Chinese grammar

The grammars of the Chinese dialects are very similar to one another. All of the examples in this article are presented in modern standard Chinese , but the principles described can largely be applied to other dialects.

Since Chinese is not a synthetic but an analytical language, there is no inflection ; the words all have a single form. In contrast to the Indo-European languages, there are no grammatical tense forms in Chinese. The tense is indicated by simple adverbs , if at all.

Chinese also differs from the Indo-European languages in a more differentiated system of aspects . This grammatical category is expressed through particles or prepositions .

syntax

Chinese has a high level of complexity in terms of its syntax : Since information about the grammatical context in the sentence in Chinese is expressed exclusively through the sentence order (and not through endings and the like), especially more complex sentences are extremely difficult to decode, especially for non-native speakers .

Statements

The basic word order is subject - predicate - object; of course there are also very complex sentences in which this word order is expanded rather than varied.

For example the sentence: He's going to Shanghai.

	subject	verb	object
Chinese	他	去	上海。
Pinyin	Tā	qù	Shànghǎi.
Literal translation	He	drive	Shanghai.

Questions

An attached question particle is required for question sentences, the sentence is not changed. This is the simplest form of question formation in Chinese and is often used. In German it is comparable to adding the word or a statement.

For example a question with a question particle: is he going to Shanghai?

	subject	verb	object
Chinese	他	去	上海吗？
Pinyin	Tā	qù	Shànghǎi ma?
Literal translation	He	drive	Shanghai question particle ?

Another way to form a question is to replace the unknown part with a question word ( interrogative pronoun ); the sentence is also not changed here.

For example a question with a question word: Where is he going?

	subject	verb	object
Chinese	他	去	哪里？
Pinyin	Tā	qù	nǎlǐ?
Literal translation	He	drive	where?

Another example with a question word: Who is going to Shanghai?

	subject	verb	object
Chinese	谁	去	上海？
Pinyin	Shéi	qù	Shànghǎi?
Literal translation	who	drive	Shanghai?

passive

Since there is no inflection of the verb, various particles, especially 被 (bèi), 叫 (jiào) and 让 (ràng), serve as markers for a passive sentence. The linguist Wang Li 王力 took the view that the word 被 (bèi) had the meaning of "suffer". There is a certain analogy here to the original ancient Greek word meaning "πάσχειν" (suffer). In modern parlance, however, the characteristic of the passive as 'bad news' is less and less common. While 被 (bèi) is mostly used in written language, other particles are used in everyday language. In southern Chinese dialects, 给 (gěi) or 被 ... 给 (bèi ... gěi) is often used.

Example of a passive construction: The sheep was eaten by the wolf.

	object	(Passive particle)	subject	verb
Chinese	羊	被	狼	吃了。
Pinyin	Yáng	bèi	long	chī le.
Literal translation	sheep	were	wolf	eat.

morphology

Due to the lack of inflection, Chinese seems relatively easy compared to inflected languages , at least for someone who is used to such languages: speaking in particular is much easier at the beginning than, for example, B. for learners of Finnish .

number

The grammatical category number is only displayed for pronouns and nouns that refer to people, for example for personal pronouns (们-men indicates the plural here):

	Singular			Plural
	Chinese (writing)	Pinyin (pronunciation)	German	Chinese (writing)	Pinyin (pronunciation)	German
1st person	我	wǒ	I	我们	warm	we
2nd person	你	nǐ	you	你们	take	her
3rd person	他 / 她 / 它 *	tā	he she it	他们 / 她们 / 它们 **	tāmen	she

* Although have it , she and it , different characters but the pronunciation is the same for all three.
** 她们 is only used for a group of people consisting entirely of women; 它们 only for groups of non-human beings who, despite this fact , can form a plural on 们-men .

literature

Yuen Ren Chao [Zhao Yuanren 趙元任]: A grammar of spoken Chinese , Zhongguohua de wenfa 中國話的文法 (Berkeley etc., University of California Press 1968; new edition in: Zhao Yuanren quanji 赵元任全集 Vol. 3; Beijing, Commercial Press 2004 ; ISBN 7-100-03345-4 ). Still an irreplaceable standard work.
Charles N. Li, Sandra A. Thompson: Mandarin Chinese , A functional reference grammar (Berkeley etc., University of California Press 1981). An important standard work that takes into account recent linguistic theories.
Li Dejin 李德津, Cheng Meizhen 程美珍: Practical Chinese grammar for foreigners , Waiguoren shiyong Hanyu yufa 外国人实用汉语语法 (Beijing, Sinolingua 1993), ISBN 7-80052-218-0 . Chinese grammar, as taught at universities in China, with German translation (bilingual).
Mau-Tsai Liu: German-Chinese Syntax (de Gruyter 1964). German-Chinese contrastive grammar.
Lü Shuxiang 呂叔湘: Zhongguo wenfa yaolüe中國文法要略 (Shangwu yinshuguan 商務印書館 1957).
Qian Wencai: Chinese-German contrastive syntax (Hamburg, Helmut Buske 1985), ISBN 3-87118-623-6 .
Wang Li 王力: Zhongguo xiandai yufa中國現代語法 (Zhonghua shuju 中華書局; 1955). A standard work that is still required reading when studying Chinese in China.
Yip Po-Ching [Ye Buqing 葉步青], Don Rimmington: Chinese , A Comprehensive Grammar (Routledge Grammars; Routledge, 2004), ISBN 0-4151-5032-9 . Newer and relatively extensive grammar.
Gregor Kneussel: Grammar of Modern Chinese ( Xiandai Hanyu yufa现代汉语语法; Beijing, Publishing House for Foreign Language Literature 2005), ISBN 7-119-04262-9 . Newer grammar in German.

Individual evidence

↑ Kangle Lu 卢康乐: The passive constructions of German and Chinese. A contrastive grammatical and pragmatic inquiry. Bock + Herchen, Bad Honnef 1990, p. 10.
^ Claudia Ross, Jing-heng Sheng Ma: Modern Chinese Grammar. A practical guide to high-level Chinese. Chinabooks E. Wolf, Uitikon-Waldegg 2016, p. 130.

[1] Kangle Lu 卢康乐: The passive constructions of German and Chinese. A contrastive grammatical and pragmatic inquiry. Bock + Herchen, Bad Honnef 1990, p. 10.

[2] Claudia Ross, Jing-heng Sheng Ma: Modern Chinese Grammar. A practical guide to high-level Chinese. Chinabooks E. Wolf, Uitikon-Waldegg 2016, p. 130.