zClase Chino

An A to Z Grammar for Chinese Language Learners

 

This dictionary lists close to 400 entries of modern Chinese grammar, arranged alphabetically on the basis of Hanyu Pinyin, a phonetic system standard in the field of teaching Chinese as a second language world-wide. This volume has been designed specifically for Chinese language learners, from the very beginning stage of their learning career up to the so-called advanced level, commonly defined in a university curriculum in the West. To fully make use of this dictionary, it is imperative that the users understand and can freely work with the tools employed in this volume, especially when some of the tools used have not been tried in the L2 Chinese field, e.g., Chinese parts of speech.

 

The Chinese Language01

 

China is a multi-ethnic society, and when people in general study Chinese, ‘Chinese’ usually refers to the Beijing variety of the language as spoken by the Han 漢 people in China, also known as Mandarin Chinese or simply Mandarin. It is the official language of China, known mostly domestically as the Putonghua 普通話, the lingua franca, or Hanyu 漢語, the Han language. In Taiwan, Guoyu 國語 refers to the national/official language, and Huayu 華語 to either Mandarin Chinese as spoken by Chinese descendants residing overseas, or to Mandarin when taught to non-Chinese learners. The following pages present an outline of the features and properties of Chinese. For further details, readers are advised to consult various and abundant on-line resources.

 

Language Kinship

 

Languages in the world are grouped together on the basis of language affiliation, called language-family. Chinese, or rather Hanyu, is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family, which covers most of China today, plus parts of Southeast Asia. Therefore, Tibetan, Burmese, and Thai are genetically related to Hanyu.

Hanyu is spoken in about 75% of the present Chinese territory, by about 75% of the total Chinese population, and it covers 7 major dialects, including the better known Cantonese, Hokkienese, Hakka and Shanghainese.

Historically, Chinese has interacted highly actively with neighboring but unaffiliated languages, such as Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese. The interactions took place in such areas as vocabulary items, phonological structures, a few grammatical features and most importantly the writing script.

 

Typological Features of Chinese

 

Languages in the world are also grouped together on the basis of language characteristics, called language typology. Chinese has the following typological traits, which highlight the dissimilarities between Chinese and English.

 

A. Chinese is a non-tense language.

Tense is a grammatical device such that the verb changes according to the time of the event in relation to the time of utterance. Thus ‘He talks nonsense’ refers to his habit, while ‘He talked nonsense’ refers to a time in the past when he behaved that way, but he does not necessarily do that all the time. ‘Talked’ then is a verb in the past tense. Chinese does not operate with this device but marks the time of events with time expressions such as ‘today’ or ‘tomorrow’ in the sentence. The verb remains the same regardless of time of happening. This type of language is labeled as an atensal language, while English and most European languages are tensal languages. Knowing this particular trait can help European learners of Chinese avoid mistakes to do with verbs in Chinese. Thus, in responding to ‘What did you do in China last year?’ Chinese is ‘I teach English (last year)’; and to ‘What are you doing now in Japan?’ Chinese is again ‘I teach English (now)’.

 

B. Nouns in Chinese are not directly countable.

Nouns in English are either countable, e.g., 2 candies, or non-countable, e.g., *2 salts, while all nouns in Chinese are non-countable. When they are to be counted, a measure, or called classifier, must be used between a noun and a number, e.g., 2-piece-candy. Thus, Chinese is a classifier language. Only non-countable nouns in English are used with measures, e.g., a drop of water.

Therefore it is imperative to learn nouns in Chinese together with their associated measures/classifiers. There are only about 30 high-frequency measures/classifiers in Chinese to be mastered at the initial stage of learning.

 

C. Chinese is a Topic-Prominent language.

Sentences in Chinese quite often begin with somebody or something that is being talked about, rather than the subject of the verb in the sentence. This item is called a topic in linguistics. Most Asian languages employ topic, while most European languages employ subject. The following bad English sentences, sequenced below per frequency of usage, illustrate the topic structures in Chinese.

*Senator Kennedy, people in Europe also respected.

*Seafood, Taiwanese people love lobsters best.

*President Obama a, he attended Harvard University.

Because of this feature, Chinese people tend to speak ‘broken’ English, whereas English speakers tend to sound ‘complete’, if bland and alien, when they talk in Chinese. Through practice and through keen observations of what motivates the use of a topic in Chinese, this feature of Chinese can be acquired eventually.

 

D. Chinese tends to drop things in the sentence.

The ‘broken’ tendencies mentioned above also include not using nouns in a sentence where English counterparts are ‘complete’. This tendency is called dropping, as illustrated below through bad English sentences.

Are you coming tomorrow? ----- *Come!

What did you buy? ----- *Buy some jeans.

*This bicycle, who rides? ----- *My old professor rides.

The 1st example drops everything except the verb, the 2nd drops the subject, and the 3rd drops the object. Dropping happens when what is dropped is easily recoverable or identifiable from the contexts or circumstances. Not doing this, Europeans are often commented upon that their sentences in Chinese are too often inundated with unwanted pronouns!!

 

Phonological Characteristics of Chinese

 

Phonology refers to the system of sound, the pronunciation, of a language. To untrained ears, Chinese language sounds unfamiliar, sort of alien in a way. This is due to the fact that Chinese sound system contains some elements that are not part of the sound systems of European languages, though commonly found on the Asian continent. These features will be explained below.

On the whole, the Chinese sound system is not really very complicated. It has 7 vowels, 5 of which are found in English (i, e, a, o, u), plus 2 which are not (-e, ü); and it has 21 consonants, 15 of which are quite common, plus 6 which are less common (zh, ch, sh, r, z, c). And Chinese has a fairly simple syllable shape, i.e., consonant + vowel plus possible nasals (n or ng). What is most striking to English speakers is that every syllable in Chinese has a ‘tone’, as will be detailed directly below. But, a word on the sound representation, the pinyin system, first.

