Just came across this page on zhongwenred:
http://www.zhongwenred.com/lessonforty.html

她 是 單身.
She is single.

According to all my dictionaries, 單身 is an adjective! So why is this sentence not:

她 很 單身.
or
她 是 單身的.

Can anyone explain, or link to a nice grammar site that will help? thanks!

I believe the adjectives that take 很 are actually stative (?) verbs like japanese い adjectives in japanese. I'm not sure if thats the right term, but the point is they don't require a verb. I also think they tend to be what you'd think of as "basic" words, single hanzi words like 大、小、長、短 etc.
Where as 單身, when used as an adjective, is a true adjective hence requiring the verb. Kind of how you can use a lot of japanese compounds as adjectives by adding の.

yeh, seems like 大、小、長 are true adjectives, and this is really a noun that can be used like an adjective for some unknown reason.

What's bugging me is this sentence on the same page:

我 喜歡 單身。
I like being single.

This is an extremely useful pattern, but now I'm unclear whether I can use it with nouns, adjectives or both. Which of these are valid:

我 喜歡 大。
I like being big.

我 喜歡 教师。
I like being a teacher.

I am yet to actually study any chinese grammar. and i dont live in china (tho i have been there and Taiwan several times) so you probably know more than i do but...I wouldn't worry too much about the the syntax of those translations too much or parts of speech. Just get used to the meaning of the pattern.

I don't know, but I don't think 我 喜歡 大。is valid. It doesn't get hits in google. I guess there is some other pattern to say "I like [to be big](stative verb)"

and I think 我 喜歡 教师 means "I like teacher" (ie. the teacher/a teacher)
It's a noun acting as object.

edit: forgot about 我 喜歡 單身。
I think this is valid because it a noun, translatable in this instance to "singledom"

I like "singledom" (living the single life or whatever)

Don't get too hung up on the grammar of the translation, it's there to show semantic meaning, not necessarily match the syntax.

btw you should post in this thread
.

It would be good if we could get that thread going, and hopefully get the attention of some decent chinese speakers.

aphasiac Wrote:[...] 她 是 單身.
She is single.

According to all my dictionaries, 單身 is an adjective! So why is this sentence not:

她 很 單身.
or
她 是 單身的.

Can anyone explain, or link to a nice grammar site that will help? thanks!

单身 is an adjective in that context when translated to English but in Chinese it's always a noun and 是, an equational verb, defines an equal relationship between the nouns. To make it more clear, compare it with another sentence with the same construction:

• 她是律师 /she is (a) lawyer, vs.
• 她是单身 / she is (a) single-body / bachelor (translated as "she's single")

You see, in Chinese, 律师 and 单身 are always nouns, while in English 'lawyer' is always a noun and 'single' is sometimes a noun and other times an adjective, depending on the context. Because of that (单身 being a noun), constructions with adjectives don't apply — they only apply when the word is an adjective in Chinese (more accurately called adjectival verbs.)

Ok got it - it's a noun meaning single / unmarried person, as well as an adjective:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/单身

It threw me as google translate gives 單人 for single person, and lists 单身 as an adjective. Also my main mobile dictionary is based on CC-CEDICT, and doesn't define nouns/ adjectives. I need to get a decent dictionary!

Cheers both of you!

aphasiac Wrote:Ok got it - it's a noun meaning single / unmarried person, as well as an adjective:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/单身

That's right, 单身 can be an adjective in Chinese, in cases such as 单身的女 / 单身女 (single woman) and 单身的缘故 (single reason) for example. According to 朗道英汉汉英词典:

unmarried
a. 未婚的, 单身的
【法】 未婚的, 独身的

single
a. 单身的, 单程的, 单一的, 个别的, 孤独的, 专一的
n. 一个, 单打, 单程票 [...]

What makes a noun an adjective in this case is the modifier 的, which sometimes can be omitted.