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我哪里不文明了啊: Why the 了?


anonymoose

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I read it as speaker A defending himself, implying that he was usually a civilized speaker and that the speaker B only has an issue with speaker B's first line, not with his person as a whole. (IAMANS; I am not a native speaker)

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Not totally sure, but I think 了 is used to indicate past tense here. With adjectives (aka "stative verbs"), it's not always clear when to use present and when to use past. Some either present or past would be ok, with only a subtle difference between the two. With action verbs, the difference between past and present is much clearer.

Compare

我哪里不文明? (Where am I uncivil?)

with

我哪里不文明了? (Where was I uncivil?).

我傻 (I am stupid)

with

我傻了 (I was stupid).

我在被打 (I am being beaten)

with

我被打了 (I was beaten).

In English, the analogous usage in English would be past perfect simple for verbs (e.g. "was beaten"), and past simple for "to be" (i.e. "was"). "Perfect" just means a completed action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Past_tense

Simple past is formed for regular verbs by adding –ed to the root of a word. Example: He walked to the store. A negation is produced by adding did not and the verb in its infinitive form. Example: He did not walk to the store. Question sentences are started with did as in Did he walk to the store?

Simple past is used for describing acts that have already been concluded and whose exact time of occurrence is known. Furthermore, simple past is used for retelling successive events. That is why it is commonly used in storytelling.

Past perfect simple is formed by combining the simple past form of to have with the past participle form of the main verb: We had shouted. A negation is achieved by including not after had: You had not spoken. Questions in past perfect always start with had: Had he laughed?

Past perfect simple is used for describing secluded events that have occurred before something else followed. The event that is closer to the present is given in simple past tense: After we had visited our relatives in New York, we flew back to Toronto.

Edited by gato
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Well, now we have about equal responses in favour of each of the different usages of 了 - change of state, emphasis and completed event. All we need now is for someone to come along and say actually in this sentence it should be pronounced liao :wink:

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My interpretation of:

A: 果然很傻,被人骂了还这么开心你

B: 你可不可以文明一點?

A: 我哪里不文明了啊

A:Just as I thought (果然) you're really stupid, people swear at you and you're seem happy about it, you!... (...=idiot>>final 你)

B:Hey, would you mind being a bit more civilized? (B means to say: less rude)

A:What do you mean I'm not civilized? (i.e. Hey, I'm not being rude)

Conclusion: 了 for emphasis, indicating a change in one's understanding, idea, view or action, same as>> 我现在明白他的意思了。= Now I see/know/understand what he meant by that! *All the confusion about Past Tense is probably created by the fact that you can also translate the sentence as>> I have now understood what he meant.

Compare with 催促劝止的 '了': or would you say 走了, 走了!不能再等了!is also Past Tense?

:wink:

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Well, now we have about equal responses in favour of each of the different usages of 了 - change of state, emphasis and completed event. All we need now is for someone to come along and say actually in this sentence it should be pronounced liao

Thanks for this, imron! It made me laugh out loud :mrgreen:

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没有含义

为了句子通顺

中国人习惯

:wall

Predictable. Hehe.

The average person doesn't really think about this stuff. Most native English speakers don't know what "past perfect" means, either, which is why I posted the Wikipedia excerpts. The difference is that whereas virtually all native English speakers know "have ..." means completion (it's taught in the lower grades), a lot Chinese might not know that about "了".

On another note, in some cases, people might use 了 and 啦 interchangeably, which might be why 了 might be used to indicate emphasis.

For example, you might see both 快点啦!and 快点了!in print. Is the latter considered a 错别字?

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