Talk:Chinese grammar

message: I apologize for being negative, but in my humble opinion, this article could use a lot of work. Having said that, I don't want to discount the hard work that has been made and all the great effort that has been put in by all the contributors of this article thus far. There is certainly some very good content in this article and all the individuals who have contributed to this article deserve thanks. But I think this article can be a lot better. I wish I could do something to improve this article, but I do not have sufficient expertise; I am only an elementary to pre-intermediate learner of Chinese. Perhaps this article could use some good clean up. Also, I wonder a bit about the quality and accuracy of some parts of this article. For example, I noticed one blatantly false statement, which said, "'Monkey' (and certain other animals) and 'pencil' are both '隻/只 zhi' nouns." In other words, the statement said that the words for monkey and pencil both take the same measure word. This is blatantly false. The measure words for monkey and pencil merely have the same pronunciation. They are not the same word. I have since deleted that sentence, but I am a bit concerned by it because it is a mistake that only a very novice learner of Chinese would make. Can we solicit the help of some experts for feedback on the article as a whole? I think this article has the potential to be great, but I think a lot of work will be needed. 61.229.104.25 15:01, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This article needs to supply more detailed translations to the examples used. It seems to be written under the assumption that the person reading already understands Chinese to some degree. For example, the sentence 妈妈来了 is discussed at length without ever supplying a translation at all. Later, the article seems to expect the reader to understand the difference between 没 and 不. These are just two examples, but I feel the article would be much more helpful if it took into account that not all readers understand Chinese. LeeWilson (talk) 22:33, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is this article in need of clean up? August 31, 2007

message: I was mistaken in my question, silly me.  That's not what I was looking at! Laundrypowder 02:21, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Markup used 

message: Citation: Another category of devices unique to Chinese are the modal particles, used to express mood, or an expression of how a statement relates to reality and/or intent.
This statement is not correct. German language uses modal particles frequently as well, so Chinese language is not unique in this aspect. See German modal particle for more information. --Abdull 20:04, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know exactly how to make the characterization more apt, but as someone who knows a little of both languages I don't think the comparison is apt.  German "modal particles" are more like the final "la," "ya," etc., i.e., particles that indicates something about the speaker's subjective reaction, whereas "le" at the end of a sentence typically indicates a change of status that would need to be indicated, somehow, in a good translation. P0M 22:51, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Modal particle 

message: I feel a much more precise title for this article is Chinese Syntax, not grammar.  A redirect from this article there would be in order, too.  I'm Linguist, though, so the titles may a bit pedantic.
Clay 16:19, 10 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Syntax is part of grammar. the study of grammar is composed of morphology and syntax. --Voidvector (talk) 20:24, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article Title 

message: In the mood section, the example for 2 meanings of 了(le) isn't appropriate, because the 2 alternative explanations for the phrase "妈妈来了!/Māma lái le!" aren't correct. The phrase "妈妈来了!/Māma lái le!" only mean that "Mother has come", and is definitly different from "妈妈要来了!/Māma yào lái le!", which only means "Mother will come". As no definition of "perfective le" or "inceptive le" is given, it wouldn't be possible to understand any difference between the two. As much as I know, 了(le) does either indicate the end in a phrase or slightly modify the tone of the phrase. In either way, it is not possible, in most cases, for 了(le) to alter the meaning of the phrase significantly.
su88 06:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad example 

message: According to an editor, there were incorrections in this section, so I'm hiding it until someone else can fix it. FilipeS 01:13, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Coverb

message: Are these words (referring, as far as I know, to grammatical cases) really appropriate for Mandarin? All varieties of Chinese are almost completely isolating languages. Are these terms used in reputable Chinese grammars? Strad 03:05, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Accusative/dative 

message: Just wanted to show my appreciation to those who worked on this article. The information there is very informative and helpful. You certainly manage to explain the subtleties of word order and perfectives/imperfectives better then my Chinese prof does. Basser g 06:42, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Thanks 

