时间副词“就” 与
“才 ”
Youxuan Wang
2011-01-26
就
拼音：jiù
部首：尢 笔顺：412512341354 |
才
拼音：cái
部首：扌
笔顺：123 |
The adverbs “就”
and “才” figure in the text of lesson
33. Their uses are discussed in a note to this text on page 32. They are also
discussed in Y/R, 14.3, and Y/R refers to them as referential adverbs.
To help students of Chinese as a second language, I would
like to make a logical analysis of how these two adverbs are used – logical in
the sense in which sentences are treated as meaningful statements of facts/events
rather than mere syntactical forms empty of any meaning.
1. Logical analysis:
As adverbs, they both appear immediately before the verb of
the second of two co-ordinate statements, e.g.:
(a) Sentence
1 (Subject + Verb), sentence 2 (Subject + 就 + Verb).
田芳做完作业，就给朋友写信。
(b) Sentence
1 (Subject + Verb), sentence 2 (Subject + 才 + Verb).
田芳做完作业，才给朋友写信。
1.a. Common characteristics of the sentence patterns (a) and
(b):
In both
(a) and (b), objectively,
- Each of the two sentences describes a separate event. This means that, in the above examples, “田芳做作业” describes an event, and “田芳给朋友写信” recounts another event.
- The second sentence describes an event that immediately follows the event described by the first sentence. Namely, “田芳给朋友写信” is an event that follows immediately the event referred to by the statement “田芳做作业”.
Subjectively,
- The issue is about how soon the second event has taken place form the point of view of the speaker’s expectation.
- The first event is used by the speaker as a time marker.
2. The difference
between (a) and (b):
·
If the time in which the first event takes place
is judged by the speaker to be early for the second event to take place, “就”is used as adverb for the
verb of the second statement.
·
Conversely, if the time of the first event is
judged to be rather too late for the second event to take place, “才”is used.
Examples:
田芳做完作业，就/ 才 给朋友写信。
田芳做完作业，就给朋友写信。Tiánfāng zuòwán zuòyè, jìu gěi péngyou xǐexìn.
|
|
First event
|
Tian Fang finished her homework.
|
Second event
|
Tian Fang wrote letters to a friend.
|
Implication
|
Tian Fang acted quickly and wasted no to write the letter.
|
田芳做完作业，才给朋友写信。Tiánfāng zuòwán zuòyè, cái gěi péngyou xǐexìn.
|
|
First event
|
Tian Fang finished her homework.
|
Second event
|
Tian Fang wrote letters to a friend.
|
Implication
|
Tian Fang should have written the letter before she
finished her homework.
|
3 More examples
3.a. More examples of how “就” is used:
他三岁就开始学拉小提琴了 tā sānsuì jìu kāishǐ xué lā xiǎotíqín le。
He was only three when started to learn to
play violin.
|
|
First event
|
He was three years old.
|
Second event
|
He started to play the violin,.
|
Implication
|
He started to play the violin at an early age.
|
他一大早就起床了 tā yídàzǎo jiù qǐchuáng le。
It was very early in the morning when he got
up.
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|
First event
|
It was the early hours in the morning.
|
Second event
|
He got up.
|
Implication
|
He got up early.
|
她十岁时就能说五种语言了tā shísuì jìunéng shuō wúzhǒng
yǔyán le。
She was only ten when she could speak five
languages.
|
|
First event
|
She was ten years old.
|
Second event
|
She spoke five languages.
|
Implication
|
She was very young when she mastered five languages.
|
我们吃了晚饭就去电影院去吧 wǒmen chīle wǎnfàn jìu qù
diànyǐngyuàn ba。
Let’s go to the cinema as soon as we have had
our supper.
|
|
First event
|
We will have supper.
|
Second event
|
We will go to the cinema.
|
Implication
|
We will act quickly and go to the cinema.
|
她一回家就开始做饭 tā yī huíjiā jìu kāishǐ zuòfàn。
She started cooking once she got home.
|
|
First event
|
She returned home.
|
Second event
|
She started cooking.
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Implication
|
She gave priority to the job of preparing meels.
|
她一下课就马上到图书馆去 tā yīxiàkè jìu mǎshang dào túshūguǎn qù。
She went straight to the library as soon as
her class finished.
|
|
First event
|
She finished her class.
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Second event
|
She went to the library.
|
Implication
|
She rushed to the library.
|
3.b. More examples of how “才” is used:
他五岁才开始会说话 tā wǔsuì jìu kāishǐ huì shuōhuā。
It was not until he was five when he was able to speak.
|
|
First event
|
He was five years old.
|
Second event
|
He started to learn to speak.
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Implication
|
He was a slow learner.
|
他早晨十点才开始起床 tā zǎochén shídiǎn cái kāishǐ qǐchuáng。
It was not until ten o’clock in
the morning that he got up from bed.
|
|
First event
|
It was ten o’clock.
|
Second event
|
He got up from his bed.
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Implication
|
He was lazy.
|
这位大诗人十五岁才上小学 zhèwèi dàshīrén shíwǔsuì cái shàng xiǎoxué。
It was not until he reached the age of 15
that this great poet started going to the primary school.
|
|
First event
|
He was fifteen years old.
|
Second event
|
He started to go to primary school.
|
Implication
|
He wasn’t a genius when he was younger.
|
她洗了衣服，干完了许多家务，才开始坐下来休息 tā xǐle yīfú, gànwánle xǔduō jiāwù, cái
kāishǐ zuòxiàlái xíuxi。
It was not until she finished washing and
doing loads of other kinds of housework that she sat down to take a rest.
|
|
First event
|
She washed her clothes.
|
Second event
|
She did a lot of housework.
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Third event
|
She sat down to take a rest.
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Implication
|
She deserves to take break much earlier.
|
他到了利兹才知道那儿有一所很好的大学。
tā dàole Lìzī cái zhīdào nà’r yǒu yīsuǒ
hénhǎode dàxué。
Not until he visited Leeds
did he know that there was a very good university there.
|
|
First event
|
He arrived in Leeds.
|
Second event
|
He learned that the University of Leeds
was very good.
|
Implication
|
He should have learned that long before he physically arrived
in Leeds.
|
4. Exercises
(i) Translate the following
sentences into English:
(1)
今晚的电影八点才开始，我们不必出发太早。
(2)
他五年前就开始动笔写这部小说了，听说他要到明年才能写完。
(3)
太了不起了！这男孩不到18岁就开始读博士了。我今年五十岁，才开始上大学呢！
(4)
他书架上有两百部小说,他只用半年的时间就全部读完了。我在两年里才读三部小说。
(5)
他很少在他公司的办公室里。我到他公司跑了好几趟，才见到他。
(ii) Translate the following
sentences into Chinese:
(1) The
class starts as late as 8:30 a.m.. How come that you arrived as early as 6:30
a.m.?
(2) We
ordered the books in March, but the books didn’t arrive as late as in October.
(3) How
amazing! The child starts to talk before he is hardly one year old. My son
didn’t start to talk until after he was one and half years old.
(4) There
are many new words in this chapter, but it took John only half hour to memorise all of them.
(5) I
didn’t manage to get my tones right (把我的声调搞准 bǎ wǒde shēngdiào gǎo zhǔn) until I have tried many times.
(iii) Is “就” correctly used in the following sentences?
(iv) Is “才” correctly used in the following sentences?
(1) 现在北京是上午八点多，我们那儿才夜里两点多。 