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沒能 and 不能


anonymoose

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I think you took it the wrong way, Leeyah. I was not taking any side. I just agreed with HK's explanation, which was also what I would explain if I could.

No problem at all! I understand what you're trying to say :D

Anyway, yes, my using the phrase 'taking sides' is a bit too strong a word for it. Sorry. Guess at the given moment I kind of thought you also seconded previous poster's 'fears' of me losing my way :roll::wink:

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能 itself is a modal verb and its range of usage is wide. However, when combined with 沒 into 沒能, it has this very narrow range of meaning: "tried but failed".

I don't really understand what you're getting at here. Yes, 能 is a modal verb, and when combined with 沒 it becomes negated, like can/could and couldn't in English.

This still doesn't explain why grammar books say 能 is never negated by 沒.

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To anonymoose: In relation to the grammar book - maybe modal verbs can be further subcatagorised, seeing as here 能 is indicating possibility rather than a mood or attitude. It's also interesting that they say 無 can be used - I thought it was exactly the same as 沒有 (except in set phrases and matters of prosody etc)!

To HashiriKata: If there is a time frame, is the 沒 still required instead of 不? For example:

昨晚我不能参加你们的聚会.

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& additionally, if you have a read of this & this things may become even clearer.

基本字义

1. 才干,本事:~力。~耐。才~。

能 néng 〈名〉 (3)  才能,能力 [ability])

能够 nénggòu

(1)

[can;be able to;be capable]

(2)

表示具备某种能力

这个问题他能够解决

(3)

表示有条件;可以

今天下午的会议我们都能够参加

   

Edited by leeyah
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Modality in English and Chinese by Renzhi Li contains the following:

[xx]An auxiliary verb takes 不 bu 'not' in negation (24a). 没 mei 'not' applies in a restricted way to auxiliary verbs (24b) (Chao 1968:731)....

(24) a. 他不能去。 (Chao 1968:731)

'He cannot go.'

b. 他昨儿没能来。

'He could not come yesterday.'

The author is addressing various ways of defining modal/auxiliary verbs and does not delve into this, but the Chao Yuan-ren book referred to is A Grammar of Spoken Chinese, and it may have a more detailed discussion.

It's odd that the standard grammar texts treat negation of auxiliaries so casually. Like the text cited above, Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar addresses them in a single sentence: "Similarly, auxiliary verbs, which are always stative, are negated with bu and not mei(you)."

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This still doesn't explain why grammar books say 能 is never negated by 沒.
I did not try to explain what text books say (I did say what they say confuses many people!:D). However, by equating 沒能 with "tried but failed", I was hinting that to me, 沒能 was not a phrase indicating a mood or attitude, and is therefore not a straightforward equivalent of your "couldn't".
If there is a time frame, is the 沒 still required instead of 不? For example: 昨晚我不能参加你们的聚会.
In principle, I'm sure this sentence with 不能 should be fine in the right context, so the question is to find the right, plausible context. As a non-native speaker, I would hesitate to make definite statements about sentences which we have ourselves created or modified. The following are some examples I've found, see if they are relevant in any way to your question?

说到这里,她满眼泪花,声音悲哽,不能说下去了。

At this point her eyes filled with tears, and her voice choked with sobs, she was unable to go on.

起头她答应来的,后来有别的事不能来了。

At first she promised to come but then had another engagement and couldn't make it.

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Dilemma solved!

他昨儿没能来。

'He could not come yesterday.'

So... 知错就改 :wink: in all the examples with 没能 the translation would be couldn't i.e. was (for some reason) unable to & the missing word was actually 条件 >>没有条件 rather than "tried but failed" or 能力

That's what I meant by asking a good teacher to explain (a professionally trained native speaker such as the authors of the said grammar book)

:clap

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I believe someone here has recently elaborated on how untrained native speakers may not always be the most reliable source of information for high level stuff like the difference between 没能 & 不能 here.

As an aside, I'm so glad we're able to quickly identify these "untrained" native speakers who dare to help us, so we can quickly dismiss their contributions. I'm also grateful that we have so many untrained non-native speakers to outnumber them, since we clearly know better. Who needs native speakers anyway, it's not like we want to actually converse with them? I love this forum.

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Hopefully this place is where we can help each other further our understanding of Chinese rather than personalising the argument.

But it seems some people don't see it this way. I was fair enough to apologize to whom the apology was due and admit my mistake, which, sadly, I haven't seen many people do here, but I must say it's really amusing to see some people (including those who didn't have anything meaningful to say on the topic) suddenly join in to comment & judge others by indulging themselves in completely irrelevant sarcasm. But it's Sunday, I guess they're just bored to death.

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I found this snippet from 同形词词典 on google books

2 ) "不"可用在所有能思動詞前, "沒有(沒) "只限於用在"能、能夠,要,肯,敢"等少數幾個

能思動詞前面。 ... 而"沒有(沒) "只有一種形式:沒能去或(沒有能去)。 ...

Unfortunately, this book only allows a snippet view.

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