Re: time distinctions

On Fri, Aug 25, 2000 at 11:38:25PM -0700, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
[snip]
> I don't know if this qualifies as aspect (I mean, I just don't *know*). That
> feels more like an adverb to me. And you can truncate it to just "zai4": Wo3
> zai4 tan2 qin2. Then the fun comes in for foreigners comes in, 'cause "zai4"
> also means "again", of course. You have to rely completely on sentence
> context and intonation to determine whether:
>
> Wo3 zai4 tan2 qin2.
>
> means "I'm playing the piano" or "I'm playing (I'll play) the piano again."
Not really, at least not for the particular flavor of Mandarin I speak.
zai4 in this context very rarely means "again". I'd say something like
        Wo3 you4 zai4 tan2 qin2.
        "I'll play / I'm playing the piano *yet* again!"
Or something like
        Wo3 zai4 tan2 i1 che4 qin2.
        "I'll play the piano once more."
Or more simply,
        Wo3 zai4 tan2 kuo4 i1 pian4.
        "I'll play that over again." (I'll play that over one more time.)

> I guess for 'again', there's a little more stress on the "zai4", while for
> just "it's happening", the "zai4" is lighter. It's fairly easy to
> distinguish when listening, but I'd be hard pressed to describe the
> difference. Natch, other dialects don't exhibit this particular ambiguity.
[snip]

Hmm... I guess if you stress "zai4" more and draaaag it out, you might
convey the sense of "again" in that particular context. :-) In imperative
statements like "hau3, zai4 tan2" (good, play [it] again), the zai4 is
very clearly "again". However, if zai4 comes after a pronoun like wo3 or
ta1, it doesn't seem (to my gut feeling at least :-P) to mean "again" but
rather indicates a progressive action.


T