 

A. Hanyu Pinyin 漢語拼音.

Hanyu Pinyin is a variety of Romanization systems that attempt to represent the sound of Chinese through the use of Roman letters (abc...). Since the end of the 19th century, there have been about half a dozen Chinese Romanization systems, including the Wade-Giles, Guoyu Luomazi 國語羅馬字, Yale, Hanyu Pinyin, Lin Yutang, and Zhuyin Fuhao Di’ershi 注音符號第二式, not to mention the German system, the French system etc. Thanks to the consensus of media worldwide, and through the support of the UN, Hanyu Pinyin has become the standard worldwide. Taiwan is probably the only place in the world that does not support nor employ Hanyu Pinyin. Instead, it uses non-Roman symbols to represent the sound, called Zhuyin Fuhao, alias BoPoMoFo. Officially, that is. Hanyu Pinyin represents the Chinese sound as follows.

b, p, m, f d, t, n, l g, k, h j, q, x zh, ch, sh, r z, c, s a, o, -e, e ai, ei, ao, ou an, en, ang, eng -r, i, u, ü

 

B. Chinese is a tonal language.

A tone refers to the voice pitch contour. Pitch contours are used in many languages, including English, but for different functions in different languages. English uses them to indicate the speaker’s viewpoints, e.g., ‘well’ in different contours may indicate impatience, surprise, doubt etc. Chinese, on the other hand, uses contours to refer to different meanings, words. Pitch contours with different linguistic functions are not transferable from one language to another. Therefore, it would be futile trying to learn Chinese tones by looking for or identifying their contour counterparts in English.

Mandarin Chinese has 4 distinct tones, the fewest among all Han dialects, i.e., level, rising, dipping and falling, marked ーˊˇˋ, and it has only one tone-change rule, i.e., ˇˇ=>ˊˇ, though the conditions for this change are fairly complicated. In addition to the four tones, Mandarin also has one neutral(ized) tone, i.e.,˙, pronounced short/unstressed, which is derived, historically if not synchronically, from the 4 tones; hence the term neutralized. Again, the conditions and environments for the neutralization are highly complex and cannot be explored in this space.

 

C. Syllable final –r effect (vowel retroflexivisation).

The northern variety of Hanyu, esp. in Beijing, is known for its richness in the –r effect 兒化 at the end of a syllable. For example, ‘flower’ is ‘huā’ in southern China but ‘huār’ in Beijing. Given the prominence of the city Beijing, this sound feature tends to be defined as standard nationwide; but that –r effect is rarely attempted in the south. There do not seem to be rigorous rules governing what can and what cannot take the –r effect. It is thus advised that learners of Chinese resort to rote learning in this case, as probably even native speakers of northern Chinese do.

 

D. Syllables in Chinese do not ‘connect’.

‘Connect’ here refers to the merging of the tail of a syllable with the head of a subsequent syllable, e.g., English pronounces ‘at’ + ‘all’ as ‘at+tall’, ‘did’ +’you’ as ‘did+dyou’ and ‘that’+’is’ as ‘that+th’is’. On the other hand, syllables in Chinese are isolated from each other and do not connect in this way. Fortunately, this is not a serious problem for English language learners, as the syllable structures in Chinese are rather limited, and there are not many candidates for this merging. We noted above that Chinese syllables take the form of CV plus possible ‘n’ and ‘ng’. CV does not give rise to connecting, not even in English; so be extra cautious when a syllable ends with ‘n’ or ‘g’ and a subsequent syllable begins with a V, e.g., MǐnÀo ‘Fujian Province and Macao’. Nobody would understand ‘min+nao’!!

 

E. Retroflexive 捲舌 consonants.

‘Retroflexive’ refers to consonants that are pronounced with the tip of the tongue curled up (-flexive) backwards (retro-). There are altogether 4 such consonants, i.e., zh, ch, sh, and r. The pronunciation of these consonants reveals the geographical origin of native Chinese speakers. Southerners do not have them, merging them with z, c, and s, as is commonly observed in Taiwan. Curling up of the tongue comes in various degrees. Local Beijing dialect is well known for its prominent curling. Imagine curling up the tongue at the beginning of a syllable and curling it up again for the –r effect!! Try ‘zhèr-over here’, ‘zhuōr-table’ and ‘shuǐr-water’.

 

On Chinese Grammar

 

‘Grammar’ refers to the ways and rules of how words are organized into a string that is a sentence in a language. Given the fact that all languages have sentences, and at the same time non-sentences, all languages including Chinese have grammar. In this section, the most salient and important features and issues of Chinese grammar will be presented, but a summary of basic structures, as referenced against English, is given first.

 

A. Similarities in Chinese and English.

 

	English	Chinese
SVO	They sell coffee.	Tāmen mài kāfēi.
AuxV+Verb	You may sit down!	Nǐ kěyǐ zuòxià ō!
Adj+Noun	sour grapes	suān pútáo
Prep+its Noun	at home	zài jiā
Num+Meas+Noun	a piece of cake	yí kuài dàngāo
Demons+Noun	those students	nàxiē xuéshēng

 

B. Dissimilar structures.

 

	English	Chinese
RelClause: Noun	the book that you bought	nǐ mǎi de shū
VPhrase: PrepPhrsae	to eat at home	zài jiā chīfàn
Verb: Adverbial	Eat slowly!	Mànmanr chī!
Set: Subset	6th Sept, 1967	1967 nián 9 yuè 6 hào
	Taipei, Taiwan	Táiwān Táiběi
	3 of my friends…	wǒ de péngyǒu, yǒu sān ge...

 

C. Modifier precedes modified (MPM).

This is one of the most important grammatical principles in Chinese. We see it operating actively in the charts given above, so that adjectives come before nouns they modify, relative clauses also come before the nouns they modify, possessives come before nouns (tā de diànnǎo ‘his computer’), auxiliary verbs come before verbs, adverbial phrases before verbs, prepositional phrases come before verbs etc. This principle operates almost without exceptions in Chinese, while in English modifiers sometimes precede and some other times follow the modified.

 

D. Principle of Temporal Sequence (PTS).

Components of a sentence in Chinese are lined up in accordance with the sequence of time. This principle operates especially when there is a series of verbs contained within a sentence, or when there is a sentential conjunction. First compare the sequence of ‘units’ of an event in English and that in its Chinese counterpart.

Event: David / went to New York / by train / from Boston / to see his sister.

English: 1 2 3 4 5

Chinese: 1 4 2 3 5

Now in real life, David got on a train, the train departed from Boston, it arrived in New York, and finally he visited his sister. This sequence of units is ‘natural’ time, and the Chinese sentence ‘Dàwèi zuò huǒchē cóng Bōshìdùn dào Niǔyuē qù kàn tā de jiějie’ follows it, but not English. In other words, Chinese complies strictly with PTS.

When sentences are conjoined, English has various possibilities in organizing the conjunction. First, the scenario. H1N1 hits China badly (event-1), and as a result, many schools were closed (event-2). Now, English has the following possible ways of conjoining to express this, e.g.,

Many schools were closed, because/since H1N1 hit China badly. (E2+E1)

H1N1 hit China badly, so many schools were closed. (E1+E2)

As H1N1 hit China badly, many schools were closed. (E1+E2)

Whereas the only way of expressing the same in Chinese is E1+E2 when both conjunctions are used (yīnwèi…suǒyǐ...), i.e.,

Zhōngguó yīnwèi H1N1 gǎnrǎn yánzhòng (E1), suǒyǐ xǔduō xuéxiào zhànshí guānbì (E2).

