A comparative study of nominal predicate sentences (NPS) and SHI (be) sentences

Abstract

Nominal predicate sentences (NPS) in Chinese can be divided into two categories: NPS1 and NPS2. NPS1 that can be transformed into SHI (be) sentences are mainly assertive and static, whereas NPS2 that can't be transformed into SHI sentences are mainly descriptive, declarative and dynamic. There are two main differences between NPS and SHI sentences: different styles and different prominent degrees of information focus.