(再次提醒!)不用害怕冗長的修飾語

 

昨天,我收到一位參加了基礎文法課程的學生的問題,她說自己在工作上遇到了這個複雜的句子(我刪減了部分):


In the case where a covered taxpayer sustains a loss from the sale of equity interests outside Hong Kong, this loss can be used to set off against the taxpayer's assessable assets from specified foreign-sourced income that is chargeable to profits tax under the FSIE regime in the year of assessment during the basis period of which the sale proceeds are received in Hong Kong.


(以下中文翻譯僅供大家參考,非本次學習的重點:


如屬受保納稅人因在香港以外出售股權而產生虧損,該虧損可用於抵銷該納稅人於該課稅年度內(以銷售所得款項在香港收取的基期計算)根據境外收入課稅制度須課收利得稅的特定來源境外收入的應評稅資產) 


這是一個包含所謂「法律術語(legalese)」的一個典型例子。法律的寫作,當中使用的語言對未經訓練的大眾而言是十分複雜的,即使受過教育的母語人士也一樣會感到困惑。


此類寫作的其中一個文法特點,是會包含冗長而複雜的修飾詞組和子句 — 因為特定法律或合約條款的條件與情景都必需被精確地描述,以免引起任何爭議。


這例句中,名詞組「the taxpayer’s assessable assets」連接了一個很長的形容詞修飾語詞組,從「from…」開始一直到段落的尾端(下劃線部分):


the taxpayer's assessable assets from specified foreign-sourced income that is chargeable to profits tax under the FSIE regime in the year of assessment during the basis period of which the sale proceeds are received in Hong Kong


學生表示,雖然在我們課程的幫助下,自己已開始掌握如何將長而複雜的句子分解成不同的結構部分,但當真要組成這類句子時,她仍感到很困難。所以她想請教我,是否有能夠針對這問題的正確思考方式,也能幫助她更有系統地寫出這種句子。


我剛才說過,即使是受過良好教育的母語人士,要進行這種「法律術語」的寫作同樣需要大量針對性的練習。但先撇開這點,我告訴她,如果想更清晰地思考這種複雜句子的結構,應先明白,很多時侯,句子中那些最令我們困惑的部份(使你失去或減弱對句子主題的關注的那些部分),其實不過是很長的修飾語罷了。


只要知道哪些部分是修飾語,以及它們修飾的是哪些元素,我們便可以暫時「蓋過」這些部分,並集中檢視句子的基本結構和內容,以便更好地掌握「全貌」。


例如:


the taxpayer's assessable assets from specified foreign-sourced income that is chargeable to profits tax under the FSIE regime in the year of assessment during the basis period of which the sale proceeds are received in Hong Kong


如果你懂得運用我們的文法框架來分析這例句,便會知道「from……..in Hong Kong」只是描述「甚麼種類的應評稅資產」的形容詞。那麼,我們可以先「蓋過」這部分以便更好地了解其整體性的意思:


In the case where a covered taxpayer sustains a loss from the sale of equity interests outside Hong Kong, this loss can be used to set off against the taxpayer's assessable assets.


如屬受保納稅人因在香港以外出售股權而產生虧損,該虧損可用於抵銷該納稅人的應評稅資產


當這冗長的形容詞修飾語被去掉,整個句子及其結構與內容,就頓時變得容易理解了。


此句的重點,不過是在表達這種虧損可抵消納稅人「某特定種類」的應評稅利潤。


它後面的長形容詞修飾語只是在描述「這特定的種類」是甚麼。


另一個原因,讓中文母語人士覺得這些長形容詞修飾語特別困難,是因為在中文文法中,所有形容詞都會出現在被修飾的名詞之前;但英文中,除單字形容詞外,所有形容詞都是出現在被修飾的名詞之後的。


因此,中文母語人士在名詞後讀到這種冗長的形容詞修飾語時,很少立刻就意識到那只是個形容前面的名詞的形容詞,從而感到十分困惑。


遇上這種情況,我建議大家可以按中文詞序先將形容詞放在名詞前去思考,以此提醒自己那只是一個形容詞而已。


例如:


the taxpayer's assessable assets from specified foreign-sourced income that is chargeable to profits tax under the FSIE regime in the year of assessment during the basis period of which the sale proceeds are received in Hong Kong


你可試著按照中文詞序來思考這個長形容詞,就為了確切地理解到它不過是一組形容詞:


(有某某特徵的) assessable assets 


把它放回句子中:


In the case where a covered taxpayer sustains a loss from the sale of equity interests outside Hong Kong, this loss can be used to set off against the taxpayer's (有某某特徵的)  assessable assets.


相信這方法可以幫助中文母語人士更易理解,亦明白到即使在名詞後的是很長的英文詞組或嵌入式子句,它們很多時侯都只是該名詞的形容詞。


當你明白了句子中那冗長的部分只是「assessable profits」的形容詞,便能夠有系統地審視它的內部結構,了解裡面所有「層次」— 例如裡面是否包括嵌入式子句,像是以關係子句描述當中的名詞之類。


這個長修飾語的內部細節我就不討論了,我希望大家記得的重點是,明白這個冗長又令人困惑的部分只是用來修飾「assessable profits」的形容詞,你便不會失掉整個句子的結構和要點。


當嘗試組成這種句子時,你也得先從整體結構和內容入手,然後再「添加」所需要的長修飾語。


Don’t Be Afraid of Long Modifiers (Again!)

