When learning the separable words in Chinese, the foreign students may often see the words such as 推翻、提高、长大、养活and 说服, which belong to the separable words of verb-complement type. In the separable words of such type, the relationship between the two morphemes is to supplement and illustrate such as the words提高、打倒、抓紧and分开. According to the property of the two morphemes, it can be divided into two classifications.
First of all, the property of the former morpheme is relatively pure, the verbal property. Therefore, the separable words of supplement are as a matter of fact those of verb-complement type. Another type is that the latter morpheme is adjective or verbal property. The adjective type like 提高and抓紧while the verbal like 打倒and推翻. Another important type that the foreign students who attend to free Chinese lessons need to know is the separable words formed by adding 得after a verbal morpheme like记得、舍得and要得.
However, such type of separable words contains the positive meaning. As a result, if you want to express the negative meaning, you need to add the negative adverb 不between the verbal morpheme and the suffix 得such as 记不得、舍不得and要不得. Of course, it can also form the structure A不A得to indicate the question like 这事你记不记得and花钱你舍不舍得. No mater it is the positive form or the negative form, the separable words of this type can take object like 只顾得赏花and顾不得你了.
For some overseas students who learn Chinese online free, they should know the separable words of supplement type are all transitive verbs and then can take objects. For some examples, we can say提高质量、打倒敌人and抓紧时间. Besides, the supplement separable words can add the auxiliary word 得and the negative adverb不between two morphemes to indicate whether there is the possibility of something or not. They can take objects even when they are expanded like听到to听得到to听得到他讲话.