Modern MANDARIN CHINESE Grammar Routledge Modern Grammars Series concept and development – Sarah Butler Other books in the series: Modern Spanish Grammar, Second Edition Modern Spanish Grammar Workbook, Second Edition Modern French Grammar, Second Edition Modern French Grammar Workbook, Second Edition Modern German Grammar, Second Edition Modern German Grammar Workbook, Second Edition Modern Italian Grammar, Second Edition Modern Italian Grammar Workbook, Second Edition Modern MANDARIN CHINESE Grammar A practical guide Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma First published 2006 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2006 Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Ross, Claudia. Modern Mandarin Chinese grammar : a practical guide / Claudia Ross and Jing-heng Sheng Ma. p. cm. – (Routledge modern grammars) ISBN 0-415-70009-4 (hbk.) – ISBN 0-415-70010-8 (pbk.) 1. Chinese language – Grammar. I. Ma, Jing-heng Sheng. II. Title. III. Series. PL1107.R65 2006 495.1′82421–dc22 2005030422 ISBN10: 0-415-70009-4 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-70010-8 (pbk) ISBN10: 0-203-79993-3 (ebk) ISBN13: 9-78-0-415-70009-2 (hbk) ISBN13: 9-78-0-415-70010-8 (pbk) ISBN13: 9-78-0-203-79993-2 (ebk) Contents Acknowledgements xv Introduction xvi How to use this book xvii Glossary of grammatical terms xviii A note on Chinese characters xxvi Part A Structures 1 Overview of pronunciation and Pinyin romanization 3 1.1 The Mandarin syllable 3 1.2 Pinyin romanization 4 2 Syllable, meaning, and word 6 2.1. The special status of the Mandarin syllable 6 2.2 Multi-syllable tendency in Mandarin words 7 2.3 Word-specific tone changes 8 2.4 Change to neutral tone 9 2.5 Incorporating foreign words and naming foreign objects 10 3 The Chinese writing system: an overview 12 3.1 Traditional and simplified characters 12 3.2 The structure of Chinese characters: the radical and the phonetic 12 3.3 The traditional classification of characters 14 3.4 Character stroke order: / bmshùn 15 4 Phrase order in the Mandarin sentence 17 4.1 Basic phrase order 17 4.2 The position of direct and indirect objects 17 4.3 The position of prepositional phrases 18 4.4 The position of location phrases 18 4.5 The position of ‘time when’ phrases 18 4.6 The relative order of the ‘time when’ phrase and the location phrase 19 4.7 The position of adverbs 19 4.8 The position of negation 20 v CONTENTS 4.9 The position of duration phrases 20 4.10 Order within the noun phrase 20 4.11 Phrase order in questions 20 5 Nouns 22 5.1 Common nouns 22 5.2 Pronouns 23 5.3 Proper nouns 26 6 Numbers 28 6.1 Mandarin numbers 0–99 28 6.2 Number 100 and higher 29 6.3 Formal characters for numbers 31 6.4 Ordinal numbers 32 6.5 Estimates and approximations 32 6.6 Fractions, percentages, decimals, half, and multiples 33 6.7 Lucky and unlucky numbers 36 6.8 Numbers used in phrases and expressions 37 6.9 yr as a marker of sequence 37 6.10 Numbers that are used as words 38 7 Specifiers and demonstratives 39 7.1 / zhè ‘this’ and nà ‘that’ as demonstratives 39 7.2 / zhè, zhèi ‘this/these’ and nà, nèi ‘that/those’ as specifiers 40 7.3 / zhèr and / zhèlm ‘here,’ / nàr and / nàlm ‘there’ 40 7.4 Question words that correspond to specifiers 41 8 Classifiers 43 8.1 The structure of phrases involving classifiers 43 8.2 Choosing the classifier 43 8.3 Omission of the head noun 46 8.4 Classifiers that occur without a noun 47 8.5 Money and prices 47 9 Noun phrases 49 9.1 Modifying a noun with a specifier and/or number 49 9.2 Modifying a noun with all other modifiers: modification with de 50 9.3 Omission of the particle de 53 9.4 Noun modifiers in a series 53 9.5 Omission of the head noun 54 9.6 Modification with zhr 55 10 Adjectival verbs 56 10.1 Negation of adjectival verbs 56 10.2 Yes–no questions with adjectival verbs 57 10.3 Modification by intensifiers 57 10.4 Two syllable preference 58 10.5 Comparative meaning 58 vi Contents 10.6 Superlative meaning 59 10.7 Adjectival verbs and comparison structures 59 10.8 Linking adjectival verbs 59 10.9 Adjectival verbs and expressions that indicate change over time 60 10.10 Adjectival verbs and sentence final - le 60 11 Stative verbs 61 11.1 Negation of stative verbs 61 11.2 Modification by intensifiers 62 11.3 Indicating completion, past time, and change of state 62 11.4 The equational verb shì ‘to be’ 63 11.5 The equational verb xìng ‘to be family named’ 65 11.6 The verb of possession and existence: ynu ‘to have,’ ‘to exist’ 66 11.7 The location verb zài ‘to be located at’ 67 12 Modal verbs 69 12.1 Expressing possibility: / huì 69 12.2 Expressing ability 69 12.3 Expressing