message: The article doesn't really cover a common perception held by Chinese people that Chinese language does not have grammar. This is somewhat covered in the Chinese version of this page. --Voidvector (talk) 20:29, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry to reopen this topic so long after the original posting; I just noticed it.  Anyway, I agree that it's worth at least mentioning; the question is whether we can find a reliable source for it.  Of course, I personally in my time over there have frequently encountered that ＂中文没有语法！＂ tidbit of wisdom, but I wonder if any reliable sources have documented it... Politizer talk/contribs 04:22, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Knock-knock. We know it's not true, so is it really worth mentioning if nobody claims this? Some people's perception about the grammar is inflection. So, if Chinese doesn't have inflection, they assume, it doesn't have the grammar. Perhaps, worth mentioning that Chinese words don't have inflection and even identifying the parts of speech is impossible by the word shape. It has both positive and negative aspects from a foreign learner's point of view. --Anatoli (talk) 04:50, 23 January 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: People talking to Chinese native speakers will get told that Chinese has no grammar.  Then they read an English Wikipedia article talking about Chinese grammar.  The contradiction is obvious.  It seems obvious that we should address it. 211.160.164.166 (talk) 07:22, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Agreed.  Most people think their native language doesn't have grammar.  It's only the languages they've learnt that have grammar.  Kanguole 14:05, 28 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Perception of grammar in Chinese 

message: moon  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.218.106.129 (talk) 03:21, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  moon 

message: I as a non chinese speaker have trouble understanding the mood section. The two examples give -le and -ne endings which appear to be different words. But the article says:
"The perfective le and the inceptive le are two different words. ... The fact that they are now written the same way in Mandarin can cause confusion."
This does not match the example given of "inceptive -ne". --Pepsi Lite (talk) 01:04, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mood section 

message: Can someone with a better understanding of Chinese grammar add some more detail to the examples?  Interlinear glosses as seen in e.g. bǎ construction are very helpful in understanding how each part of the sentence fits together.  By contrast, the examples here simply jump from Chinese to the idiomatic English translation, which isn't much help to someone who isn't already familiar with the language. 67.87.115.207 (talk) 06:26, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I could probably do it when I have some free time. I wrote the bǎ article so I would do the examples here in roughly the same way. rʨanaɢ talk/contribs 16:18, 14 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Example glosses 

message: This article should be retitled to become "Mandarin grammar".Cheezexyz (talk) 01:01, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Chinese Grammar" 

message: In the Aspects section, re imperfectives, one finds the following sentence:
The two imperfectives may both occur in the same clause, e.g. 他正在打电话 tā zhèngzai dǎ diànhuà "He is in the middle of telephoning someone".
Am I missing something?  It seems to say the will use both forms (正在 and 着), but the sentence doesn't actually do that.
JMCorey (talk) 23:35, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This criticism seems correct -- the text appears to be flawed as both forms are not used. --68.175.35.188 (talk) 06:08, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Typo? (25 March 2011) 

message: What does this phrase in the lede mean? --JWB (talk) 23:34, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  comparable to the similar features found within the Slavic languages or Semitic languages 

message: '给我' is something like Japanese's 'くれる'(...てくれる) , but with stronger tone (something like Japanese's 'てくれ') . It is unrelated to 'to me'. Here it is just like a simple order.
In this case (A speaks to B) , A could be either flattered by B or not. So, the translation is not right.
Rethliopuks (talk) 10:53, 30 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  '不要给我拍马屁' does not mean 'don't flatter me' 

message: The word '被' doesn't simply show passive voice, but also a passive mood (not only passive in grammar, but also in meaning) . In some cases, the passive sense it shows can be very strong.  222.248.137.120 (talk) 09:57, 26 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  About "被" 

message: Baihua and may fourth
http://books.google.com/books?id=dNVihjQVQNIC&pg=PA96#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=h5e8Za8sEJAC&pg=PA153#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=tB3zbSCY-zUC&pg=PA750#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=1SWaAAAAIAAJ
http://books.google.com/books?id=ey2sAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA320#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=wKMZmdxVj9gC&pg=PA83#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://books.google.com/books?id=pCIaAQAAIAAJ
Rajmaan (talk) 07:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Europeanization and Dialectization of grammar 

message: This is perfect acceptable. --刻意(Kèyì) 20:54, 19 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I have a book which claims that it isn't... But we can remove it from the article if it's dubious, it's rather a detailed matter for this general article in any case. W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:28, 20 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: For example: A: 他吃饭了吗？ B:他吃[过]了。 A： Did he eat yet? B: He did. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 11:21, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: 他吃了饭

