bei (4) - 被

graeme73
 November 29, 2009, 01:23 AM posted in General Discussion

In the sentence - 我的菜被偷光了 - bei acts as a passive marker. I see that in the dictionary it is given to mean - 'by'. However, in this case, it would surely mean 'was'. ie: "my food was stolen, completely."

Q: Can 'bei' 被 also mean 'was'?

 

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tvan
 November 29, 2009, 01:34 AM

graeme73, my read on the sentence is that there is an implied object, namely, "我的菜被小偷偷光了," where "小偷" would be the object of the prepositional phrase "被小偷."

Nothing authoritative, just my take!

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changye
 November 29, 2009, 02:50 AM

Hi graeme73

我的菜被(人)偷光。

Tvan is right. Here the 人 is omitted, which is often seen in Chinese.