and the authority) can assign any (less important) character(s) to its usages, be it an already used character or not. Another example, 呢 can be used in both interrogative sentence and declarative sentence, e.g. 在哪儿呢？/ 在这儿呢。etc., so should we assert that there're more than one ne and that we must assign several characters to all its usages?

鲁迅 used 伊 to mean she, so does that mean Chinese today should use 伊 instead of 她?

Finally, as I said in #11, using 得 instead of 的 in formal text in mainland today it's improper.

[WangxinyiAriel]

得 is correct. The phrases after 得 refers to an extent to modify the verb before it.

[陳德聰]

There is only one de of neutral tone when people are speaking, and the de has three usages; the scholars (and the authority) can assign any (less important) character(s) to its usages, be it an already used character or not. Another example, 呢 can be used in both interrogative sentence and declarative sentence, e.g. 在哪儿呢？/ 在这儿呢。etc., so should we assert that there're more than one ne and that we must assign several characters to all its usages?

鲁迅 used 伊 to mean she, so does that mean Chinese today should use 伊 instead of 她?

Finally, as I said in #11, using 得 instead of 的 in formal text in mainland today it's improper.

The 呢 example is not analogous. The function in both interrogative and declarative is still the same with regard to focus items...

As for the "same pronunciation" argument, the separation of 的地得 is very unlikely to be based on any dialect that pronounces them identically. In Cantonese, and I suspect many other Chinese varieties, they are pronounced differently. It is much more likely that the difference in pronunciation of them as different morphemes is responsible for having different glyphs than some arbitrary decision to use a different character for different "usages" of one pronunciation. Perhaps I've misunderstood your point, but any appeal to the authority of the north in the last century ignores roots in the known history of the language.