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M6 Basic Sentence Order
M6 Basic Sentence Order
A simple predicate can be just a verb. The most basic word order in Chinese is:
Structure
Subject + Verb
You can form very simple sentences with just two words.
Examples
他 Tā 笑。xiào. He laughs.
我 Wǒ 读。dú. I read.
1 | Gr.6 M a n d a r i n - B a s i c S e n t e n c e O r d e r
Prepared by: Ms. Shaira Nicole D. Pelaez
SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY
Integrated Basic Education
A.Y. 2018-2019
我 Wǒ 说。shuō. I speak.
Subject-Verb-Object
A slightly longer predicate might be a verb with an object. A sentence with both a verb and an object is
formed with this structure:
Structure
This is the same as in English, and is commonly referred to as SVO word order. You can express a huge variety of
things with this simple structure.
Examples
2 | Gr.6 M a n d a r i n - B a s i c S e n t e n c e O r d e r
Prepared by: Ms. Shaira Nicole D. Pelaez
SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY
Integrated Basic Education
A.Y. 2018-2019
你们 Nǐmen 想 吃 xiǎng chī 中国 菜 吗?Zhōngguó cài ma? Do you want to eat Chinese food?
Things start to break down as soon as you start adding in such simple sentence elements as the "also" adverb 也
(yě), a time word, or a location where something happened.
3 | Gr.6 M a n d a r i n - B a s i c S e n t e n c e O r d e r
Prepared by: Ms. Shaira Nicole D. Pelaez
SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY
Integrated Basic Education
A.Y. 2018-2019
Complement + Object
That’s a generalized word order for simple Mandarin Chinese sentences. It’s not concrete, but works most of the
time with some important caveats.
As mentioned above, basic Mandarin word order is SVO: subject + verb + object. Remember that this is just
what’s typical in Mandarin. Different word orders can certainly appear.
One major reason for this is that the idea of a “subject” isn’t as clear in Mandarin as it is in many other
languages. The subject is often omitted, and Mandarin is more interested in the topic of a sentence; it’s a topic-
prominent language.
Still, SVO is a good place to start. Here are some examples of basic Mandarin SVO sentences, color coded
for subject (red), verb (green) and object (blue).
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Prepared by: Ms. Shaira Nicole D. Pelaez
SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY
Integrated Basic Education
A.Y. 2018-2019
As you can see from the color coding, the word order of these basic sentences is the same in Mandarin and
English.
Auxiliary verbs
Auxiliary verbs are also known as helper verbs. English is full of them, and so is Mandarin. In Mandarin, auxiliary
verbs are placed before the main verb just as they are in English.
Some more examples, with the auxiliary verb color coded in purple.
Negation
English is a bit funny about negation. It doesn’t like negating main verbs, so if there isn’t an auxiliary verb it will
insert one and negate that. In Mandarin you can just negate the main verb (negation color coded in pink):
5 | Gr.6 M a n d a r i n - B a s i c S e n t e n c e O r d e r
Prepared by: Ms. Shaira Nicole D. Pelaez
SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY
Integrated Basic Education
A.Y. 2018-2019
When there is an auxiliary verb, Mandarin prefers to negate that. Some examples:
他们 不会说中文。 Tāmen bù huì shuō zhōngwén. They can not speak Chinese.
Note how in English the negation occurs after what’s being negated (the auxiliary verb in the examples above),
whereas in Chinese it comes before. This is because of a general rule in Chinese: modifiers precede what they
modify (see below).
The structure is getting a little more complicated now. Words that add information about the verb such as time,
manner and place are known as adverbials.
In Mandarin these nearly always come before the verb. This is different to English which tends to put them all over
the place depending on the situation.
Another difference between the two languages is that Mandarin has a specific order for this extra information:
time first, then manner and then place. This sequence is a general rule.
6 | Gr.6 M a n d a r i n - B a s i c S e n t e n c e O r d e r
Prepared by: Ms. Shaira Nicole D. Pelaez
SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY
Integrated Basic Education
A.Y. 2018-2019
我 今天下午用电邮发。 Wǒ jīntiān xiàwǔ yòng diànyóu fā. I will send it by email this
afternoon.
Complements are a tricky topic in grammar. Mandarin has a few kinds of special complements that come after
the verb: directional, degree, result and potential.
The grammar of these is pretty complicated. The main point in terms of word order is that they occur after the
verb.
7 | Gr.6 M a n d a r i n - B a s i c S e n t e n c e O r d e r
Prepared by: Ms. Shaira Nicole D. Pelaez
SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY
Integrated Basic Education
A.Y. 2018-2019
Adjectives are placed before what they modify, as in English. This follows the general Chinese rule of modifiers
preceding what they modify.
Some example sentences with adjectives color coded in turquoise (as they are modifiers just like adverbials):
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Prepared by: Ms. Shaira Nicole D. Pelaez
SAN BEDA UNIVERSITY
Integrated Basic Education
A.Y. 2018-2019
This is a general word order for Mandarin that works most of the time. Note that Mandarin sentences are not
always exactly like this, especially due to Mandarin being topic-prominent. Adjectives could be inserted before
the subject and object:
9 | Gr.6 M a n d a r i n - B a s i c S e n t e n c e O r d e r
Prepared by: Ms. Shaira Nicole D. Pelaez