permission: kéym 70 12.4 Expressing obligations 71 12.5 Expressing prohibitions 72 12.6 Grammatical properties of modal verbs 73 13 Action verbs 76 13.1 Indicating that an action is completed or past 76 13.2 Indicating that an action has been experienced in the past 76 13.3 Negating actions 77 13.4 Open-ended action verbs 78 13.5 Change-of-state action verbs 80 14 Prepositions and prepositional phrases 82 14.1 The grammar of the prepositional phrase in the Mandarin sentence 82 14.2 Basic functions of prepositions 83 14.3 Prepositions that also function as verbs 87 15 Adverbs 89 15.1 General properties of adverbs 89 15.2 Adverbs with logical function: yl, dsu, / hái, jiù, zhm, and =cái 90 16 Conjunctions 97 16.1 Conjunctions that indicate an ‘additive’ or ‘and’ relationship 97 16.2 Conjunctions that indicate a disjunctive or ‘or’ relationship 98 17 The passive 100 17.1 The structure of the Mandarin passive 100 17.2 The passive and negation 101 vii CONTENTS 17.3 Conditions for using the passive in Mandarin 102 17.4 Differences between the passive markers bèi, jiào, and / ràng 103 17.5 Additional functions of / ràng, jiào, and / gli 103 17.6 English passives and their Mandarin equivalents 103 Part B Situations and functions 18 Names, kinship terms, titles, and terms of address 107 18.1 Names: xìngmíng 107 18.2 Kinship terms 108 18.3 Titles 109 18.4 Addressing others 111 18.5 Addressing new acquaintances and negotiating terms of address 112 18.6 Name cards and business cards 114 18.7 Addressing letters and envelopes 116 19 Introductions 121 19.1 The general format of introductions 121 19.2 Sample introductions 122 19.3 Common occupations and fields of study 123 20 Greetings and goodbyes 125 20.1 Greetings in conversations 125 20.2 Saying goodbye in conversations 128 20.3 Greetings and goodbyes in letters 129 21 Basic strategies for communication 134 21.1 Attracting someone’s attention 134 21.2 Responding to a call for attention 135 21.3 Checking whether people have understood you 135 21.4 Indicating understanding or lack of understanding 135 21.5 Requesting repetition or clarification of spoken language 136 21.6 Asking for assistance in identifying a Chinese character 136 21.7 Providing information about the identification of Chinese characters 136 21.8 Signaling that you are following the speaker 137 21.9 Interrupting a speaker 137 21.10 Using fillers 137 21.11 Formal development of a topic 138 22 Telecommunications and e-communications: telephones, the internet, beepers, and faxes 141 22.1 Sending and receiving phone calls, faxes, email, and beeper messages 141 22.2 Dialing a number and entering a number 143 22.3 Using the internet 143 22.4 Telephone etiquette 143 viii Contents 22.5 Writing and reciting phone numbers, fax numbers, and beeper numbers 145 23 Negating information 146 23.1 Negation of verbs and verb phrases 146 23.2 The relative order of negation and adverbs 148 23.3 Words that occur with negation 149 23.4 bù in resultative verb structures 149 23.5 Literary markers of negation: wú and fqi 150 24 Asking questions and replying to questions 152 24.1 Yes–no questions 152 24.2 Asking for agreement 156 24.3 Choosing between alternatives with either–or questions 157 24.4 Rhetorical questions 158 24.5 Follow-up questions with ne 159 24.6 Content questions 159 25 Expressing identification, possession, and existence 165 25.1 Expressing identification 165 25.2 Expressing possession 166 25.3 Expressing existence 168 26 Describing people, places, and things 171 26.1 Equational sentences: identifying or describing the subject with a noun phrase in the predicate 171 26.2 Describing the subject with a predicate that is an adjectival verb 171 26.3 Identifying or describing a noun with a modifying phrase 172 26.4 Asking questions about the attributes of a person, place, or thing 172 26.5 Describing an item in terms of the material that it is made of 173 26.6 Describing nouns in terms of attributes that imply comparison 174 26.7 Describing people in terms of age 175 26.8 Describing the weather 176 26.9 Talking about illness and other medical conditions 179 27 Describing how actions are performed 181 27.1 Describing the general or past performance of an action with a manner adverbial phrase 181 27.2 Asking about the performance of an action 183 27.3 Describing the performance of an entire action with an adverbial modifier 184 28 Indicating result, conclusion, potential, and extent 186 28.1 Indicating the result or conclusion of an action with resultative verbs 186 28.2 Indicating the ability to reach a conclusion or result: the potential infixes de and bu 191 ix