message: Okay so given that I'm basically an ABC, I feel like ba and ma have other usages. Either that or my understanding of Mandarin is wrong.
Ex. 吧 in response to a question or debate
就用红色的油漆吧?
Let's just use red paint, yes?
If you reply 好 vs 好吧 I feel the connotation is different. 好 is closer to the English of "Yes" while 好吧 based on my understanding would be closer to "Fine". There is a bit of reservation in the second case. (Although this also depends on the inflection used while pronouncing 吧。 A lower tone represents reservation, while a shorter quick tone represents eagerness.)
Similarly for 啊. It can be used in response to a question to demonstrate uncertainty.
我听所你生病了
I heard you got sick.
我没生病啊?
I didn't get sick [to the best of my knowledge]?
Or incredulity 
他没生病啊?
"He wasn't sick?!"
Although in this case that's somewhat covered by the 'forcefulness' part, but I tend to understand forcefulness differently than what it achieves in this case. I suppose it also has to do with the inflection used when saying the statement.
ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 11:29, 7 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  吧 and 啊 

message: What's with this sentence? 土匪把我杀了父亲 tǔfěi bǎ wǒ shā le fùqīn. People keep "correcting" it, but the book I found it in makes a big deal of this sentence and its various transformations. Does it really sound ungrammatical to native speakers? (At least, the version in the book has ta "his" instead of wo "my" - does that make a difference?) Obviously it's not being claimed that this is the normal way of translating "the bandits killed my father", but has the author got it completely wrong about the sentence being grammatically acceptable? W. P. Uzer (talk) 00:11, 19 March 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: As a native Chinese speaker, I find that sentence completely ungrammatical (and no, the distinction between "his" and "my" isn't of concern here). The correct version would be 土匪把我的父亲杀了 оr 土匪杀了我的父亲. I don't have access to the book you cited, and I can't really tell from the paragraph what "inner and outer" objects are. Could you give more examples? Wyverald (talk) 11:08, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

text: These kinds of gapless structures are possible (and common) in bei sentences (see, e.g. Lin (2015)), which in this case would be 我被土匪杀了父亲. But I've never seen it in a ba sentence. What's the source? rʨanaɢ (talk) 12:16, 9 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Audrey Yen-hui Li (1990), Order and Constituency in Mandarin Chinese, page 89ff. You may be able to get a partial view on Google Books. W. P. Uzer (talk) 12:29, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

text: "我被土匪杀了父亲" would be right if any English native speaker could confirm that "I was killed by bandits father" was right.小梨花 (talk) 17:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: English grammar is not the same as Chinese, of course. Are you saying that this sentence does not appear correct to you? At the time of the above discussion I asked a native speaker, who confirmed that the original sentence as given above was wrong, but said that this version (which is the one suggested by Rjanag above) was acceptable. Do we need to revisit that conclusion? W. P. Uzer (talk) 18:21, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I just said it's same in this example. I'm Mandarin Chinese native speaker, neither Cantonese nor Shanghaiese, in Mandarin Chinese, you can say "我被医生杀了神经" but we never say "我被土匪杀了父亲" because "神经" is a part of ”I” but “父亲” not. Maybe in Cantonese it would be right, I don't know, I will look for a source to confirm this if necessary.小梨花 (talk) 18:51, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't know about the exact semantics and pragmatics of that particular example, but gapless bei sentences are definitely possible even in cases where the last noun (corresponding to 神经 or 父亲) is not inalienable possession (part) of the subject (我). For example, constructions like 我被[someone]偷了车、我被小偷偷了钱包 are attested. Neither 车 (bike) nor 钱包 (wallet) is "part" of 我 ("I"). rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:48, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

text: I can't really gauge if it's right or wrong because the example isn't explained clearly. That is to say, I can't think of any instance in which 吃醋 (be jealous) would be used with 把 (ba), and no example was actually given in the text that I removed. rʨanaɢ (talk) 10:45, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The examples given in the book are: ni bu neng ba ta (sheng name da de qi/chi name duo de doufu/chi name duo de cu/zhan name duo de pianyi), for which the author gives the translations "you cannot (be so angry with him/flirt with her/be jealous of her/take so much advantage of her)". Do any/all/none of these work? If so, is the presence of the qualifier before the idiomatic noun necessary? W. P. Uzer (talk) 10:54, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Would have to check with a native speaker. My inclination is to say no, because I've never heard any of them (I would say 'ni bu neng gen ta shengqi' for the anger example; not sure about the jealousy one), but just because I haven't heard it attested doesn't necessarily mean it's bad... Although either way, I don't think any of those examples are really needed to make a point about ba structure, whatever's being shown there is pretty orthogonal to ba. rʨanaɢ (talk) 11:07, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: The point of interest (if the examples are valid) would be that in this case, unusually, the ba object phrase cannot be replaced by a direct object after the verb, because that position is already occupied. Which is admittedly already illustrated by the "peel an orange" example. W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:55, 22 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Bandits killed my father

