Download or read book Cantonese Particles and Affixal Quantification written by Peppina Po-lun Lee and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-06-21 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cantonese, the lingua franca of Hong Kong and its neighboring province, has an unusually rich repertoire of verbal particles. This volume significantly augments the academic literature on their semantics, focusing on three affixal quantifiers, -saai, -hoi and -maai. The author shows how these verbal suffixes display a unique interplay of syntax and semantics: used in a sentence with no focus, they quantify items flexibly, according to an accessibility hierarchy; with focus, focus comes into effect after syntactic selection. This fresh and compelling perspective in the study of particles and quantification is the first in-depth analysis of Cantonese verbal suffixes. It compares the language’s affixal quantification to the alternative determiner and adverbial quantifiers. The book’s syntax-semantics mapping geography deploys both descriptive and theoretical approaches, making it an essential resource for researchers studying the nexus of syntax and semantics, as well as Cantonese itself.

Download or read book Focus Manifestation in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese written by Peppina Po-lun Lee and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-05-23 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One prominent function of natural language is to convey information. One peculiarity is that it does not do so randomly, but in a structured way, with information structuring formally recognized to be a component of grammar. Among all information structuring notions, focus is one primitive needed to account for all phenomena. Focus Manifestation in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese: A Comparative Perspective aims to examine from a semantic perspective how syntactic structures and focus adverbs in Mandarin Chinese and semantic particles in Cantonese conspire to encode focus structures and determine focus manifestation in Chinese. With both as tonal languages, Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese manifest different morpho-syntactic configurations to mark focus. A general principle governing focus marking in Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese is given in the book, which aims to give a better understanding on the underlying principles the two used to mark additive and restrictive meanings, and related focus interpretations. Particular attention is also drawn to the co-occurrence of multiple forms of restrictive and additive particles in Cantonese, including adverbs, verbal suffixes and sentence-final particles. Linearity has shown to be an important parameter to determine how focus is structured in Cantonese. This book is aimed at advanced graduate students, researchers and scholars working on Chinese linguistics, syntax and semantics, and comparative dialectal grammar.

Download or read book Linguistic and Cognitive Aspects of Quantification written by Katalin É. Kiss and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-07-25 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume presents the results of psycholinguistic research into various aspects of the grammar of quantification. The investigations involve children and adults, speakers of different languages, using a variety of experimental paradigms. A shared aspect of the studies is that they present their experimental results as evidence evaluating linguistic theories of quantification. Topics discussed include the interpretation of universal, comparative, and superlative quantifiers, quantifier spreading, scope interaction between pairs of quantifiers and between quantifiers and wh-phrases, distributivity and cumulativity, the interaction of quantifier interpretation with information structure, the disambiguating role of prosody, the functional overlap between universal quantification and perfectivity, and much more. The focus on experimental evidence makes this book essential reading for linguists (syntacticians, semanticists and pragmatists), psycholinguists and psychologists interested in quantification.

Download or read book Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language Volume II written by Denis Paperno and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-06-30 with total page 1012 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work presents the structure, distribution and semantic interpretation of quantificational expressions in languages from diverse language families and typological profiles. The current volume pays special attention to underrepresented languages of different status and endangerment level. Languages covered include American and Russian Sign Languages, and sixteen spoken languages from Africa, Australia, Papua, the Americas, and different parts of Asia. The articles respond to a questionnaire the editors constructed to enable detailed crosslinguistic comparison of numerous features. They offer comparable information on semantic classes of quantifiers (generalized existential, generalized universal, proportional, partitive), syntactically complex quantifiers (intensive modification, Boolean compounds, exception phrases, etc.), and several more specific issues such as quantifier scope ambiguities, floating quantifiers, and binary (type 2) quantifiers. The book is intended for semanticists, logicians interested in quantification in natural language, and general linguists as articles are meant to be descriptive and theory independent. The book continues and expands the coverage of the Handbook of Quantifiers in Natural Language (2012) by the same editors, and extends the earlier work in Matthewson (2008), Gil et al. (2013) and Bach et al (1995).

Download or read book Utterance Particles in Cantonese Conversation written by Kang Kwong Luke and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1990 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Utterance particles, also known as modal particles or sentence-final particles, form a class of words in Cantonese which is of great descriptive and theoretical interest to students of language. Most utterance particles do not have any semantic content (truth-conditional meaning), and few can be said to have a consistent grammatical function. They are notorious for being extremely resistant to conventional syntactic and semantic analysis. The aim of this book is to seek a better understanding of utterance particles by concentrating analytical attention on three of them; namely, LA (la55), LO (lo55), and WO (wo44). Adopting a set of theoretical assumptions and analytical methods in the tradition of Conversation Analysis within an ethnomethodological framework, an attempt is made to approach these objects by examining them in the context of interactional details in naturally occurring conversations. This book presents original accounts of, and fresh insights into these utterance particles in Cantonese. But it also raises theoretical and methodological questions of more general interest. These include, among other things, the status of data and evidence in the analysis of language, and the possibility of a socially constituted linguistics.

