我都累了 - Chinese grammar and Star Trek physics
henning
April 09, 2008, 06:14 AM posted in General DiscussionWell, but "In this context it does not work". I argued that in quite a few of the hits 我都累了 has been used without any context at all, e.g. in headlines, but 没用。 It depends on the context and it does not work "here" (wherever that is).
Chinese grammar sometimes seems like Star Trek physics to me. The most unbelievable phenomena pop into existence - whenever the plot demands for them (in this case: further drag down my confidence). Had my wife a linguistic background instead of a computer science one she would have probably come up with a fancy term for that, unheard by anyone before (maybe "Dynamic Omnidependism").
But there is no real explanation and I still wonder what makes 我都累了 here and not there besides crushing confidence...anyone knows?
[Sorry for posting in English.]
henning
April 09, 2008, 07:34 AMYou mean 挂羊头卖狗肉: [ guà yáng tóu mài gǒu ròu ]? It worked, didn't it? Now I even got an answer from master changye himself. I just probably should not repeat this trick ("狼来了"). Next time I post a Trek message there it will carry Trek content in it, I promise.
cassielin
April 09, 2008, 07:50 AM呵呵，你们俩还真有意思。 so henning, have you ever tell your son the story about狼来了？
marcelbdt
April 09, 2008, 09:18 AMWe should study Klingon instead, that would be easier. The question is weird and beautiful. I tried to collect some evidence from Google. I only got around 10000 google hits, but 10000 Chinese can't be wrong, that's over 0.001% of the population. My hypothesis is that 都 presupposes several things or actions, and thus it feels unnatural if there is only one subject and one verb. Constructions like "她们不累我都累了" seem common - so it is not that the actions have to be the same! Maybe it is enough if there is more than one action. We also have "我这次只看了鸟儿，好多好多鸟儿，看得我都累了", so repeating the same action is also fine? I'm assuming here that each time you watch a bird, you get a little bit tired, so that you are repeatedly getting more and more tired. I did not find any cases where "我都累了" is completely isolated, Henning, do you have a link to those?
goulnik
April 09, 2008, 10:00 AMwhy make it complicated, 不用理解, 听你太太说的话而已! just go for 累死了!
marcelbdt
April 09, 2008, 10:05 AMgoulniky> Because it's not a matter of understanding 累, it's a matter of understanding the fundamental word 都.
wildyaks
April 09, 2008, 10:07 AM语言就不跟着逻辑。 语法是人做的， 帮我们了解没有逻辑的语言
changye
April 09, 2008, 12:57 PMHi henning, 请替我向你的爱人问一下，下面这样的句子对不对？ “今天学了这么长时间，我都累了！” “今天学了这么长时间，我都累死了！”
henning
April 09, 2008, 02:18 PM@casie: No, I read books to him instead. Momentary he loves the "Gruffalo" series best (author: Julia Donaldson). We have them both in German "Der Grüffelo" and in Chinese (咕噜牛 - gūlūniú important piece of vocab!). The first 咕噜牛 is interestingly a variation of the Chengyu story for "狐假虎威" (hú jiǎ hǔ wēi). http://images.dangdang.com/images/9274513.jpg He also likes the (originally German) kids books from the author of 不是我干的 http://images.dangdang.com/images/9260423_b.jpg @marcel: After re-checking I found you are right: The "isolated" hits are either part of discussion streams in a BBS or really strange web pages. But my google result today looks totally different than the one yesterday. Strange. @Goulnik: 我是听她的(mostly)， 可是听女人不够， 她们要求被男人理解。 ;) wildyaks. 我同意。 changye, I asked my collegue and he said both sentences are fine. @all: This is not final. But my preliminary conclusion is that the 都 only "feels right" if it is "referring" to something before. The type of context seems to be irrelevant. As long as there is any context it is fine.
changye
April 09, 2008, 07:24 AMHi henning, Are you trying to lure me with such an attractive title? Do you know a Chinese saying “羊头狗肉” ? Anyway, it seems that I was completely taken in, but I am afraid that I cannot answer your difficult question. All I can say is that just saying “我都累了” without preamble might perhaps be unnatural for Chinese people.