Introduction

While a number of grammars of Mandarin Chinese are available, a substantial reference grammar of Cantonese written in English has long been lacking. Chao Yuen-Ren’s A Cantonese Primer (originally written in 1947) devotes only a brief, though valuable, chapter to grammar, while Samuel Cheung Hung-Nin’s landmark grammar A Grammar of Cantonese as Spoken in Hong Kong ଉཽᆕ፿፿ऄऱઔߒ (1972, revised edition 2007) is available only in Chinese. The more thorough language courses such as Parker Huang and Gerald Kok’s Speak Cantonese deal with grammar only in a sporadic fashion, and were written in the 1960s. Subsequent develop- ments in the language, as well as in the linguistic description of Chinese, make a reference grammar all the more necessary. The ﬁrst edition of this book, published in 1994, was intended to ﬁll this long-standing gap.

The general lack of attention to Cantonese grammar is remarkable in view of the vital role of Cantonese as a lingua franca in Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou and overseas Cantonese communities. While many Hong Kong people can communicate in English, there have always been some Westerners in Hong Kong and abroad who have attempted to learn some Cantonese. The language has acquired the reputation of being difficult for second language learners: indeed the subtly differentiated tones and consonants which seem initially awkward, in addition to unfamiliar sentence structures, present daunting challenges. This impression is unfortunate, however, since in certain other respects the language is relatively simple: there are no case forms or verb conjugations as in European languages, for example, and a minimum of inflectional forms to be learnt. It is the word order and syntactic structures that constitute the major grammatical difficulties.

A number of reasons may explain why so few grammars of Cantonese are available. Cantonese is regarded as a dialect, not having the status of a full-ﬂedged language, even by its speakers. Even linguists have tended to 1

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis Introduction assume that the Chinese ‘dialects’ share the same or similar grammar. Furthermore, Cantonese is essentially a spoken language. Grammars – as opposed to phrase-books – traditionally take the written form of a language as the standard to be described. To the extent that Cantonese is written down at all, it is heavily affected by standard written Chinese, which is based on Mandarin; as a result, there is no clear distinction between what is ‘Cantonese’ and what is ‘Mandarin’ (see below on the relationship between written and spoken Cantonese), rendering a grammar of written Cantonese impracticable. In the descriptive approach to linguistics on which this book is based, the spoken form of any language is taken to be primary, the written form derivative;1 we thus reject any notion of the superiority of written language and the devaluation of spoken Cantonese which all too often results from such attitudes.

The present grammar is intended to meet the needs of the following kinds of readers:

(a) learners using the grammar in conjunction with a language course; (b) those who use some Cantonese socially and professionally but are looking to improve their grammatical knowledge and the accuracy of their language; (c) those with some knowledge of Mandarin who are interested in Cantonese for comparative or practical reasons; (d) linguists working on aspects of Cantonese or looking for a detailed description of a variety of Chinese other than Mandarin; (e) Cantonese speakers, such as teachers of English and speech therapists, who wish to develop their metalinguistic awareness of the language; (f) teachers of English to Cantonese speakers who want to learn more about their students’ ﬁrst language; (g) teachers and students of translation/interpretation to and from Cantonese.

In order to make the book as accessible as possible, we have sought to use a minimum of linguistic terminology.

The language and its speakers

Cantonese is the most widely known and inﬂuential variety of Chinese other than Mandarin. It belongs to the Yue group of dialects (Cantonese Yuhtyúh ᆕ፿, as in Yuhtyúh pín ᆕ፿ׂ ‘Cantonese ﬁlm’ and Yuhtkehk 2 ᆕᏣ ‘Cantonese opera’). Yue dialects are spoken primarily in the southern

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Guangxi, and in the neighbouring Introduction territories of Hong Kong and Macau.2 Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong is generally known as GwóngdEng Wá ᐖࣟᇩ, after the province of Guangdong. Varieties of Cantonese are also used in Chinese communities in Singapore, Malaysia, North America, Australia and elsewhere as a result of emigration from the Guangdong area and from Hong Kong itself. According to the Ethnologue (Lewis 2009), native speakers of Yue dialects in all countries amount to some 55 million, ranking sixteenth in the top 100 languages by population. Having been a British colony for over 150 years, Hong Kong has recognized both Cantonese and Mandarin, alongside English, as ofﬁcial languages since the handover of sovereignty to China in 1997. The ofﬁcial language policy of Hong Kong léuhng màhn sAam yúh ֮ࠟ Կ፿, calls for its citizens to be ‘biliterate and trilingual’, speaking Cantonese, Putonghua and English and being literate in both English and standard written Chinese.

