Practical Grammar of Modern Chinese I

Overview and Notional Words

Liu Yuehua, Pan Wenyu, Gu Wei

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000198645
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Chinese grammar is characterized by its simple structure, lack of inflections, and wide use of monosyllabic morphemes. With the increased popularity of learning Chinese as a second language, there is a demand for a guide to Chinese grammar that's targeted at second language learners.

This four-volume set is one of the earliest and most influential works of Chinese grammar, with a special focus on teaching and learning Chinese as a second language. Drawing on rich teaching experience, the authors analyze a myriad of real-world examples to describe Chinese grammatical phenomena and rules while introducing the general grammar system of Chinese. In addition, the use of notional words in modern Chinese grammar is demonstrated, including nouns, pronouns, numerals, quantifiers, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

Since the first edition came out in 1983, this set has been revised twice and has remained one of the best sellers in the field. Practitioners and scholars of teaching Chinese as a second language, as well as students with a basic knowledge of Chinese, will find it to be a handy reference.

1
Overview

This part introduces the grammar system, the grammatical items and issues of Chinese grammar not included in the remaining parts of this book.

Section one: grammar units

Grammar units consist of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences.

I. Morphemes

A morpheme is the smallest unit of pronunciation and meaning in a language as well as the smallest grammatical unit. For example, “人 [rén] (people),” “民 [mín] (people),” “作 [zuò] (do),” “用 [yòng] (use),” “桌 [zhuō] (table),” “葡萄 [pú táo] (grape),” and “玻璃 [bō lí] (glass)” are the smallest meaningful and inseparable units. “人 [rén] (people)” and “民 [mín] (people)” are monosyllabic morphemes, which cannot be further segmented. “葡萄 [pú táo] (grape)” and “玻璃 [bō lí] (glass)” are disyllabic morphemes and they cannot be segmented either, because they would become meaningless if they were separated into “葡[pú],” “萄[táo],” “玻[bō],” or “璃[lí].”

Most morphemes in Chinese are monosyllabic; a few of them are disyllabic and tri-syllabic. Quadri-syllabic morphemes are much fewer. Since the Chinese character is syllabic, a monosyllabic morpheme is identical to a Chinese character in the written form, and most Chinese characters correspond to morphemes. Of course, there are some exceptions, such as “玛 [mǎ],” “瑙 [nǎo],” “唠 [láo],” “叨 [dāo],” “葡 [pú],” and “萄 [táo].” They are just segmented as single and meaningless syllables from those disyllabic morphemes, such as “玛瑙 [mǎ nǎo] (agate),” “唠叨 [láo dāo] (chatter),” and “葡萄 [pú táo] (grape),” so they are not morphemes.

Some Chinese characters can correspond to several morphemes at the same time, indicating different meanings, such as “把 [bǎ]” in “一把尺子 [yī bǎ chǐ zi] (a ruler),” “把守 [bǎ shǒu] (guard),” “把门开开 [bǎ mén kāi kai] (open the door),” “个把月 [gè bǎ yuè] (one or two months),” “把儿 [bǎ er] (handle)”; and “生 [shēng]” in “生长 [shēng zhǎng] (grow),” “一生 [yī shēng] (a lifetime),” “生炉子 [shēng lú zi] (light the stove),” “生病 [shēng bìng] (fall ill),” “生瓜 [shēng guā] (unripe melon),” “生疼 [shēng téng] (extremely painful),” and “学生 [xué sheng] (student).” Thus it can be seen that the relationship between Chinese characters and morphemes is very complicated.

II. Words

A word is the smallest meaningful language unit that can be used independently. This function of independence can occur in the following two ways. One way is when a word is used alone, such as “工人 [gōng rén] (worker).”

Example 1

A: 他哥哥是干什么的? [tā gē ge shì gàn shén me de?]

(What does his brother do?)

B: 工人。 [gōng rén.]

(A worker.)

“工人 [gōng rén] (worker)” is a word used alone as the response to the question. It cannot be divided into “工 [gōng]” and “人 [rén]” because neither of them is identical to “工人 [gōng rén] (worker).”

The other way is when a word is used by itself without being bound with other constituents in a sentence, such as “的 [de].”

Example 2 我的家在北京。 [wǒ de jiā zài běi jīng.]

(My home is in Beijing.)

Example 3 明明是一个可爱的孩子。 [míng míng shì yī gè kě ài de hái zi.]

(Ming Ming is a lovely boy.)

“的 [de]” is a word because it is of a certain grammatical meaning and can be used by itself without being bound with other constituents in a sentence. Furthermore, it is the smallest meaningful unit.

“民 [mín] (people)” in “人民 [rén mín] (people)” is not a word because it doesn’t have the same grammatical function as “人民 [rén mín] (people)” in a sentence. “民 [mín]” should be bound with other morphemes, such as “人 [rén],” “公 [gōng],” “居 [jū]” to form the words “人民 [rén mín] (people),” “公民 [gōng mín] (citizen),” and “居民 [jū mín] (resident),” when used independently in a sentence.

