Old Chinese - Grammar - Sentence Structure

Sentence Structure

As with English and modern Chinese, Old Chinese sentences can be analysed as a subject (a noun phrase, sometimes understood) followed by a predicate, which could be of either nominal or verbal type.

Before the Classical period, nominal predicates consisted of a copular particle *wjij 惟 followed by a noun phrase:

"I am a young person." (Book of Documents 27, 9)

The negated copula *pjə-wjij 不惟 is attested in oracle bone inscriptions, and later fused as *pjəj 非. In the Classical period, nominal predicates were constructed with the sentence-final particle *ljaj 也 instead of the copula 惟, but 非 was retained as the negative form, with which 也 was optional:

(of shooting at a mark a hundred paces distant) "That you reach it is owing to your strength, but that you hit the mark is not owing to your strength." (Mencius 10.1/51/13)

The copular verb 是 (shì) of Literary and Modern Chinese dates from the Han period. In Old Chinese the word was a near demonstrative ("this").

As in Modern Chinese, but unlike most Tibeto-Burman languages, the basic word order in a verbal sentence was subject–verb–object:

"Mencius saw King Hui of Liang." (Mencius 1.1/1/3)

Besides inversions for emphasis, there were two exceptions to this rule: a pronoun object of a negated sentence or an interrogative pronoun object would be placed before the verb:

"The years do not wait for us." (Analects 17.1/47/23)

An additional noun phrase could be placed before the subject to serve as the topic. As in the modern language, yes/no questions were formed by adding a sentence-final particle, and requests for information by substituting an interrogative pronoun for the requested element.

In general, Old Chinese modifiers preceded the words they modified. Thus relative clauses were placed before the noun, usually marked by the particle *tjə 之 (in a role similar to Modern Chinese 的 de):

"... the heart that cannot bear the afflictions of others." (Mencius 3.6/18/4)

A common instance of this construction was adjectival modification, since the Old Chinese adjective was a type of verb (as on the modern language), but 之 was usually omitted after monosyllabic adjectives.

Similarly, adverbial modifiers, including various forms of negation, usually occurred before the verb. As in the modern language, time adjuncts occurred either at the start of the sentence or before the verb, depending on their scope, while duration adjuncts were placed after the verb. Instrumental and place adjuncts were usually placed after the verb phrase. These later moved to a position before the verb, as in the modern language.