Within China, far from being replaced by Mandarin, Cantonese enjoys growing prestige as a result of the rapid economic development of the southern coastal districts led by Guangdong province. Students around China learn Cantonese in order to do business with Hong Kong and Guangdong: Ղ) at the same timeק Cantonese is said to be ‘heading north’ (bAk séuhng as Mandarin progresses southwards (làahm hah তՀ: Zhan 1993).

The usage described in this grammar is that of Hong Kong Cantonese. Traditionally, the speech of Guangzhou (Canton) is the standard of com- ,ᇩ and ‘Cantonese’; howeverڠparison, hence the terms GwóngjAu Wá ᐖ the majority of Western users of the language will have more contact with Hong Kong Cantonese. In Singapore, Malaysia and the overseas Chinese communities, there are distinctive varieties; yet the inﬂuence of Hong Kong Cantonese is strong, due in part to ﬁlms, television programmes and ‘Canto-pop’. The impact and popularity of Hong Kong Cantonese in all these different forms spread through pop culture naturally contribute to its growing prestige.

The descriptive approach

In keeping with the goals of the Reference Grammars series, this volume aims at comprehensive coverage, providing reference for the student and scholar of the language while foregrounding the more essential aspects of sentence structure for the beneﬁt of the learner-user. 3

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis Introduction As a grammar of the spoken language, the book is intended to reﬂect current usage. Several features of Cantonese described in earlier works are omitted because they are not representative of the Cantonese currently spoken in Hong Kong. For example, the high level and high falling tones are considered to be non-distinctive (see below on the romanization system); as a result, the tone sandhi rule changing a high falling tone to high level as described by Chao (1947) is no longer operative. In cases of doubt, the usage followed reﬂects that of the second author, a native Cantonese speaker born and raised in Hong Kong.

The grammar adopts the descriptive approach which is the basis of modern linguistics: it aims to describe how the language is actually spoken, rather than to tell the reader how it should be spoken. For example, the pronunciation léih is adopted in place of the traditional néih ܃ ‘you’. Under this approach, there is no issue of ‘correct’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’ Cantonese (except perhaps in reference to a non-native speaker’s use of the language, where ‘good’ means ‘approximating to a native speaker’s usage’).

The fallacy of ‘correct’ pronunciation

Like many languages, Cantonese suffers from a misguided tradition of prescriptivism, whereby self-appointed ‘experts’ prescribe ‘correct’ forms. Whereas in English the focus of such prescriptions is on grammar, in Cantonese it falls on pronunciation. Certain pronunciations resulting from sound change are considered ‘sloppy’ or ‘lazy’ (láahn yAm ᡗଃ). The ‘correct ଃ) approach is a prime example of a prescriptive approachإ) ’pronunciation to language, in which prescriptions for ‘proper’ language use are handed out by an authority. Such an approach may be contrasted with a ‘descriptive’ one, which aims to describe facts about language objectively. It is widely acknowledged in linguistics that the prescriptive approach lacks any scientiﬁc basis (see e.g. Pinker 1994). In Cantonese, prescriptive rules largely take the form of specifying ‘correct pronunciations’. Thus néih ܃ ‘you’ is speciﬁed as ‘correct’ and léih as ‘incorrect’ or ‘lazy’. There are numerous fallacies here, including the following:

(a) The ‘lazy’ pronunciation léih is the result of a well-documented sound change whereby the consonant /n/ at the beginning of the word changes to /l/. This particular change has been documented in detail since the work of Chao Yuen-Ren and Wong Shek-Ling in the 1930s (when it was still in progress) to the present, when it is essentially complete. High 4 frequency words such as néih/léih ‘you’ and nC/lC ‘this’ are typically the

