Why use 把 here?

[bossidy]

Unless I'm mistaken, 把 was used in the sentence below to position 水 in front of 烧开. Can someone explain what was gained by using the 把 construction instead of just letting the object follow the verb?

凉开水是又一常见饮料,一般夏天喝的比较多. 因为生自来水不够卫生，人们

都要把水烧开，等凉了以后再饮用,所以叫做凉开水.

Thanks in advance.

[trevelyan]

The 把 is probably referring to the pot. That being said, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was hearing a friend answer a question by admitting that "it doesn't make any sense, but that's just the way it is."

[md1101]

its simple. 把 goes infront of any object that undergoes an action. - so before a noun of which a verb is applied to

把手机给我 - give me the phone

把电话放下 - put the phone down

and of course in the sentence you wrote down

把水烧开 - boil the water

yes you could also have written 烧开水 but it sounds much more fluent to say it using the 'ba' structure . actually 给我手机 or 烧开水 doesnt sound very good to me and i dont think many chinese would use it in that sense.

[againstwind]

In Chinese, 把 sentence is used to emphasize the objective. It's a very typical grammar phenomenon.

yes you could also have written 烧开水 but it sounds much more fluent to say it using the 'ba' structure . actually 给我手机 or 烧开水 doesnt sound very good to me and i dont think many chinese would use it in that sense.

I agree.