Where is the verb in 便宜点儿吧？

[mirgcire]

I have heard and read this phrase often.  But recently I wondered which one is the verb.  Is this just an idiomatic phrase, or is it a pattern?  It seems like you can say 多一点儿吧 and 长一点儿吧. So, does 一点儿 imply "can you make it ..." when no other verb is present?

[metlx]

my understanding is that 多 can be treated as an intransitive verb.

 

多一点吧 = (Add) a little more (of something) [directed at another speaker]

 

Check this site for more info on 多:

http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/cgi-bin/agrep-lindict?query=%A6%68&category=wholerecord

[mirgcire]

Referring to the book "Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar" by Ross and Ma, I noticed Mandarin does not have adjectives, it has "adjectival verbs".  I always thought that this was just a strategy to explain why there is no "is"/是 needed in some Mandarin sentences.  (The ones that assign attributes to nouns - such as 他很高).  But maybe there is more to it than I realized.  Could it be that adjectival verbs can be imperatives also?

[陳德聰]

Ever heard someone say 快點？

[lips]

Ask the same question on the English phrase

A little bit more.

[Michael H]

There's no verb. 便宜点儿 means "a little cheaper". The particle 吧 makes it into a gentle suggestion. As in English, you don't always need a verb when it is clear from context.

[mirgcire]

@陳德聰, excellent point.  快点 is the same pattern: adjective followed by 点.  

@lips, with regard to "a little bit more", I am thinking that some words (such as, "would you like ...") have been omitted for brevity.

@Michael H, what verb would you add to 快点 or 便宜点吧 that would make it more clear.

 

It occurs to me that 好吧 is also a perfectly good sentence with no verb.

 

This seems like a grammar pattern.  It is probably documented somewhere.

[陳德聰]

（給我）便宜點吧

[AniaSroka]

便宜 is predicate adjective in this phrase.

[roddy]

Same place the verb in "Bit cheaper?" is. 

[Shelley]

Is there a rule a sentence must have a verb? Or in fact any other parts of speech?

[Lu]

I think there is a rule like that, but as you yourself demonstrate, it's not always followed. IIRC, a string of words is not officially considered a sentence if it doesn't contain a verb.

[Shelley]

Oh ok, thanks Lu.

 

My English grammar is absolutely non- existent. I can use it but I don't know what things are called beyond the basics. I actually find this a problem when trying to understand and learn chinese grammar.

[889]

“IIRC, a string of words is not officially considered a sentence if it doesn't contain a verb.”

那当然了。

[Lu]

那当然了。

Isn't the verb in that one 當然? Just as 好 is the verb in 那好了?

 

(Or is this nonsense and is my brain cooking from translating a hideously difficult linguistics article all day.)

[889]

I'd probably call it an adverb, but then I'd never call myself a grammarian in English or Chinese.

Practically speaking, though, it's certainly not the same as 好，which unlike 当然 can take modifiers.

那真当然。

(In any event, I subscribe to the view that essentially defines a sentence as a stand-alone unit of a language, verb or no verb, though in far more careful and precise terms than that.)

[YuehanHao]

There are grammatical requirements in English (and maybe Chinese as well) to construct a complete sentence.  But there is no law that all people must use complete sentences at all times and in all places.  Complete sentences have a place in formal writing and speeches, but they are not always necessary or useful in many venues of daily life, especially in spoken language but frequently in written text (e.g., periodicals, books, internet forums, etc.) as well in modern times.  In these cases, the significance of omitted components is thought to be immediately apparent, and to speak of them would be wasteful, awkward, and annoying.

 

For example, which is more natural for a passenger to the driver of a get-away car: "Faster!" or "You drive faster!"

 

Or a spotter to a crane operator: "Left!" or "You move the beam to the left!"

 

Especially in Chinese, I don't know the rules as to whether certain short bits of text can be classified as sentence (or whether the omission of certain sentence components can be said to change the grammatical function of the remaining components), but still my naive advice: perhaps one might best not start out with a default assumption that phrases one comes across, especially in daily life, are grammatically complete sentences with all the various components explicitly expressed.

[lips]

Well said.

AFAIK, there is no requirement in English and Chinese to *always* use complete sentences. Even in writing.

[li3wei1]

Think of the English sentence utterance "No". Is that a verb? a noun? And of course you can say it in Chinese, too, "不", and in both languages, it will make perfect sense in the right context. The Concise Oxford says that a sentence contains or implies a subject and predicate, so maybe this doesn't qualify as a sentence.

 

Sticking to complete sentences is an indicator of formality, so in certain situations, such as academic and legal writing, I'd say there is a rule, or at least a very strong presumption, in favor of complete sentences.

[BanZhiYun]

@889 Chinese parts of speech are not as clear as the ones in English (or my native tongue for example). The proof for that is in Ancient Chinese none of the scholars considered "part of speech" being a gramatical function to the words. It is a western concept used on Chinese to familirize it with other languages. You can, though, use parts of speech (noun, verb, adjective etc.) to classify words, but these classifications are not eternal. E.g.: “我喜欢学习” (学习 here is a noun, right? 我喜欢什么？喜欢学习）and then ”我学习英语“ (学习 here is a verb, 我做什么？学习 英语）. All in all, it's much better to do a gramatical analysis on sentences to decide what's the role of the word in it (aka classify them as subjects, predicates etc). It's much more accurate for Chinese.

There are 2 main sentence (concering simple sentences ［单句］) structures in Chinese, one is called 主谓句, one is called 非主谓句. The 主语 and 谓语 can be made of very complex structures themselves. You can 百度一下 what 主谓句 and 非主谓句 are, they can be sub-divided in a few more subdivisions. 

About 主谓句, in Chinese you can have a 动词谓语句 （我学习英语） and 形容词谓语句 （那很好）. Hope this helped.

(I am not here to argue with anyone that has "argued" with me in other threads, thought I'd clarify this)