PTS then helps explain why ‘cause’ is always placed before ‘consequence’ in Chinese.

PTS is also seen operating in the so-called verb-complement constructions in Chinese, e. g. shā-sǐ ‘kill+dead’, chī-bǎo ‘eat+full’, dǎ-kū ‘hit+cry’ etc. The verb represents an action that must have happened first before its consequence.

There is an interesting group of adjectives in Chinese, namely ‘zǎo-early’, ‘wǎn-late’, ‘kuài-fast’, ‘màn-slow’, ‘duō-plenty’, and ‘shǎo-few’, which can be placed either before (as adverbials) or after (as complements) of their associated verbs, e.g.,

Nǐ míngtiān zǎo diǎr lái! (Come earlier tomorrow!)

Wǒ lái zǎo le. Jìnbúqù. (I arrived too early. I could not get in.)

When ‘zǎo’ is placed before the verb ‘lái’, the time of arrival is intended, planned, but when it is placed after, the time of arrival is not pre-planned, maybe accidental. The difference complies with PTS. The same difference holds in the case of the other adjectives in the group, e.g.,

Qǐng nǐ duō mǎi liǎng ge! (Please get two extra!)

Wǒ mǎiduō le. Zāotà le! (I bought two too many. Going to be wasted!)

‘Duō!’ in the first sentence is going to be pre-planned, a pre-event state, while in the second, it’s a post-event report. Pre-event and post-event states then are naturally taken care of by PTS. Our last set in the group is more complicated. ‘Kuài’ and ‘màn’ can refer to amount of time in addition to manner of action, as illustrated below.

Nǐ kuài diǎr zǒu; yào chídào le! (Hurry up and go! You’ll be late (e.g., for work)!

Qǐng nǐ zǒu kuài yìdiǎr! (Please walk faster!)

‘Kuài’ in the first can be glossed as ‘quick, hurry up’ (in as little time as possible after the utterance), while that in the second refers to manner of walking. Similarly, ‘màn yìdiǎr zǒu-don’t leave yet’ and ‘zǒu màn yìdiǎr-walk more slowly’.

We have seen in this section the very important role in Chinese grammar played by variations in word-order. European languages exhibit rich resources in changing the forms of verbs, adjectives and nouns, and Chinese, like other Asian languages, takes great advantage of word-order.

 

E. Where to find subjects in existential sentences.

Existential sentences refer to sentences in which the verbs express appearing (e.g., coming), disappearing (e.g., going) and presence (e.g., written (on the wall)). The existential verbs are all intransitive, and thus they are all associated with a subject, without any objects naturally. This type of sentences deserves a mention in this introduction, as they exhibit a unique structure in Chinese. When their subjects are in definite reference (something that can be referred to, e.g., pronouns and nouns with definite article in English) the subject appears at the front of the sentence, i.e., before the existential verb, but when their subjects are in indefinite reference (nothing in particular), the subject appears after the verb. Compare the following pair of sentences in Chinese against their counterparts in English.

Kèrén dōu lái le. Chīfàn ba! (All the guests we invited have arrived. Let’s serve the dinner.)

Duìbùqǐ! Láiwǎn le. Jiālǐ láile yí ge kèrén. (Sorry for being late! I had an (unexpected) guest.)

More examples of post-verbal subjects are given below.

Zhè cì táifēng sǐle bù shǎo rén. (Quite a few people died during the typhoon this time.)

Zuótiān wǎnshàng xiàle duōjiǔ de yǔ? (How long did it rain last night?)

Zuótiān wǎnshàng pǎole jǐ ge fànrén? (How many inmates got away last night?)

Chēzi lǐ zuòle duōshǎo rén a? (How many people were in the car?)

Exactly when to place the existential subject after the verb will remain a challenge for learners of Chinese for quite a significant period of time. Again, observe and deduce!! Memorising sentence by sentence would not help!!

The existential subjects presented above are simple enough, e.g., people, a guest, rain and inmates. But when the subject is complex, further complications emerge!! A portion of the complex subject stays in front of the verb, and the remaining goes to the back of the verb, e.g.,

Míngtiān nǐmen qù jǐge rén? (How many of you will be going tomorrow?)

Wǒ zuìjìn diàole bù shǎo toúfă. (I lost=fell quite a lot of hair recently.)

Qùnián dìzhèn, tā sǐle sān ge gēge. (He lost=died 3 brothers during the earthquake last year.)

In linguistics, we say that existential sentences in Chinese have a lot of semantic and information structures involved.

 

F. A tripartite system of verb classifications in Chinese.

English has a clear division between verbs and adjectives, but the boundary in Chinese is quite blurred, which quite seriously misleads English-speaking learners of Chinese. The error in *Wǒ jīntiān shì máng. ‘I am busy today.’ is a daily observation in Chinese 101! Why is it a common mistake for beginning learners? What do our textbooks and/or teachers do about it, so that the error is discouraged, if not suppressed? Nothing, much! What has not been realized in our profession is that Chinese verb classification is more strongly semantic, rather than more strongly syntactic as in English.

Verbs in Chinese have 3 sub-classes, namely Action Verbs, State Verbs and Process Verbs. Action Verbs are time-sensitive activities (beginning and ending, frozen with a snap-shot, prolonged), are will-controlled (consent or refuse), and usually take human subjects, e.g., ‘chī-eat’, ‘mǎi-buy’ and ‘xué-learn’. State Verbs are non-time-sensitive physical or mental states, inclusive of the all-famous adjectives as a further sub-class, e.g., ‘ài-love’, ‘xīwàng-hope’ and ‘liàng-bright’. Process Verbs refer to instantaneous change from one state to another, ‘sǐ-die’, ‘pò-break, burst’ and ‘wán-finish’.

The new system of parts of speech in Chinese as adopted in this series is built on this very foundation of this tripartite verb classification. Knowing this new system will be immensely helpful in learning quite a few syntactic structures in Chinese that are nicely related to the 3 classes of verbs, as will be illustrated with negation in Chinese in the section below.

The table below presents some of the most important properties of these 3 classes of verbs, as reflected through syntactic behaviour.

 

Table 1.

 

	Action Verbs	State Verbs	Process Verbs
Hěn- modification	×	✓	×
Le- completive	✓	×	✓
Zài- progressive	✓	×	×
Reduplication	✓ (tentative)	✓ (intensification)	×
Bù- negation	✓	✓	×
Méi- negation	✓	×	✓

 

Here are more examples of the 3 classes of verbs.