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis last to be affected by the sound change. Such sound changes are a Introduction natural feature of all languages (Aitchison 2001). (b) The selection of néih as the ‘correct’ form is entirely arbitrary. Materials from the nineteenth century show that the word was then pronounced níh, and that the diphthong [ei] developed from [i]. We have a well- documented series of sound changes: níh néih léih. There is no basis whatsoever for selecting the historically intermediate form néih, which happens to have been the predominant pronunciation during the early twentieth century, as the ‘correct’ one. (c) There is no reason to believe that teaching and conscious correction will be able to reverse such sound changes, either in individuals or at the level of the Hong Kong speech community. An example of the futility of insisting on correct pronunciation is the word ழၴ ‘time’, usually pronounced sìhgaan but prescribed as sìhgAan with a high level tone for ၴ. The so-called correct pronunciation is never heard except in classrooms where prescriptivism is taught and examined. Whatever the justiﬁcation for the prescription, this is a trivial matter when there are so many real problems facing children and learners in achieving the policy goal of biliteracy and trilingualism. Teachers facing these challenges can do without the kind of pseudo-problems created by prescriptivism.

In place of the prescriptive approach, we recommend a descriptive approach to students’ native languages. In the area of pronunciation, an important goal is phonological awareness, which is known to be an important predictor of reading ability. This includes being able to isolate consonants, vowels, diphthongs and tones. Students should be able to represent pronunciations phonemically using IPA and/or a romanization system such as the Yale system or Jyutping as developed by the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong.

In place of prescriptive concerns, our focus is on grammaticality – what sentences are possible in spoken Cantonese – and on what kind of language is appropriate to which kinds of context, leading to an emphasis, within the descriptive approach, on distinctions of register: styles of speech appropriate for particular kinds of context and associated with different levels of formality. In most areas of grammar there are alternative possibilities which belong primarily to one register rather than another: a construction or idiom used in polite conversation might be out of place in the street-market, and vice versa. Cantonese lacks a strong prescriptive grammatical tradition prescribing or stigmatizing certain grammatical constructions; such prescriptive ideas as there are tend to reﬂect the prestige of Mandarin usage, with the result that structural patterns based on Mandarin may be preferred 5

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis Introduction to those indigenous to Cantonese. Such structures are included with reference to their Mandarin origin and stylistic status.

While informed by linguistic thinking and research, the grammar aims to avoid unnecessary terminology, sticking where possible to established and widely understood terms such as subject and object. Nevertheless, some unfamiliar terms such as serial verb and topicalization are introduced where there are no equivalents in traditional English grammar: serious learners of the language will need to come to terms with these concepts, which are fundamental to the grammar of Cantonese.

The format of the grammar follows the established order of parts of speech familiar to Western readers. However, this does not imply that these categories are always appropriate for Cantonese. Some discussion is devoted to the problems of applying traditional Western grammatical categories to Chinese (see in particular ch. 3).

Cantonese and Mandarin

Some excellent grammars of Mandarin inevitably inﬂuence the way one describes Cantonese grammar. Chao (1968) and Li and Thompson (1981) in particular have set up a framework of categories which are widely adopted – if only as a point of departure – in discussions of Chinese grammar. The present grammar is intended to be compatible with this framework, although numerous open questions remain regarding the categories and analyses assumed. Similarly, terminology which is not part of the Western grammatical tradition is generally drawn from descriptions of Mandarin grammar such as those mentioned above. Occasionally, terms are adopted from language typology and comparative grammar, such as the term indirect passive (see 8.4.1 and the examples below).

For the beneﬁt of readers with some knowledge of Mandarin, reference is made to salient similarities and contrasts. Some prior knowledge of Mandarin is an invaluable asset in the study of Cantonese. Although the two languages are not mutually intelligible, their grammatical structure is broadly similar in most major respects. Their relationship is comparable to that between languages within the Indo-European language families: thus Cantonese differs from Mandarin to much the same extent as French differs from Spanish, or Swedish from German. While no one would suggest that French and Spanish share the same grammar, this is often assumed in 6 the case of Mandarin and Cantonese. The perception that Chinese dialects

