Word Order

语序

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
    • 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):

1. 汉语她说得很好
2. 她汉语说得很好
3. 她说汉语说得很好

• • Placement of particles
• 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
• 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