是……的 construction without 的?

Question

I don't fully understand the grammatical structure of the following sentence:

我来是要了解这一地区的市场情况。

Specifically I'm confused about the 是 in this sentence. It reminds me of the 是……的 construction, but there's no corresponding 的.

Is there some kind of pattern in this sentence that I'm missing?

Answer 1

我来是要了解这一地区的市场情况。

I think the sentence does content the 是...的 structure. However, the 的 has been omitted. The full sentence is:

我来是要了解这一地区的市场情况的。

的 in 这一地区的市场情况 is used as the attributive 助词.

So, now the question becomes when 的 should be dropped ? I think people would drop the 的 in the 是...的 structure if there is another 的 that has been used previously. For example, 我来是要检查你们的工作， if I remove 的 in 你们的工作, then you should add 的 back at the end of the sentence. It would become 我来是要检查(你们)工作的.

Answer 2

Rephrase it a bit and you can get the 是……的 construction.

1. 我來(的)是要瞭解這一個區的市場情況。
2. 我是要瞭解這一個區的市場情況來的。

I wouldn't phrase this sentence using the 是……的 construction though, the detail 要瞭解這一個區的市場情況 is a bit long, plus it contains another 的 inside the detail, making it more easily misunderstood.