吃午饭了, should 了 be right after 吃？

Question

I saw this sentence from a text book: 你吃午饭了没有？ Have you had lunch yet? Does the 了 have to be right after the verb 吃 though? 你吃了午饭没有？ Have you had lunch yet? I learned that 了 with verb represents tense, only when 了 is with verb. However in the sentence given the 了 is after object of 吃, which is 午饭。 **EDIT** 1. 吃（Verb) + 了 + 午饭（Noun) = Past tense, Correct. 2. 吃 (Verb) + 午饭（Noun) + 了 = **NOT** Past tense. I believe that the text book should've used the first one to indicate the past tense, unless the text book has some error, because it does say something like this. 你吃午饭了没有？ ： PAST TENSE **EDIT 2** As I wrote some comments under, I think I should make an additional edit here again. There are a lot of articles about the usage of 了 I've read many times since I started learning Chinese. But I'm not really curious about what 了 works here, but whether the translation of 了 is correct or not because this one looks quite suspicious to me. I believe it is NOT correct to consider it a completion of a specific action, when 了 is used at the end of the sentence. I believe it is correct to consider it a completion of a specific action, when 了 is used next to the verb and only next to the verb. From that understanding, I believe it is NOT correct to translate 你吃午饭了没有 into "Have you eaten lunch?" because 了 is not used next to the verb, rather at the end of the sentence. Am I right about it? or is there anything I am missing?

Answer 1

Indeed, 了 is a very flexible particle word in Chinese. According to your question, I think it is a bit limit to your understand 了 which is 了is not only the meaning of the past tense but also the action completed. Look at the example:

我吃了饭。I had a meal.

我晚上吃了饭看电视。I watch TV after dinner( present tense)

我明天 吃了饭看电视。I will watch TV after dinner tomorrow.(future tense)

Back to your sentence, Why 你吃午饭了没有= 你吃了午饭没有？because 吃饭 is a kind of verb called seperatable verb instead of 吃verb+饭noun you mentioned. The rules of this kind of verbs is that you can put 了 between 吃 and 饭。other verbs like this:睡觉 打球 唱歌 跳舞...

About the sentence-end particle ，it will be like this 你吃了午饭了没有？the 2nd 了 in this sentence.

Answer 2

Basically 你吃午饭了没有 has no difference with 你吃了午饭没有。we use both of them in life all the time.

了 is a word to describe something already been "done ".好了（done/finished ），够了(enough)，没了(gone)，吃了(eaten)