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis share a common grammar is increasingly seen as misguided (Yue-Hashimoto Introduction 1993). Chao’s comment that ‘one can say that there is practically one universal Chinese grammar’ (Chao 1968: 13) has been argued to be the product of wishful thinking (Matthews 1999). The perception that varieties of Chinese share the same grammar is a further reason why a Cantonese reference grammar has not been attempted thus far. Because phonology and vocabulary present the most striking contrasts, the differences in grammar, often relatively subtle, tend to be overlooked. For example, Cantonese and Mandarin appear to have very similar passive constructions. Both allow the indirect passive construction in which the passive verb retains an object:

Mandarin

ݺ๯ʻԳʼ ೢԱ ߫՗ Wn bèi (rén) tdu-le chbzi I by (person) steal-PFV car ‘I’ve had my car stolen.’

Cantonese

ݺନԳ ೢ䦹 ਮ ߫ Ngóh béi yàhn tau-jó ga chb I by person steal-PFV CL car ‘I’ve had my car stolen.’

However, in Cantonese the noun representing the agent of the action (yàhn Գ if its identity is unknown) must be present, while in Mandarin (as in English) the agent can be omitted. It is just these subtle grammatical differences which are of interest to the linguist and important to the language learner; particular attention is therefore paid to these distinctive features of Cantonese grammar.

Spoken and written Cantonese

Traditionally, Cantonese has been regarded as one of the many Chinese dialects. It does not have a standardized written form on a par with standard written Chinese.3 No form of written Cantonese is taught in schools or used in academic settings in any Cantonese-speaking community. When it comes to the written form, it is standard written Chinese that is taught and learnt. For educated Cantonese speakers, standard written Chinese is the written form they use in most contexts. However, in colloquial genres such as novels, popular magazines, newspaper gossip columns, informal personal 7

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis Introduction communications such as email, text and instant messaging, written Cantonese is widely used. When the written Cantonese contains too many exclusively Cantonese words and expressions, non-Cantonese speakers may ﬁnd it totally unintelligible. Another characteristic of written Cantonese is the inclusion of English words and code-switching between Cantonese and English as seen in magazines and books for middle-class readers. Relatively little attention has been paid to written Cantonese, but useful sources include Bauer (1988) and Snow (2004).

If written Cantonese is to be used systematically, as in the present book, several problems arise. Many colloquial Cantonese words lack a standard written form (see L.-Y. Cheung 1983 for examples). For example, the verb sèuh ‘slide’ as in sèuh waahttAi ‘slide down a slide’ does not have a standard character, nor does a cognate exist in standard written Chinese. Still other Cantonese words are replaced in writing by the corresponding characters in standard written Chinese. What is known as written Cantonese inevitably uses a greater or lesser number of standard written Chinese characters; if a Cantonese speaker reads such a text aloud, the result is neither Mandarin nor Cantonese but a hybrid variety. Naturally, this inﬂuence also extends to the grammar, with the result that many features of spoken Cantonese are not found in writing; indeed the grammar used is essentially that of Mandarin. The relationship between spoken and written forms of Cantonese is thus extremely complex. For these reasons, no attempt is made in this book to deal with written forms of the language. Reference is, however, made to the literary nature of certain grammatical features which are found in formal registers of speech as well as in writing. For example, in news broadcasting the passive may be used without an agent:

৖ृ ๯ ؚ႞ق ټ ؄ ڶ Yáuh sei mìhng sih-wai-jé beih dá-sbung have four CL demonstrator be hit-injured ‘Four demonstrators were injured.’

As illustrated above, this ‘agentless passive’ construction is a feature of Mandarin rather than Cantonese syntax (see 8.4).

Compared to other Chinese dialects, Cantonese has a substantial literature, both oral and written, although relatively little of this has been translated. The written literature includes poetry such as the nineteenth-century love songs edited and translated by Morris (1992). Oral literature includes children’s songs, of which a selection are transcribed with commentary in Chan & Kwok (1990). Popular works such as the cartoon series featuring 8 the pig characters McMug ຽ⤉ and McDull ຽ೧ are written in highly

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis colloquial Cantonese. These texts include many Cantonese words and Introduction expressions which are not normally considered acceptable in standard written Chinese. They are also marked by the use of English words to represent code-mixing and even to represent some Cantonese words, for example the letter D to represent the comparative dC 䢅 as in pèhng dC -䢅 ‘cheaper’. Due to the low status of written Cantonese this new literaؓ ture is frowned upon in traditional Chinese cultural circles but, like the use of Cantonese in pop songs, it appears to be generally accepted by speakers of the younger generation. This vernacular style is also increasingly found in Hong Kong newspapers (Snow 2004).

