Chinese adjectives
Encyclopedia
Chinese
adjective
s differ from those in English
in that they can be used as verb
s (for example 天黑了 tiān hēi le "The sky has become dark") and thus linguist
s sometimes prefer to use the terms static or stative verb
to describe them.
is modified using an adjective, the associative particle 的 de is inserted between the adjective and the noun. For example, 高兴的孩子 gāo xìng de hái zi "happy child". 的 is sometimes omitted to reduce repetitiveness (e.g., two or more instances of 的 within a sentence); it is also omitted in some established adjective-noun pairs to improve sentence flow (e.g., the TV show 快乐中国). It is also more typical to omit 的 when a single-syllable adjective is used than for a multi-syllable adjective (e.g., compare 坏人 (壞人) with 奇怪的人). In general, there are no strict rules regarding when 的 can be omitted; however, some adjectives and adjective-noun pairs are more often seen without the associative particle than others.
Some examples: （壞人）— "bad person" — "strange person" （可愛的熊貓）— "cute panda"
She is beautiful. 。
She is very beautiful. 。
She is really beautiful. 。
She is extraordinarily beautiful.
A complementary adverb (e.g. 极了 jí le) can also specify the degree of an adjective: （她漂亮極了）。
She is exceedingly beautiful.
NB: 很 often functions as a dummy linking adverb and does not carry the meaning of "very". For example, 她很漂亮 is often understood and translated as "She is beautiful".
Besides, in colloquial Chinese the pattern "AA死了" (sǐ le, literally "to death") or "AA死BB了" is sometimes used in exaggeration to highlight the extent of influence, where AA is an adjective and BB is the thing being affected. Examples include
He is male. （那輛車是新的）。
That car is new. （那隻貓是黑的）。
That cat is black.
Since 的 is a possessive
particle, and the following noun is understood here, more precise translations would be "He is a male one", "That car is a new one", and "That cat is a black one".
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
s differ from those in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in that they can be used as verb
Verb
A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...
s (for example 天黑了 tiān hēi le "The sky has become dark") and thus linguist
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
s sometimes prefer to use the terms static or stative verb
Stative verb
A stative verb is one that asserts that one of its arguments has a particular property . Statives differ from other aspectual classes of verbs in that they are static; that is, they have undefined duration...
to describe them.
Before nouns
When a nounNoun
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
is modified using an adjective, the associative particle 的 de is inserted between the adjective and the noun. For example, 高兴的孩子 gāo xìng de hái zi "happy child". 的 is sometimes omitted to reduce repetitiveness (e.g., two or more instances of 的 within a sentence); it is also omitted in some established adjective-noun pairs to improve sentence flow (e.g., the TV show 快乐中国). It is also more typical to omit 的 when a single-syllable adjective is used than for a multi-syllable adjective (e.g., compare 坏人 (壞人) with 奇怪的人). In general, there are no strict rules regarding when 的 can be omitted; however, some adjectives and adjective-noun pairs are more often seen without the associative particle than others.
Some examples: （壞人）— "bad person" — "strange person" （可愛的熊貓）— "cute panda"
First pattern
Unlike English, subjects and predicate adjectives in a Chinese sentence are not linked by copula but by degree adverbs, such as 很 hěn "very," 好 hǎo "highly," 真 zhēn "really," and 非常 fēicháng "extraordinarily, extremely." For example, the following sentences express increasing degrees of "beauty": 。She is beautiful. 。
She is very beautiful. 。
She is really beautiful. 。
She is extraordinarily beautiful.
A complementary adverb (e.g. 极了 jí le) can also specify the degree of an adjective: （她漂亮極了）。
She is exceedingly beautiful.
NB: 很 often functions as a dummy linking adverb and does not carry the meaning of "very". For example, 她很漂亮 is often understood and translated as "She is beautiful".
Besides, in colloquial Chinese the pattern "AA死了" (sǐ le, literally "to death") or "AA死BB了" is sometimes used in exaggeration to highlight the extent of influence, where AA is an adjective and BB is the thing being affected. Examples include
- "热死了" (热 rè = hot) - meaning "It's so hot [to the extent that I cannot bear any more]"
- "饿死了" (饿 è = hungry) - meaning "[I feel] so hungry [to the extent that I cannot bear any more]"
- "热死我了" - meaning "I feel so hot [to the extent that I cannot bear any more]"
Second pattern
The linking verb 是 shì (to be) is used with adjectives in the pattern—Noun + 是 + Adj + 的—to state or emphasize a fact or a perceived fact. For example: 。He is male. （那輛車是新的）。
That car is new. （那隻貓是黑的）。
That cat is black.
Since 的 is a possessive
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
particle, and the following noun is understood here, more precise translations would be "He is a male one", "That car is a new one", and "That cat is a black one".
Parts of speech
- Chinese pronounsChinese pronounsChinese pronouns differ somewhat from their English counterparts. For instance, there is no differentiation between "he", "she" and "it", though a written difference was introduced after contact with the West, and with the exception of the reflexive self, pronouns remain the same whether they are...
- Chinese verbsChinese verbsThere are two different forms of verbs in the Chinese language: the stative, indicating state, and the dynamic, indicating action. The sentence changes with the different forms of verbs.-Verb construction:...
- Chinese particlesChinese particlesIn classical Chinese philology, words are divided into two classes: the shízì and the xūzì . The former include what modern linguists call verbs, nouns, and adjectives, while the latter includes what modern linguists call particles. Opinions differ as to which category pronouns and adverbs belong to...
- Chinese grammarChinese grammarStandard Chinese shares a similar system of grammar with the many language varieties or dialects of the Chinese language, different from those employed by other language families, and comparable to the similar features found within the Slavic languages or Semitic languages...