Structure of a Chinese sentence

[LilyM]

What are rules of structure in Chinese sentences? Why words like today, tomorrow, yesterday go after the subject? 

[Jan Finster]

Welcome to this forum!

 

There are tons of sites and videos on this:

https://vividchinese.com/sentence-structure/

https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Chinese_word_order

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKcSdYks2gE

 

If you want to crawl this forum, then google this search term: "site:chinese-forums.com "sentence structure""

[Giuseppe Romanazzi]

I guess you are just asking about rules related to time words like those you mentioned. Otherwise this should be a reply as big as a book!

 

On 3/29/2021 at 11:03 AM, LilyM said:

Why words like today, tomorrow, yesterday go after the subject? 

Today, tomorrow, yesterday, etc. are called time words. Time words in Chinese can be single nouns or numeral-measure compounds indicating time. They may be used as subjects, objects, predicates, modifiers, headwords in a "的" structure, complements, or adverbial adjuncts. They don't necessarily go after the subject, as indicated in the following examples. All the example sentences are taken from the course at wearyourchinesename.com lessons 3, 38, 39, and 68. Time words are highlighted in bold.

 

Used as a subject: 今天三月一号。

Used as an object: 今天是星期天。

Used as a predicate: 今天三月一号。

Used as a modifier: 明年的今天。

Used as a headword in a "的" structure: 明年的今天。

Used as a complement: 生在1999年。

Used as an adverbial adjunct: 他们今天来。or 今天他们来。(emphasis on 今天)