Cantonese characters

In response to requests from many users, this second edition incorporates Cantonese characters for example sentences. This serves two main purposes:

(a) it enhances readability for those with reading knowledge of Chinese. This advantage extends to speakers of Japanese and Korean. Indeed, the Japanese edition of this book by Chishima and Kataoka (2000) which includes Chinese characters has proved very useful to readers. (b) it provides an opportunity for advanced or adventurous learners, as well for speakers of other varieties of Chinese, to develop a reading knowledge of Cantonese.

For a number of Cantonese words, there is no standard character available, or competing characters exist. For example, jEngyi ‘like’ is variably represented ,as ᝻რ or խრ, while juhng ‘still’ may be written as ٘ or ૹ. In such cases two main approaches are possible:

(a) seek etymologically correct characters. The Cantonese word may be cognate with a word no longer used in standard Chinese, for which a known character exists. The drawback of this approach is that Cantonese speakers are often unfamiliar with the prescribed characters. For example, duhng dEk siu ‘stand-up comedy’ is typically written རᗱూ, in which the first character ར means ‘pillar’, but the etymologically correct character for duhng is said to be ό. The phrase dAam gDu go tàuh ‘lift up one’s head’ is generally written ᖜ೏ଡᙰ; the etymologically correct character identified for the first word is ▽ which is totally unfamiliar to speakers and seldom used in practice. (b) follow the usage of local media, such as magazines, newspapers and advertisements. 9

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis Introduction In choosing characters we have largely followed Cheung and Bauer (2002). In cases of doubt, the second approach is used. Our choice should not be taken as deﬁnitive or as stating that the character used is the only correct one. Characters are included here as an aid to reading (for Chinese readers) and learning (for non-native users) and not as a step towards standardization. There is a residue of words for which no character could be found. In particular, onomatopoeic syllables are represented by a square shape ϭʿ which conventionally means that no character is available.

Romanization

A bewildering range of romanization systems has been used for Cantonese since missionaries ﬁrst began to represent the spoken language in writing in the nineteenth century. Representing Cantonese in alphabetic form is an intrinsically challenging problem, and none of the current systems is ideal. In response to the proliferation of new systems, the Linguistic Society of Hong Kong developed the system Jyutping ᆕ਋ (Yue pinyin: Tang et al. 2002), which is increasingly used for linguistic research and a broad range of applications. The Appendix gives a conversion table listing the symbols used in the Yale International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) and Linguistic Society of Hong Kong’s Jyutping systems. In this book, the Yale system developed by Parker Huang and Gerald Kok is adopted, with certain modiﬁcations. This is the system used in Huang and Kok’s Speak Cantonese courses and other materials produced at Yale University, in Bourgerie, Tong and James’ Colloquial Cantonese (2010) and several other textbooks. Our two titles in the Routledge Grammars and Workbooks series, Basic Cantonese (2000) and Intermediate Cantonese (2001), also use the Yale system. In Hong Kong, it is used at the major universities and by the New Asia –Yale-in-China Chinese Language Centre of the Chinese University for its Cantonese–English and English–Cantonese dictionaries, which will complement this book. It is also used in the Cantonese Ping Yam Bible: A Chinese New Testament with Cantonese Phonetics produced by the Cantonese Bible Project Team (2007). Apart from being the most widely used system, the Yale transcription offers several advantages for learners of the language. First, many of its conven- tions resemble those of the Pinyin romanization used for Mandarin, which facilitates adaptation from Mandarin to Cantonese: for example, the sound 10 [j] is represented by y in both the Pinyin and Yale systems. Second, its

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis notation of tones is relatively economical and iconic: rising and falling Introduction tones are shown by rising and falling accents, which many learners ﬁnd easier to read and remember than the more or less arbitrary numbers as used in systems such as that of Sidney Lau and Jyutping:4

