Using 的 to specify qualities

Question

I've read a grammar tip about 的 which I'm not sure I've completely understood (it's on page 7 here, if you can read Italian). It talks about using 的 to specify a quality.

An example is: 意大利的人 is different from 意大利人. In this case, I think the difference is between Italians as in "Italian people" (意大利人) and the people who live in Italy (意大利的人). This seems clear.

The other example, however，is about the difference between 白的马 and 白马, rendered respectively as "a horse whose color is white" and "a white horse". This seems to be a subtle difference and I'm not sure when I should use which. (Maybe it's just an arbitrary, "literary" choice?)

Then it goes on with a sentence example: to say "my horse is white" I'd use "my horse is a horse whose color is white" 我的马是白的(马). For an Italian native speaker, this is similar to the English idiom "he is a friend of mine" (in Italian you'd just say "è un mio amico", "he is my friend"): it sounds a bit off at first, but if that's how it works in Mandarin then that's what I will do. However, the point of my question is:

Would it be correct to use 我的马很白?

If it's correct, is there a semantic difference between 我的马很白 and 我的马是白的?

Answer 1

Without other context, I would probably interpret "意大利的人" as "people who work for Italy". (I'm a native Mandarin speaker.)

is there a semantic difference between 我的马很白 and 我的马是白的?

Yes, there is. They answer different questions.

Is it white or not white? What color is it? It is white. 它是白的。

How white is it? It is very white. 它很白。

"My horse is white" as a normal sentence without special emphasis would be "我的马是白的".

It is often said that in Chinese 很 is used instead of 是 to link the subject and the adjetive. It actually depends on the adjective and the meaning you want to convey.

For "degree" adjectives like 漂亮, 很 is usually used.

For "quality" adjectives, "是...的" is usually used.

If the adjective can be interpreted as both, then both structures can be used, each with its nuance.

Even for "degree" adjectives like 漂亮, you can also use "是...的" under some circumstances. For instance, there are two dresses and I think one of them is pretty and one is ugly. You don't know which is which, and you ask me "这件是漂亮的还是丑的？" I could answer "这件是漂亮的" (This is the pretty one).

白 is usually a "quality" adjective, so "是...的" is usually used. If you say 很白, you are quite emphasizing that it is "very white".

For "degree" adjectives like 漂亮, if you say 很漂亮, it's usually not very emphatic, so you don't need to translate it as "very pretty", but it's also not wrong to say "very pretty".

Hope this makes sense.

Answer 2

'白的'and'意大利的'here are used as adjectives to qualify '马‘ and ’人‘ respectivily. Meanwhile, '白马' and '意大利人' are nouns. It is easily to understand that ‘白的马’ and ‘白马’ mean the same thing. '我的马（not 妈，妈means mother）很白' is correct. You can understand these two sentences'我的马很白‘ and ’我的马是白的‘ the same meaning. In English, both ‘我的马很白’ and ‘我的马是白的’ mean " The hair of my horse is white". Similarly, the two sentences express the same meaning in Chinese.