 

A student enrolled in our foundational grammar course asked me a question yesterday about this complicated sentence she encountered at work (I abridged it slightly): 


In the case where a covered taxpayer sustains a loss from the sale of equity interests outside Hong Kong, this loss can be used to set off against the taxpayer's assessable assets from specified foreign-sourced income that is chargeable to profits tax under the FSIE regime in the year of assessment during the basis period of which the sale proceeds are received in Hong Kong.


(Just for reference, this is the Chinese translation, but it is not important here: 


如屬受保納稅人因在香港以外出售股權而產生虧損,該虧損可用於抵銷該納稅人於該課稅年度內(以銷售所得款項在香港收取的基期計算)根據境外收入課稅制度須課收利得稅的特定來源境外收入的應評稅資產) 


This sentence is a very typical example of what we call “legalese” -- language used in legal writing that can seem very complicated and confusing to the “untrained eye,” even for educated native speakers.


A grammatical hallmark of this type of writing is long and complex modifier phrases and clauses -- because all the conditions and scenarios for a particular legal or contractual provision have to be precisely described to avoid dispute.


For example, in this example sentence, the noun phrase “the taxpayer’s assessable assets” has a very long adjective modifier phrase that starts from “from…” all the way to the end of the paragraph (the underlined part): 


the taxpayer's assessable assets from specified foreign-sourced income that is chargeable to profits tax under the FSIE regime in the year of assessment during the basis period of which the sale proceeds are received in Hong Kong


This student’s question was -- even though, with the help of the course, she is starting to grasp how to break down long and complex sentences into different structural parts, she still has a lot of trouble with producing such sentences. Is there a way to think about this and write such sentences more systematically? 


Putting aside the fact that writing this type of “legalese” takes a lot of targeted practice even for educated native speakers, I told her that one thing she can do to think about the structure of such complex sentences in more clear terms is to understand that a lot of what seems confusing -- the parts that seem to trail off and make you lose focus of what the sentence is about -- is just long modifiers.


If we know which parts are modifiers and what elements they modify, we can essentially “cover them up” and see the sentence in its basic structure and content for a better grasp of the “big picture.”


For example: 


the taxpayer's assessable assets from specified foreign-sourced income that is chargeable to profits tax under the FSIE regime in the year of assessment during the basis period of which the sale proceeds are received in Hong Kong


In this example, if you can use the tools from our grammatical framework to analyze that “from……..in Hong Kong” is a long adjective describing “what kind of assessable profits” -- then we can first “cover” this whole part up to get a better sense of the whole:


  In the case where a covered taxpayer sustains a loss from the sale of equity interests outside Hong Kong, this loss can be used to set off against the taxpayer's assessable assets.


如屬受保納稅人因在香港以外出售股權而產生虧損,該虧損可用於抵銷該納稅人的應評稅資產


When we take away this long adjective modifier, the sentence and its structure and content become much simpler and accessible.

Essentially, the sentence is just expressing that this “foreign loss” can be used to set off against “a certain type” of the taxpayer’s “assessable profits.” 


The long adjective modifier after it just describes what “this certain type” is.


One other structural reason why long adjective modifiers like this are especially difficult for Chinese speakers is that, in Chinese grammar, alladjectives come before the noun they modify; whereas, in English, apart from single-word adjectives, all adjectives come after the noun they modify.

Because of this, often, Chinese speakers reading such a long adjective modifier after a noun would not register that it is just an adjective and would get confused as a result. 


In this case, it is useful to think of the long adjective before the noun in the Chinese word order -- to just tell yourself that it is just an adjective and nothing more. 


For example:


the taxpayer's assessable assets from specified foreign-sourced income that is chargeable to profits tax under the FSIE regime in the year of assessment during the basis period of which the sale proceeds are received in Hong Kong


You can try to think of this long adjective in the Chinese word order -- just to grasp that it is nothing more than an adjective: 


(有某某特徵的) assessable assets 


Putting this into the whole sentence:


In the case where a covered taxpayer sustains a loss from the sale of equity interests outside Hong Kong, this loss can be used to set off against the taxpayer's (有某某特徵的)  assessable assets.


I believe that this would help native Chinese speakers understand and keep in mind that, in English, even when we find very long phrases or embedded clauses after a noun, all these phrases and clauses are very often just adjectives to this noun.


Once you grasp that this whole long part in the English sentence is just an adjective to “assessable profits,” you can start to look into its internal structure systematically and understand all the “layers” inside -- such as, whether there are embedded clauses inside, like relative clauses describing nouns that are inside this part, etc.


We won’t go into the internal details of this long modifier here, but the point is, if you keep in mind this long and confusing part is just an adjective modifying “assessable profits,” you would not lose the structure and the point of the overall sentence.


When you try to produce this sentence yourself, you would also start from the overall structure and content before “adding in” the long modifier that is necessary. 

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