How do you say "phrase" in Chinese?

[bob]

I want to be able to talk in Chinese about English grammar phrases: noun, verb, adjective, adverb phrases. My dictionary lists two meanings for phrase, ci2zu3, which is the one I use beacuse it checked out better with the people I asked, and duan3yu3 which has the following example ming2ci2 duan3yu3 (noun phrase) and “should” therefore be correct.

I want to be sure I am able to saying the following correctly:

1. The short answer to a “who” or "what’ question is often a noun phrase.

2. The short answer to a “where” or “when” question is often a prepositional phrase.

3. The short answer to a why (for what purpose) question is often an infinitive phrase.

4. The answer to a “how” (by what means) question is often a by + gerund phrase.

5. To make yes/no questions you take the first word of the verb phrase and put it at the beginning of the sentence.

Etc.

I can muddle through this pretty easily in spoken Chinese (I’ll come back and give it a go here in writing later) but I’d like to know I have it exactly right.

Whatever comments you have to make would be appreciated. Or if anyone would like to try translating those sentences before I get back that would be great too.

No characters though, please. I know about a hundred characters and I’m sure it’s none of these.

Thanks.

[sjcma]

Hey bob, I made a reply to you in the Teaching English forum. Perhaps a nice mod would like to merge/move/duplicate my response.

[color=darkred]EDIT[/color]: Dragonbones shamed me into copying & pasting my answer from the Teaching English forum…so here it is:

@bob

My dictionary lists two meanings for phrase, ci2zu3, which is the one I use beacuse it checked out better with the people I asked, and duan3yu3 which has the following example ming2ci2 duan3yu3 (noun phrase) and “should” therefore be correct.

Duan3yu3 短語 (literally, short speech) is the technical linguistic term while ci2zu3 詞組 or pian4yu3 片語 are more layman’s terms. While all three are interchangeable, note that pian4yu3 is used more often in Taiwan while ci2zu3 is used more often across the strait.

[quote=“bob”]I’ve been bumbling along using wen2fa3 de5 ci2zu3 but I am beginning to wonder if I am screwing up. Ci2zu3 is more like “hurry up” or “thank you” actually. And recently I am realizing that I want to be able to say:

1. The short answer to a “who” or "what’ question is often a noun phrase.

2. The short answer to a “where” or “when” question is often a prepositional phrase.

3. The short answer to a why (for what purpose) question is often an infinitive phrase.

4. The answer to a “how” (by what means) question is often a by + gerund phrase.

5. To make yes/no questions you take the first word of the verb phrase and put it at the beginning of the sentence.

Etc. [/quote]
Actually, I didn’t know what you meant by “grammar phrase”. Then again, I only know enough grammar to use it, not to teach it. But now I see where you’re coming from. I don’t think wen2fa3 de ci2zu3 makes much sense in Chinese; it’s too much of a literal translation. I’m not sure of the level of the students that you are teaching or the goals of your lessons, but on the surface, all this seems overly technical. Terms like gerund and infinitive, even when translated into Chinese, means little to a student because these are language constructs which are totally foreign to a Chinese speaker. Of course, if you are teaching someone that’s more advanced, it’s important to be able to put labels to concepts. I dunno really, I’m not an English teacher so I’m shooting from the hip here.

Here’s a suggestion, scrap wen2fa3 de ci2yu3 altogether and go with pian4yu3 instead of ci2yu3. Then explain that “there are many types of pian4yu3”, some of these are “ming2ci2 pian4yu3” (noun phrase), “jie4ci2 pian4yu3” (prepositional phrase), “bu2ding4ci2 pian4yu3” (infinitive phrase)", “dong4ming2ci2 pian4yu3” (gerund phrase), “fen2ci2 pian4yu3” (participial phrase), etc. Give examples afterwards.

[Dragonbones]

sjcma, if you want your response in Teaching English to be copied to here, a mod would do nothing more than what you would do: quote the text there and paste it here.

[tempogain]

I found “pian4 yu3” in a dictionary once, that’s what I always say.

[bob]

@Tempo Gain

I found “pian4 yu3” in a dictionary once, that’s what I always say.

So you would say “ming2ci2 pian4yu3” to mean noun phrase?

Eventually this is going to get into the different kinds of phrases: idioms which can be transparent or opaque, and grammatical phrases which are not fixed at all (if you don’t consider collocational influences)

I would like to be REALLY clear on whether I am talking about grammar phrases or idiomatic phrases.