Action Verbs: mǎi ‘buy’, zuò ‘sit’, xué ‘learn; imitate’, kàn ‘look’

State Verbs: xǐhuān ‘like’, zhīdào ‘know’, néng ‘can’, guì ‘expensive’

Process Verbs: wàngle ‘forget’, chén ‘sink’, bìyè ‘graduate’, xǐng ‘wake up’

 

G. Negation.

Negation in Chinese is by means of placing a negative adverb immediately in front of a verb. (Remember that adjectives in Chinese are a type of State verbs!) When an action verb is negated with ‘bù’, the meaning can be either ‘intend not to, refuse to’ or ‘not in a habit of’, e.g.,

Nǐ bù mǎi piào, wǒ jiù bú ràng nǐ jìnqù! (If you don’t buy a ticket, I won’t let you in!)

Tā zuótiān zhěng tiān bù jiē diànhuà. (He did not want to answer the phone all day yesterday.)

Dèng lǎoshī bù hē jiǔ. (Mr. Teng does not drink.)

‘Bù’ has the meaning above but is independent of temporal reference. The first sentence above refers to the present moment or a minute later after the utterance, and the second to the past. A habit again is panchronic. But when an action verb is negated with ‘méi’, its time reference must be in the past, meaning ‘something did not come to pass’, e.g.,

Tā méi lái shàngbān. (He did not come to work.)

Tā méi dài qián lái. (He did not bring any money.)

 

A state verb can only be negated with ‘bù’, referring to the non-existence of that state, whether in the past, at present, or in the future, e.g.,

Tā bù zhīdào zhè jiàn shì. (He did not/does not know this.)

Tā bù xiǎng gēn nǐ qù. (He does not want/did not want to go with you.)

Niǔyuē zuìjìn bú rè. (New York was/is/will not be hot.)

 

A process verb can only be negated with ‘méi’, referring to the non-happening of a change from one state to another, usually in the past, e.g.,

Yīfú méi pò, nǐ jiù rēng le? (You threw away perfectly good clothes?)

Niǎo hái méi sǐ; nǐ jiù fàng le ba! (The bird is still alive. Why don’t you let it free?)

Tā méi bìyè yǐqián, hái děi dǎgōng. (He has to work odd jobs before graduating.)

As can be gathered from the above, negation of verbs in Chinese follows neat patterns, but this is so only after we work with the new system of verb classifications as presented in this series. Here’s one more interesting fact about negation in Chinese before closing this section. When some action verbs refer to some activities that result in something stable, e.g., when you put on clothes, you want the clothes to stay on you, the negation of those verbs can be usually translated in the present tense in English, e.g.,

Tā zěnme méi chuān yīfú? (How come he is naked?)

Wǒ jīntiān méi dài qián. (I have no money with me today.)

 

H. A new system of Parts of Speech in Chinese.

In the system of parts of speech adopted in this series, there are at the highest level a total of 8 parts of speech, as given below. This system includes the following major properties. First and foremost, it is errors-driven and can address some of the most prevailing errors exhibited by learners of Chinese. This characteristic dictates the depth of sub-categories in a system of grammatical categories. Secondly, it employs the concept of ‘default’. This property greatly simplifies the over-all framework of the new system, so that it reduces the number of categories used, simplifies the labeling of categories, and takes advantage of the learners’ contribution in terms of positive transfer. And lastly, it incorporates both semantic as well as syntactic concepts, so that it bypasses the traditionally problematic category of adjectives by establishing three major semantic types of verbs, viz. action, state and process.

Adv Adverb (dōu ‘all’, dàgài ‘probably)

Conj Conjunction (gēn ‘and’, kěshì ‘but’)

Det Determiner (zhè ‘this’, nà ‘that’)

M Measure (ge, tiáo; xià, cì)

N Noun (wǒ ‘I’, yǒngqì ‘courage’)

Ptc Particle (ma ‘question particle’, le ‘completive verbal particle’)

Prep Preposition (cóng ‘from’, duìyú ‘regarding’)

V Action Verb, transitive (mǎi ‘buy’, chī ‘eat’)

Vi Action Verb, intransitive (kū ‘cry’, zuò ‘sit’)

Vaux Auxiliary Verb (néng ‘can’, xiǎng ‘would like to’)

V-sep Separable Verb (jiéhūn ‘get married’, shēngqì ‘get angry’)

Vs State Verb, intransitive (hǎo ‘good’, guì ‘expensive’)

Vst State Verb, transitive (xǐhuān ‘like’, zhīdào ‘know’)

Vs-attr State Verb, attributive (zhǔyào ‘primary’, xiùzhēn ‘mini-’)

Vs-pred State Verb, predicative (gòu ‘enough’, duō ‘plenty’)

Vp Process Verb, intransitive (sǐ ‘die’, wán ‘finish’)

Vpt Process Verb, transitive (pò (dòng) ‘lit. break (hole), liè (fèng) ‘lit. crack (a crack))

 

Table 2. Eight Parts of Speech in Chinese

 

Parts of Speech	Symbols	Example
Noun	N	水-shuǐ (water), 五-wǔ (five), 昨天-zuótiān (yesterday), 學校-xuéxiào (school), 他-tā (he/him), 幾-jǐ ((a)few)
Verb	V	吃-chī (to eat), 告訴-gàosù (to tell), 容易-róngyì (easy), 快樂kuàilè (happy), 知道-zhīdào (to know), 破-pò (to be broken)
Adverb	Adv	很-hěn (very), 不-bù (no), 常- cháng (often), 到處-dàochù (everywhere), 也-yě (also), 就-jiù (only/then), 難道-nándào (could it really be that…)
Conjunction	Conj	和-hàn (and), 跟-gēn (and), 而且-érqiě (also), 雖然-suīrán (although), 因為-yīnwèi (because)
Preposition	Prep	從-cóng (from), 對-duì (to), 向-xiàng (to), 跟-gēn (to/with), 在-zài (at), 給-gěi (to)
Measure	M	個-ge (for general), 張-zhāng (for flat objects), 杯-bēi (for cup), 次-cì (for times, occurrences), 頓-dùn (for the duration of a meal/a duration of action), 公尺-gōngchǐ (for length)
Particle	Ptc	的-de (for modification), 得-de (for complement), 啊-a (for sentence final, realization), 嗎-ma (for question), 完-wán (for completion of action), 掉-diào (for separation), 把-bǎ (for disposal), 喂-wèi (for addressing, people especially over the phone)
Determiner	Det	這-zhè (this), 那-nà (that), 某-mǒu (somebody or something), 每-měi (every/each), 哪-nǎ (which)

 

1. Noun (名詞)

The category noun includes common nouns (一般名詞), numerals (數詞), words indicating time (時間詞), words indicating location (地方詞), and pronouns (代名詞). Nouns can be used as the subject (主語), object (賓語), or an attributive (定語) in a sentence. It is noteworthy to mention that words indicating time or location can be used as an adverbial (狀語) in a sentence. For example, 他明天出國 Tā míngtiān chūguó (He is leaving the country tomorrow). Thus, parts of speech and sentence functions are distinct notions.

