Strange case of 了: 他杀了一个人 vs 他杀了那个人

Question

There are two sentences:

1. 他杀了一个人，可是没有杀死。
2. 他杀了那个人，可是没有杀死。

Some people say that sentence 1 is ungrammatical (better say -- illogical), while sentence 2 is OK.

Why is it so? Why 那 makes such a big difference?

P.S. the examples are taken from :

Aspect, tense and mood : Context dependency and the marker LE in Mandarin Chinese Ljungqvist, Marita

p.s.s One guy told me that it is 一个人 conflicts with 可是没有杀死. That is, "one man" means that the killed person is unknown to the utterer but 可是没有杀死 says that the speaker somehow knows much more than the 一个人 phrasing suggests.

Answer 1

I don't think 那 makes any difference between the two sentences. If I think of it more orally both sentences are ok. But I don't think native speaker would say something like that because 杀了 and 杀死 are both subjective. you might either say 他(试图)(tried)杀一个人，可是没有杀死 or 他杀了一个人，可是（那个人）没有死(the person didn't die).

But I think this is a little bit off the point since the article is mainly talking about 了 and 那.

那's usage will be something like

他吃了一个苹果，但是没有吃完(wrong)

他吃了那个苹果，但是没有吃完(right)

that is because 吃 can be halfway done while 杀 is more of a state where after that you assume the guy is dead.

when you say 他吃了那个苹果，但是没有吃完, the hidden part of the sentence might be 他吃了(几口)那个苹果，但是没有吃完

Answer 2

I'm a native Chinese user and I can tell you [very definitively] based on my understanding of my first language that these two sentences are equally illogical (unless one interprets "killed" as "attemped to kill"), but neither of them are grammatically incorrect.

They are both illogical because, "杀了" means "killed" in the context of these two statements. So e.g. the first sentence means, translated very literally (so literally that it would sound unnatural in English), "He killed a person, but did not kill (him/her) to death.", where the words in the brackets are words that are omitted in the Chinese sentence. You should see how (obviously) self-contradictory this sentence is in English - from my perspective the Chinese statement is just as self-contradictory as the English translation of it I gave. Similarly, the second sentence means "He killed that person, but did not kill (him/her) to death."

The difference of these two sentences (of "那" and "一") is completely irrelevant to the determination of whether they are grammatical and whether they are logical.

Edit:

As correctly pointed out in koshiyomi's answer, if the verb "杀" is replaced with some other verb, e.g. "吃" for the two sentencces, then there is a quite subtle difference between the two sentences, because:

1. It is perfectly natural to say a person ate something but didn't finish eating, whereas it is unnatural to say that a person killed someone but didn't kill him/her to death.
2. "吃了一个苹果" means "ate one apple" where "一" usually (but not always) suggests that one whole apple was eaten, but "那" in "吃了那个苹果" simply specifies which apple was eaten, with less suggestion that the whole apple had been eaten. Both sentences can be commonly understood as suggesting that the whole apple was eaten though (in cases where it has not been clarified whether the whole apple was eaten or not).

N.B. That the sentences are illogical does not mean that they cannot be used to good effect - e.g. often contradictory sentences are utilized in literature to achieve certain effects. For example, in literature you might have something like "He killed that person. But no, he did not die." where the first sentence describes something that is not true but merely apparently true. I remember that this kind of contradictory decriptions were used quite often in the Japanese visual novel Fate/Stay Night.

Answer 3

Wouldn't that apply to English too?

1. *He tried to kill a person, but didn't kill off a person.

2. He tried to kill that person, but didn’t kill off the person.

可是没有杀死 has the hidden object 一个人 and 那个人 respectively.

However, 可是没有杀死一个人 is not ungrammatical, only semantically nonsensical, because 'who was killed (but not killed to death)' was not made sufficiently clear due to the lack of indication by 那. That is to say, without proper indication, we only know from the latter half of the sentence that someone nearly died, but who specifically that person was and why knowing the fact that s/he didn’t die matters are not made clear.

Answer 4

Sentence 1. 他杀了一个人，可是没有杀死。

他 "he" - Subject

杀了 "killed" - Verb + result

一个人 "one person (someone)" - Object

可是 "but" - Conjunction

没有 "did not" - Negative element

杀死 "kill (till that person died)" - Verb + result

You can parse the sentence as above, and it is a grammatical sentence. What is wrong is the meaning, or the contradictory logic of the two parts. The equivalent English sentence "He killed a person, but he didn't kill (that person)" is also grammatical but non-sensical.

Sentence 2. 他杀了那个人，可是没有杀死。

他 "he" - Subject

杀了 "killed" - Verb + result

那个人 "that person" - Object

可是 "but" - Conjunction

没有 "did not" - Negative element

杀死 "kill (till that person died)" - Verb + result

It's basically the same problem. Grammatical but non-sensical because the two parts contradict each other. The only difference between the two sentences is the object 一个人 vs. 那个人. 一个人 is non-specific, someone. 那个人 is a specific person.

Answer 5

In the daily usage of spoken Chinese, native Chinese people understand their meanings at once and don't really care or notice the grammar.

• "他杀了一个人，但是没有杀死"(He killed a person, but the person is not dead), the native Chinese can still get the correct meaning you wanna express: He tried to kill the person, but the person is not dead yet.
• "他杀了那个人，但是没有杀死"(He killed that person, but the person is not dead), the native Chinese can still get the meaning you wanna express: He tried to kill, but the person is not dead yet.

However, as for formal Chinese writings, it's better to use the correct grammar for making unambiguous, exlicit and specific expressions (especially related to laws), same meanings with above spoken Chinese.

• 他去杀一个人，但是那人没有死
• 他去杀那个人，但是那人没有死

Answer 6

The two sentences are both fine. The difference should be squarely put on "一個人" and "那個人".

"一個人" - a non-specific general statement. The person can be any person.

"那個人" - a more definite statement that refers to a specific person, "that person" not anybody else.

Example:

Please give me an (一個) apple (anyone from a pile of apple stock).

Please give me that (那個) apple (the specific one in the stockpile).

By the way, instead of saying "他杀了那个人，可是没有杀死。", a little twist can make it more logically sound: "他想杀了那个人，可是没有杀死。" - He wanted to kill that person but failed (didn't succeed).