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Sentence Structure
#1
Posted 05 July 2004 - 04:13 AM
Can anyone please break down the sentence struture in Mandarin to me?! It is diffrent then the way a sentence is consturcted in English, I know!!! But with me, I know the words I want to say but trying to put them together in a sentence is proving to be somewhat difficult!! Is the sentence structure in Cantonese the some as it is in Madarin?! If anyone can help me with this it would be most appreciated!!! And I can't read characters so please explain in English!!! Thank You in advance!!!!!
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#2
Posted 05 July 2004 - 06:18 AM
Do you have any sentence structure in mind? Chinese grammer is not a small subject. Here an examples tho...
Subject {Time-Phrase} {Place-Phrase} {Aux-Verb} {Negative} Verb Object
Not too sure if the auxillary verb is in the right place since it's a new subject to me. The bits in {} can be ommitted if not relevant, and so can other bits if context is known.
Subject {Time-Phrase} {Place-Phrase} {Aux-Verb} {Negative} Verb Object
Not too sure if the auxillary verb is in the right place since it's a new subject to me. The bits in {} can be ommitted if not relevant, and so can other bits if context is known.
#3
Posted 05 July 2004 - 06:56 AM
Quote
Can anyone please break down the sentence struture in Mandarin to me?!
hey sure we will write a grammar book just for you, how's that?
#4
Posted 05 July 2004 - 09:16 AM
Since Mandarin makes limited use of prefixes and suffixes, a great deal of the grammar is encoded in the sentence structure. To explain the sentence structure would require explaining almost all the grammar of the language. Although some books state that Mandarin grammar is simple, this is not really true. It has great complexity.
One major difference between Mandarin and English is that Mandarin seems to be a "topic"-oriented language, whereas English is a "subject"-oriented language. Mandarin also has rhythmic constraints that do not exist in English. Another major difference is the fact that Mandarin verbs reflect differences in aspect, much more than any difference in tense. In English, tense and aspect are all jumbled up, with tense generally being a more important concept. Yet another consistent difference is that Mandarin has a consistent preference for putting the general before the specific. Because of this, modifyers almost always precede what they modify. All of these differences have implications for sentence structure.
It is probably not possible to learn much by talking about English grammatical concepts and asking for Mandarin equivalents. You might get more help if you can post questions about specific Mandarin grammar that troubles you.
The differences between Cantonese and Mandarin sentence structure is significant, but not overwhelming. The differences in basic vocabulary and in phonetics are much greater.
One major difference between Mandarin and English is that Mandarin seems to be a "topic"-oriented language, whereas English is a "subject"-oriented language. Mandarin also has rhythmic constraints that do not exist in English. Another major difference is the fact that Mandarin verbs reflect differences in aspect, much more than any difference in tense. In English, tense and aspect are all jumbled up, with tense generally being a more important concept. Yet another consistent difference is that Mandarin has a consistent preference for putting the general before the specific. Because of this, modifyers almost always precede what they modify. All of these differences have implications for sentence structure.
It is probably not possible to learn much by talking about English grammatical concepts and asking for Mandarin equivalents. You might get more help if you can post questions about specific Mandarin grammar that troubles you.
The differences between Cantonese and Mandarin sentence structure is significant, but not overwhelming. The differences in basic vocabulary and in phonetics are much greater.
#5
Posted 06 July 2004 - 07:17 AM
Altair, And Xiaozhu!!! I thank you for your help, it was most benefical!!! You gave me a better view of where I should start, I now know that Mandarin sentence structure is more complex!! So what I'll do is, take it one sentence at a time!! I tried to get a quick answer but there isn't one!! I have a correct view of everything now!!
XIE,XIE NI!! WO DE PENGYOU!!!!
XIE,XIE NI!! WO DE PENGYOU!!!!
#6
Posted 06 July 2004 - 12:07 PM
Right, there is a bunch of sentence structures... just as any other language. The main pattern is in SVO Subject Verb Object order, just like English, but if any language stayed only in that order, then it would be pretty boring...
English has 25 patterns according to Oxford Dictionary. Verb +Gerund, Verb+Conjuctive+Clause, Verb+Object+Adjective.... and that is just simple word orders(without commas), and in real life situations, there will be quite a lot of commas, semicolons, and so on...
I am sure that someone has spent the time to analyse all these sentence patterns, but as a native speaker of Chinese, I didn't look into these things. I can only tell you the main sentence pattern.
Tense words + subject + location words + adverb + verb + object complement
Subject + Tense words + adverb + verb + object complement
One can simplify it into:
{Subject} + Adverbials (Time + Place + Other Adverbials) +
{Subject +} Verb + Complement + Object
I'm not sure if this will help: http://www.ctcfl.ox....DTL/grammar.htm
Also, it should be "Wo de pengyou."
"Wo pengyou." = "I friend." or "Me friend.", either way it doesn't make sense in either English or Chinese.
"Wo de pengyou." = "My friend." (I's friend)
There you have it!
-Shibo
English has 25 patterns according to Oxford Dictionary. Verb +Gerund, Verb+Conjuctive+Clause, Verb+Object+Adjective.... and that is just simple word orders(without commas), and in real life situations, there will be quite a lot of commas, semicolons, and so on...
I am sure that someone has spent the time to analyse all these sentence patterns, but as a native speaker of Chinese, I didn't look into these things. I can only tell you the main sentence pattern.
Tense words + subject + location words + adverb + verb + object complement
Subject + Tense words + adverb + verb + object complement
One can simplify it into:
{Subject} + Adverbials (Time + Place + Other Adverbials) +
{Subject +} Verb + Complement + Object
I'm not sure if this will help: http://www.ctcfl.ox....DTL/grammar.htm
Also, it should be "Wo de pengyou."
"Wo pengyou." = "I friend." or "Me friend.", either way it doesn't make sense in either English or Chinese.
"Wo de pengyou." = "My friend." (I's friend)
There you have it!
-Shibo
#7
Posted 06 July 2004 - 11:14 PM
I thought you could omit 'de' in some cases. Like 'wo airen', 'wo jia' etc, is that not true for 'peng you'?
#8
Posted 07 July 2004 - 12:54 AM
You can omit de usually when the person is considered a family member or a close friend. Pengyou is a borderline case, though since you just used it in a phrase by itself and not in a sentence, I would put the de there to remove any confusion.
#9
Posted 07 July 2004 - 06:46 AM
Thank you so much for correcting my Mandarin!! I really appricate it!!!! 
To think I was saying the wrong thing all this time!!! 
Oh well you live and learn!! 
There was this guy, I helped him with his English, and he said xie,xie ni!!! Wo pangyou!!! So I thuoght thats how you said my friend!!! But thanks to Shibo, And Claw I found that its only the right way when you are speaking to family or a close friend!!!! Now I know when and how to use it!!! I also learned how much he appreciated my help because he called me a close friend!! Before it just threw off my Mandarin!!! LOL!!! 
But now I can appreciate it!!!
XIE, XIE NI!!! WO DE PENGYOU!!!
I really appricate it!!!! To think I was saying the wrong thing all this time!!! Oh well you live and learn!! There was this guy, I helped him with his English, and he said xie,xie ni!!! Wo pangyou!!! So I thuoght thats how you said my friend!!! But thanks to Shibo, And Claw I found that its only the right way when you are speaking to family or a close friend!!!! Now I know when and how to use it!!! I also learned how much he appreciated my help because he called me a close friend!! Before it just threw off my Mandarin!!! LOL!!! But now I can appreciate it!!!XIE, XIE NI!!! WO DE PENGYOU!!!
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