Noun Phrases in Chinese and English: A study of English structural problems encountered by CHinese ESL students in Hong Kong

alice y.w. chan

"This paper attempts to find the sources of the problems and proposes a system of teaching priorities for the benefit of teachers and students."

"In terms of usage, Chinese pronouns are used more sparingly than their English counterparts--they are normally omitted if their referents are contextually clear."

ze5 bun2 syu1
this CLASSIFIER book

tung4 hok6 mun4
student plural

"While plural nouns (whith plural determiners when necessary( in English are obligatorily used to mark plurality...the Chinese plural marker mun4 is not used across the board."

"Like English, Chinese nouns also have the common case...and the genitive case...but neither Chinese nouns nor CHinese pronouns are distinguished by the subjective or objective case--the same form is used no matter whether the pronoun is the subject or object of a sentence."

Chan got confused between written and spoken.
"...the Chinese third person singular pronouns are also distinguished in gennder, i.e., taa1 (he), taa1(she)."

"Determiners introduce noun phrases."

"CHinese has no articles equivalent to the ENglish articles."

jat1 go 3 jan 4
one CLASSIFIER person
(a person)

dik1=possessive
ngo5 dik1 ji1 fuk6
I GEN clothes
(my clothes)

"Though the inclusion of a possessive dterminer does not make the imperatives ungrammatical, it tends to destroy the favorite style of terseness typical of the CHinese language.

baa2 (nei5 dik1( daai6 ji1 tyut3 haa6
BA (you GEN) big coat take off
(Take off your coat.)

"Classifiers in Chinese are important because in many cases the absence of a classifier, such as the direct translations from corresponding English noun phrases, would result in ungrammatical structures."

"Unlike ENglish, CHinese does not have post-modifiers."

Table 1 has ungrammatical ENglish sentences.

Topic-comment structure: "*My father he alays get my mother's money."

Resumptive pronouns: "*She is the teacher that she taught me grammar last year."

Missing relatives: "*You are the first person come to Hong Kong."
"*There is only one people look after my whole life."
"*One obvious smptom can be detected is insomnia."

Missing verbs: "The reduced relative clause in ENglish"
"*I have a large family which including grandmother, grandfather...."
"*After enjoying our delicious food which cooked by my mum, we wnt to school together."
"*The negative consequence that brought by its growth was...."

Missing subjects: "Chinese pronouns are used much more sparingly than their English counterparts...Chinese learners tend to produce English sentences with the subjects missing..."
"*I think my most important person in my life is not one, is my family."