Prepositional phrases and verbs

[Toag]

I was going through modern mandarian chinese textbook, and I was confused by how to structure prepositional phrases in a sentence. The book said the prepositional phrase should always come before the verb (subject+prepositional phrase+verb+direct object). They gave the example: 他跟他的女朋友吃完饭，where 跟他的女朋友 is the prepositional phrase, I believe.

However, when doing some practice problems I discovered this sentence: 你将来想跟什么样的人结婚。

I know that both 想 and 结婚 are verbs, but why does 想 appear before the predicate phrase 想跟什么样的人?

Thank you!

[Angelina]

I think that 想跟什么样的人 is not a predicate phrase here.

The structure of the sentence is [你将来想[跟什么样的人结婚],so the prepositional phrase 跟什么样的人 comes before the verb 结婚.

[Michaelyus]

What determines the order of serial verb constructions (/ chain constructions) in Chinese? In general, 1) time, 2) goal-orientation / telicity. So 想 goes before 结婚.

So where should the prepositional phrases / coverbal phrase go? It has to be before one of the content verbs. Before both, or just before the latter?

Actually, both are entirely possible.

The one above is before the latter; but it in fact can be before both:

我昨天到那边上班吃得好多。

So it relates more to the meaning of the verb. In general, whichever is more strongly connected to the coverbal phrase gets the phrase put before it.

As a verb of intention, 想 tends to take whole-predicate objects (thus including verbs) anyway. But note 我在那里想起要去...

[Ruben von Zwack]

I second what Angelina says. I am terribly bad at grammatical names, so I better don't comment on how to call those phrases, but I think analysing which parts of the sentence refer to each other might help you.

When in doubt I cross out everything one can leave out while the sentence is stil correct (without changing word order of course) - for example:

你将来想跟什么样的人结婚 , that's basically the core of the sentence: "你想结婚", "you want to marry".

The 想 cannot be in any other position, just wouldn't make any sense, like *你结婚想 "*you marry want".

Same exercise for your first sentence:

他跟他的女朋友吃完饭. He's finished eating. That's the core sentence.

If you fancy, you could put that 想 in there too and voilà you'd have the same structure as in your marrying example:

他想跟他的女朋友吃完饭. He wishes he would finish eating sooner than his girlfiend. (... I think! I'm still just a wannabe fresh intermediate so please correct me if I'm wrong!)

[Toag]

Thank you for your help guys!

[zoe]

想 is a modal verb. Modal verb always goes before the verb and after the subject.

i.e. 我想去法国。

negative is 我不想去法国。

Different with English, prepositional phrase always goes before the verb In Chinese.

i.e. I'd like to go to France with you.

我想跟你一起去法国。