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Introducing Resultative Complements

In this video, Dr Li will introduce resultative complements.
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The woman in the video has to finish cutting out the character fú. Tā jiǎnhǎo fú zì le. Verb plus result is out is the grammar that we are going to learn, which is called resultative complement. jiéguǒ bǔyǔ. Look at the picture. She has to finish the shopping. We can say Tā mǎihǎo le. mǎi is a verb, and hǎo is a resultative complement expressing the results of the action. Resultative complements use either a verb or an adjective. The complement that follows the verb indicates the result of the action. The full sentence structure is subject plus verb plus resultative complement plus “le”. Let’s do some exercises. Rearrange the following sentences into the right order.
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Tā cā gànjing le.
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Bǎobao hēwán le.
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Resultative accompaniments are closely bound to verbs. There cannot be other words in between. The particle “le” or any objects must be placed behind the resultative complement. Before, in this video, we said Tā jiǎnhǎo fú zì le. The object fú zì comes after the verb jiǎn and the resultative complement hǎo. Similarly, we can say Tā mǎihǎo yīfu le. The sentence structure is subject plus verb plus resultative complement plus object plus “le.” Let’s practise. Make sentences with the given phrases. Xǐ gànjìng, xiǎo nǚhái xǐ gànjìng yīfu le.
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Zuò cuò, wǒ zuò cuò chē le.
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Now let’s listen to a dialogue between Wáng Xiǎobǎo and Xīxī. Try to identify the jiéguǒ bǔyǔ in the dialogue. Xīxī ,nǐ jiǎnduǎn tóufa le Shìde, Wáng Xiǎobǎo, nǐ zhōumò zuò shénme le Wǒ qù shāngchǎng mǎi dōngxi le, búguò huíjiā shí zuòcuò le chē, hǎo gāngà.
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Nǐ zuòwán zuòyè le ma Ènzuòwán le, búguò hànzì hěn nán, xiě cuò le hěnduō zì.
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Méiguānxi, duō xiěxie jiù hǎo le.
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There are four examples of jiéguǒ bǔyǔ . Jiǎnduǎn zuòcuò zuòwán xiěcuò

In this video we learn “结果补语(jiéguǒ bǔyǔ)resultative complements”, expressing the results of actions.

Resultative complements use either a verb or an adjective, the complement that follows the verb indicates the result of the action.

  • S+V+Resultative Complement+了

她买好了。Tā mǎihǎo le. She has finished shopping.

“买mǎi (buy) ” is a verb and “好” is a resultative complement. Here “好”means “finish”,expressing the result of “买mǎi (buy) ” . And the particle “了” is needed after the complement.

Some more examples:

她擦干净了。Tā cā gànjìng le. She wiped it clean.

宝宝喝完了。Bǎobao hē wán le. The baby has finished drinking.

  • S+V+ Resultative complement +O+了

If there is an object of the verb,we should put the object after the Resultative complement, because Resultative complements are closely bound to verbs,there cannot be other words in between.

For example:

她剪好 “福” 字了。

The object“福”字 comes after the resultative complement好.

Now you have finished reading this article,you can say:

我看完这篇文章了。Wǒ kànwán zhèpiān wénzhāng le.

Well,Have you understood it?你看懂了吗? Nǐ kàndǒng le ma?

Please share your ideas here.

The following is Chinese and English Version of Situational Dialogue in the Video:

王小宝:西西,你剪短你的头发了!

西西:是的,王小宝,你周末做什么了?

王小宝:我去商场买东西了,可是回家时坐错了车,好尴尬。

西西:你做完作业了吗?

王小宝:我做完了,不过汉字很难,我写错了很多字。

西西: 没关系,多写写就好了。

Wáng Xiǎobǎo: Xixi, you have your hair cut.

Xīxī: Uh-huh, what did you do at this weekends? Wang Xiaobao?

Wáng Xiǎobǎo: I went shopping in the mall, but it’s so embarrassing that I took the wrong bus when I went home.

Xīxī: Have you finished your homework?

Wáng Xiǎobǎo:Yes, but Chinese character is so difficult, and I made several mistakes.

Xīxī: It doesn’t matter. Practice makes perfect.

© Shanghai International Studies University

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