放在书柜的对面

[Tony24]

Hi everyone !

I’ve been learning Chinese for a couple of months and I have a new question to ask you today! 

I’m acutally trying to translate some sentences and one of them keeps puzzling me. 

Here it is : 放在书柜的对面。

的 is the part of the above Sentence that I can’t understand as it means ‘ of ‘ and 书柜 means ‘ in front of ‘. 

any ideas ?

[roddy]

Welcome to the site, Tony, keep posting the questions. 

 

First off, you need to look up 书柜 again - or maybe you copied and pasted the wrong bit. 

[Beelzebro]

6 hours ago, Tony24 said:

放在书柜的对面。

的 is the part of the above Sentence that I can’t understand as it means ‘ of ‘ and 书柜 means ‘ in front of ‘. 

 

The sentence translates as "to put opposite the bookcase". 

 

放在 to put/place at

书柜 bookcase

的 (grammar particle)

对面 opposite

 

The five characters 书柜的对面 can be regarded as a single block as a location noun. You can replace these with any other location noun and the sentence would be ok.

 

The sentence would also be fineif you remove the 的, and the meaning wouldn't change. Here is a good explanation of how 的 functions that I read recently: https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/8cqdkc/this_just_made_me_confused_literally_it_means_mom/dxh7hvp/ 

[Tony24]

Thank you guys for you replies!

according to what I’ve read so far 的 links various parts of sentences, doesn’t it ?

one last question, why couldn’t 对面 be placed right after 放在 ?

[Shelley]

@Tony24 I think you should read this https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Structural_particle_"de"

I wouldn't describe 的 as linking parts of sentences, it is a structural particle that has many different uses. One is to show possession not only of things but also attributes as in -This ball has red colour.

 

This is one of the more difficult particles to master and you haven't yet it seems touched on the 是。。。的 structure.

The Chinese Grammar Wiki is really helpful and should be one of your main go to places for grammar help.

[Tony24]

Thank you Shelley !

I hope I will soon get used to using it! 

Meanwhile I’m reading as many treads and pages about 的 as possible!

[Publius]

3 hours ago, Tony24 said:

why couldn’t 对面 be placed right after 放在 ?

Because Chinese noun phrases are head-final. Modifiers ALWAYS precede the noun they modify. And 对面 is a noun.

All location/direction words in Chinese are nouns, e.g. 上面 above-side, 下面 under-side, 左面 left-side, 右面 right-side, 前面 front-side, 后面 back-side, 里面 in-side, 外面 out-side. 对面 is no exception. It simply means 'face-to-face-side' -> 'opposite'.

书柜 modifies 对面. It answers the question 'whose opposite'. So it must precede 对面.

Together 书柜的对面 is a noun phrase of locality that serves as the object of the coverb/preposition 在 'at'. At where? '书柜的对面' is where.

And the basic function of 的 is as an attributive marker. It links a modifier to the noun. (It doesn't matter whether the modifier is a noun, an adjective, or a relative clause. They all must go before the noun.) See this recent rambling post of mine for more abstract discussions.