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At first I learned:

The most frequent sentence pattern in Chinese is S V O e.g. 你 打 我

Next I learned:

There are fixed places within this pattern, where one can put adverbials,namely between S and V and after O. S a1 V O a2 e.g. 你 去天 打 我 几个小时

Finally I learned:

There are different kinds of adverbials. Those expressing duration are put after O, those expressing time,manner and place are put between S and V in this sequence. S time manner place VO duration or for the sake of brevity S t m p V O d e.g. 你 去天 愉快地 房子后 打 我 几个小时

Now these four kinds of adverbials can't be all kinds, for instance one could think of an adverbial,that expresses the instrument

用大头棒

or the target

向踝

So, how many types of adverbials are in total and what is their sequence?

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    see grammars, e.g. "实用现代汉语语法＂，in fact see chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/10018/… where the relevant section "状语的位置＂ has been copied,
    – user6065
    Feb 15, 2017 at 19:06
  • 1
    for "递加关系状语的排列顺序＂ from ＂实用现代汉语语法＂５２４页 see chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/12197/…
    – user6065
    Feb 15, 2017 at 19:29
  • 向踝？？ 踝（小腿与脚之间，左右两侧的突起） ankle，peculiar combination, e.g. jukuu has no examples for 向踝, searching jukuu for sentences involving "ankle" yields: 3. The grass was ankle-deep. 草深至脚踝处.1. Her long skirt comes down to her ankles. 她的长裙直垂到踝部。But these do not involve prep.+ ankle as adverbial adjunct, in fact it does not seem very simple to come up with adverbial adjuncts of that type. A possible phrase with 向踝 as adverbial adjunct might be：血液从大腿上的伤口里向踝部流着
    – user6065
    Feb 16, 2017 at 4:40

2 Answers 2

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In situations like this, it IS better to make it a full sentence than just combinations of whole bunch of adverbs.

In the examples OmniBus provide above, it will create some kind of "emphasize" feeling if you put so many comma in it. If the sub-sentence belong to the same flow of actions and logics, the comma could be omitted.

In addition, the example above would be better if the order is changed to

昨天，你在房子後用大頭棒打我的腳踝，打了好幾個小時，打得很愉快。

向 means "Toward", so 打向踝 means "Hit toward ankle". Even in English, it's "off". And, who's ankle!? Yourself's!?

了(Re) is some how complicated, it often used for stating that the action is an ongoing process and it's done deal! Deal with it!

好(Hao)幾個 is an often used phrase meaning "Many of, a lot of, whole bunch of".

So the whole sentence means "Yesterday, you bit my ankle with a bat behind the house, for many hours, and you enjoy it!".

But! The OP's sentence COULD be put into one single sentence. It would be

你昨天愉快地用大頭棒在房子后打了我的腳踝好幾個小時。

But, I have to ask, who is this perverted person!?!?!?

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    We usually use "脚踝" rather than a single character "踝". +1 for "who is this perverted person".
    – Weijun Zhou
    Jan 29, 2018 at 14:06
  • Points taken, updated!
    – Pikachu620
    Jan 30, 2018 at 1:27
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It is better not to write Chinese in this way. Chinese languages are not like European languages. Do not stuff everything into a sentence. If you make sentences from those grammar books, you will end up with exceedingly long sentences with no break. As you know, Chinese do not break words with space and is very harder to read.

Those grammar sentences should be limited to a few words. Otherwise, break a sentence into many short sentences. A topic sentence with many auxiliary sentences following to give more information, and put time and place in front of the topic sentence.

你 去天 打 我 幾個小時 (This one is short. No need to change)

你 去天 愉快地 房子後 打 我 幾個小時 (This one is long, too much information, and need break it into several sentences)

去天，你在房子後，打我幾個小時，打得很愉快。
time , place,  topic & duration, feeling

You can keep adding information with more sentences

去天，你在房子後，打我幾個小時，用大頭棒打向踝，打得很愉快。
time, place, topic & duration, instrument & target, feeling
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  • 1
    in addition, 去天 should be 昨天
    – Jason Swift
    Oct 31, 2017 at 7:04

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