Download or read book The Changing Languages of Guangxi Southern China written by Yang Huang and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-05-30 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a case study of the evolution of “finish” morphemes in Yue and Zhuang Tai-Kadai, this book examines how an internal factor (grammaticalization) and an external factor (language contact) interacted to produce the polyfunctionality of the specific “finish” morphemes in the languages of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Southern China. Arguing that the Central Southern Guangxi Region is a micro-linguistic area, Huang also introduces five unique areal features shared by many of its languages.

Download or read book The Handbook of Chinese Linguistics written by C. T. James Huang and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-02-27 with total page 694 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Chinese Linguistics is the first comprehensive introduction to Chinese linguistics from the perspective of modern theoretical and formal linguistics. Containing twenty-five chapters, the book offers a balanced, accessible and thoughtfully organized introduction to some of the most important results of research into Chinese linguistics carried out by theoretical linguists during the last thirty years. Presenting critical overviews of a wide range of major topics, it is the first to meet the great demand for an overview volume on core areas of Chinese linguistics. Authoritative contributions describe and assess the major achievements and controversies of research undertaken in each area, and provide bibliographies for further reading. The contributors refer both to their own work in relevant fields, and objectively present a range of competitor theories and analyses, resulting in a volume that is fully comprehensive in its coverage of theoretical research into Chinese linguistics in recent years. This unique Handbook is suitable both as a primary reader for structured, taught courses on Chinese linguistics at university level, and for individual study by graduates and other professional linguists.

Download or read book SEMANTIC PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS written by Oi-Wan Winnie Chor and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "A Semantic and Pragmatic Analysis of Verbal Particles in Cantonese" by Oi-wan, Winnie, Chor, 左靄雲, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of thesis entitled A SEMANTIC AND PRAGMATIC ANALYSIS OF VERBAL PARTICLES IN CANTONESE submitted by Chor Oi Wan Winnie for the degree of Master of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in June 2004 The present study is an attempt to develop a systematic and unified way of accounting for the range of meanings exhibited by verbal particles in Cantonese and to develop a more satisfactory way of grouping them into categories. It aims at examining and describing the particles' semantic and pragmatic properties. Studies in the past have tended not to treat Cantonese verbal particles as a system. In this thesis, an attempt is made to fill this gap. The observations made in this study are based primarily on a close examination of a Cantonese corpus consisting of about 8 hours of genuine, colloquial, unscripted and spontaneous speech. The term "verbal particle" in this study is defined as a versatile, grammatical bound form occurring immediately after verbs. Altogether 16 particles are identified: 35 22 55 35 35 33 23 21 gan "," zyu "," hoi "," zo "," hei "," gwo "," haa "," maai 33 35 21 35 55 55 55 "," saai "," gam "," wan "," sei "," can "," dak "," faan 22 " " and ding " ." It is proposed that they can be classified into three semantic categories namely aspect, quantification and modality. 35 22 55 35 35 The seven verbal particles gan "," zyu "," hoi "," zo "," hei "," 33 23 gwo " " and haa " " are termed aspectual particles. By using some syntactic and 35 35 33 23 semantic tests, it is found that zo "," hei "," gwo " " and haa " " can be 35 22 55 further classified as perfective particles while gan "," zyu " " and hoi " " the imperfective particles. 21 33 21 35 The four particles maai "," saai "," wan " " and gam " " are considered as quantificational particles. They put emphasis on different parts of the 21 quantificational process. Maai " " emphasizes the quantification of the last of a 33 series of items in a domain while saai " " puts the emphasis on the quantification 21 of "all" items in a domain. On the other hand, wan " " includes every single item 35 being quantified while gam " " emphasizes that only "part" of what is being quantified is at issue. 35 55 55 55 The remaining five particles sei "," can "," dak "," faan " " and 22 ding " " are found to be closely linked to the expression of modality in Cantonese and therefore are termed modal particles. They allow speakers to express their attitudes towards certain situations and to reflect their thoughts in their mental world. DOI: 10.5353/th_b2914744 Subjects: Cantonese dialects - Particles Cantonese dialects - Verb phrase Cantonese dialects - Semantics Pragmatics

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Information Structure written by Caroline Féry and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 1133 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides linguists with a clear, critical, and comprehensive overview of theoretical and experimental work on information structure. Leading researchers survey the main theories of information structure in syntax, phonology, and semantics as well as perspectives from psycholinguistics and other relevant fields. Following the editors' introduction the book is divided into four parts. The first, on theories of and theoretical perspectives on information structure, includes chapters on focus, topic, and givenness. Part 2 covers a range of current issues in the field, including quantification, dislocation, and intonation, while Part 3 is concerned with experimental approaches to information structure, including language processing and acquisition. The final part contains a series of linguistic case studies drawn from a wide variety of the world's language families. This volume will be the standard guide to current work in information structure and a major point of departure for future research.

