Advanced "le" with complements

You may have learned that 了 (le) follows immediately after a verb to indicate completion (AKA 了1), and comes at the end of a sentence when it indicates a "change of state" (AKA 了2). But what about when a complement comes after the verb? Does that count as part of the verb or not? The answer, as it often is with 了, is "it's complicated."

Two Possible Structures

Both of these structures are possible, but the second one has fewer acceptable use cases.

Subj. + Verb + Complement + 了

Subj. + Verb + 了 + Complement

The former is more common in informal speech, while the latter is more common in written language and is only used with certain types of complements.

了 After the Complement

This is fine for most verb-complement structures. No real limits here.

Some examples：

• 买 到 了 。Mǎi dào le.
• 做 起来 了 。Zuò qǐlái le.
• 吃 完 了 。Chī wán le .
• 穿 好 了 。Chuān hǎo le .
• 用 没 了 。Yòng méi le .
• 周杰伦 演唱会 的 门票 卖 光 了 。Zhōu Jiélún yǎnchànghuì de ménpiào mài guāng le .
• 包里 装 满 了 书 。Bāo lǐ zhuāng mǎn le shū.
• 我 今天 睡 了 十 个 小时，睡 够 了 。Wǒ jīntiān shuì le shí gè xiǎoshí, shuì gòu le .
• 我 第一次 听到 这 首 歌，就 爱 上 了这 首 歌 。Wǒ dìyīcì tīngdào zhè shǒu gē, jiù ài shàng le zhè shǒu gē.
• 我们 打 赢 了 比赛 。Wǒmen dǎ yíng le bǐsài.

了 After a Verb with a Complement

While you do NOT do this with result complements (e.g. 完, 好, etc.), it is a very common structure with direction complements in written Chinese.

Some examples：

• 站 了 起来 。Zhàn le qǐlái .
• 走 了 上去 。Zǒu le shàngqù .
• 吃 了 起来 。Chī le qǐlái .
• 跑 了 过来 。Pǎo le guòlái .
• 聊 了 下去 。Liáo le xiàqù .
• 我 看到 一 个 人 游 了 过去 。Wǒ kāndào yī gè rén yóu le guòqù .
• 你 快 点 跑，不然 小明 就 追 了 上来 。Nǐ kuài diǎn pǎo, bùrán Xiǎomíng jiù zhuī le shànglái .
• 我 把 桃子 摘 了 下来 。Wǒ bǎ táozi zhāi le xiàlái .
• 小妹 看到 妈妈 不 在 家，哭 了 起来 。Xiǎomèi kāndào māma bù zài jiā, kū le qǐlái .
• 我 把 整 杯 水 都 喝 了 下去 。Wǒ bǎ zhěng bēi shuǐ dōu hē le xiàqù .

Sources and further reading

Books

HSK5