message: This sentence sounds extremely weird to me, given the gloss that accompanies it. Besides just being weird to start with, if I had to translate it, I would say it meant something more like "yesterday was his/her grocery-buying day" -- it answers "when does s/he buy groceries?" (habitual), not "when did s/he buy the groceries?". Any other native speakers to weigh in? Perhaps it's simply regionalism on my part? -104.129.194.84 (talk) 20:02, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: Like in the case discussed above, it's a sentence I found in a grammar book, which I assumed to be a reliable source. I don't know who's writing these books, since native speakers quite often seem to disagree with their grammaticality judgments. It seems we could use some expert/native review of this whole article. W. P. Uzer (talk) 07:30, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: zuótiān shì tā mǎi cài de shíjiān

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I'll be concise for those knowledgeable, and refer to brief and basic bibliography for those who are not.
The Chinese elasticity/flexibility is a lexical property of chinese terms, two sides of the same coin, which must be reflected in the very same entry for a certain lemma. 
Therefore, for example the fifth version of the prestigious XDHYCD (Xiandai Hanyu Cidian) applies mutual annotations in the respective entries, so that the entry for 煤 mei ‘coal’ reads "noun, … also called 煤炭 mei-tan ‘coal-charcoal’", and the entry for 煤炭 meitan ‘coal-charcoal’ is annotated as "noun, 煤 mei ‘coal’". 
Unfortunately, currently in wiktionary this is wrongly reflected in the broadly termed 'compounds' section, as a synonym or after 'see also', and only for the monosyllabic version.
Please, before commenting read the following brief article (and if necessary further references within it); if you still have any questions, I'll be glad to try and answer them.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~duanmu/2014Elastic.pdf
Finally, elasticity from Xiandai Hanyu Cidian 2005 has been tabulated in the following open access thesis
deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/116629/1/yandong_1.pdf
I hope an enriching discussion ensues for this critical lexicograhical issue --Backinstadiums (talk) 02:38, 22 March 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: adding elasticity/flexibility in Chinese entries 

message: By saying "To understand something you hear", does it mean "To understand something one hears" ? 2A01:CB0C:38C:9F00:D196:EBEE:8A6C:34AB (talk) 21:07, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  

message: “我把橘子皮剥了” is given as an example of an inner and an outer object. The citation is to Li (1990), which instead has: “我把橘子剥了皮”, which seems to me to be a better and more obvious example of a sentence with inner and outer objects, since in the example in the article, 橘子皮 “tangerine/orange skin” could be viewed as a noun phrase constituting single direct object. Indeed, the more idiomatic “alternative” provided in footnote [d] is identical to the sentence in the main text, so it can’t be a “more common way to express this.”  Guan (talk) 17:23, 18 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but native speakers kept changing the example given, so I concluded there was some doubt about the correctness of Li's proposal. Can anyone confirm it? W. P. Uzer (talk) 21:15, 19 July 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: The example is not originally from Li (1990). Li cites Thompson (1973). It's possible to reject the whole concept of inner and outer objects, but if you accept it, it seems clear that 我把橘子剥了皮 is a correct example of the concept and 我把橘子皮剥了 is not. Thompson has 153 citations on Google Scholar and I looked at a few of them. Most of the sources that are actually on Chinese grammar (as opposed to general grammar or linguistics) cite Thompson approvingly, and several reproduce the 我把橘子剥了皮 example. One source couches the citation in softer language (“As Thompson (1973b) argues”), but goes on to analyze it in depth, while another is more definitive (“Since the publication of Thompson 1973, it has been recognized”). Guan (talk) 22:33, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is the inner/outer object example correct? 

message: In the hatnote, why is the second "Pinyin" treated like ruby text?  64.203.187.122 (talk) 14:10, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Because that's how the pinyin is treated in the article? W. P. Uzer (talk) 16:44, 5 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ruby text 

message: Much of this section is general information about tense theory (not specifically relevant to Chinese), or duplication of information already given under aspect. There seems to be only one source cited claiming that Chinese has tense in some way, and the purported justification for this is not clear to me; nor can I access the full article referenced. I would remove the whole section on tense and give just a footnote in the Aspects section, mentioning that some authors argue for the existence of tense. Any other views? W. P. Uzer (talk) 11:41, 25 December 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Section on tense