# 什么时候<也>可以



## ireen

I found an example, 你什么时候过来也可以 (You can come over anytime). I understand its meaning, but the grammar is not understandable. Why does 可以 come last? Why isn't 也 right after 什么时候? 
Could you give me other examples that have this type of 也 in them?


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## Skatinginbc

In this case, 也 = 都


ireen said:


> Why does 可以 come last?


In this context, 可以 is an adjective, not a modal verb. 
七點(subject)可以(predicate), 八點(subject)可以(predicate), 你什么时候过来(subject)也可以(predicate).


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## ireen

Thank you!
I was supposed to be learning a indefinite pronoun, 什么时候也, but do you mean there can be some characters between 什么时候 and 也?

I have a different and possibly related question. In 你哪里也可以去, I guess 可以 is a modal verb, but ·if so, why can't we say 你可以去哪里也 because we usually replace place names with 哪里 to make questions?


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## KK_Tse

If your focus in the syntactic structure, we can say that 也 serves to link up a noun phrase with a verb phrase in the following manner:

Noun phrase + 也 + verb phrase (can consist of a modal verb)

For example:

1. 我也去。(where "我" is the topic of the sentence, "去" is the verb)
2. 他们已经去了，我吃了饭之后也会去。（where "我" is the topic of the sentence, "吃了饭之后" is a noun phrase based on nominalisation, "会" is a modal verb)
3. 你什么时候过来也可以。 （where "你" is the topic of the sentence, "什么时候过来" is a nominalised form that you may render in English by "Whatever time you come", "可以" is a modal verb)


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## retrogradedwithwind

The sentence is understandable but I think it's not so appropriate to use 也 here. I would only use 都.


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## fyl

I agree with above. If fact it sounds quite wrong to me unless there is a very special context. Could you provide the context where you found this sentence?


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## Skatinginbc

我也覺得不自然, 我還以為那是大陸用法. 我習慣用「都」.


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## KK_Tse

retrogradedwithwind said:


> The sentence is understandable but I think it's not so appropriate to use 也 here. I would only use 都.


You have a point there. With nouns denoting collectivity such as “全部”、“什么时候”、“天天”, we usually use 都 rather than 也。(Cf. Zhu Dexi 1982,《语法讲义》, where the author points out that "‘也’和‘都’一样，是标举它前面的词语的范围的，区别在于‘都’是总括，‘也’是分举。"）

Nonetheless, we can still come across examples like 你什么时候去也可以... (you can check it out on Google). It may be due to dialectal usage, or to the semantic overlap between "totalising" (i.e. "all")  and "iterating" (i.e. "any").


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## ireen

Thank you for many replies.
There is no context. I saw several example sentences in my textbook. The one I wrote is one of them.

I understand the word order. It should be affected by 都/也 (these words should come right after verbs). I also learn 也 is usually used in negative sentences. 
For example, 我什么也不想吃. Is this right? Can I use 都 instead (the sentence will be 我什么都不想吃)?


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## retrogradedwithwind

The difference between 都 and 也 is from their meanings, not the preference when people use them. So I think it's a strict rule to use 都 here. I see the sentences with 什么…也… in them as wrong sentences.

我什么也不想吃 seems to be another thing. There should be a thing 我 don't don't like to do and I don't want to eat either.


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## Skatinginbc

KK_Tse said:


> "什么时候过来" is a nominalised form that you may render in English by "Whatever time you come", "可以" is a modal verb)


If "什么时候过来" is a noun form and 可以 is a modal verb, may I ask what the implied main verb is?  It cannot be 过来 because it is part of the noun (*你什么时候过来都可以过来*).
A: May I go?  
B: Yes, you may (go) ==> "may" is a modal verb, with the implied main verb "go".


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## KK_Tse

When it comes to syntactic structure, there is a big difference between Chinese and English. Direct translation is very rare.

If we really need to find something equivalent in English, I think the verb group "可以" in "你什么时候过来也/都可以" can be compared to "will do" in an example like "Anytime will do".


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## Skatinginbc

I was asking about Chinese.  What is the missing verb after 可以？
My point is: If there is no missing verb, then it is probably not a modal verb.


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## JJJenifer

About 也/都  Maybe we can separate it into two paterns:

question words + 也:
ex: 我什么也不想吃./ 我谁也不見 / 我哪兒也不去。 (more often used than 都 when people are in a exausted, unhappy mood)

question words + n +都:
ex: 你什么时候去都可以/ 我什麼音樂都喜歡/ 你幾點來都歡迎

About 可以, I agree with Skatinginbc


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## MichaelHur

We Chinese hardly use 也 like that. At least I never heard such a sentence in the Mainland of China. In fact, although the sentence is understandable, it is incorrect in grammar. Maybe you can come across such a sentence in other places, but you will never hear it in China.


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