Re: Mandarin Relative Clauses?

On Wed, Nov 15, 2000 at 02:03:49PM -0500, DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
[snip]
> It is a hard one to translate, but for me, the difficulty is in having "I"
> in the relative clause. To my ear, it's okay to say:
>
> Wo3 you3 yi1 liang4 you2qi1 er2 bei4 zhuang4huai4 de che.
> I have a which was painted and crashed car.
Ah, different dialectal preferences. Although after you came up with the
above it makes sense to me, I couldn't have come up with it myself. My
dialect of Mandarin prefers different periphrasis to work around this
awkward sentence.

> Too many wo3's spoil the broth.
:-)

> The original above sentence may also be a little unfair to foist on Chinese,
> because topicalization (more difficult in English) allows for different
> sentence structures. How 'bout:
>
> Wo3 you3 de che1, wo3 you2qi1 er2 zhuang4huai4 le.
> The car (which) I have, I painted and crashed (it).
Hmm. Putting "you2qi1" and "zhuang4huai4" in a parallel structure like
this somehow sounds uncomfortable to my ears, since they are unrelated
events but the parallel structure "wants" to relate them. Also, "wo3 you3
de che1" in this context is something I'd avoid in my dialect of Mandarin,
because it's redundant, and is an odd way of saying things. My gut feeling
prefers something like:
        Wo3 de che1, ...
since this automatically implies my possession of the car.

> which makes for clunky English. Since you can juxtapose thoughts with a
> topic-comment sentence in Chinese, you don't necessarily need a relative
> clause.
OK, I see your point, though I got tripped up on the technicalities of
preferred constructions :-P

[snip]
> Wo3 you3 yi1 liang4 hong2se4 de, bei4 wo3 zhuang4huai4 de che.
> I have a which is red, which I crashed car.
*cringe*. Putting that much extra stuff between the first "de" and "che"
makes a rather uncomfortable structure, like its about to topple over...
:-P (No offense intended, just saying what my "gut feeling" tells me about
the language.)

Hmm, come to think of it... perhaps it won't sound quite so bad if you
drop the first "de". Actually, it sounds *much* better if you drop the
first "de". In fact, it actually makes a lot of sense! :-)

[snip]
> Although Marcus correctly states the original sentence:
>
> > > I have a red and which I crashed car.
>
> cannot be simulated in English, it still feels weird to translate it into
> Chinese that way, I think, because of pragmatic and not grammatical
> considerations. Grammatically, I can say in English:
>
> Horses eat hay and mine lives in Essex.
>
> but pragmatically it's a little confusing placing these two pieces of
> information together in this way. That's the way Marcus' above sentence
> feels to me.
Yep, that's exactly how I feel about that sentence. It sounds somehow
out-of-place, even though it's possible to analyse it in a grammatically
correct way.

> But if we render it as:
>
> I have a red car which I crashed.
>
> I suspect you might be more inclined to use the "hong2se4 de, bei4 wo3
> zhuang4huai4 de" structure, which places "red" and "I crashed" on equal
> footing.
Grammatically speaking, yes, absolutely. But I still have reservations
about putting those two ideas in a parallel structure. It just doesn't
"feel right".

[snip]
> > Hmm, it seems, after I think about it, that there are actually *three*
> > different constructions we're talking about here:
> > 1)      adjective without "de", eg. "hong2 che1" (red car)
> >         Very tight binding, can easily pick up idiomatic meanings.
> > 2)      adjective with "de", eg. "hong2 de che1" (car which is red)
> >         Not so tightly binding, doesn't have idiomatic meanings, and
> >         usually describes a particular instance of "car" which is "red"
> >         (rather than a general category).
> > 3)      relative clause, eg. "che1 shi4 wo2 chuang4 huai4 de" (car [which]
> >         is the one I crashed)
> >         Very loose binding, almost behaving like an adjoined sentence.
>
> But doesn't (3) also allow for "wo3 zhuang4huai4 de che1" (the car I
> crashed)?
Hmm, very true. So maybe (2) and (3) are just superficially different.

> > But the monkey wrench in all of this is that, depending on context, (2)
> > and (3) may be interchangeably used to express the same idea. So perhaps
> > it's more of a grammatical differentiation than anything else... For
> > example, if I said:
> >         Wo2 you3 i1 liang3 che1 shi4 peng2you3 kei3 de
> >         (I have a car which a friend gave [to me])
>
> I think what you're calling "adjoined sentences" goes back to what I'm
> calling "topicalization".
Probably. I don't know the "correct" terminology for this kinda stuff :-)

> > Then, in a later sentence, I may refer to the car thus:
> >         Na4 liang3 peng2you3 kei3 de che1 pei4 chuang4 huai4 le.
> >         (That friend-given car has crashed)
>
> My personal preference for this kind of sentence is to say:
>
> Peng2you3 gei3 de na4liang4 che1 bei4 zhuang4huai4 le.
>
> but that's much of a muchness.
OK, I've heard mainland China Mandarin-speakers who prefer that kind of
construction to the one I would use, so I guess it's just that my flavor
of Mandarin has different preferences.

[snip]
> This _is_ correct. Words describing relationships between people most often
> drop "de".
[snip]
> wo3 peng2you3 che1 is permissable, I guess, but sounds a *little* funky to
> me (I'd throw in a "de"), whereas:
>
> wo3 peng2you3 jia1   does not. Go figure (inalienable possession issues?).
Dunno. For me, both are equally OK. But we've established that my
particular dialect of Mandarin seems to have different preferences for
these constructions, so I think I won't belabor this point. :-)

> > CAVEAT: my dialect of Mandarin may not be 100% the same as the one they
> > use in mainland China. So don't take this as gospel truth :-)
>
> For my non-native money, your analysis thus far has been right on.
[snip]

OK, I'll take your word for it. Keep in mind, though, that my dialect of
Mandarin *is* different; if not grammatically, then in preference for
different ways of construction. I *have* noticed that Mandarin-speakers
from mainland China tend to say things in a different way, although we
are still mutually intelligible.


T

--
Almost all proofs have bugs, but almost all theorems are true.