Chinese Parts of Speech - Sinosplice

Chinese Parts of Speech

Published Time: 2006-03-20T11:59:38+00:00

by John Pasden

in language

20 Mar 2006

OK, this is an entry that’s likely to bore many readers to tears. You have been warned.

While I don’t find the study of Chinese grammar remarkably stimulating, there are some aspects of it that catch my interest. It’s kind of cool how Chinese parts of speech don’t fit so neatly into our Western designations. When China first starting applying Western linguistics to Chinese, Chinese syntax was forced into the Western mold. Over the years Chinese scholars have decided that this just doesn’t work.

So what’s different about Chinese grammar?

Well, for one thing, the Chinese like to divide all words into two big categories: 实词 and 虚词. I’m not completely sold on the necessity of this, but the Chinese sure seem to like it. Basically, 实词 often refer to the “real” (like things, properties, actions, ideas), while 虚词 serve only grammatical functions. 实词 can usually form meaningful utterances by themselves, and can combine with each other in meaningful ways. 虚词 only combine with 实词 and mean nothing out of context.

虚词 are much smaller in number but frequently used. They include prepositions (把, 将, 让, 比, 给, 对, 为了, 在, 从, etc.), conjunctions (和, 跟, 或, 即使, 如果, 虽然, 而且, 而, etc.), auxiliary particles (的, 得, 地, 了, 着, 过, etc.), and modal particles (了, 呢, 吗, 吧, 啊, etc.).

Chinese prepositions are special because they closely resemble verbs in many cases. In fact, most Chinese prepositions evolved from verbs. To illustrate how Chinese prepositions can be like verbs, check out the following simple sentences:

1. 车 在 外面。 (The car is outside.)
2. 车停 在 外面。 (Park the car outside.)
3. 不要 在 外面停车。 (Don’t park the car outside.)

OK, so the question is: which of the above 在 s are verbs, and which are prepositions?

Number 1 and number 3 are easy. 1 is clearly a verb; 3 is clearly a preposition. But what about number 2? Well, part of the definition of a preposition (according to the current standard view) is that when it modifies the predicate it must come before it. In this case, it clearly comes after. It’s not a preposition, but rather a verb acting as a complement to the main verb 停. Crazy!

Another special feature about Chinese parts of speech is the nouns. In Chinese you have “time word” nouns performing the function of English adverbs. For example, “today” as in the English sentence “I went shopping today” is an adverb. In Chinese 今天 is a noun. The same goes for other time words like 现在, 明年, 刚才, 平时, etc.

If you can handle all this craziness I will give you yet another example. In English we use prepositions to explain physical spatial relations, but Chinese uses “nouns of locality.” So while we would use the prepositional phrases “on top,” “in the middle,” or “to the east,” the Chinese would use the nouns 上面、中间、东边.

OK, if you made it through all that, I will reward you with an exciting chart showing how simple “nouns of locality” combine to form compounds (and which don’t combine). I like this kind of chart.

Finally, I will end this entry with part of speech statistics “top 4” from my syntax professor. I tried to get the source out of him, but he just told me “structuralist lingustics.”

• In modern Chinese, “normal” nouns (i.e. not “time words” or “nouns of locality”) make up 45% of all vocabulary
• Verbs make up 30% of all vocabulary
• Adjectives make up 10% of all vocabulary
• Measure words make up a little over 1% of all vocabulary.
• All other parts of speech make up less of a chunk than measure words.

Conclusion? Chinese grammar is wacky!

Comments

1. Shaun Says: March 20, 2006 at 8:46 pm Any tips on how to get started learning spoken (and maybe later, written) Chinese? Unfortunately, taking a class is not an option for me right now. I’ve picked up a number of books and even some flash cards, but finding a starting point is a problem. Once you practice tones until you throat is sore, what do you move onto next?

   • Davoud Derogar Says: January 29, 2014 at 10:31 am try YouTube for any language , there are so many lessons for beginners or advance levels. I personally like learning Chinese with mike, but I listen to all the other teachers. For grammar, use search for any subject you want and there are many great sight to learn any language, good luck.

