Examples of verbless sentences in Chinese

Question

祝大家元旦快乐！

I am looking for examples of Chinese verbless sentences. I have a few, I'm not too sure if Chinese people would really say things like this. They are all quite short.

Does anyone have any longer example sentences?

我中国人。
我中国人，你澳洲人。
我两部电脑。
屋里许多蚊子。 今天刚星期三。

Somehow related is to this is the use of 是。* indicates unacceptable.

For example:

1. 他只是孩子。
2. *他只孩子。
3. 他也许是张三。
4. *他也许张三。

If you want to use adverbs, you need 是 it seems.

Answer 1

I think 今天星期三 is more usual to be used than 今天刚星期三.

And some people use this kind of structure to concatenate other structure. For example: 我两部电脑, If you want to describe that both of two computers of your own are break. You can say that 我两部电脑都壞了. This example show that 都壞了 concatenate after 我两部电脑.

And sometimes, people do not need to use a verb in sentence, if they just need to use adjective to describe somethings. for example: 這幅畫好漂亮 in English: This picture is so beautiful. There is no verb in 這幅畫好漂亮.

Answer 2

如你发现的，无动词汉语句子只是句子的一种。按句子结构划分，有四种类型，分别是动词谓语句；形容词谓语句；名词谓语句和主谓谓语句。 As you found out, Chinese verbless sentences is just only one kind of sentnces. There are four kinds of sentences in terms of structure. They are respectively sentences with verbal predicates; sentences with adjectivel predicates; setences with nominal predicates and sentences with an S-P phrase as the predicate. 你写的几个短句（我中国人。我中国人，你澳洲人。我两部电脑。屋里许多蚊子。 今天刚星期三。）都是名词谓语句。它的特点就是结构比较简单，句子较短。多用于口语。 The sentnces you wrote are all setences with nominal predicates. The characteristics of it is simple in structure and short, Usually is used more often in spoken Chinese. 另外，你提到的“是”字，这是一类特殊的动词谓语句，我们叫做“是”字句。它的形式是 主语+是+宾语。 Another, you mentioned“是”,It is a special sentence form, we call it as “是”-sentence. Its form is subject +是+object. 例如： 他是孩子。“是”字前边可以加副词做状语，“他只是孩子。” “是”字句的否定形式是：主语+不是+宾语。例如“他不是孩子”； 这里要注意的是，除了少数表示范围的副词可以放在“不”和“是”中间以外，其他副词一般都不能插入。 Here need to pay attention,Except for a few adverbs of range ,generally speaking,other adverbs cannot be inserted between 不and 是，for example : 他们不都是学生。他不只是孩子。 “是”字句的正反疑问句的形式是：主语+是不是+宾语？或 主语+ 是+ 宾语+ 不是？ 例如; 你是不是老师？或 你是老师不是？ The affirmative-negative forms of the 是-sentence: subject +是不是+ objective? or subject +是+ objective+不是?

Answer 3

Instead of explaining verbless structure, which other posts have done a great job, I shall present you with a longer example. But notice that, it's all depending on how you define 'verb' . If you say all predicate must center a verb, all sentences except for the shortest ones, contain at least a verb.

I think descriptive sentences are quite easy to keep clear from nomal 'verbs'. So I recall one of my compositions about the scenery of my high school campus and its surroundings, and one paragraph of it doesn't include a single 'normal verb' as predicate:

譬若坡上杜英，湖畔杨柳，隰以鸢尾，间以樱桃，树树繁华：山茶、紫叶桃、红叶李；丛丛锦绣：木槿、石决明、金鸡菊。XX山上：树林茂密，老木参天，浓阴匝地；遗迹冷清，佛影悠然，檀香氤氲。漫步则取荫游胜，骑行则健体强身。此间之XX（School name），不亦宜乎？

（漫步、骑行 are subjects as nouns，取荫游胜、健体强身 are predicatives as adjectives. Hahhahhh）

The following excerpt indeed uses verbs as predicates, but for the sake of consistency I put it here to form an undivided paragraph.

又XX明珠自握：香樟丰衍，檵木拥丛，玉兰芬绽，紫薇蕊吐。早夏穿廊，稠李弥漫；年节返校，迎春惠来。屋盖覆绿，池塘簇荷，石墙爬蔓，瀑布生芜。习诵其中，心赏目悦。