5
nouns
In Mandarin, the same form of the noun is used in subject and object position.
Subject Object猫吃鱼。 我养猫。
貓吃魚。 我養貓。
Māo chī yú. Wǒ yǎng māo.
Cats eat fish. (or) The cat eats fish. I raise a cat/cats.
他学中文。 我喜欢他。
他學中文。 我喜歡他。
Tā xué Zhōngwén. Wǒ xǐhuan tā.
He studies Chinese. I like him.With the exception of the written form of the third person pronoun, tā (see 5.2 below), Mandarin
nouns are not marked for gender, and there is not the distinction between masculine, feminine, and
neuter found in many European languages. The properties of Mandarin nouns are described here.5.1 Common nouns
Most nouns are common nouns. Their referents may be concrete (纸/紙 zhǐ ‘paper,’ 桌子
zhuōzi ‘table,’ 水 shuǐ ‘water’) or abstract (思想 sīxiǎng ‘thought,’ 原则/原則 yuánzé ‘prin-
ciple,’ 自由 zìyóu ‘freedom’). Mandarin makes no grammatical distinction between ‘mass’ and
‘count’ nouns.
Mandarin common nouns have a single, invariant form. They do not reflect number, and the same
form of the noun is used whether the noun is singular or plural. When no number is used with a
noun, the noun is understood to be neither singular nor plural, but simply unspecified for number.
In addition, nouns that occur without any modifiers or descriptions have a general rather than a
specific reference. For example, 书/書 shū refers to ‘book’ in general and not to any specific book.When it is necessary to indicate the number of a noun, the noun is modified by a number +
classifier phrase. The classifier is required after the number. Number + noun without an inter-
vening classifier is ungrammatical. Compare the following:
Say this Not this一本书/一本書 *一书/一書
yì běn shū yì shū
one book
Say this Not this三个人/三個人 *三人
sān gè rén sān rén
three people
C6, 8