Idioms are cheng2yu3 if it’s a fixed expression, xi2guan4yong3yu4 if it is customary speech (whatever that means) but how would you say pure idiom meaning fixed/opaque? To describe English I mean…

Bu4 qing1qu5 de cheng2yu3 maybe? I was taught pian4yu3 but I guess that’s wrong.

As I mentioned, Times says that a noun phrase is a ming2ci2 duan3yu3.

Pian4yu3 is listed everywhere to mean phrase. I’m wondering if that is the umbrella term to describe idiomatic “and” grammar phrases, in which case ming2ci pian3yu2 would work fine, right?

(sorry, little confused here)

[bob]

@bob

I’ll come back and give it a go here in writing later) but I’d like to know I have it exactly right.

Here goes…

(I’ve more or less given up on ci2zu3 and duan3yu3 for the time being in favor of pian4yu3 which indeed does seem to be the umbrella term for “phrase” much like “phrase” in English actually.)

1. The short answer to a “who” or "what’ question is often a noun phrase.

Shei2 gen1 shen2me5 wen4ti2 de5 duan3 de5 hui2da2 chang2chang2 shi4 yi1 ge5 ming2ci2 pian4yu4.

2. The short answer to a “where” or “when” question is often a prepositional phrase.

Zai4 na3li3 gen1 shen2me5 shi2hou5 wen4ti2 de5 duan3 de5 hui2da2 chang2chang2 shi4 yi1 ge5 jie4xi4ci2 de pian4yu3.

3. The short answer to a why (for what purpose) question is often an infinitive phrase.

wei4shen2me5 (shen2me5 mu4di4) wen4ti2 de5 duan3 de5 hui2da2 chang2chang2 shi4 yi1ge5 bu4ding4ci2 de5 pian4yu3.

4. The answer to a “how” (by what means) question is often a by + gerund phrase.

Zen3me5 (yong4 shen2me5 fang1fa2) wen4ti2 de5 duan3 de hui2 da2 chang2chang2 shi4 yi1ge5 dong4ming2ci2 de5 pian4yu3.

5. To make yes/no questions you take the first word of the verb phrase and put it at the beginning of the sentence.

Ba3 yi1 ge5 cun2xu4shou1ming2 gai3wei2 yes/no (ma5/shi4 bu2 shi4/ dui4 bu2 dui4/ yao4 bu2 yao4 etc.) de5 yi2wen4ju4 ba3 (cong dong4ci2
pian4yu3) di4-yi1 ge5 zhu3 dong4ci2 fang4 zai4 ju4zi5 qian2mian4.

and one more…

6. Infinitive phrases function as noun or adverb phrases.

Bu4ding4ci2 de5 pian4yu3 gong1neng2 shi4 ming2ci2 pian4yu3 hai2shi2 fu4ci2 pian4yu3.

[ironlady]

[quote=“bob”]

So you would say “ming2ci2 pian4yu3” to mean noun phrase?[/quote]

I seem to remember using “ziJu”. “ziJu” 字句 seems to be for “clause”, which this is, in a grammatical sense, but “ziJu” is really “subordinate clause”. (Also, “ziJu” is cited by Glossika – yeah, the flown-by-night company that tried to get me and about five others deported in 2002, defeated through the Power of Forumosa… but that doesn’t necessarily make their terminology wrong I suppose.)

Taiwanese Web sources seem to be pretty much split between “duanyu” “Pianyu” and “ziJu”, all with “minGzi*” in front. I’d probably pick one at random and then use the “blank stare test” to see if anyone has any idea what you’re saying. After all, even if you use the correct phrase, they may not be familiar with the concept.

1) The short answer to a “who” or "what’ question is often a noun phrase.

Yao jianduan di* huIdA Wen “sheI” Huo “sheNme*” de YI Ju Hua, pinGchanG Yao Yong minGzi* Pianyu huIdA.

2) The short answer to a “where” or “when” question is often a prepositional phrase.

Yao jianDuan di* huIdA Wen “na li” Huo “sheNme* shIHou” de* YI Ju Hua, pinGchanG Yong JiacI Pianyu （介词片语）．

3) The short answer to a why (for what purpose) question is often an infinitive phrase.

Yao jianDuan di* huIdA Wen “WeisheNme*” (weIhE) de* YI Ju Hua, pinGchanG Yao Yong DongminGcI Pianyu. (动名词片语）．

)4) The answer to a “how” (by what means) question is often a by + gerund phrase.