 

2. Measure (量詞) (or linguistically classifiers)

There are measures that modify nouns, such as 一件衣服 yí jiàn yīfú (a shirt) and 一碗飯 yì wǎn fàn (a bowl of rice). There are also classifiers that modify actions, such as 來了一趟 lái le yí tàng (came once). Classifiers appear after determiners and/or numerals.

 

3. Determiner (限定詞)

Determiners in the Chinese language include 這 zhè (this), 那 nà (that), 哪 nǎ (which), 每 měi (every/each), and 某 mǒu (somebody or something). Determiners have unique syntactic status. They always appear in the far-left position of a noun phrase, e.g., 那三本書是他的。 Nà sān běn shū shì tā de. (Those three books are his).

 

4. Preposition (介詞)

Prepositions connect a noun to the main verb or verb phrase, by way of specifying its time, place, manner, instrument etc. Common prepositions in Chinese are given in Table 2 above. They in general are placed in front of verb phrases, e.g., 他在家裡看電視。Tā zài jiā lǐ kàn diànshì. (He is watching TV at home.)

 

5. Conjunction (連詞)

By definition, conjunctions join elements. There are two types of conjunctions, intra-phrase conjunctions and sentential conjunctions. The former connect two or more similar elements, e.g.,中國跟美國 Zhōngguó gēn Měiguó (China and the United States), 美麗與哀愁 měilì yǔ āichóu (beauty and sadness), and 我或你 wǒ huò nǐ (me or you). The latter bind single sentences into compound sentences; 雖然suīrán... (although) and 可是kěshì... (but) are two such conjunctions. Chinese sentential conjunctions usually appear in pairs, with the first (such as 雖然 suīrán (although)) preceding the second (such as 可是kěshì (but)). First sentence conjunctions such as 不但búdàn (not only), 因為yīnwèi (because), 雖然suīrán (although) , 儘管jǐnguǎn (in spite of), 既然jìrán (since), 縱使zòngshǐ (even though), and 如果rúguǒ (if) may appear before or after the subject of a sentence. Second sentence conjunctions such as 但是dànshì (however), 所以suǒyǐ (therefore), 然而ránér (however), 不過búguò (but), and 否則fǒuzé (otherwise) may only appear before the subject. Following are two examples:

1 她不但寫字寫得漂亮，而且畫畫也畫得好。

Tā búdàn xiězì xiě de piàoliàng, érqiě huàhuà yě huà de hǎo.

Her penmanship is pretty, and she paints well too.

2 我因為生病，所以沒辦法來上課。

Wǒ yīnwèi shēngbìng, suǒyǐ méi bànfǎ lái shàngkè.

I cannot come to class because I am sick.

When the two sentences do not share the same subject, the conjunctions may only appear before, not after, the subjects. See the following two examples:

3 我們家的人都喜歡看棒球比賽，不但爸爸喜歡看，而且媽媽也喜歡看。

Wǒ men jiā de rén dōu xǐhuān kàn bàngqiú bǐsài, búdàn bàba xǐhuān kàn, érqiě māma yě xǐhuān kàn.

Our family loves watching baseball. It’s not just my dad, my mom likes to watch too.

4 因為房子倒了，所以他無家可歸。

Yīnwèi fángzi dǎo le, suǒyǐ tā wújiā kěguī.

The house collapsed, so he has no home to return to.

 

6. Adverb (副詞)

Adverbs modify verb phrases, and modifiers in Chinese always precede the modified. In most cases, adverbs appear between the subject and the verb. Adverbs in Chinese have traditionally been classified into several sub-categories based on meanings. What is noteworthy here is the fact that monosyllabic adverbs such as 才cái (just, only), 就jiù (only, merely, then), 再zài (again, and then), and 還hái (still, additionally) have multiple meanings, making them very difficult to learn at the initial stage.

Our traditional definition of adverbs is less than perfect, and there are many exceptions to our rules of adverbs. One notable exception relates to a group of adverbs (?) that can be placed at the beginning of a sentence, in violation of our typical rule, e.g., 難道你不想去？Nándào nǐ bù xiǎng qù? (You mean you don’t want to go?), in which the adverb ‘nándào’ not only violates the syntactic rule but also does not follow the functional rule of adverbs that they modify verb phrases. In fact, this adverb expresses the speaker’s attitude and expectation. Maybe it’s not an adverb after all.

 

7. Particle (助詞)

Particles are members of closed word classes, and despite their limited number, their importance in syntax warrants a place among the main parts of speech. Particles can be put into the following six categories based on their different functions:

Interjections (感嘆助詞): 喂wèi, 咦yí, 哦ó, 唉āi, 哎āi

Phase particles (時相助詞): 完wán, 好hǎo, 過2 guò, 下去xiàqù

Verb particles (動助詞): 上shàng, 下xià, 起qǐ, 開kāi, 掉diào, 走zǒu, 住zhù, 到dào, 出chū

Aspectual particles (時態助詞): 了1le, 著zhe, 過1guò

Structural particles (結構助詞): 的de, 地de, 得de, 把bǎ, 將jiāng, 被bèi, 遭zāo

Sentential particles (句尾助詞): 啊a , 嗎ma, 吧ba, 呢ne, 啦la, 了2le

Of these six categories, the widely recognizable aspectual particles always appear after the verb of a sentence, indicating the internal temporal structure of an event. For example, 了 le marks completion, 過 guò marks experience, and 著 zhe marks continuation. Phase particles comprise the complement in traditional verb-compliment structure. We categorize these words because their semantic meaning has either disappeared or weakened. Words in this class present the temporal structure of an action and appear after verbs and/or before aspectual particles.

Verb particles (動助詞) are a type of complement (補語). Different verb particles bear different intrinsic meanings, not related to the original, literal meanings. For example, 上shàng and 到 dào are used to express contact (接觸義); 開kāi, 掉diào, 下xià, and 走 zǒu are used to express separation (分離義); 起qǐ and 出chū are used to express emergence (顯現義); and 住zhù is used to express immobility (靜止義). Verb particles express the relationship between a theme or patient (客體) and its source (源點) and goal (終點) (Bolinger, 197102 ; Teng, 197703 ). Here we use Teng’s (2012:240)04 examples to further elaborate:

5

a 他把魚尾巴切走了。

Tā bǎ yú wěibā qiēzǒu le.

(He cut away the fish tail.)

b 他把魚尾巴切掉了。

Tā bǎ yú wěibā qiēdiào le.

(He cut off the fish tail.)

 

The characteristics of verb particles 走zǒu and 掉diào are explained as follows:

走zǒu: meaning that the theme is separated from the source, but accompanies the action taker.

掉diào: meaning that the theme is separated from the source, and disappears from the speaker or the sphere in which the action takes place.

Here the fish tail can be taken as the object of the sentence, and the fish itself as the source (源點). With this understanding, it is easy to understand the difference between 走zǒu and 掉diào.

Understanding the characteristics of verb particles allows learners to infer sentence meaning through verb-particle collocation, and also helps them discern which particles go with which verbs. When used with aspectual particles, verb particles precede, however, verb particles do not appear with phase particles.

Structural particles include attribute particle (定語助詞) 的de; adverbial particle (狀語助詞) 地de; complement particle (補語助詞) 得de; particles that mark the following noun as a direct object (處置助詞) such as 把bǎ and 將jiāng; and passive particles (被動助詞) 被bèi, 給gěi, and 遭zāo.

 

8. Verb (動詞)

The syntactic function of verbs is to serve as the main predicate of a sentence. In order for learners to understand the syntactic behaviors marked by verbs, we classify verbs into three sub-classes: action verbs (動作動詞), state verbs (狀態動詞), and process verbs (變化動詞) (Teng, 1974)05 . Action verbs imply time and will, state verbs imply neither time nor will, and process verbs imply only time.

Action verbs refer to what one performs willfully and intentionally, either physically or mentally. They are transient in the sense that they terminate naturally, e.g., 吃 (chī, to eat) must be done intentionally and the activity ends usually in 30 minutes or so. An action can be prolonged and it can also be terminated abruptly. An action can also be refused by the person involved. These properties are not just whimsical and philosophical. They are directly associated with syntactic/grammatical rules, as will be detailed immediately below.

State verbs refer to quality, condition and ‘state’. State verbs can be further classified as follows.

Cognitive verbs (認知動詞): 知道zhīdào (to know), 愛ài (to love), 喜歡xǐhuān (to like), 恨hèn (to hate), 覺得juéde (to feel, to think), 希望xīwàng (to hope)

Modal verbs (能願動詞): 能néng (can), 會huì (can/will), 可以kěyǐ (could/may), 應該yīnggāi (should)

Optative verbs (意願動詞): 想xiǎng (would like to), 要yào (to want to), 願意yuànyì (willing to), 打算dǎsuàn (to plan to)

Relational verbs (關係動詞): 是shì (to be), 叫jiào (to be called), 姓xìng (to be surnamed), 有yǒu (to have)

Adjectives (形容詞): 小xiǎo (small), 高gāo (tall), 紅hóng (popular), 漂亮piàoliàng (beautiful), 快樂kuàilè (happy)

Adjectives can be used as predicates (謂詞) or modifiers (修飾語). Most cognitive verbs are transitive state verbs. Modal verbs, which are used to express ability or possibility, and optative verbs, which are used to express a wish, bear syntactic differences to other state verbs. Modal verbs and optative verbs are followed by a main verb, rather than a noun phrase or an aspectual particle. We group these two classes of state verbs as Vaux (助動詞) to show their unique syntactic functions. Vaux, like verbs, can fit in the‘V-not-V’ structure (see Table 3), whereas adverbs cannot. Relational verbs do not follow adverbs of degree, i.e.,, they are incompatible with modifiers such as 很hěn (very), bearing different syntactic rules than general state verbs.

The differences between action verbs, state verbs, and process verbs can be seen in their syntactic structures, as shown in Table 3. For example, action verbs can be collocated with 不bù (no), 沒méi (not), 了1 le (verbal particle indicating a completed action), 在zài (progressive aspect verb), 著zhe (a particle indicating progressing or continuation of action), and 把bǎ (disposal particle); state verbs cannot be collocated with 沒méi, 了1 le, 在zài, and 把bǎ; process verbs can be collocated with 沒méi and 了1 le, but cannot be collocated with 不bù. Upon learning that 破pò (to be broken) is a Vp (process verb), a student would never then come up with the sentence: *花瓶不破huāpíng bú pò (*The vase didn’t break), and would know that 破pò needs to be collocated with negative modifier 沒méi instead of 不bù .

 

Table 3. The Three Sub-classes of Verbs and Their Syntactic Rules

 

不

沒

很

了1

在

著

把

請(祈使)

V (一) V

V不V

ABAB

AABB

Action Verbs

v

v

x

v

v

v

v

v

v

v

v

x

State Verbs

v

x

v

x

x

x

x

x

x

v

x

v

Process Verbs

x

v

x

v

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

x

(Table compiled from Teng (1974) and Prof. Teng’s class handouts)

 

It is noteworthy that these rules are not without counter-examples. When there are rules, there are also exceptions. The few exceptions, however, do not take away from the advantage that this table provides.

In addition to the 8 major parts of speech in Chinese, the following lower-level subcategories are employed. The marking –t refers to transitive verbs, whereas –i to intransitive. –pred refers to adjectives (sub-class of State Verbs) that can serve only as predicates, and –attr to adjectives that can serve only as attributes (modifiers). –sep refers to separable intransitive verbs (see below for discussion).

(1) –attr (attributive only, 唯定)

-attr marks state verbs that can only be used as attributives. In general, adjectives (state verbs) are either used as the predicate of a sentence (那女孩很美麗 Nà nǚhái hěn měilì – That girl is very pretty), or the attributive that modifies a noun (她是一個美麗的女孩Tā shì yí ge měilì de nǚhái – She is a pretty girl). However, some state verbs such as 公共 gōnggòng (public) and 野生yěshēng (wild) can only be used as attributives. For example, 公共場所gōnggòng chǎngsuǒ (a public place), 野生品種 yěshēng pǐnzhǒng (a wild breed), and 那是野生的Nà shì yěshēng de (that is wild). These verbs do not stand on their own as predicates. For example, *那種象很野生Nà zhǒng xiàng hěn yěshēng (*That breed of elephant is wild) is an incorrect sentence.

(2) –pred (predicative only, 唯謂)

-pred marks state verbs that can only be used as predicates. In contrast to the previous class, adjectives in this class only function as predicates and cannot be used as attributives. A good example for this class of verb is 夠gòu (enough). When students understand that 夠gòu (enough) is a Vs-pred, they would not make sentences such as *我有（不）夠的錢。Wǒ yǒu (bú) gòu de qián. (*I do not have enough money) and would instead render the correct sentence: 我的錢（不）夠。Wǒ de qián (bú) gòu. (I do not have enough money).

(3) –sep (separable, 可離)

-sep marks a unique verb class in Chinese. These verbs are traditionally called separable words (離合詞). Words in general, probably universally, do not become separated, e.g., *under-not-stand. But –sep verbs in Chinese can be separated, making it look like the verb-object syntax. Separable words can be interposed by aspectual particles (example 6 ), time duratio (example 7), recipient of an action (example 8), or modifiers indicating amount (example 9).

 

6 我昨天下了課，就和朋友去看電影。

Wǒ zuótiān xià le kè, jiù hàn péngyǒu qù kàn diànyǐng.

Yesterday I went to a movie with friends after class

 

7 他唱了三小時的歌。很累。

Tā chàng le sān xiǎoshí de gē, hěn lèi.

He sang for three hours. it was exhausting

 

8 我想見你一面。

Wǒ xiǎng jiàn nǐ yí miàn.

I want to meet up with you

 

9 這次旅行，他照了一百多張相。

Zhè cì lǚxíng, tā zhào le yìbǎi duō zhāng xiàng.

He took over 100 pictures on this trip

 

Separable words are intransitive verbs, including action verbs (V-sep), state verbs (Vs-sep), and process verbs (Vp-sep). Understanding separable verbs and their markings helps students avoid making erroneous sentences such as *他唱歌三小時。Tā chànggē sān xiǎo shí. (*He sang for three hours). In Taiwan, however, some separable words have started taking on transitive usage, such as 幫忙bāngmáng (to help). This new usage is relatively recent and localized, and thus they are classified as intransitive in this volume.

 

Default Markings

 

So that we do not give a long string of markings when we specify parts of speech, a system of default markings has been utilized in this volume, as detailed below. To illustrate, when V is presented, it refers to an Action verb that is at the same time transitive.

V: Action verb, transitive, e.g., 買-mǎi (to buy), 做-zuò (to do), 說-shuō (to say)

Vi: Action verb, intransitive, 跑-pǎo (to run), 坐-zuò (to sit), 笑-xiào (to laugh), 睡-shuì (to sleep)

V-sep: Action verb, separable, intransitive, 唱歌-chànggē (to sing), 上網-shàngwǎng (to access the internet), 打架-dǎjià (to engage in a fight)

Vs: State verb, intransitive, 冷-lěng (cold), 高-gāo (tall), 漂亮-piàoliàng

(beautiful)

Vst: State verb, transitive, 關心-guānxīn (to be concerned about), 喜歡-xǐhuān (to like), 同意-tóngyì (to agree with)

Vs-attr: State verb, intransitive, attributive only, 野生-yěshēng (wild), 公共-gōnggòng (public), 新興-xīnxīng (emerging)

Vs-pred: State verb, intransitive, predicative only, 夠-gòu (enough), 多-duō (plenty), 少-shǎo (few in number)

Vs-sep: State verb, intransitive, separable, 放心-fàngxīn (not to worry), 幽默-yōumò (humorous), 生氣-shēngqì (angry)

Vaux: State verb, auxiliary, intransitive, 會-huì (can/will), 可以-kěyǐ (could/may), 應該yīnggāi (should)

Vp: Process verb, intransitive, 破-pò (to be broken), 壞-huài (to go bad), 死-sǐ (to die), 感冒-gǎnmào (to catch a cold)

Vpt: Process verb, transitive, 忘記-wàngjì (to forget), 變成-biànchéng (to become), 丟-diū (to have lost something)

Vp-sep: Process verb, intransitive, separable, 結婚-jiéhūn (to get married to), 生病-shēngbìng (to fall ill), 畢業-bìyè (to graduate)

 

Notes

 

Default values:

When no marking appears under a category, a default reading takes place, which has been built into the system by observing the commonest patterns of the highest frequency. A default value can be loosely understood as the most likely candidate. A default system results in using fewer symbols, which makes it easy on the eyes, reducing the amount of processing. Our default readings are as follows.

 

Default transitivity.

When a verb is not marked, i.e., V, it’s an action verb. An unmarked action verb, furthermore, is transitive. A state verb is marked as Vs, but if it’s not further marked, it’s intransitive. The same holds for process verbs, i.e., Vp is by default intransitive.

 

Default position of adjectives.

Typical adjectives occur as predicates, e.g., ‘This is great!’ Therefore, unmarked Vs are predicative, and adjectives that cannot be predicates will be marked for this feature, e.g., zhǔyào ‘primary’ is an adjective but it cannot be a predicate, i.e., *Zhè tiáo lù hěn zhǔyào. ‘*This road is very primary.’ Therefore it is marked Vs-attr, meaning it can only be used attributively, i.e., Zhǔyào dàolù ‘primary road’. On the other hand, ‘gòu’ ‘enough’ in Chinese can only be used predicatively, not attributively, e.g., ‘shíjiān gòu’ ‘*?Time is enough.’, but not *gòu shíjiā ‘enough time’. Therefore gòu is marked Vs-pred. Employing this new system of parts of speech guarantees good grammar!

 

Default wordhood.

In English, words cannot be torn apart and be used separately, e.g., *mis- not –understand. Likewise in Chinese, e.g., *xǐbùhuān ‘do not like’. However, there is a large group of words in Chinese that are exceptions to this probably universal rule and can be separated. They are called ‘separable words’, marked -sep in our new system of parts of speech. For example, shēngqì ‘angry’ is a word, but it is fine to say shēng tā qì ‘angry at him’. Jiéhūn ‘get married’ is a word but it’s fine to say jiéguòhūn ‘been married before’ or jiéguò sān cì hūn ‘been married 3 times before’. There are at least a couple of hundred separable words in modern Chinese. Even native speakers have to learn that certain words can be separated. Thus, memorizing them is the only way to deal with them by learners, and our new system of parts of speech helps them along nicely. Go over the vocabulary lists in this series and look for the marking –sep.

Now, what motivates this severing of words? Ask Chinese gods, not your teachers! We only know a little about the syntactic circumstances under which they get separated. First and foremost, separable words are in most cases intransitive verbs, whether action, state or process. When these verbs are further associated with targets (nouns, conceptual objects), frequency (number of times), duration (for how long), occurrence (done, done away with) etc., separation takes pace and these associated elements are inserted in between. More examples are given below.

