谢谢你发给我这篇文章<了>

[bryce1]

大家好！

 

Why is it ok to add 了 to this sentence: 谢谢你了, but in the following sentence, it is not ok: 谢谢你发给我这篇文章了?

I'm not very good at Chinese grammar. Any help is appreciated!

Thanks!
 

[Guest123]

The usage of 了 depends on waht you mean to say, the same sentence can be ok with or without it, all depends on the context. 

For your example: 

In 谢谢你了 the 了 modifies 谢谢, and in 谢谢你发给我这篇文章了 it modifies 发给, so meaning is different. And I'm not sure its absolutely not ok. 

[davoosh]

了 can be used after certain words like 謝謝 to add more of a 'personal emotional' feeling to them. 

 

了 at the end of the sentence does not necessarily modify 發給 - I think it is the 'sentence final' 了 which modifies the entire clause. In other words, the nuance with 了 at the end is of 'change of state', which would give a sense of 'I (have already) thanked you for sending...'.

 

It may be useful to remember that sentence-final 了 rarely corresponds neatly to the past tense as found in English.

 

A poster on wordreference forums also writes similar (quoting):

 

謝謝你了; 謝謝你啦; 謝謝你咯 ==> 表示感嘆語氣, 如：好了! 別鬧了！來咯！ 當然咯！
我已經謝謝你發給我這篇文章了 ==> 表示完成"謝謝"的動作
(我)謝謝你發給我這篇文章了 ==> 是嗎? 我怎麼不記得你表示過謝意?