Potential complements

Potential complements can be positive or negative. What this means is fairly intuitive - potential complements can be used to express that something can happen or that it can't.

The structure is:

Verb + 得 / 不 + [complement]

Here [complement] is the second part of the potential complement after 得 (positive) or 不 (negative). So if the verb can be adjective, 得 is used. If the verb can not be adjective, 不 is used.

Some examples:

• 汉字 他 写 得 好。
• 汉字 我 写 不 好。
• 中文 你 说 得 很 好听。

Note that the potential complement and degree complement can often appear to be the same; the difference can usually be seen from context.

See also

• Potential complement "bu xia"
• Potential complement "bu dong"

Sources and and further reading

Books

• Basic Patterns of Chinese Grammar (pp. 71) →buy
• Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide (pp. 191) →buy

Websites

Yale

• The Potential Complement
• Potential Complement And Degree Complement In Contrast
• Boya Chinese Elementary Starter 1 (博雅汉语初经起步篇) (pp. 197) →buy
• Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 2 (pp. 291) →buy