ABSTRACT
The function of de (的) in Mandarin Chinese can be analysed both grammatically and semantically according to Zhu (1983). In terms of grammatical function, the morpheme de is usually regarded as a nominalisation marker. That is, if it is appended to the predicate constituent VP, VP will be nominalised as VP-de. For example,
(1) kāichē de (rén) (2) kāichē de jìshù 开车 的 (人) 开车 的 技术 drive DE (person) drive DE technique ‘the driving person, i.e., driver’ ‘the technique of driving’
kāichē (开车, ‘drive’) which is originally a verb, is nominalised by de in the two examples above.
