The basic structure for Classical Chinese is topic comment. To understand a sentence of classical Chinese, we have to recognize the topic of this sentence first.
子夏問孝。 zǐ xià wèn xiào 。 | 子夏：[N]a name 問：[V] to ask 孝：[N] filial |
In this sentence, 子夏 is the topic, 問孝 is the comment. Comment can be the action which the topic did, or a description of the topic.
The sentence orders of Classical Chinese are mostly like Modern Chinese. This sentence can be literally translated as,
子夏asked filial.
This does not make much sense in English. We have to add something to make this sentence more understandable. Like,
子夏asked what filial is.
Here is another example.
爾愛其羊。 Ěr ài qí yang 。 | 爾：[N] you 愛：[V] love 其：[A] this; that 羊：[N] sheep |
The topic of this sentence is爾the comment is 愛其羊.
This sentence is quite easy to translate:
You love this sheep.
魚，我所欲也。 yú ，wǒ suǒ yù yě 。 | 魚：[N] fish 我：[N] I 所：[G] (click here for explanation) 欲：[V] want 也：[G] (click here for explanation) |
This sentence declared the topic “魚” first, then made a comment of it. The literal translation is,
Fish, My desire.
A figurative translation which fits English grammar would be,
Fish is something I want.
The problem is that topics usually are omitted in Chinese when the topic is clear enough to be understood. In Chinese, one word can even be treated as a sentence. For example,
走！ Zǒu ！ | 走：[V] run |
It is a completed sentence in Chinese.
不知也 bù zhī yě 。 | 不：[A] no, not 知：[V] know |
[I] don’t know.
As we can see, these two sentences omit the topic of the sentences. In this case, we have to know what the omitted topic is to understand the sentence.
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