Yao huIdA Wen “rU hE” de* YI Ju Hua, pinGchanG Yong “by” JIA DongminGcI. (I would not translate the “phrase” here as it’s not what would be expected, IMHO, in Chinese. You’re just giving the formula: say “by” and add a gerund.)

5) To make yes/no questions you take the first word of the verb phrase and put it at the beginning of the sentence.

Yao Wen Shifou WentI, zhi Yao ba DongcI Pianyu de* DiYI ge* cI FangZai Na Ju Hua Zui qiaNMian.

[quote]and one more…

6. Infinitive phrases function as noun or adverb phrases.[/quote]
   bUDing (cI) Pianyu keyi DANG minGcI Pianyu Huo FuminGcI Pianyu.

HTH
Again (as usual) I am not a native speaker or writer of Chinese, so the above will have flaws, but that’s what I’d say. Maybe someone else can fix them up. BTW, my searches in support of the above (I’ve forgotten a lot of my grammar talk in Chinese!) were all done adding the .tw to the search string, to try to shift the results to the current usage in Taiwan.

[bob]

@ironlady

Taiwanese Web sources seem to be pretty much split between “duanyu” “Pianyu” and “ziJu”, all with “minGzi*” in front. I’d probably pick one at random and then use the “blank stare test” to see if anyone has any idea what you’re saying. After all, even if you use the correct phrase, they may not be familiar with the concept.

Ain’t that the truth. I meet people who don’t seem familiar with the concept of an alphabet. They have a “passing” familiarity I suppose but not so much understanding as to be able to pronounce the thing or understand it when they hear it.

Anyway, I’ve checked with resident expert and the Chinese translation I have of “Understanding and Using English Grammar - Betty Schrampfer” Both agree that pian4yu2 is the preferred term.

[quote]1) Yao jianduan di* huIdA Wen “sheI” Huo “sheNme*” de YI Ju Hua, pinGchanG Yao Yong minGzi* Pianyu huIdA.

2) The short answer to a “where” or “when” question is often a prepositional phrase.

Yao jianDuan di* huIdA Wen “na li” Huo “sheNme* shIHou” de* YI Ju Hua, pinGchanG Yong JiacI Pianyu （介词片语）．

3) The short answer to a why (for what purpose) question is often an infinitive phrase.

Yao jianDuan di* huIdA Wen “WeisheNme*” (weIhE) de* YI Ju Hua, pinGchanG Yao Yong DongminGcI Pianyu. (动名词片语）．

)4) The answer to a “how” (by what means) question is often a by + gerund phrase.

Yao huIdA Wen “rU hE” de* YI Ju Hua, pinGchanG Yong “by” JIA DongminGcI. (I would not translate the “phrase” here as it’s not what would be expected, IMHO, in Chinese. You’re just giving the formula: say “by” and add a gerund.)

5) To make yes/no questions you take the first word of the verb phrase and put it at the beginning of the sentence.

Yao Wen Shifou WentI, zhi Yao ba DongcI Pianyu de* DiYI ge* cI FangZai Na Ju Hua Zui qiaNMian.[/quote]

You are rephrasing as "if you want to answer a … then use a… " right?

[quote]6) Infinitive phrases function as noun or adverb phrases.
bUDing (cI) Pianyu keyi DANG minGcI Pianyu Huo FuminGcI Pianyu.[/quote]

Not sure I said that correctly. What I mean is that infinitive phrases “are” nouns or adverbs. They can’t “be” anything else I don’t think. I’m digging back a bit here too.

… were all done adding the .tw to the search string, to try to shift the results to the current usage in Taiwan.

Again ironlady you mistake me for someone who knows things. Search string?

[sjcma]

Here’s what I would say: Dang1 wo3men yong4 [XXX] lai2 wen4 wen4ti2 de shi2hou4, wo3men chang2chang2 hui4 yong4 [YYY] lai2 zuo4 jian3duan3 de hui2da2.

[XXX]=shei2 (who), shen2me (what), etc.
[YYY]=ming2ci2 pian4yu3 (noun phrase), jie3ci2 pian4yu3 (prepositional phrase), etc.

Infinitive phrases can also act as adjectives, can’t they?

Anyway, you can’t go wrong by using pian4yu3 in Taiwan but just note that ci2zu3 and duan3yu3 are valid alternatives.

