墙边还拉了几根绳子

[Konstantinos]

棚子里有一张床板摆着各种题材的小人书，墙边还拉了几根绳子，一本本书翻开搭在上面，五颜六色的，很好看。

This is from the Standard Course Book of HSK5, section 20.

I need your help for translating this: 墙边还拉了几根绳子

Google translate: There are also some ropes pulled along the wall
Baidu translate: and several ropes are pulled by the wall

So what exactly did the wall do to the ropes or what did the ropes do to the wall?

About the literal translation I am on this point:

墙(wall)边(side)还(hai2, also)拉(la1, pull)了(completion in the past)几(some)根(classifier)绳子(ropes)

But I think I miss something.

 

[kategogogo]

棚子里有一张床板摆着各种题材的小人书，墙边还拉了几根绳子

Back in the day, the picture book industry in China was pretty much a street business. Vendors moved from alley to alley, setting up portable stalls where they rented out palm-sized picture books (连环画/小人书) to adults and children. For less than 1 RMB, one could stay at a stall reading all day long. I’ve never been to one, but I have reasons to think that most of them were shabby.

One might say that the “棚子” is a tarp or a canopy, and the “绳子” (cords/ropes) are there to hold the shelter in position. Presumably the stall is set in front of a wall and protected by a drop cloth overhead. 2 or 4 corners of the drop cloth are tied-down by several length of cords to the ground by the wall (墙边拉了几条绳子). Without further context, that’s the only way I could make sense of it. The vendor strings the ropes between tarp grommets and ground stakes, in order to ensure the tarp remain taut and won’t flap in the wind.

 

[skating-in-bc]

墙(wall)边(side)还(hai2, also)拉(la1, pull)了(completion in the past)几(some)根(classifier)绳子(ropes)

拉 means 'to string' (to hang something so that it stretches in a long line) in this context.

牆邊還拉了幾根繩子 as a standalone sentence is ambiguous, but when it combines with 一本本書翻開搭在上面 (like 晾被子, 把被子展開搭在幾道繩子上), I can only imagine a number of fanned-out books (like spread-out blankets) hanging over some parallel ropes strung horizontally by the wall.

(棚子裡有一張床板擺著各種題材的小人書,) 牆邊還拉了幾根繩子 (Inside the pole tent, there is a bed plank on which picture books of various themes were put in order.) There are also some ropes strung (horizontally) by the wall.

The following from another source (六一前夕话小人儿书摊) provides a clearer description:

沿着两面住户的山墙，用几根木柱和帆布搭了一个棚子，里面四周用砖头支着木板供人们坐着看书。棚子里有一张床板摆着各种题材的小人书，沿墙和帆布还拉起了几道麻绳，一本本书翻开搭在上面，琳琅满目。

 

[gramduce]

This sentence belongs to the colloquial fields, which means that in addition to placing some cartoon books on the table, someone also fixes a few ropes to the wall, the verb is 'pull', but it is not the wall that implements this action, but the omitted part of the sentence. why can it be omitted? Because it is speaking, in the final analysis, because the human brain has a strong ability to reason, analyze, and correct errors, language has great elasticity, including the elasticity of accent and various omissions, which the human brain can understand

 

[SuperXW]

See the pictures:

By the way:
墙边还拉了几根绳子 is a special structure in Chinese, where a “positional phrase” functions as the subject.
The structure is: position - describe its status.
The "real subject" - someone who has pulled the strings is omitted.

墙(wall)边(side) - positional phrase - subject
还(hai2, what's more) - adverb
拉(la1, (is) pull(ed))了(completion in the past) - verb [passive voice]
几(some)根(classifier)绳子(strings) - object
Both Google and Baidu are correct.

 

[leword]

墙边还拉了几根绳子 Your question "So what exactly did the wall do to the ropes or what did the ropes do to the wall?"

This is a typical Chinese sentence in which action maker is omitted. The book owner (action maker) hangs rope on the wall as similarly shown in the 2nd photo posted by SuperXW. However the owner has no wooden frame to hang the ropes; instead he uses the wall.

I think that 2 nails or something like wedges are nailed in the wall, and 2 ends of a rope are tied on to the nails. Therefore owner does these to hang a rope on (or beside) the wall to hang his books. Rope and wall relation in the sentence is that the wall indicates a position and location where the ropes are hung; by nails or wedges, wall supports rope and the hanging is done by the omitted book owner.

Google and Baidu translation confused you because the Chinese sentence has no action maker and the locatoin adverb （墙边）, which is adverb in English, is put in the begining of the sentence, which possibly makes you think it a subject (In Chinese it can be thought as subject, though it is not action maker). The other that confused you is the key word 拉. In Google and Baidu tranlation, it is wrong to use "pull". The book owner doesn't pull anything, rope or wall, and he hangs rope by the wall. The translation of the website is not pragmatic.

You don't know there was street stall for book renting that existed 3 decades ago in China, which is a cultural background missed in your reading.
If it was written like this: 书摊主人还在墙边拉了几根绳子。 You may understand better.

Same structure of the sentence is often read in Chinese article:桌子上放了一个花瓶。床底下扔了几只袜子。墙边停了一辆自行车。身上纹了一只老虎。
The sentence (天上飞过一群鸟)is possibly easy to understand for you for bird is action maker (fly)