2. Duncan Says: March 20, 2006 at 9:14 pm Hello, I’m a native Chinese speaker and I study linguistics as an undergrad. I have to say, the catagorization you described in your post seems a bit non-standard to me. Maybe what your prof said is right: the most of linguistics taught around the world now focus on the Chomskyan theory of generative grammar (that’s what I learned), if he’s still using ‘structuralist grammar’, then it’s a much older (and conflicting) theory of how languages work. The analysis of 在 seems reasonable, though. Contrasting: 车停在外面 vs 车在外面停 I can see that the PP in the 1st case is more like an adjunct (of the verb), whereas the second case, it seems like it’s more like an argument (compliment) of the verb. I’m trying to come up with tests to figure this out, but it’s way too early for me to be thinking about this….. Thinking a little bit more on the topic, I can start to see why time-words in Chinese act differently from their counterparts in English and why they might not be analyzed as adverbs. In English, one could easily add on various PPs after the verb, some about the location of the event, some about the instrument, and the time, etc… i.e. I wrote a letter in my room at night with a pencil. the Chinese equivalent is structrurally quite different: 晚上的时候，我在我的房间用铅笔写了一封信。 It seems like there might be a restriction to the number of 在s in a single sentence (我在晚上在房间… seems wrong) … Being in the US, I never got to do a lot of work on Chinese when studying of syntax. I got a taste of studying Chinese Syntax last summer, and it’s interesting to see Chomskyan grammar applies to Chinese.

3. Leo Says: March 20, 2006 at 10:31 pm Basically, there is nothing especially wacky in what you described. Most Chinese prepostions can described as co-verbs, which are just some verbs in their special mission, corresponding with verb participles in Indo-European languages. Some co-verbs now rarely appear outside co-verb usage, for example, but still in some combinationary form, for example “将军 (chess mate)” or “将来 (future)”, in which 将 retains its original meaning of “take, hold”, so can often be replace with 拿, 把, which basically mean the same things; some co-verbs can both be used in co-verb or normal verbal function, e.g., 拿, 把, 用, 通过; some normal verbs used in co-verb function are rarely realized that they are not normal, e.g., 坐 in 坐电梯上楼 or 吃 in 吃药治病. Some Chinese particles are the results of the tendency in Chinese to sound very to sound every consonant with a vowel. When some nonsyllabic consonants are syllablized, they are devided from the original word and becomes independent. The most prominent example of this case is causative particle 使, which was in proto-Sino-Tibetan languages just a simple s- prefix and remains so in the modern Tibetan language. Other particles come from the words which were previously pronounced with a consonant at the ending, e.g. 鞋 or 靴. This ending consonant is retained in modern Japanese, albeit syllablized in 靴 kutzu. In modern Chinese they are written seperately with a 子, incidentally, syllablized as well. The same wackiness also shows up in modern English, e.g. syllablization in whater for what, or noun as adjective/adverb like way in “We do it American way”. The true wackiness of modern Chinese is its sentence particles, comparing the following sentences. 他来了。 他来了吧。 （note: very different from 他来了吧？) 他来了么。（note: very different from 他来了吗？） 他来吧。 他来喽。

4. Penfold Says: March 20, 2006 at 10:42 pm John, personally I find grammar the most interesting of all language topics. It is just so… interesting. Shuan. Do you have a good textbook? I think Hanyu Kouyu isn’t bad. The introductory books can be had for around RMB100 and at a chapter once a week will have you up to a good standard within a year. At a chapter a day you’ll be there in a couple of months. Get a native speaker that doesn’t have to be an expert, just be able to pronounce reasonably, to help you along in the speaking and listening, RMB50 hour should suffice.

5. Tuur Says: March 20, 2006 at 10:54 pm typo. “实词 often refer to the “real” […] while 实词 serve only grammatical functions”

6. Leo Says: March 20, 2006 at 10:57 pm Duncan: Your example sounds somewhat wacky to me. I heard no native speakers around me say 在晚上 or 在晚上的时候， rather 晚上 or 晚上的时候。Basically nobody I met would not say 在早上 or 在中午。我在我的房间里… sounds like you put a lot of emphasis on the point that the room is mine, a more natural equevalent would be 我在自己的房间里…

7. Leo Says: March 20, 2006 at 10:59 pm “Basically nobody I met would say 在早上 or 在中午, either” Sorry.