ⴤ lám (Yale) vs. lam2 (Sidney Lau) vs. lam2 (Jyutping) ‘think’ The Yale system uses no tonal indication for the mid level tone 3, which is appropriate since this is the most neutral of the tones:

’؄ sei (Yale) vs. sei3 (Sidney Lau) vs, sei3 (Jyutping) ‘four The one arbitrary feature of tonal marking in the Yale system is the h inserted after the vowel/diphthong for low-register tones, i.e. low rising, low level and low falling tones:

್ máh ‘horse’ (low rising) ຾ màh ‘linen’ (low falling) ᒼ mah ‘scold’ (low level) This is an economizing device, meaning that only four lexical tones need be indicated by diacritics, the mid and low level tones being unmarked. There is little danger of the silent ‘h’ after vowels being pronounced [h], and as the only arbitrary feature of the system, it does not present the kind of burden on the learner that the numerical systems do. The seven basic tones are represented in the standard Yale system as follows:

Cantonese tones in the Yale system

Rising Level Falling

High á a (à) Mid a Low áh ah àh

The standard Yale system distinguishes between the high level tone and the high falling tone (shown in parentheses in the table). However, since these two tones are no longer distinctive for most Hong Kong Cantonese speakers (see below and 1.4), both are represented as high level in this book. Thus in our system, Cantonese has only six basic tones (but note that the distinction is retained in current dictionaries using the Yale system).

The long vowels and diphthongs are represented, as in most systems, by double letters: aa (long a) vs. a (short a), aai vs. ai, e.g. gAai ‘street’ vs. gAi ‘chicken’. 11

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis Introduction Note that the romanization system used by the Hong Kong government for street names, place names and personal names as found in telephone directories, birth certiﬁcates, etc. do not match the Yale system, in particular with regard to the initial consonants. For example, the surname ᎓ generally written as Chiu is Jiuh in the Yale system. This discrepancy is due to the lack of a standardized romanization system, as may be seen from the alternative spellings of the same surname, such as Tse or Cheah for the name ᝔ which is spelt as Jeh in the Yale system (see Kataoka and Lee 2008).

Place names and personal names

Place names Personal names Government Yale Government Yale romanization romanization romanization romanization

Kowloon Gáulùhng Tang Dahng Tsimshatsui Jcmsajéui Tsui Chèuih Canton (province) Gwóngdeng Chiu Jiuh Sheung Wan Seuhng Wàahn Kwok Gwok/Gok Shatin Satìhn Tse Jeh

This grammar introduces certain modifications to alleviate some of the difficulties and deficiencies in the Yale system as used in previous works. These modifications are designed primarily to make the system easier to use, and should not be difficult for users of the Yale system to get used to.

(a) The high level and high falling tones, being no longer distinctive (see 1.4), are both written as high level; for example, standard Yale bòng ᚥ ‘help’ is written as bDng, and tìn ֚ ‘sky’ as tCn. The sentence are exceptions, as they are pronounced with ٣ particles tìm ෌ and sìn a clear falling tone (see 18.3.6). (b) Hyphenation is used to show divisions within words: for reduplicated structures, including A-not-A questions (heui-Xh-heui? ‘go or not?’); compounds such as verb–object compounds (cheung-gD ‘sing-song’); and complex numbers (sAamsahp-luhk ‘thirty-six’). Hyphenation also serves to avoid ambiguity in the divisions between syllables: pCngin ‘prejudice’ is written as pCn-gin to prevent faulty segmentation as pCng-in (the ambiguity arises because the sequence ng is used to represent velar nasal [9] as well as an n at the end of a syllable followed by a g at the 12 beginning of the next syllable).

