How do you say "phrase" in Chinese?

[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.