去 and 来

[qiyage]

Hello Everyone!

 

May I say...

 

今天我们去学习第一课?

 

Or... the correct sentence is ...

 

今天我们来学习第一课?

 

​Why 来 (to come) and no 去 (to go)?

 

 

[abcdefg]

今天我们来学习第一课?

 

This is the correct one. Someone else will have to explain why. I'm not good with such things, but could 来 in this sentence signal a planned or suggested action? That would be my best guess. 

 

It's also perfectly clear without either 去 or 来。

 

今天我们学习第一课。

[Guest123]

来 and 去 indicate direction.

If you are at home and are going to school, you say 去， if you are already at school, you say 来。

It's like when you are with someone ouside a building, you say 进去, and when you are inside and the other one is outside, you say to him 进来。

So it's a question of the position of the speaker. 

But when talking about going to school, usually there is 上 and not 来、去 ： 今天我们上第一课。

[qiyage]

Thank you Edita!

 

Friends, please, can I say...

 

1) 现在我们来学习第一课.

 

​and

 

​2) 现在我们来学习生词. ?

[Publius]

今天我们来学习第一课。

来 in this sentence is no longer a verb of movement. It has little semantic content. Its main purpose is to serve a grammatical function.

 

《汉语大词典》 has an entry for this usage. But I don't know how to define it linguistically. Maybe hortative (like "let's"), maybe inceptive (like "get going"), maybe a mix of both.

18. 用在动词或动词结构前面，表示要做某事。

巴金《探索集・豪言壮语》：“自己改不了就请大家来帮忙。”

如：你来念一遍；大家来想办法。

 

As to why 来 but not 去, let's consider this English sentence:

Today we're going to learn how to say ....

"Going" is also a grammatical word. It's part of the periphrastic future tense "be going to" + verb.

Can I use "coming" instead? I think the answer is no. Because "coming" does not have the same function.

 

So my point is, natural language is messy and irrational. It's governed by convention, not logic. Don't over-analyze it.

[Angelina]

 It's governed by convention, not logic. Don't over-analyze it.

 

 

I strongly disagree. 

 

 

 

The thing about  来 and 去 is that it can be used to indicate movement away or towards a deictic center. toward: 来   away: 去

 

The deictic center can be the person speaking, the person being spoken to, or someone/something else. The main point is that  来 is used for movement toward and 去 is used for movement away from the center, while keeping in mind that this center is not necessary the speaker.

 

There are various ways 来 and 去 can be used figuratively. Something similar is happening with their Burmese counterparts 

 

(Romeo, N. (2009). The grammaticalised use of the Burmese verbs la ‘come’ and thwà ‘go’. In: Hogeweg, L., de Hoop H., Malchukov A. (eds). Cross-linguistic Semantics of Tense, Aspect and Modality. Amsterdam: John Benjamins)

 

 

今天我们来学习第一课?

 

 

you can also say things like

 

我们来讨论 

[Shelley]

Why did someone down vote Angelina's post?

 

I ask this because I wondered is it because it is wrong? or is it because there was one remark someone didn't like E.G

I strongly disagree.

 

 

Or something else I am missing?

 

The reason I ask is because I thought the answer was grammatically correct, but now I am confused.

 

It would be more useful if people explained why they down voted instead of just clicking red and running away.

 

I haven't upvoted it because I am unsure now, so I will wait to hear what others think.

[Demonic_Duck]

I think it's because she starts by strongly disagreeing with the premise that this usage is convention-based, then starts talking about deictic centers, and then completely changes the subject by bringing up similarities with Burmese but without explaining what the similarities actually are. (I wasn't the one who downvoted, though, so I'm just speculating.)

For what it's worth, I don't think the deictic center is relevant to this usage... unless the deictic center is a point of time (now). Though my theoretical knowledge of Chinese grammar isn't good enough to tell whether that's the case here.

[Publius]

I don't like the down vote. I think Angelina was quoting directly from a book. And she has a point. It seems we can agree on something, for example, this is a grammaticalized use, though I don't think what she quoted sufficiently explained why 去 is not applicable in this specific case. But disagreement doesn't warrant a down vote. Someone didn't like the tone? Dunno. When browsing through old threads I noticed one of Shelly's post got downvoted for no apparent reason. Democracy, I guess.

[Shelley]

Shelly's post got downvoted for no apparent reason.

 

Now you have piqued my curiosity, which post?

