questions

[brenda]

Could someone please help me with these questions. If you know anything about this please help me out



1. What is the origin of most words in your language? Are they derived from another language or an older form of the languagae

2. Can you tell from word endings or beginnings what their part of speech is? Are words made up of multiple morphemes?

3. What typology does this language follow (SVO, SOV, VSO, etc)? What is the order for subjects and predicates? nouns and adjectives?

4. Does thie language have aritcles, and if so, where are they located in relation to the noun?

5. How are questions formed in this language? Are there specific "question" words? Is there a particular order?

6. How is negation dealt with in this language? Is there a word that is equivalent to the English "not"?

7. Are verbs conjugated in this language? Do they have endings that indicate person, number and/or gender?

8. Is there grammatical gender in this language (nouns and corresponding pronouns and adjectives that are masculine, feminine, neutral) Is there a differenece between feminine and msculine forms of verbs depending on who is speaking and/or who is being addressed?

9. Do nouns have case endings that indicate their function in the sentence

10. Is there a difference between a formal and informal second person singualr form?

11. How similar to or different from English is the grammatical system of this language?

[alanna]

oh`` it's difficult```

[Qiang LI]

Q1: According to historical findings, most of Chiese characters drived from drawings. In acient time, our ancesters scripted the shells of tortles to forecast, and then those drawings evaluated into today's Chinese characters.
so, our written language is use to describe worlds rather than to record pronciatuation.
Chinese characters are devided into several parts, each of which has its own meaning. When these parts are composed, a new meaning and a new character is created. But it is noticed that the above principle does not work in morden simplified Chinese.
eg. 田=farm, or field, it is a typical ideographical character.
and 山=mountain/hill, 水=water/river/sea/lake ...... are ideographical characters as well

[Qiang LI]

Q2: in acient times, it is impossible to find the pronuncations of characters, because every word was unique. people had to remember the pronunciations. but as time past, we fix the pronounc1ation of every word. Because we compose some parts(morphemes)/words to create new words. Characters of morden Chinese are usually divided into at least parts( some words cant be divided), one express the meaning, the other refers to pronouncation.
A Chinese saying is that" konwing half of a character make you know half of the pronunciation"

[Qiang LI]

Q3,Morden Chinese is effected by Latin language, but it still keeps its unique grammer.
usually, the typology is SVO, but the loacation and time parts are offen followed after Subjective.
eg.
我 今天 在必胜客 吃 饭。
I today in PizzaHut had meal.( I had meal in PizzaHut today)
but some dialects still keep acient chinese grammer, espically in Cantonese.
eg. Mandarin:你先走
Cantonese:你走先

[Qiang LI]

Q4.
There are no articles in Chinese. we use pronouns located before nouns:
eg. the/this man:这个男人
that man: 那个男人
a man: 一个男人
these men:这群男人
those men:那群男人

[Qiang LI]

Q5:
yes ,we usually use "question" words to form a qusetion.
eg.
他 今天 去了 宜家
he today went IKEA (He went to IKEA today)
他 今天 去 宜家 了吗？
(Did he go to IKEA today?)

Compare the 2 sentences above, you will find that the second is added by a question word "吗".
but you also should notice that the adv "了" changes its location. Because the character "了",when following after a verb, usually refers to finishing or did something. But if you form a question, you have to move it to the end of a sentence.

[Qiang LI]

i will answer other questions soon

[brenda]

thank you so much!!!!!

[Qiang Li]

Q6
yes, we use negation words "不","没有", "没" to structure negation sentense.
generally, the word "不" is used to express something unhappened, and the "没有""没" are used to negate sth happened.
eg.
He will not go to IKEA.
他 将 不 去 宜家。
He did not go to IKEA.
他 没有/没 去 宜家。
In classical literatures, they also used "否","非" as negation words, but these words are reletativelly seldom used in everyday language.