t’s see what the functions of them are in the following passage.
2.1.1 Definition and Grammatical Function of Noun
Nouns can be divided into proper noun and common noun，which is not so obvious in Chinese. Common noun is a general name for a group of people or things, which can be divided into abstract noun, material noun, collect noun as well as individual noun. Proper noun is the name for a particular person, place, organization, country, etc.
Noun is very important in a sentence, understanding the function of them plays a
dominant role in understanding one sentence. The functions of nouns are:
(1) Subject. It is the same both in Chinese and in English.
(2) Object. Human beings and things can be the receptionist of action, therefore noun can be object.
(3) Predictive. The general structure is: subject + be+ predictive when it serves as predictive.
(4) Direct objective and indirect objective. They are twins, which comes one after another. If there is no indirect object, there will be no direct object, we call it object only then.
(5) Object of preposition. Noun can be after proposition as object
(6) Attributive. Noun can be attributive no matter in English or in Chinese. It is not so complicated in Chinese, however it is a different case in English, because it involves singular form and plural form. The most typical example is man/woman+ noun. Man/Woman should be changed into men/women in English, which is not necessary in Chinese.
(7) Appositive. There is one kind of clause called appositive clause, antecedent is a group of special words, like “idea”, “fact” those abstract noun. While in Chinese there is no appositive clause.
2.1.2 Definition and Usage of Verbs
Verb is a kind of words describing the action and status of persons or things， verb and noun are the most important vocabulary in any language, without them, it is impossible to form sentences.
The usage of verb is much more complicated in English than in Chinese. In English, verbs can be divided into five types: transitive verb, intransitive verb, predictive, auxiliary verb, a modal verb. In Chinese most verbs can be modified by “着, 了, 过”, which is compatible with simple past tense in English. Next let us see the usage of different verbs.
Verbs have 16 tenses, which are based on changes of transitive verb, minus or plus auxiliary verb.
(1) Content verb or its third singular form is aimed to present accustomed, commonly happened, immediate action, but some sensory verbs, like tell, hear, write, say, etc deliver past-time information. If they are added auxiliary verb，don’t, doesn’t, the sentences become negative.
(2) Past tense can describe action or existed situation in the past time. In the subjunctive mood sentence, there is exception that past tense sometimes displays action or situation at present or in the future.
(3) If added will, shall or be going to in front of verbs, it is called future tense, meaning actions, situation, or trend in the future.
(4) If put should, would in front of verbs, it is called past future tense, displaying action or situation in the future standing on the point of past time.
(5) If verbs are following auxiliary verb have, has, it expresses the fact that the action or the situation happens in past time, which is not exact, and still have certain effect up to now.
(6) It is almost the same, if verbs are following auxiliary verb had, it shows that the action or the situation happens before a period of past time, sometimes this pattern is used in subjunctive mood.
There are 16 tenses in active voice, the number is the same in passive voice, all of which depend on the changes of verbs, and we can s
