Strange example sentences in Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar

[Olle Linge]

I'm currently reading a translated version of Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar by Li & Thompson. I read a version in traditional Chinese published in 2008, but since I'm going to talk about example sentences, I assume that these are the same as those in the original version.

I read the book mostly to pick up vocabulary regarding grammar, but of course I also try to learn some of what is actually said in the book. Most makes sense, but I think many example sentences feel contrived or weird. Since I'm not a native speaker, I can't really confirm myself if these sentences are weird or if it's my 語感 that fails me. Here are some examples from section 4.1.6 and 4.1.7 on page 87-88 in my edition ("Other examples" in a section about topic-comment contsructions):

1. 昨天雪下得很緊
   
2. 那年他很緊張
   
3. 那個孩子（他的）衣服都破了
   
4. [...]報上的消息，世界上的情形很不好
   

Here are my questions (I have put the significant parts above in bold):

1. I've never heard this expression before. Neither had the native speaker (from Beijing) that I asked about it. Is it common?
   
2. Same with this phrase. Neither I or the same native speaker as above had heard of it. What does it mean?
   
3. Is this sentence really correct without 他的? I would just say 這個孩子的衣服都破了.
   
4. This feels incomplete, I would add a 關於 or something at the beginning. Is this correct?
   

In short, I come across a lot of these examples in the book and if well-educated native speakers haven't heard of the expression or consider the grammar to be incorrect, are these good examples? I ask this because I hesitate about the rest of the book. Should I really read the examples? Should I find another book? If the examples aren't normally accepted standard Chinese, I don't think they are very suitable as examples, especially for a non-native speaker who can't really tell for sure if they feel natural or not.

[陳德聰]

The only one that I feel like I don't get is 1.

The rest of them, like you said, are topic-comment constructions are they not? It's just my experience, but the less common they are to daily conversation the more awkward they tend to sound out of context.

The native speaker had never heard of 紧张? Or had never heard the exact sentence "那年他很紧张"? I would hope it's the latter, but wouldn't it be completely context-dependent anyways? Which year, 紧张 about what? I wouldn't know what the person was talking about either but it doesn't tickle my awkward bone all that much.

[skylee]

1 is quite common, I think. 緊 means 厲害. I sometimes use it this way like 冷得緊/累得緊, but without 很, because 緊 itself is already quite serious.

PS - it is not necessarily a regional/Beijing thing. Could be a generation thing. People who don't read older books might be unfamiliar with it.

[Olle Linge]

Thanks for your answers! There is no context in these cases, I've quoted everything there is. I just think it's weird that they choose sentences that either sound strange or incomplete without context. It would have been perfectly possible to choose sentences that worked well even without context. It just leaves me with an uneasy feeling, because I can seldom tell for sure which sentences are correct. This becomes even worse if there is another sentenc which is supposed to be correct and I feel both are equally awkward. It's hard for me to separate "awkward" from "uncommon" or "wrong".

[tooironic]

Non-native speaker here, but I agree with all the comments so far. The sentences seem fine to me.

You might also want to keep in mind that awkward/verbose/unusual example sentences are a dime a dozen in grammar books. In my experience, English grammar books are guiltier offenders.

[skylee]

I have re-read 1, and now I think 雪下得很緊 does sound a bit weird. It is not exactly the same as 冷得緊/累得緊.

[anonymoose]

雪下得很緊

Seems not to be used very frequently going by the number of Google hits, but then the hits that there are seem to be fairly reliable. Maybe it is a 方言 thing.

[Glenn]

In case you want another (real world) example of 緊張:

伊斯蘭教、塔利班、女孩兒受教育……巨大的文化衝突和一直以來緊張的政治軍事情勢...

http://post.books.com.tw/bookpost/blog/243.htm

I just came across that and it reminded me of this thread.

[Gharial]

The original edition (English, the example sentences in Pinyin only, with literal gloss and then freer translation) includes those same example sentences. It might be worth noting the following from the paperback's Preface (available in Google Books preview here http://books.google....=gbs_navlinks_s , but reproduced below for convenience):

Here also are the examples in question (from pp 94-97):

The lack of uniformity in acceptability judgements among native speaker informants is quite a well-known phenomenon in linguistics (at least, in those styles of linguistics that even bother to ask), but Li & Thompson isn't necessarily still the best reference around, if only because a few "competitors" (Yip & Rimmington, Ross, etc) have sprung up since.

[0range]

I'm not a native speaker, but...

雪下得很紧

雨下得很紧

风刮得很紧

are all pretty common.

[Tiana]

Thanks for your answers! There is no context in these cases, I've quoted everything there is.

You're right there but to be fair to the authors, the context for these sentences is the title of the chapter: these are examples of topic sentences. When you go and ask native speakers about these sentences, they may not be aware of the "context" for them and may judge them with a different context.

[Olle Linge]

You're right there but to be fair to the authors, the context for these sentences is the title of the chapter: these are examples of topic sentences. When you go and ask native speakers about these sentences, they may not be aware of the "context" for them and may judge them with a different context.

In this case, I read the chapter with a native speaker, so that's not what happened. However, I agree that this is a common problem in general, that people ask native speakers "Is this correct?" but fail to include enough information to make a good answer possible. Some native speakers realise this and ask for context, but not all.

[thincat]

Hi, I am a native Chinese speaker.

To me, there is nothing wrong with sentence one and two. In sentence one, 雪下得很緊 means "snowing heavily". You may find it weird because it is not so frequently used as 雪下得很大.

For sentence 2, 緊張means nervous. Maybe the character was anxious about something that was going to happen in that year. But without the context stated, it is a bit difficult to guess the real situation.

For the third sentence, though you can argue that the sentence is not syntactically good especially in formal written language, it is acceptable at least in spoken Chinese. Actually, 的 is often omitted in Chinese. Here are a few examples that I think of now:

1. 他(的)爸媽一向忙於工作。 [His parents are always busy at work]

2. 你(的)功課做完了嗎? [Have you finished your homework?]

3. 你(的)電腦借給我好嗎? [Can you lend me your computer?]

As for the fourth sentence, the structure is still weird to me even after 關於is added though the meaning can be understood. If I am correct, 報refers to “newspaper” here. I would re-write the sentence in this way: 報上的消息所指，世界上的情形很不好。

I hope my explanation can help you.