How does 他对我的… work?

Question

From a news article I found through Baidu, we have:

他对Victoria的爱，所有人都看在眼里。
_{(Tā duì Victoria de ài, suǒyǒu rén dōu kàn zài yǎn lǐ.)}

I'm not sure how to translate this; maybe something like "everyone can see his love for Victoria in his eyes", but I'm just guessing. I've seen this style of sentence before (jukuu.com):

她对我的热情已经冷起来了
Her passion for me has cooled down.
_{(Tā duì wǒ de rèqíng yǐjīng lěng qǐláile.)}

Both have the style of beginning [someone]对[someone else]的[something]... I'm confused as to how this works. In particular, it seems the 的 particle in the second example above applies not to 我 but to 她.

Question: How does 他对我的... work?

I'm hoping to get a basic explanation and some simple illustrative examples.

I'm familiar with e.g. 他对我不公平 (tā duì wǒ bù gōngpíng) = "he is unfair to me", but it seems different with the particle 的.

Answer 1

Question: How does 他对我的... work?

1. Simple phrase: [Subject + 的 + object]

Example:

"她的爱" = "Her love"

"他的恨" = "His hate"

2. Simple phrase: [Subject + 的 + object] with (relative phrase)

Example:

"她(对我)的爱" = "Her love (for me)" -- 对我 is the relative phrase for 她的爱

"他(对你)的恨" = "His hate (for you)" -- 对你 is the relative phrase for 他的恨

• Relative clause/phrase add additional information to the main clause /phrase

More examples:

"他的爱" = "his love"

"他 [对 Victoria] 的爱" = "his love [for Victoria]"

"她的热情已经冷起来了" = "her passion had cooled down"

"她[对我]的热情已经冷起来了" = "her passion [for me] had cooled down "

Answer 2

This is a language phenomenon called “topic and comment” (or: “theme and rheme”) that exists in many (if not all?) languages, but is realized differently from language to language.

In both of your examples, the first part (他对Victoria的爱 and 他对我的热情) is introduced as the topic and then commented upon in the second part.

To make it look more correct, you can imagine an omitted 至于 (“As to...”) in the beginning of the sentence:

(至于)他对Victoria的爱，所有人都看在眼里。

As to his love for Victoria, everyone could see it in his eyes.

(至于)她对我的热情已经冷起来了

As to her warmth for me, they had already cooled down

Since your second example does not end in a period, one could expect it to continue. For example:

(至于)她对我的热情已经冷起来了[我干什么也没办法。]

As to her warmth for me having already cooled down [there is nothing I can do about it.]

This structure does not necessarily follow the typical SVO structure of Chinese grammar, but there are many very typical Chinese patterns which do not follow SVO.

On the other hand, your second example could be read as a simple sentence: 她对我的热情 is the (extended) subject, 已经冷起来了 is the predicate (with adverbial).

Her warmth for me has already cooled down