Difference between revisions of "Complement"

Revision as of 02:11, 29 July 2011

Complements are a a special type of structure found in modern Mandarin which follow verbs (or sometimes adjectives) and provide additional information. They can be as short as one character, or practically as long as a sentence. According to A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners, complements "show the duration, quantity, degree, result, direction or possibility of an action; or to illustrate the state, number, degree of a thing"^[1]. The Chinese word for complement is 补语 (bǔyǔ).

Complements are not a form of flattery (those are compliments)^[2]; they're much more versatile than that! But because complements have no exact counterpart in English, they can be a little bit difficult to get the hang of at first. As is often the case, plentiful examples will help clarify!

Summary of complement types

Below you'll find all the major complement types (as well as some of the minor ones), with representative examples of each. The first four (result complement, potential complement, direction complement, and degree complement) are the critical ones. Click on the complement names for more detailed explanations and plenty of additional examples.

Main Complement Types, with Examples
Type of Complement	Verb	Complement	English
Result complement	做	完	to finish doing
	看	见	to see
	买	到	to buy (successfully)
	计划	好	to plan (properly)
	说	清楚	to speak clearly
Potential complement	去	不了	cannot go
	去	得了	can go
	听	不到	cannot hear
	看	得见	can see
	听	不懂	to (listen but) not understand
	看	得懂	to be able to read and understand
	吃	得完	can finish eating
Direction complement	放	下	to put down
	走	上去	to walk up
	飞	回来	to fly back (here)
	看	过来	to look (over) this way
Degree complement	说	得很好	to speak (very) well
	好*	极了	great
	累*	死了	great
	脏*	得不得了	terribly dirty
State complement	想	得很简单	to think very simply
State complement	搞	得很乱	to make a mess (of things)
Quantity complement	去	一次	to go once
Quantity complement	工作	十个小时	to work for 10 hours
Location complement	住	在北京	to live in Beijing
Location complement	来	到中国	to come to China
Time complement	等	到明年	to wait until next year
Time complement	生	于69年	to be born in '69

* OK, these are adjectives, not verbs!

Composition of complements

You might be wondering: what is the complement, exactly? For example, is it another verb, or an adjective or what? The answer is that it varies. It can be a verb, an adjective, a prepositional phrase, a measure word phrase, or a long, complex phrase. The following chart breaks it down.

Structure of Complements
Word Preceding Complement	Complement Content	Complement Types	Example
Verb	Verb	Result complement	做完
		Potential complement	看得懂
		Direction complement	走回来
	Adjective	Result complement	做好
	Adjective	State complement	想得很简单
	Prepositional phrase	Location complement	住在北京
	Prepositional phrase	Time complement	生于69年
Adjective	Adjective	Degree complement	做完
	Adjective	Result complement	做好
	Adverb	Degree complement	好极了
	Adverb	Result complement	做好
	Prepositional phrase	Result complement	做好
	Prepositional phrase	Result complement	做好