Tips Miniseries (9/9): Pre-Verbal Objects

Okay, heads up, this is a tricky one. There’s a secret, little-known alternate position for the object in a Chinese sentence. It’s after the subject and before the verb. At the moment, we probably know of the following positions for the object:

• after the verb (the most usual position)

e.g. 我爱[OBJECT: 你]  ‘I love you.’

• preposed before the subject to emphasise the object

e.g. [OBJECT:面条]南方人也喜欢 ‘As for noodles, southerners like those too.’

• preposed after the subject but before the verb when using the 把-structure

e.g. 厨师把[OBJECT:这个菜]做烂了 ‘The chef did an awful job on this dish.’

However, there are some situations – besides when using the 把-structure – where you can use the ‘after the subject & before the verb’ position – as in (iii). Let’s take a look at a few (*DISCLAIMER*: for the time being, these are just some of my preliminary thoughts on this grammatical phenomenon – the main thing for now is just to give you some degree of awareness that this positioning of the object exists, so that you will understand it if / when you hear it):

• when using a resultative complement after the verb (e.g. the 完 in 吃完, the 见 in 看见, the 到 in 听到 etc.)

e.g. 你筷子用错了。 ‘You’re using the chopsticks wrongly.’

• when using a resultative complement after the verb and the object is possessed by the subject (usually 的 is added here, but it wouldn’t be crazy to suspect that the 的 sometimes gets dropped) – note that this is far more common than (i)

e.g. 他的衣服穿破了。 ‘He wore out his clothes (from wearing them too much).’

e.g. 他的歌唱得不好。 ‘He sings badly (literally: his song is sung badly).’

• when giving an exhaustive negation with 都

e.g. 我外语都没学过。 ‘I haven’t learnt any other languages ever.’

• in one of the ‘verb copying’ structures (see tip #8) where the first instance of the verb is omitted

e.g. 我歌唱得还可以 ‘I sing quite well.’

• when using 连 ‘even’

e.g. 他连这么简单的事都搞砸了 ‘He even screwed up something as simple as this.’

• when using question words as indefinite pronouns

e.g. 我什么都没看见 ‘I didn’t see anything (literally: I anything didn’t see).’

• when using a ‘对 + something / someone + verb’ structure

e.g. 我对历史感兴趣 ‘I am interested in history (literally: I am towards history interested)’.

Try to see if you can spot / hear these ever.

Zaijian for now!