I'm perplexed by the line 掉的那么地刺耳 of the song 过不去. Doesn't the 的 demand a noun to go after it? Is the 刺耳 a verb or a noun? And what's the meaning of the entire line? My highly insecure guess would be "falling so shrill" (???).
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2Lyrics aren't the best place to learn grammar.– jf328Aug 5, 2019 at 1:25
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At some point, however, one has to learn the (so to speak) "grammar of lyrics"? Similarly for what happens to the tones in singing?– user22495Aug 5, 2019 at 7:29
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1Even for natives, unless you are a song/lyric writer, you can happily live without learning it, let alone foreign speakers.– jf328Aug 5, 2019 at 9:39
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1@droooze Are you sure that trisct is incorrect? Because as a native speaker I feel that 得 would be correct. Also, according to 百度百科, the lyrics is written as 掉得那么地刺耳.– Ruifeng XieAug 8, 2019 at 17:34
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1@droooze I see your point that 刺耳 is not proper for the verb 掉, but if you think about it, it is the same improper for the noun 泪水. 泪水刺耳 and 掉得刺耳, for me they are equally strange. Then consider the poor grammar in all these pop songs, and you might agree that 掉得刺耳 is somewhat acceptable. Also, what you point out is not a grammatical incorrectness (语法上“刺耳”作副词可以形容动词“掉”), but a semantic incorrectness (语义上“刺耳”似乎不能是动作“掉”的一个属性), which is less severe from my point of view.– Ruifeng XieAug 9, 2019 at 3:47
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2 Answers
I think there's a mistake in the lyrics, IMO it should be 掉[得]那么地刺耳 since 刺耳 is an adverb for the verb 掉 here. So the lyrics basically says (tears) are dropping so harshly.
BTW there are tons of grammar errors in Chinese pop lyrics.
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This answer is not correct - you have applied, what's called in linguistics, hypercorrection.– dROOOzeAug 9, 2019 at 4:07
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1Based on the comment by @Krantz I've looked in other places. Indeed, also SING!CHINA, which looks qualitative enough to have double-checked for typos, has captioned the line with 得 rather than 的. Aug 25, 2019 at 21:25
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Doesn't the 的 demand a noun to go after it?
So, when there isn't a noun, that means the phrase is referring to a noun, which is omitted in this case due to context (刺耳 is an adjective). This is what you're missing:
掉的「淚水」那麼地刺耳
So the original text translates (liberally) to
而淚水比什麼都還重
掉的那麼地刺耳
...but tears are heavier than anything else,
falling in ear-piercing drops.
「刺耳」is basically something completely opposite to soothing to the ears.
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@droooze 那么补充成“掉的泪水的落地之声刺耳”真的好吗？“掉的”变成“掉的（泪水）”，然后再补充成分把本来就是补进来的中心词“泪水”也变成定语，成了“掉的（泪水掉落的声音）”，这样对原句结构的破坏是很大的。（等于说您把原句的成分看成“定语中的定语”，这是不符合“的”字结构的通常用法的。） Aug 9, 2019 at 4:10
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@Krantz 如果把「的」說成「得」，就是再推測歌詞著者以「刺耳」解釋「掉」的動作，而（1）沒有人是這樣形容「掉」的、（2）「得」、「的」說話唱歌時發音一樣，你這個說法是以字體來推測歌詞的意義。大家都知道衹有「聲音」可以「刺耳」，「淚水」也確實「掉落」了，你自己看看「刺耳」是形容「掉」還是形容「淚水」吧。。。。。。– dROOOzeAug 9, 2019 at 4:26
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