Basic grammatical structures in Chinese from characters to sentences

All Chinese grammatical constructions are based on 5 types of binary relations:

1. SO（主谓 zhu3wei4）: Subject + Object:
我写  花红 灯亮 她漂亮 爸爸高兴
2. VO (动宾 dong4bin1): Verb + Object
学汉语 写信 读书 吃饭 喝茶 听歌
3. PC (偏正 pian1zheng4): Peripheric + Central (qualificative + Qualified)
大人 美人 高举 很大 也请 高兴地喝茶 高兴的妈妈
4. AU (联合 lian2he2): Association and union: combination of similar elements
读写 高大 漂亮 我和你 爸爸妈妈(爸爸和妈妈) 爷爷奶奶
5. VC (动补): Verb + complement (of result, of direction, etc.)
喝高 （anglicism）抬高 说清楚 看清楚 放好 听懂

Two compound forms doubling VO :
6. VV -  连动（lian2dong4）: Verb + Verb
找他问问  坐车（車）上班  去学中文 
7. VDO - 兼语 （Jian1yu3）: Verb + double (S&O) + Object
请你读书  让他请 派他去 请我喝茶

跟我上班

All these phrases can be a sentence directly or be a part of a sentence.
我写了。花红了。灯亮了。
来人！抓住他！请喝茶。
你的票！快跑！高点举！他高兴地跑！
你和她？《儿子、孙子和种子》
说清楚！干得很好！

NB: 的地得


You can see an example in the presentation, and use this to analyse all Chinese expressions.


Excercise: Analyse this sentences of the P53.
Prezi is a good tool to analyse and share with the class, but you can also show it on the whitebord. You can use Sciences Po E-mail address to get a valuable Edu Enjoy subscription.