Chinese word order
"Word order" in Chinese is 语序 (yǔxù) or 词序 (cíxù). You may have heard that word order in Chinese is very similar to that of English, and compared to a language like Japanese, it is. Fairly quickly, though, you'll start to realize that there are quite a few ways that the word order of even relatively simple sentences simply don't match in Chinese and English. The honeymoon is over; you're going to have to work just a little bit to master Chinese word order.
Contents
The Basic SVO Sentence
On this level, Chinese word order very closely matches English word order. "SVO" stands for "Subject-Verb-Object" [1]. For extremely simple sentences like "I love you" or "he eats glass," the word order of Chinese matches that of English, literally, word for word. Keep in mind that "SVO" doesn't include little details like articles (a, the, etc.) or prepositions (to, for, etc.).
| Subject | Verb | Object |
|---|---|---|
| 我 | 爱 | 你 |
| 你 | 吃 | 饭 |
| 他 | 踢 | 足球 |
This concept shouldn't take long at all to master. This makes sense "by default" for English speakers.
Adding extra information to a sentence
More details can be added to the basic sentence structure. How to do this is demonstrated below.
Placement of Time Words in a Sentence
Time words, the WHEN part of a sentence, have a special place in Chinese. They usually come at the beginning of a sentence, right after the subject. Occasionally you'll see them before the subject, but the place you won't be seeing them is at the end of the sentence (where they frequently appear in English).
| Subject | Time when | Verb phrase |
|---|---|---|
| 我 | 今天 | 工作 |
| 你们 | 每天 | 洗澡 |
| 他 | 星期二 | 来 |
Placement of Place Words in a Sentence
When you want to tell WHERE something happened in Chinese (at school, at work, in Vegas, on the bus, etc.), you're most often going to use a phrase beginning with 在. This phrase needs to come after the time word (see above) and before the verb. Pay attention to this last part: before the verb. In English, this information naturally comes after the verb, so it's going to be difficult at first to get used to saying WHERE something happened before saying the verb.
| Subject | Time when | Place Word | Verb phrase |
|---|---|---|---|
| 我 | 在上海 | 工作 | |
| 你们 | 星期六 | 在家 | 看电影 |
| 她 | 1980年 | 在美国 | 出生 |
Exceptions to the normal placement of place words
There are some special verbs which seem to be allowed to break the rules. For these special verbs, the WHERE information comes after the verb rather than before. It's important to remember that these verbs are exceptions. If you're not sure where the place phrase should go, it's usually safer to put it before the verb. This is the normal way to modify a verb in Chinese.
| Subject | Time when | Place Word | Verb phrase | *Place word |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 我们 | 住 | 在中国 | ||
| 你 | 现在 | 走 | 到浦东 | |
| 他 | 刚才 | 坐 | 在我房间 |
Placement of duration in a sentence
Whenever you talk about FOR HOW LONG, you're getting into duration. It's not the same as a regular time word; it has its own rules.
| Subject | Time-when | Place Word | Verb phrase | *Place Word | Time-duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 我 | 住 | 在中国 | 三年 | ||
| 我 | 去年 | 在北京 | 学中文 | 三个月 | |
| 他 | 每个星期 | 在家里 | 看电视 | 二十个小时 |
Placement of manner in a sentence
Manner refers to HOW you do something, as in quietly, quickly, angrily, drunkenly, etc. The adjectival verb that describes the manner of the action verb is preceded by 得 and occurs after the action verb. If the action verb is a verb-object the verb should be repeated immediately after the verb-object.
| Subject | Time-when | Place Word | Verb phrase (object) | Manner | Place Word | Time-duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 我 | 跳舞 | 跳得奇怪 | ||||
| 你 | 昨天晚上 | 在家 | 做饭 | 做得好 | ||
| 他 | 洗澡的时候 | 唱歌 | 唱得好听 |
Placement of instrument in a sentence
OK, now we're getting a little out there. Rarely are you going to want to cram so much information into a simple sentence, but for the sake of argument, we're going to give it a go. This is the USING WHAT part of a sentence - called the instrument. In English, this is often placed at the end of the sentence and preceded by 'with'. In Chinese, it comes before the verb and is preceded by 用.
| Subject | Time when | Place Word | Instrument | Verb phrase | Manner | Place Word | Time-duration | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 我 | 用 筷子 | 吃饭 | 。 | |||||
| 他 | 今天 早上 | 在办公室 | 用 电脑 | 工作 | 。 | |||
| 咱们 | 在 路上 | 用 中文 | 讨论 了 | 十 分钟 | 。 |
Placement of target in a sentence
Target is about who or what the verb is aimed at. This includes doing things for or on behalf of someone, or towards people or objects.
| Subject | Time when | Place Word | Instrument | Target | Verb phrase | Manner | *Place Word | Time-duration |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 我 | 有时候 | 对父母 | 说谎 | |||||
| 司机 | 向右边 | 拐了弯 | ||||||
| 她 | 上个星期 | 在他家 | 用网上的菜谱 | 给我们 | 做了饭 |
Using question words in a Chinese sentence
You can insert question words (often called wh-words in English) into the structures above to form questions. Forming questions in Chinese is more straightforward than in English. In English you have to move the question word to the front of the sentence, whereas in Chinese it stays put in the sentence. All you have to do is replace the element you'd like to ask about with an appropriate question word.
| Subject | Time when | Place Word | Instrument | Target | Verb phrase | Manner | Time-duration | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 她 | 有时候 | 在路上 | 用中文 | 向陌生人 | 问路 | 。 | ||
| 谁 | 在路上 | 用中文 | 向陌生人 | 问路 | 。 | |||
| 她 | 什么时候 | 在路上 | 用中文 | 向陌生人 | 问路 | 。 | ||
| 她 | 在哪里 | 用中文 | 向陌生人 | 问路 | 。 | |||
| 她 | 在路上 | 用哪种语言 | 向陌生人 | 问路 | 。 | |||
| 她 | 有时候 | 在路上 | 用中文 | 向谁 | 问路 | 。 | ||
| 你 | 上课的时候 | 对老师 | 说中文 | 说得很琉璃 | 。 | |||
| 你 | 上课的时候 | 对老师 | 说中文 | 说得怎么样 | 。 | |||
| 他 | 今年 | 在上海 | 学中文 | 学了四个月了 | 。 | |||
| 他 | 今年 | 在上海 | 学中文 | 学了多久了 | 。 |
Sub-pages - possible titles
- SVO 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
- Negative adverbs
- See also: 地
- Adverbial order
- Time, place, scope, degree, manner, instrument, target
- Placement of particles
- 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
- Non SP sentences?
- Topic + subject + 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
References
- ↑ For more information on the SVO concept, see the Wikipedia article Subject–verb–object.
Sources and further reading
- Grammar book: Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide (pp. 17 - 22)
- Grammar book: 中文语法快易通:句型结构1 (pp. 1 - 27) (needs Amazon code)
- Grammar book: Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar (pp. 19 - 23)
- Grammar book: 外国人实用汉语语法(中英文对照) (pp. 228 - 329)
- Textbook: Integrated Chinese, Level 1, Part 1: Textbook (Simplified Character Edition)(1st edition) (Ch. 13 pp. 26-28)(needs Amazon code)
- Wikipedia: Chinese grammar
