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Potential Complements - with or without 得?


Hagai

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Hi!

I'm already familiar with complements such as 看到, 出来, 看见 and etc.

But bumping into expressions such as 看不见, I got confused and went to grammar wiki.

I understand that the above shapes are called result/direction complements and don't require 得 in between, but it appears that potential complements do.

However, I saw both 起得来 and 起来 as examples and now I'm confused.

What is the difference and when should I use 得 when using verb complements?

 

Thanks :)

 

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…得… implies "can", just like …不… implies "can't".

 

我看得见 I can see

我看不见 I can't see

我看见了 I saw

我没看见 I didn't see

 

You can also combine it with different verbs or different complements.

 

看得/不 can/can't see clearly

得/不见 can/can't hear

 

Edit: Your example of 起得来 may be causing confusion because 起来 can be either a complement (-qilai) or a verb + complement (qǐ-lái). So you could have 拿得/不起来 (can/can't pick up), but you could also have 起得/不来 (can/can't get up).

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