What's the significance of all these 的s?

[anonymoose]

Here is a sentence from an email sent to me by a chinese person:

你知道的我是不愿意教那么小的小孩的

The meaning is clear to me, but what I don't understand is the use of the two 的s in red.

Couldn't the sentence be equally well written as:

你知道我是不愿意教那么小的小孩

?

Any explanation with further examples would be appreciated. Thanks!

[gougou]

Not sure about the first one either, but the second is part of the 是...的 construction, which has been dealt with here before. I think in this context it is supposed to imply something that is widely known, or generally accepted.

As for the first one, I don't think it is a part of "formal" Chinese grammar.

[skylee]

About the first 的, my guess is there should have been a comma afterwards, thus the sentence would read -

你知道的，我是不願意教那麼小的小孩的。

[Quest]

Not sure about the first one either, but the second is part of the 是...的 construction

The first one is also a 是...的 construction.

你[是]知道的，我是不愿意教那么小的小孩的。

Couldn't the sentence be equally well written as:

你知道我是不愿意教那么小的小孩

?

No, you have to stick in a 的 at the end.

你知道我是不愿意教那么小的小孩的。

[roddy]

How come you can miss out the 是 at the start if you are a native speaker, but not the 的 at the end of sentence if you are a learner?

Roddy

[HashiriKata]

How come you can miss out the 是 at the start if you are a native speaker, but not the 的 at the end of sentence if you are a learner?

I suppose it's one of those unfair rules that we have to put up with. Shall we reverse the roles and miss out the 是 at the start if you are a learner, and the 的 at the end of sentence if you are a native speaker?

[anonymoose]

Thanks for your replies. I don't know why I didn't spot the 是...的 construction to begin with - it seems obvious now.

Having said that...

No, you have to stick in a 的 at the end.

你知道我是不愿意教那么小的小孩的。

...are there any rules as to when the 是 or 的 can be omitted in the 是...的 construction? I could be wrong, but I seem to remember other occasions when the 的 was omitted, rather than the 是.

[HashiriKata]

I seem to remember other occasions when the 的 was omitted, rather than the 是.

I'm also interested to see if there's any rule where the 的 of the pair can be omitted. I suspect that, since 是 can do all sorts of functions, it'd be very difficult to omit 的 without affecting the meaning of the sentence.

[atitarev]

Other interesting examples of 的:

(This one is from the same dialog as my previous post)

Is it similar to 是 ... 的?

你们够浪漫的！

Nǐmen gòu làngmàn de！

不管你在什么地方换，牌价都是一模一样的，你甭操心了。

Bùguǎn nǐ zài shénme dìfang huàn，páijià dōu shì yīmóyīyàng de， nǐ béng cāoxīn le.

These 2 are similar, they nominalise verb-object making the whole phrase nominal, I understand these phrases now but still digesting the usage LOL:

熊出门的时候正好碰到另外一种换钱的。

Xióng chūmén de shíhou zhènghǎo pèngdào lìngwài yī zhǒng huànqián de.

对了，但是凡是有游客的地方都有职业照相的。

Duìle， dànshì fánshì yǒu yóukè de dìfāng dōu yǒu zhíyè zhàoxiàng de.

[HashiriKata]

atitarev,

Within your 4 sentences, the first 2 are very different from the last 2:

The 的 in the first 2 is a kind of 是 ... 的 (giving emphasis to the element preceding 的);

and the 的 in the last 2 are a kind of attributive 的 (a noun following the 的 is understood)

[chenpv]

你们够浪漫的！

This should be excluded from the sentence pattern, i think, because it is an incomplete sentence in which '你们' is subject and the rest is served as complement. i can give another example which is similar to this:

你们（到得）够早的！离考试还有一个小时阿！

[HashiriKata]

This should be excluded from the sentence pattern

Chenpv, the question asked is what kind of 的 it is, and whether or not we should learn it is the next question.

What kind of 的 do you think the 的 in the last 2 sentences is?