position of Beijing as modifier

In Lesson 3.3, there are 2 sentences with Beijing as a modifier in both but in different positions:                                         Wǒmen shì yi xià yǒumíng de Běijīng kǎoyā.
Shì Běijīng yǒumíng de shāngyè zhōngxīn.                                                                                                                                                                 Could Beijing be put before youming in the first and after de in the second?      Mike                                                                                                                  
 

你好Michael-K122！

很不好意思这么晚才给你回复。I'm sorry for replying so late. Yes, you can reverse the order of the sentences above, although there will be some slight differences. Let's take a look:

“我们试一下有名的北京烤鸭。”- “Let's try the famous Peking Duck.”  Here, ‘北京烤鸭’ is simple a name of a the well known 'Peking Duck' dish, so here it is not so much of a modifier as it is simply the name of a dish. If we were to rearrange the sentence to, 我们试一下北京有名的烤鸭。- “Let's try Beijing's famous roast duck.” Here we can see that the emphasis of the sentence changes and we are clarifying the the roast duck dish 'belongs' to Beijing.

As for, “是北京有名的商业中心。” - “Is Beijing's famous business centre.” Here we can see that in this sentence '北京' is working to show possession, that this business centre belongs to or is situation in Beijing. However, if we were to say “是有名的北京商业中心。” - “Is the famous Beijing business centre.” then '北京' is acting more in a descriptive capacity within the title of this business centre.

I hope this has cleared things up, but if not don't hesitate to ask more questions.

Keep up the good work!

   -   Lin Ping

Thanks, Lin.  Would it be possible to say Shì Běijīng **de** yǒumíng de shāngyè zhōngxīn ?

Best,
Mike

Michael-K122 你好！

Yes, you may say that. To be honest, we would prefer to only have one 的 because in many ways it decides the stress of the sentence and if you have more than one, you tend to lose that emphasis. Also, as for many languages, we try to omit as many unnecessary words as possible. My advice is to figure out where you want your stress to lie and follow the pattern from the previous comment.

I hope this help!

   -   Lin Ping