One last word about 得

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Well, I hope.
I mentioned somewhere that I couldn’t find anything about 得 in Chinese for Beginners. That surprised me, because although the book doesn’t cover all the different aspects of various grammatical constructions in Chinese, it’s quite comprehensive in the range of material it covers.

I looked at the word index again. Ah, there was 得 and I was directed to Unit 6 which was about, er, 的. So I looked through the table of contents and found 得 was discussed in Units 39 and 47. I looked at the word index again and found that the numbers had been mixed up because under 的 the relevant units were given as 39 and 47.

So what does the Chinese for Beginners say about 得? Unit 39 has (with minor corrections to the English)
Post-得 adjectives expressing a comment on an action
In the pattern "Subj. + V + 得 + Adj.", the adjective expresses a comment on the action indicated by the verb before 得. From the context in which this kind of sentence occurs, the action must be a habitual one or one which has already taken place.
我骑得慢 (wǒ qí de màn) "I’m riding slowly."
Unit 47 has
"V + 得 + RC" expressing potential
The structural particle 得 can be inserted between a verb and its resultative complement (RC) to indicate that a result is possible.
他听得懂普通话 (tā tīngde dǒng pǔtōnghuà) "He can understand Standard Chinese."
This is what I should’ve said in the first place and left it at that. Of course, 听不懂, the negative of the form above, is an old and much-used friend, one that I should’ve used in this instance.

Comments

Anonymous said…
S'pose I should call myself Nephew Demon:

Unit 39 is talking about the third entry in the dictionary, i.e. the usage we've been discussing.

Unit 47 is talking about the second entry in the dictionary, which is probably the first usage that any foreigner learns.

The most obvious difference between the two usages, so far as I can tell, is in the negatives. But we'll leave that for another time.
13 December 2006 at 01:39
Anonymous said…
Re the last post on your unlinkable blog: Yes, you sure as shit are wasted in that "programme" and it's got nothing to do with education, as you know. If they were worried about education, you certainly would be working in a regular school teaching real students, quite possibly in the countryside. Everytime I find myself complaining about my current piece of shit source of income I think back to where I could be....
13 December 2006 at 18:18
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