III. Phrases

A phrase is a group of words grammatically combined, carrying a certain meaning. It is a unit that constructs a sentence. For example, “他的学生 [tā de xué sheng] (his students),” “大部分 [dà bù fèn] (most),” “非洲人 [fēi zhōu rén] (Africans)” are phrases in the sentence “他的学生大部分是非洲人。 [tā de xué sheng dà bù fèn shì fēi zhōu rén.] (Most of his students are Africans.).”

A morpheme is a smaller language unit compared with a word; a phrase is a bigger one compared with a word. Therefore, it is not easy to identify a language unit theoretically or practically, due to the fact that most words in Chinese lack morphological marks and a fair number of ancient Chinese constituents still remain in the written form of modern Chinese. However, the parsing of language units (a morpheme, a word, or a phrase) doesn’t influence its practical application too much in reality, nor cause much difficulty for foreign students in learning Chinese, if some rules of parsing sentences are defined in Chinese teaching.

IV. Sentences

A sentence is a language unit, carrying a complete meaning with proper pauses and a certain intonation. A sentence is considered the smallest unit of language application. That is to say, when we talk, we speak a sentence at least.

Example 4 你去不去? [nǐ qù bú qù?]

(Will you go or not?)

Example 5 去。 [qù.]

(Go.)

Example 6 小心! [xiǎo xīn!]

(Watch out!)

Example 7 每想到这些, 我对未来就充满了希望。 [měi xiǎng dào zhè xiē, wǒ duì wèi lái jiù chōng mǎn le xī wàng.]

(I am confident about the future when thinking about these.)

When a group of sentences are connected, a sentence group or a discourse is formed as a bigger unit, which decides the whole arrangement of sentences inside.

Section two: classifications of parts of speech

In Chinese, the criterion of classifying parts of speech is mainly based on the grammatical functions of words as well as their lexical meanings.

Generally speaking, words can be classified into two main categories: notional words and function words, based on their grammatical functions. Notional words can function as sentence constituents, often carrying the concrete lexical meanings. They can be subdivided into seven types, such as nouns (including time word and locational word), verbs, adjectives, numerals, quantifiers, pronouns, and adverbs. Function words express various grammatical meanings, moods, or emotions but they cannot function as sentence constituents independently. They can be subdivided into the following types, such as prepositions, conjunctions, auxiliary words, onomatopoeic words, and interjections.

Some examples of notional words are as follows:

• Nouns:
  桌子 [zhuō zi] (table), 国家 [guó jiā] (nation), 科学 [kē xué] (science), 明天 [míng tiān] (tomorrow), 外 [wài] (outside), 里面 [lǐ miàn] (inside),
• Verbs:
  走 [zǒu] (walk), 动 [dòng] (move), 喜欢 [xǐ huān] (like), 是 [shì] (yes), 醒 [xǐng] (wake up), 可以 [kě yǐ] (may), 应该 [yīng gāi] (should).
• Adjectives:
  红 [hóng] (red), 伟大 [wěi dà] (great), 胖 [pàng] (fat), 对 [duì] (right), 高兴 [gāo xìng] (happy), 自由 [zì yóu] (free).
• Numerals:
  一 [yī] (one), 三 [sā] (three), 十 [shí] (ten), 百 [bǎi] (hundred), 千 [qiān] (thousand), 万 [wàn] (ten thousand), 亿 [yì] (a hundred million).
• Quantifiers:
  个[gè] (used before nouns that have no specific quantifier), 件 [jiàn] (piece), 斤 [jīn] (a unit of weight = 1/2 kilogram), 双[shuāng] (pair), 副 [fù] (set), 次 [cì] (time), 遍 [biàn] (time).
• Pronouns:
  我 [wǒ] (I), 你们 [nǐ men] (you), 每 [měi] (every), 这 [zhè] (this), 那 [nà] (that), 怎么样 [zěn me yàng] (how).
• Adverbs:
  很 [hěn] (quite), 又 [yòu] (again), 都 [dōu] (all), 永远 [yǒng yuǎn] (forever), 渐渐 [jiàn jiàn] (gradually), 亲自 [qīn zì] (personally).

Some examples of function words are as follows:

• Prepositions:
  在 [zài] (at/in), 从 [cóng] (from), 自 [zì] (from), 向 [xiàng] (toward), 于 [yú] (at/in), 给 [gěi] (for).
• Conjunctions:
  和 [hé] (and), 与 [yǔ] (and), 因为 [yīn wéi] (because), 虽然 [suī rán] (although), 因此 [yīn cǐ] (therefore), 即使 [jí shǐ] (even though).
• Auxiliary words (structural auxiliary words):
  的 [de], 地 [dì/de] (-ly), 得 [de], 等 [děng] (and so on), 所 [suǒ], 了 [le], 着 [zhe], 过 [guò], 来着 [lái zhe].
• Auxiliary words (dynamic auxiliary words):
  啊 [ā], 呢 [ne], 吧 [ba], 的 [de], 了 [le], 吗 [ma].
• Onomatopoeic w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface to the first edition (I)
• Preface to the third edition
• Preface to the first edition (II)
• Preface to the revised edition (2001)
• 1 Overview
• 2 Nouns
• 3 Pronouns
• 4 Numerals and quantifiers
• 5 Verbs
• 6 Adjectives
• 7 Adverbs
• Bibliography
• Index