Timeline for Is 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' used as an idiom in Chinese? If so, how is it grammatically structured?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
4 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct 20, 2023 at 18:33 | comment | added | user2249675 | @JanusBahsJacquet I think you have a point. As native speakers we are almost never taught about grammatical issues of chengyu. Note the lack of grammar discussion in the dictionaries I cited. My general approach to them is still to only use them in structures that are close to existing usages, and not care about deep theoretical issues of syntax. | |
| Oct 20, 2023 at 10:42 | comment | added | Janus Bahs Jacquet | The main reason the examples given in the question all sound ungrammatical is precisely that they don’t fit the grammatical category of the idiom: it’s a verb phrase (well, two in parallel). You’re right that as a 成语, it cannot appear freely in syntactic locations that expect verb phrases; but all the syntactic locations where it appears are ones where verb phrases are expected/allowed. In fact, it’s sufficiently transparent that you can modify the verbs to create constructions like 卧着虎藏着龙. | |
| Oct 20, 2023 at 10:19 | vote | accept | David Scarlett | ||
| Oct 19, 2023 at 2:30 | history | answered | user2249675 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |