Consecutive verb phrases may also be used to indicate consecutive events. Disjunctive questions can be made using the word háishì (还是; 還是) between the options, like English "or". Your practical, free, comprehensive online resource for Chinese grammar.2,119 articles and growing! This page was last edited on 18 November 2020, at 19:21. Two or more nouns may be joined together by the conjunctions hé (和, "and") or huò (或 "or"); for example dāo hé chā (刀和叉, "knife and fork"), gǒu huò māo (狗或貓, "dog or cat"). Perfect! See the Noun phrases section, and the article Chinese classifier. (Is this your telephone? [39] Here the object of one verb also serves as the subject of the following verb. This is partially the result of metaphorical construction, where kànbùqǐ (看不起) literally means "to be unable to look up to"; and duìbùqǐ (对不起; 對不起) means "to be unable to face someone". Chinese frequently uses serial verb constructions, which involve two or more verbs or verb phrases in sequence. Other compounds may be reduplicated, but for general emphasis rather than delimitative aspect. Some verbs can apparently take two direct objects, which may be called an "inner" and an "outer" object. Another type of sentence is what has been called an ergative structure,[7] where the apparent subject of the verb can move to object position; the empty subject position is then often occupied by an expression of location. See Particles for more. Another example, in a whole sentence: If the preceding verb has an object, the object may be placed either before or after the directional complement(s), or even between two directional complements, provided the second of these is not qù (去).[36]. For this use of shì (是), see the Cleft sentences section. This self-study grammar book is designed for you to learn Chinese with no prior knowledge. This de is called 白勺的 (báisháo de) in Chinese, as those are the components that make up the character. The phrases for "hatred" (看不起; kànbùqǐ), "excuse me" (对不起; 對不起; duìbùqǐ), and "too expensive to buy" (买不起; 買不起; mǎi bùqǐ) all use the character qǐ (起, "to rise up") as a complement of result, but their meanings are not obviously related to that meaning. The typical Chinese word order "XVO", where an oblique complement such as a locative prepositional phrase precedes the verb, while a direct object comes after the verb, is very rare cross-linguistically; in fact, it is only in varieties of Chinese that this is attested as the typical ordering. Because coverbs essentially function as prepositions, they can also be referred to simply as prepositions. For example: Here pí (皮, "skin") is the inner object, and júzi (橘子, "tangerine") is introduced via the bǎ construction as the outer object. It is used with personal pronouns, as in wǒmen (我们; 我們, "we" or "us"), derived from wǒ (我, "I, me"). While there are dozens of classifiers, which must be memorized individually for each noun, a majority of words use the general classifier gè (个; 個). This phenomenon is more typically found in subject–object–verb languages, such as Turkish and Japanese. Instead, a gap is left in subject or object position as appropriate. A double negative makes a positive, as in sentences like wǒ bù shì bù xǐhuān tā (我不是不喜欢她; 我不是不喜歡她, "It's not that I don't like her" ). As noted above, predicate adjectives function as verbs themselves, as does the locative preposition zài (在), so in sentences where the predicate is an adjectival or locative phrase, shì is not required. You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Cantonese tips…, Perfect! For example:[49]. (Because I’m Chinese! Use of this le with the second verb changes this emphasis, and may require a sentence-final le particle in addition. ), (a) 你怎么会说中文？ Nĭ zĕnme huì shuō zhōngwén? On this course, you will build your knowledge of the rules of Chinese grammar and learn more about traditional Chinese culture. [41] Some examples of its use: The two uses of le may in fact be traced back to two entirely different words. Certain modifications of the basic subject–verb–object order are permissible and may serve to achieve topic-prominence. For example yí dà ge xīguā (一大个西瓜; 一大個西瓜, "one big [classifier] watermelon").[15]. Native disyllabic morphemes such as zhīzhū (蜘蛛, "spider") have consonant alliteration. Coverbs normally cannot take aspect markers, although some of them form fixed compounds together with such markers, such as gēnzhe (跟著; 'with +[aspect marker]'), ànzhe (按著, "according to"), yánzhe (沿着, "along"), and wèile (为了 "for").[37]. [我坐飛機從上海到北京去。]. The demonstrative pronouns zhè (这; 這, "this"), and nà (那, "that") may be optionally pluralized by the addition of xiē (些), making zhèxiē (这些; 這些, "these") and nàxiē (那些, "those"). (This does not apply to nouns that function as measure words themselves; this includes many units of measurement and currency. Chinese nouns require classifiers called liàngcí (量词; 量詞; 'measure words') in order to be counted. is phrased as nǐ shuō shé[n]me (你说什么? Chinese does not have grammatical markers of tense. The workshop makes Chinese grammar easy by embedding as many realistic examples as possible. Basic Chinese Grammar 101 Talk about locations with 在 (zài) To talk about things being in places, use the word 在 (zài). On the other hand, the progressive aspect marker zài (在) may be applied to the first verb, but not normally the second alone. Hence one must say liǎng tóu niú (两头牛; 兩頭牛, "two head of cattle") for "two cows", with tóu being the measure word or classifier. Word arrangement, morphology, sounds, … For example, chī de (吃的) may mean "[those] who eat" or "[that] which is eaten". Predicate adjectives are normally used without a copular verb ("to be") and so can be regarded as a type of verb. The Chinese copular verb is shì (是). Even if you don’t use Chinese grammar exercises online as part of your daily Mandarin practice, they still offer a fun and more tangible way to stay well-versed in Chinese grammar. ; such modifying adverbs normally precede the adjective, although some, such as jíle (极了; 極了, "extremely"), come after it. Variants include dāng ... yǐqián (当...以前; 當...以前 "before ...") and dāng ... yǐhòu (当...以后; 當...以後, "after ..."), which do not use the relative marker de. There is also a sentence-final particle le, which serves a somewhat different purpose. ), 这是你的手机，对不对？ Zhè shì nĭ de shŏujī, duì bú duì? It is also possible for an object to be moved to a position in front of the verb for emphasis.[6]. This is actually a verb, so you don't need to use any other words to talk about something being somewhere. 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