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis I’m not going’ is Introduction‘ װc) The negative marker Xh ୆ as in Ngóh Xh heui ݺ୆) distinguished from the preﬁx m- as in msyEfuhk ୆ငࣚ ‘uncomfortable, unwell’ (see 2.1.1, 13.1). (d) Words are written separately unless there is strong reason to regard them as compounds. For example, classiﬁers are written separately from the noun because they may occur separately:

Կਮ߫ saam ga chb ‘three cars’ ’.ী Ga chb hóu yáuh-yìhng ‘The car is very stylishڶړਮ߫ Similarly, verbal particles are written as separate words because they may occur separated from the verb:

’.୆ଙ Ngóh bdng léih xh dóu ‘I can’t help you܃ݺᚥ (e) Apostrophes are introduced to represent reduced forms, such as sei’ah- yih, a contraction of seisahp-yih ‘forty-two’. (f) Initial n- is shown as l-, as in léih ܃ ‘you’ (see 1.5).

Examples

Grammatical points are exempliﬁed in the following format:

ᣄ ⛕ ଙ ʻ᫽ʼړCharacters: ݺ Romanization: Ngóh hóu làahn wán dóu kéuih Gloss: I very hard find succeed (her) Translation: ‘I have difficulty finding (her).’

Elements in parentheses are optional, i.e. they may be omitted given a suitable context. The literal gloss is intended to facilitate parsing of the Cantonese sentence and to enable the translation to be idiomatic English. The translations are based on British English as spoken by the first author, but are intended to be compatible with American usage where possible. For teachers of English to Cantonese- speaking students, the glosses may also reveal the source of typical errors: the gloss in the above example shows the source of the error type I am difficult to find with the intended meaning ‘it is difficult for me to find (something)’, which is very common in Chinese students’ English (Yip 1995). Many points which relate to discourse beyond the sentence level are illustrated with a miniature dialogue, usually shown as an exchange between A and B. This format is used, for example, to illustrate the appropriate reply to a negative question: 13

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis վֲ ୆ࠌ १ ՠ 嘅 ঻Λ B: এܴ܃ :Introduction A Léih gamyaht msái faan geng ge mb? Haih a you today no-need return work SFP SFP yes SFP ‘Don’t you need to go to work today?’ ‘No, I don’t.’

The Cantonese haih shows agreement with the premise of the question (‘you’re right, I don’t’) while English uses a negative reply (see 17.1.9).

Where possible, example sentences and dialogues are taken from samples of Cantonese as spoken in Hong Kong. Such examples are followed by an indication of the source type, as follows: (conv.) conversation (tel.) telephone conversation (ﬁlm) ﬁlm (TV) television broadcast (radio) radio broadcast (ad.) advertisement

More detailed indications of context are given where appropriate, in particular where they illustrate aspects of Cantonese culture in addition to points of grammar and usage. Example sentences not attributed to any of these sources have been constructed in consultation with other native speakers, or are recorded examples which have been modiﬁed for the purpose of exposition.

English words, although widely used by many speakers in their Cantonese speech, are not generally used in the examples for practical reasons: as the pronunciation of English words varies on a continuum from pure English to pure Cantonese, it is not clear how to represent them in romanization. Moreover, it is difﬁcult to draw the line between speaking Cantonese with English words and code-mixing or code-switching between the two languages. On these topics, see Gibbons (1979, 1987), Chan and Kwok (1984), Kwok and Chan (1985), Li (2000) and B. Chan (2003).

Revisions to the second edition

The main changes in this second edition are as follows:

Following requests from many readers, Cantonese characters have been added to the example sentences. Example sentences which have become outdated in language or content have been removed so as to save space, or replaced by updated ones reﬂecting current usage. Some sections (such as those on serial verbs and relative clauses) 14 have been reorganized to take account of recent research.

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis Numerous corrections and improvements have been made in response to Introduction reviews of the ﬁrst edition (Chan 1998, Baker 1997, Bruche-Schulz 1996, Cheung 1996, Peyraube 1996, Wiedenhof 1996). Their constructive criticisms and comments have been helpful and inspiring.

The book also reﬂects changes in our understanding of Cantonese grammar. In particular, in our recent work we have sought to combine insights from language typology, language processing and language acquisition. Our work on Cantonese–English bilingual acquisition (Yip and Matthews 2007a, 2007b), for example, has led us to rethink the description of relative clauses and noun-modifying clauses. Our studies on sentence processing have shed new light on topicalization (Matthews and Yeung 2001) and serial verbs (Francis and Matthews 2006). By combining these approaches, we aim to achieve convergence of perspectives on our conceptualization and analysis of Cantonese grammar.

