The position of duration phrases
4.9
Within the ‘time when’ phrase, the order of constituents is from the largest block of time to the
smallest block of time:
一九九八年二月十五日
yī jiǔ jiǔ bā nián èryuè shíwǔ rì
1998 year February 15 → February 15, 1998
昨天晚上八点钟
昨天晚上八點鐘
zuótiān wǎnshang bā diǎn zhōng
yesterday evening 8 o’clock → 8 o’clock last night
4.6 The relative order of the ‘time when’ phrase and
the location phrase
When a sentence includes both a ‘time when’ phrase and a location phrase, ‘time when’ gener-
ally occurs before location.
subject + time when + location + verb phrase
我每天在家吃饭。
我每天在家吃飯。
Wǒ měitiān zài jiā chī fàn.
I eat at home every day.
4.7 The position of adverbs
Adverbs occur at the beginning of the predicate, before the verb and any prepositional phrase.
Adverbs usually occur after the ‘time when’ phrase.
我上个月只看了一个电影。
我上個月只看了一個電影。
Wǒ shàng gè yuè zhǐ kàn le yī gè diànyǐng.
Last month I only saw one movie.
C 15
4.8 The position of negation
Negation occurs before the verb and any prepositional phrase. It usually occurs after an adverb,
though certain adverbs may either precede or follow negation.
C15, 27.2
4.9 The position of duration phrases
Duration phrases are time phrases that indicate the length of time that an action occurs. Duration
phrases directly follow the verb. Unlike English, there is no preposition associated with the
expression of duration in Mandarin.
我在中国住了三年。
我在中國住了三年。
Wǒ zài Zhōngguó zhù le sān nián.
I in China lived three years. → I lived in China for three years.