Download or read book The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language written by Chan Sin-Wai and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-14 with total page 829 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language is an invaluable resource for language learners and linguists of Chinese worldwide, those interested readers of Chinese literature and cultures, and scholars in Chinese studies. Featuring the research on the changing landscape of the Chinese language by a number of eminent academics in the field, this volume will meet the academic, linguistic and pedagogical needs of anyone interested in the Chinese language: from Sinologists to Chinese linguists, as well as teachers and learners of Chinese as a second language. The encyclopedia explores a range of topics: from research on oracle bone and bronze inscriptions, to Chinese language acquisition, to the language of the mass media. This reference offers a guide to shifts over time in thinking about the Chinese language as well as providing an overview of contemporary themes, debates and research interests. The editors and contributors are assisted by an editorial board comprised of the best and most experienced sinologists world-wide. The reference includes an introduction, written by the editor, which places the assembled texts in their historical and intellectual context. The Encyclopedia of the Chinese Language is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital research resource.

Download or read book Cantonese A Comprehensive Grammar written by Stephen Matthews and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-05-24 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cantonese: A Comprehensive Grammar is a complete reference guide to Cantonese as spoken by native speakers in Hong Kong. It presents a fresh and accessible description of the language, concentrating on the real patterns of use in current Cantonese. This makes it the ideal reference source for all learners and users of Cantonese, irrespective of level, in schools, colleges, universities and adult classes of all types. Moreover, it will provide a lasting and reliable resource for all fluent speakers of the language. The book is organized to promote a thorough understanding of Cantonese grammar. Arranged by both syntactic categories and language functions, the Grammar provides an in-depth treatment of structures and pays special attention to idiom and speech registers. Explanations are full, clear and free of jargon. An extensive index, numbered paragraphs and generous use of headings and cross-references provide readers with easy access to the information they require. Features include: Comprehensive pronunciation section Full use of examples from films, advertising and authentic conversations Cantonese-English parallels highlighted throughout the book All examples given in characters as well as pinyin

Download or read book Plurality and Classifiers across Languages in China written by Dan Xu and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2012-12-19 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Plural marking, numeral classifiers and reduplication constitute the main means of quantification marking in the domain of grammar. The contributions in this book focus on the typological correlation between the three different strategies for quantification, as well as on some general issues. A better understanding of the quantification strategies in the languages of China will enrich our comprehension of human language and thought. The book is expected to have an impact on the study of linguistic typology, language contact, and patterns of the evolution.

Download or read book Directional Particles in Cantonese written by Winnie Chor and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first on Cantonese that deals with the grammaticalization phenomenon systematically. Focusing on a group of twelve directional particles, this book tracks their grammaticalization pathways from full-fledged directional verbs, to directional particles indicating meanings relating to tense-aspect, modality, and quantification, in the post-verbal position. Some of these particles have undergone further grammaticalization to convey speaker's subjective as well as intersubjective stances. This book is also unique in its diachronic component. Examples in the book are drawn from various sources including early Cantonese pedagogical texts, Cantonese films, and contemporary Cantonese corpora, with data ranging from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. This book will be a valuable resource not only for all linguists interested in the development of grammatical forms, but also for teachers and students in conversation/discourse analysis, psychology, and anthropology interested in deepening their understanding of the interaction between language structure and use.

Download or read book Particles of Uncertainty written by Dana Scott Bourgerie and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Three Streams of Generative Language Acquisition Research written by Tania Ionin and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume contains a representative sample of papers presented at the 7th meeting of the Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition – North America (GALANA-7) conference. The book features three streams of research (Variation in Input, First Language Acquisition, and Second Language Acquisition), each of which investigates the nature of language acquisition from the generative perspective. A unique feature of the GALANA-7 conference, and of this volume, is the bringing together of research on generative language acquisition and research on the role that cross-dialectal input variation plays in acquisition. This volume should be of interest to scholars and students of first language acquisition, second language acquisition, and input variation.

Download or read book Final Particles in Standard Cantonese written by Roxana Suk-Yee Fung and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book A Study of the Functions and of the Presentations of Cantonese Sentence Particles written by Shun-Chiu Yau and published by . This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "A Study of the Functions and of the Presentations of Cantonese Sentence Particles" by Shun-chiu, Yau, 游順釗, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. DOI: 10.5353/th_b3194643 Subjects: Chinese language - Dialects - Particles - China - Guangzhou