Due to the additional space taken up by the characters, this new edition is unable to incorporate much of the large volume of work that has come out since the ﬁrst edition. The last twenty years have seen the rapid growth of the ﬁeld of Cantonese linguistics with an International Conference on Cantonese and Yue Dialects held regularly in Hong Kong, Macau or mainland China. Apart from Mandarin, Cantonese is generally perceived to be a most prestigious variety that has attracted researchers’ attention and students’ interest. To do justice to this research would require (and indeed justify) a whole new book. A multimedia website is available to provide supplementary materials and references: http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/lin/cbrc/CantoneseGrammar

In the course of revision, the chapters tended to grow to the point where they exceeded the page limit. To resolve this dilemma, it was decided to post on the website some of the materials that were cut.

Linguistic literature on Cantonese

A number of useful studies of aspects of Cantonese grammar have been published in English, though few of these are widely available. Major studies in English are Kao (1971) on syllable structure; Yue-Hashimoto (1972) and Bauer and Benedict (1997) on phonology; Kwok (1972) on the verb phrase; Killingley (1982a, 1982b, 1983, 1993) on aspects of Malaysian Cantonese grammar; and Kwok (1984) and Luke (1990) on sentence-ﬁnal particles. Chao (1947) includes chapters on pronunciation and grammar. 15

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis Introduction Of works in Chinese, Samuel Cheung Hung Nin’s (1972) ground-breaking study on the grammar of Hong Kong Cantonese was the ﬁrst book-length study of Cantonese grammar. This important work is available in a revised and expanded edition, making it the authoritative grammar written in Chinese (Cheung 2007). Gao (1980) on Guangzhou Cantonese is available in simpliﬁed Chinese.

A number of theses and dissertations have also made valuable contributions. Those which have helped to shape our view of Cantonese include Au Yeung (2006) on classiﬁers; Chui (1988) and Yeung (2006) on complementizers; Chan (1992) and Leung (2001) on code-mixing; A. Chan (2003), Cheung (2006), Gu (2007) and Chin (2009) on dative constructions; L. Cheung (1997) on right-dislocation; Law (1990) and Fung (2000) on sentence particles; Kwan (2005) on prepositional phrases; Lee (2004) on verbal particles; and Yiu (2005) on directional verbs.

Dictionaries

Two dictionaries which complement the grammar have been published by the New Asia – Yale-in-China Chinese Language Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The English–Cantonese volume (Kwan et al. 1991) provides romanized forms only, while the Chinese–English volume (Chik and Ng-Lam 1989) also provides characters. Sidney Lau’s Cantonese– English dictionary (1977) remains useful, especially for the large number of compound words and collocations listed, and has the advantage of being arranged alphabetically. Huang (1970) is a two-way dictionary, currently out of print. Hutton and Bolton’s (2005) dictionary of Cantonese slang complements these by including street slang. For Cantonese characters, Cheung and Bauer (2002) is an authoritative reference work.

Learning Cantonese

Several courses are available which could be used in conjunction with this grammar, including Colloquial Cantonese (Bourgerie, Tong and James 2010), in the Routledge Colloquial series, and our own Basic Cantonese and Intermediate Cantonese in the Routledge Grammars and Workbooks series (Yip and Matthews 2000, 2001). A number of user-friendly textbooks for learners of Cantonese are available, including Street Cantonese (Hung 16 2005), Wedding Bells by Lee and Kataoka (2001), A Short Cut to Cantonese

Copyrighted Material - Taylor & Francis (Lee 2002), A Cantonese Book (Chan and Hung 2005) and Cantonese for Introduction Everyone (Chow 2007).

Of earlier materials, the Hong Kong government course by Sidney Lau is particularly thorough, consisting of six volumes plus glossaries and a dictionary; however, much of the dialogue already sounds stilted, dating as it does from the late 1950s and 1960s. Also thorough, though barely more up to date, is Parker Huang and Gerald Kok’s Speak Cantonese in three volumes; containing substantial texts, it is particularly useful for learners without ready access to spoken Cantonese. The US Foreign Service Institute course (Boyle 1970) is relatively thorough and accurate in its treatment of grammatical points.