Wǒ jīnnián yǐjīng kǎoguò 20 cì shì le!! (I’ve taken 20 exams to date this year!)

Wǒ dàoguò qiàn le; tā hái shēngqì! (I apologized, but he’s still mad!)

Fàng sān tiān jià; dàjiā dōu zǒu le. (There will be a break of 3 days, and everyone has left.)

 

Grammatical Description

 

In this A to Z dictionary, each grammatical entry contains 3 sub-sections: Function, Structure and Usage.

 

Function

 

Instead of merely giving a list of sentence structures, we explain grammatical functions, affording students a clear understanding of a grammar point. Primarily, we aim to answer the question ‘What does this grammar item do? What do native speakers use it for?’ For example, the complement after 得 de has a complementary function, while adverbials and attributives has a modifying function. Here we can take the reduplicated form of monosyllabic verbs as an example, VV. This is a rather straightforward form, saying a verb twice, but we need to understand the function of the form: verb reduplication suggests “reduced strength”. It also suggests that the action is easy to accomplish. When what is expressed is a request/command, verb reduplication softens the tone of the statement and the hearer finds the request/command more moderate. To take another famous example of Chinese grammar, BA-construction. Instead of concentrating on the syntactic structures of this particularly puzzling construction, we first dwell on the question ‘What do BA sentences do? What do native speakers use it in their utterances for?’

 

Structure

 

Only after functionality do we introduce structures. In this section we first lay out the basic structure of a grammar point, and, in some cases, present them in a linear fashion, such as ‘subject + 把bǎ + object + V + 了’. We again list functions, e.g., subject and object, and not merely nouns and verbs. What follow are descriptions of the ‘negative structure’ and ‘interrogative structure’ of the given grammar point so that students will know how to voice negativity and to ask questions based on the basic form. For example, we point out that the negative modifier for state verbs is 不bù instead of 沒méi. When introducing phrases or clauses with the word 把, we point out that the negative modifier should appear before 把bǎ instead of before the verb. In terms of interrogative structure, we reserve 嗎ma primarily for the first few lessons, as it is a straightforward, commonly used interrogative expression. Thereafter we tend to use V-not-V, 沒有méi yǒu (used at the end of a sentence), and 是不是shìbúshì as interrogative forms.

 

Usage

 

Not to be confused with linguistic pragmatics (語用學), this section points out when to use and when not to use a specific grammar point, and what to be careful of when using it. For example, reduplicated state verbs cannot be used with adverbs of degree, i.e.,, *很輕輕鬆鬆 *hěn qīngqīng sōngsōng (*highly very xxx) is not a grammatically correct expression. Perfective 了le is used to indicate the completion of an action, not an action that has occurred in the past. Some grammar points might be confused with other structures or phrases. When necessary, we also give detailed explanations accordingly. For example, upon learning both 一點yìdiǎn (a bit) and 有一點yǒu yìdiǎn (a little), we explain their respective differences in usage. Extra attention is given to the usage section, and to supplement teacher’s experience we have employed interlanguage corpora to provide information that will help students master Chinese. Lastly, we include, if necessary and helpful, comparative and contrastive notes between Chinese and English. It is regrettable that we are not able, at this stage, to provide contrastive notes relating to other languages.

 

Final Words

 

This is a very brief introduction to the organization and major contents of our A to Z Chinese Grammar for Learners. This introduction can only highlight the most salient properties of Chinese grammar. It is not our intention to present a coherent, systematic book on the entirety of Chinese grammar. There exist excellent such books, e.g., Li, Charles and Sandra Thompson. 1982. Mandarin Chinese: a Reference Grammar. UC Los Angeles Press. (Authorized reprinting by Crane publishing Company, Taipei, Taiwan.) We welcome suggestions for improvements, steng@ntnu.edu.tw.

Shou-hsin Teng, Ph.D., Editor in Chief

National Taiwan Normal University

Chungyuan Christian University, Taiwan

March 2018

 

Chinese Parts of Speech 2017

漢語詞類

Major 8 Parts of Speech 八大詞類

Symbols	Parts of Speech	八大詞類	Examples
N	noun	名詞	水、五、昨天、學校、他、幾
V	verb	動詞	吃、告訴、容易、快樂，知道、破
Adv	adverb	副詞	很、不、常、到處、也、就、難道
Conj	conjunction	連詞	和、跟，而且、雖然、因為
Prep	preposition	介詞	從、對、向、跟、在、給
M	measure	量詞	個、條、張、次、頓、公尺、碗
Ptc	particle	助詞	的、得、啊、嗎、完、掉、把、喂
Det	determiner	限定詞	這、那、某、每、哪

 

Verb Classification 動詞分類

Symbols	Classification	動詞分類	Examples
V	transitive action verbs	及物動作動詞	買、做、說
Vi	intransitive action verbs	不及物動作動詞	跑、坐、睡、笑
V-sep	intransitive action verbs, separable	不及物動作離合詞	唱歌、上網、打架
Vs	intransitive state verbs	不及物狀態動詞	冷、高、漂亮
Vst	transitive state verbs	及物狀態動詞	關心、喜歡、同意
Vs-attr	intransitive state verbs, attributive only	唯定不及物狀態動詞	野生、公共、新興
Vs-pred	intransitive state verbs, predicative only	唯謂不及物狀態動詞	夠、多、少
Vs-sep	intransitive state verbs, separable	不及物狀態離合詞	放心、幽默、生氣
Vaux	auxiliary verbs	助動詞	會、能、可以
Vp	intransitive process verbs	不及物變化動詞	破、感冒、壞、死
Vpt	transitive process verbs	及物變化動詞	忘記、變成、丟
Vp-sep	intransitive process verbs, separable	不及物變化離合詞	結婚、生病、畢業

 

Default Markings 內定值說明

Symbols	Default Values
V	Action Verb, Transitive
Vs	State Verb , Intransitive
Vp	Process Verb, Intransitive
V-sep	Separable Verb, Intransitive

 

 

01 Many sections below are taken from Teng, Shou-hsin. 2005. An Introduction to the Chinese Language, commissioned for ICLP, Taipei.

02 Bolinger, D. (1971). The Phrasal Verb in English. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

03 Teng, Shou-hsin. (1977). A grammar of verb-particles in Chinese. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, Vol.5, 1-25.

04 鄧守信（2012），漢語語法論文集（中譯本）。北京市：北京語言大學出版社。

05 Teng, Shou-hsin. (l974). Verb classification and its pedagogical extensions. Journal of Chinese Language Teachers Association, 9 (2), 84-92.