Chatting with my mum via Skype, I typed the following sentence: "smartvoip要开始扣钱了。" (Literal meaning: It will be to cost money by smartvoip.) Then I realized that this sentence is logically wrong. According to Chinese grammar, "要……了" is a set phrase that indicates the future tense; whereas "开始", a temporal adverb, is also used to indicate the future action, here "cost money". Therefore, the indications are redundant here, just as in English, "will + infinitive" is seldom coordinated with "be to + infinitive"--that is, "will be to do something." However, from the grammatical point of view, "要……了" is modal verb while "开始" is adverb, the two can be combined with few problems, i.e. the sentence here is grammatically right.
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Why?
Logic and grammar, they are related, but which decides what? Or the two could only coexist in a relation of "cooperation"?
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