Re: verbs = nouns?

From: "John Cowan"



> H. S. Teoh wrote:
> >         che1 pien4 hong2le
> >         "The car turned red."
> Sounds like a typical causative verb-verb compound:
> the car changed SO THAT it was red.
I'm inclined to think that this a kind or resultative verb construction.

H.S. can we not assume "gan1jing4" (clean) is an adjective? Inasmuch as
there are resultative expressions like:

xi3 bu diao4  can't wash it out (like a blood stain)
and
xi3 de diao4  can wash it out (like a food stain)
and
xi3diao4 le  washed it out

where "diao4" (as you expressed earlier) is the result,

why can't adjectives/stative verbs be resultative verbs?:

xi3 bu gan1jing4  can't get it clean
xi3 de gan1jing4  can get it clean
xi3 gan1jing4  got it clean

"Gan1", by itself, means "dry" (an adj in English). But we can say,

shai4 bu gan1  can't dry it out in the sun (humidity is so thick, I can't
dry this sheet out in the sun)
shai4 de gan1 can dry it out in the sun
shai4gan1 le  dried it out in the sun  (grapes "shai4gan1le" are raisins)

So, why not then, "hong2"?

shai4 hong2 le  got a sunburn (dried red in the sun)
shai4 hei1 le  got tan (dried black in the sun [most Chinese would rather
self immolate than tan])

granted:

shai4 bu hong2  can't get a sunburn
or
shai4 bu hei1  can't get a tan

are weird sentences, but aren't they possible? Never having spoken them nor
heard them spoken, I defer to the native speakers.

Kou