Word Order
语序
Sub-pages - possible titles
- SVO word order
- SAVOC word order??
- Time, manner place word order
- Placement of?
- Placement of prepositions
- Placement of attributives
- Attributives preceding the subject (ASVO)
- Attributives preceding the object (SVAO)
- See also: Structural particle de
- Placement of adverbials
- See also: 地
- Adverbial order
- Time, place, scope, degree, manner, instrument, target
- Placement of complements
- Repetition of object with degree complement
- 3 ways to arrange degree complements (Placement of 得):
- 汉语她说得很好
- 她汉语说得很好
- 她说汉语说得很好
- Subject and predicate
- Single and double objects (indirect then direct)
Potential content
- Basic order: topic + subject + predicate
- SVO language, but unusually has modifiers preceding the modified
- e.g. 那两个喝醉的人打起来了。
- In many cases uses many postpositions rather than prepositions
- SVO language, but unusually has modifiers preceding the modified
- English vs Mandarin word order
- English: Who, What, Where, When
- Mandarin: Who, When, Where, What
- Mandarin biggest to smallest units sequence
- In-situ question words
- Topic-comment structure
- Topic and subject can sometimes be omitted
- Time, manner place (TMP) adverb sequence
- More detailed word order:
- Subject, verb, direct object
- Subject, verb, indirect object, direct object
- Subject, prepositional phrase, verb, direct object
- Subject, location phrase, verb phrase
- Subject, time, manner, place, predicate
Sources and further reading
- Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide (pp. 17 - 22)
- 中文语法快易通:句型结构1 (pp. 1 - 27) (needs Amazon code)
- Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar (pp. 19 - 23)
- 外国人实用汉语语法(中英文对照) (pp. 228 - 329)
- Wikipedia: Chinese grammar