[陳德聰]

I think the notion that 去 must be accounted for before we accept that 來 has taken on another related but distinct grammaticalisation is a bit odd. Maybe I misunderstood something?

I think it's relatively plain to see that 我們來學習第一課 is an extension of 來's movement meaning if the deictic centre is the place physical or metaphorical where it is possible for "us" to study the first lesson. I would be surprised if this is not common in many languages, which is what I believe Angelina was alluding to. Especially with how Burmese and Chinese are genetically related, I think that was the relevance. If I were a teacher and I said 大家去學習第一課, I would be asking people to go away from where they are to study the first lesson. If I said 大家來學習第一課, I'd be asking everyone to come together to study the first lesson. 你來唸一遍, you step up the plate and read it once. The grammatical function is not identical to movement 來, but I don't see it as such a far stretch to get to it from there.

[dwq]

Because we think 來 and 去 are gramatically similar? It is like if I say 某朝有個官職叫左丞相, you'd expect that, logically, there would also have been one called 右丞相 too, otherwise it can just be called 丞相 and no need to specify 左 .

So in case that distinct grammaticalisation happened for 來 not for 去, we might think it is not logical. But as Publius said, natural language is not governed by logic.

[陳德聰]

Like 來 and 去 both already have their original meaning, and 來 develops a new one. Why does 去 also logically have to develop a new one? That's where I think it's a bit bizarre to call that "logic", and I am not sure why we think natural logic is not logical when it is historically pretty systematic in doing what it does?

[dwq]

Because, since they both started out similar, wouldn't you think 去 would have also tried to follow the same line of development as 來?  The fact that 來 survived that development into the new meaning but 去 did not, is simply a historical accident.

 

I think it boils down to there being some ambiguousness of the word logical.

 

If someone throws a six-faced dice and gets 5 as a result...

 

A says, "It is logical.  5 is a valid result of a dice throw. (If you get 7 as a result, that would not be logical)"

B says, "The result of a dice throw is not governed by logic, but randomness. (It is not possible to explain why you get 5 and not 4 as a result)"

 

I'd say both are valid statements, wouldn't you?

[陳德聰]

Mmmmm.... Yes but what was said was not B, but closer to "if I roll two dice they both should be expected to land on the same number otherwise dice rolls are not governed by logic" ;)

[somethingfunny]

I think the original point might have been more along the lines of "it's helpful sometimes if you think of the literal meaning of 来 and helpful sometimes if you look at common usages and try to copy that".  Personally, I can see the connection in some cases, but when people say things like "他叫什么来着？" I find it more useful to view this as 'idiomatic' rather than 'derived-from-literal' usage.  In the example here, I agree with #3: If I was a student at home, I would use 去 in a literal sense, whereas, if I was the teacher at the head of the classroom, I would use 来 in the way discussed by #5.

 

I'd like to make one further point:  I strongly recommend that the OP includes the use of a measure word, as in: 今天我们（来）学习第一节课.

[Shelley]

includes the use of a measure word, as in: 今天我们（来）学习第一节课.

 

That's interesting, never seen that before, not even in any of my text books. all the lessons are just 第一课.

 

is this a different usage of 第一课? I thought it meant lesson number 1, or more precisely number one lesson.

[eddyf]

That's interesting, never seen that before, not even in any of my text books. all the lessons are just 第一课.

 

is this a different usage of 第一课? I thought it meant lesson number 1, or more precisely number one lesson.

 

I think they are different. 第一课 means "Lesson 1" but 第一节课 means "the first class" (as in, first period). As a measure word, 课 refers to lessons (e.g. units in a textbook) but as a noun it means "class". If you use the verb 上 you probably need to use the "class" sense and not the "lesson" sense so it needs a measure word. In other words I think this is wrong: 今天我们上第一课。It would have to be: 今天我们上第一节课。But if you use the verb 学习 then using 第一课 is preferred.

[Angelina]

there is also 一门课、三门课, as in 我选了三门课 , but we are getting off topic  

 

 

Anyway, both 来 and 去 can be grammaticalised and used where there is no actual movement in space.

Why would we use 我们来学习? Maybe 来 can imply doing something together. 去 can also be used figuratively, however, even though both 来 and 去 can be used figuratively, their use is not exactly the same. Just because both 来 and 去 can have an extended meaning, it does not mean that their extended meaning is symmetrical. There are rules, but not necessarily symmetrical rules. 

[Shelley]

@eddyf, thanks that makes it clear.