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I was reading the story "Little Horse Crosses the River" and encountered the following phrase:
今天你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里去吧。
I understand this to mean
Today, take the bag of grain to the village on the opposite river bank.
But I am confused as to what 送到 exactly means and why 去 is at the end of the sentence. I know 送 means to take, but I also know 到 and 去 mean to go and it seems repetitive to use them both to say "Go and take this...." Why are both used and why are they placed where they are?
"今天你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里去吧."
送 is the main verb and 到 is a result complement in this case. 到 might be understood as to in English. I.e. 送到家里: take it to home(inside).
去 here is an indicator of the direction of moving/going, as in 上去，下去，到外面去，里面去， etc. So, 村子里去 denotes going the direction of inside of village.
You could say
你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里
The difference of it with
你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里去吧
is, with a "去", it emphasizes more on the completion of delivery.
你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里 is more of an emphasis on the action itself.
送到 is a single word here.
KEY defines 送到 as:
- deliver to
- (successfully) deliver
So we have this little thing going on:
把...送到....去
Which I'm sure you understand as you already translated it as "go and take this."
Rodrigo said in his comment: English 'go to' is already double speak: you cannot 'go' except you 'to somewhere'.
Chinese is extra careful with prepositions and likes building double-barrelled prepositions, with the actual location between them.
Here you have: .... 到 .... 里去 for which 'to' suffices in Modern English translation.
If the speaker were in the village on the other side of the river, talking to the 'little horse' on the phone (yes, horses have mobiles), he would say .... 到 .... 里来
今天你把这袋粮食送到河对岸的村子里去吧。
Today you 把 this sack of cereals bring to river opposite bank 的 village into OK. (literally)
Today (please) bring this sack of cereals to the village on the other side of the river.
Older English might use 'hither' where Chinese uses ‘去’, but not in the same word order.
Today bringeth thou hither (去) yon sack of cereals to (到) the village on the other bank of the river.
If you know German, structures such as .... 到 .... 里去 are very easy to understand, because German uses them too, in a very similar way to Chinese, such as:
hineinbringen = 送里去 (actually ‘hinein’ corresponds with 去里, to in) = bring into
The verb 'hineinbringen' is split, 'hinein' is put at the end.
Heute bringst du diesen Sack Getreide zu (到) dem Dorf am anderen Ufer des Flusses hinein (去里).
Today bringeth thou this sack of cereals to the village on the other bank of the river (into).
Whether or not you conflate 'in' and 'to', the result is the same.
去 is not essential in this sentence. It is for emphatic in an imperative context. This is my personal view, so it might be wrong.
It sounds like "Go and do something"
e.g.
看电视吧(Watch TV). VS 看电视去吧(Go and watch TV).
给这个答案点个赞吧 VS 给这个答案点个赞去吧.
Upvote this answer. VS Go and upvote this answer.
There is a slang: 一边玩去吧. Go somewhere and play something which means "go away".