[ironlady]

[quote=“bob”]
Again ironlady you mistake me for someone who knows things. Search string? [/quote]

I Googled this:

“noun phrase” 名词 .tw

to see Web pages where “noun phrase” and 名词 both appear (hopefully together, as a translation!) and which come from Taiwan (the .tw part). That helps to eliminate sources from the PRC or overseas.

I rephrased the questions to use topic-comment construction, which “seems” more comfortable to me in Mandarin. Kinda like Valley Girl speak: “Ya know those questions with ‘shei’? Usually answer them with, like, a noun phrase, ya know?”

(And that is the sum total of my wisdom on teaching the Topic-Comment construction in Chinese. Seems to work, though.)

[tempogain]

[quote=“ironlady”][quote=“bob”]

So you would say “ming2ci2 pian4yu3” to mean noun phrase?[/quote]

I seem to remember using “ziJu”. “ziJu” 字句 seems to be for “clause”, which this is, in a grammatical sense, but “ziJu” is really “subordinate clause”. (Also, “ziJu” is cited by Glossika – yeah, the flown-by-night company that tried to get me and about five others deported in 2002, defeated through the Power of Forumosa… but that doesn’t necessarily make their terminology wrong I suppose.)

[/quote]

I’m probably misinterpreting you, but a clause and a phrase are different animals. ziju is definitely right for “clause.”

[Danny_Kao]

The word “Phrase” in Chinese can be “pian yu” 片語, or “ju zi” 句子.

[bob]

@sjcma

Here’s what I would say: Dang1 wo3men yong4 [XXX] lai2 wen4 wen4ti2 de shi2hou4, wo3men chang2chang2 hui4 yong4 [YYY] lai2 zuo4 jian3duan3 de hui2da2.

I am going to fes up here and admit my Chinese grammar ain’t so hot. If you translate that bit above literally you get…

While we use [XXX] come ask question de time, we often will use [YYY] come do simple de answer.

You are a native speaker with a fantastic command of English so I’m sure you are right but it is difficult to get my head around that. The “come” in both clauses almost looks like an aspect marker (but what aspect?)

Also, the subject of both clauses is the universal we, which doesn’t quite gel in my old brain somehow either, unless there is a passive marker in there somewhere.

Infinitive phrases can also act as adjectives, can’t they?

I don’t think so. If they could we should be able to think of an example.

Anyway, you can’t go wrong by using pian4yu3 in Taiwan but just note that ci2zu3 and duan3yu3 are valid alternatives.

Fantastic. I’ve learned all three already. This almost as good as a TPRS class.

[bob]

@ironlady

I rephrased the questions to use topic-comment construction, which “seems” more comfortable to me in Mandarin. Kinda like Valley Girl speak: “Ya know those questions with ‘shei’? Usually answer them with, like, a noun phrase, ya know?”

No wonder I can barely understand it.

[bob]

Resident expert helped me with another one (or did I do this already? yes I think I did) anyway …

Wen2fa3 de5 pian4yu3 gong1neng2 shi4 bei4 yong4 lai2 dang1 cheng2 ge4zhong3ci2lei4 de5 qi2zhong1 zhi3yi1.

Which translates to…

Grammar de phrase function is passive marker? use come use as become part of speech de among them only one.

or…

A grammar phrase functions as one part of speech.

Also, one I just did…

Wen2fa3 de5 pian4yu3 mei2you3 zhu3ci2, mei2you3 dong4ci2.

Which translates to…

Grammar de phrase not have subject, not have verb.

or…

Grammar phrases do not contain a subject and a verb.

I’d like to combine that into…

A phrase is a group of words that does not contain a subject and a verb, and that functions as one part of speech.

Anyone…?

(By the way, we resolved the character/word thing by distinguishing between a compound “character” such as the ren2 (person) and zhu3 (master) which together become zhu4 (live), and a compond “word” such as “di4qiu2” (earth). The only question remaining, if we got that right, is, to which does the term ci2 refer?)

[ironlady]

I would strongly advise you to start from your own English and SIMPLIFY. Seriously. Why state things in this agonizing pedantic detail?

A phrase is a group of words.
It doesn’t have a subject. It doesn’t have a verb.
A phrase can act as a noun, or as an adverb, or as a…

Please, don’t subject Taiwanese students to the pain of saying “a part of speech”. Since you’re not even saying it in English, there isn’t even the vague excuse that they are learning English by listening to the explanation!!

Divide and conquer. Chinese “sentences” actually tend to be sections between commas in one breathless long paragraph that centers around a topic (if you’re lucky). Just say “phrase” and then make a bunch of comments about what a phrase is to you. That’ll do the trick – and it also has the added bonus of being much easier for you to keep straight with limited Chinese. You don’t get additional candies for increasing the clause depth of your utterances.

[sjcma]

@bob

[quote=“sjcma”]Here’s what I would say: Dang1 wo3men yong4 [XXX] lai2 wen4 wen4ti2 de shi2hou4, wo3men chang2chang2 hui4 yong4 [YYY] lai2 zuo4 jian3duan3 de hui2da2.

I am going to fes up here and admit my Chinese grammar ain’t so hot. If you translate that bit above literally you get…

While we use [XXX] come ask question de time, we often will use [YYY] come do simple de answer.

You are a native speaker with a fantastic command of English so I’m sure you are right but it is difficult to get my head around that. The “come” in both clauses almost looks like an aspect marker (but what aspect?) [/quote]

Actually, I don’t consider myself a native speaker of any language…but that’s another story. The lai2(come) in the usage above, I believe, acts like the “to” in front of an infinitive. And the “Dang1 de shi2hou4” construct acts like the conjunction “when”.

So given what I’ve written above, you then get:

When we use [XXX] to ask question, we often will use [YYY] to do(be) simple answer.

Clearer?

@bob

[quote]Infinitive phrases can also act as adjectives, can’t they?

I don’t think so. If they could we should be able to think of an example. [/quote]
I couldn’t think of one either, but I had a vague recollection of it being true, so I had to find one online. Here’s the example I got:

Sentence: The best way to survive Dr. Peterson’s boring history lectures is a sharp pencil to stab in your thigh if you catch yourself drifting off.

Analysis: To survive Dr. Peterson’s boring history lectures functions as an adjective because it modifies way.

[sjcma]

@bob

(By the way, we resolved the character/word thing by distinguishing between a compound “character” such as the ren2 (person) and zhu3 (master) which together become zhu4 (live), and a compond “word” such as “di4qiu2” (earth). The only question remaining, if we got that right, is, to which does the term ci2 refer?)

Ci2 refers to the latter.

[bob]

@ironlady

I would strongly advise you to start from your own English and SIMPLIFY. Seriously. Why state things in this agonizing pedantic detail?

Because I am eventually going to bring them back around to the English version which I hope will be a miracle of clarity and balance?

Otherwise I am certain you are correct. If I keep it simple I’ll have chance of remembering the Mandarin.

As always…

[bob]

@sjcma

Actually, I don’t consider myself a native speaker of any language…but that’s another story.

Please, that sounds like an interesting story…

The lai2(come) in the usage above, I believe, acts like the “to” in front of an infinitive.

Works for me.

Interesting too how we have gone from using Chinese to describe English to using English to describe Chinese.

[quote]When we use [XXX] to ask question, we often will use [YYY] to do(be) simple answer.

Clearer?[/quote]

It would be if we were asking and answering our own questions. One of the clauses should be in the passive if both take the subject “we” no? "When we ‘are asked’ a [XXX] we answer with a [YYY] " Here’s what we had…

Dang1 wo3men yong4 [XXX] lai2 wen4 wen4ti2 de shi2hou4, wo3men chang2chang2 hui4 yong4 [YYY] lai2 zuo4 jian3duan3 de hui2da2.

(be) worked better as a translation into English but it isn’t actually what was said in Chinese. Maybe I just need to forget the active/passive distinction as I think it would apply to this sentence, because in Chinese that distinction isn’t made, at least here.

[quote]Sentence: The best way to survive Dr. Peterson’s boring history lectures is a sharp pencil to stab in your thigh if you catch yourself drifting off.

Analysis: To survive Dr. Peterson’s boring history lectures functions as an adjective because it modifies way.[/quote]

I dunno. It seems odd to me. The best way is a sharp pencil? A concept can’t be a thing so…

The best way to survive Dr. Peterson’s boring history lectures is to use a sharp pencil and stab it in your thigh if you catch yourself drifting off.

A method can be an action of course so that works.

To survive Dr. Peterson’s boring history lectures is to use a sharp pencil to stab yourself in the thigh if you catch yourself drifting off.

“The best way” is a noun phrase functioning as an adjective to modify the infinitive phrase?

That’s about as much as I can squirm on this one. I maybe think you got me actually.