Academic literature on the topic 'Cantonese particles'

This thesis aims at gaining a better understanding of the syntax, semantics and pragmatics of Cantonese sentence-final particles and, in particular, two focus particles zaa3 ('only') and tim} ('also'). Despite their importance in the language, these particles have not been well studied. Research on the two sentence-final focus particles will also contribute to the area of focus which has attracted much attention in recent years. A two-position account for the syntax of all sentence-final particles occurring in the CP domain couched in the minimalist framework (Chomsky 1995) is proposed to explain observations on their syntactic distributions, scopal properties and interactions with other elements such as questions and quantifiers. Focus particles, zaa3 ('only') and tim} ('also'), and the particle laa3 ('inchoative') occur in the lower position (SFP2), immediately under the higher topic, while other particles that encode speech acts, speaker-oriented modality and epistemic knowledge are generated in the higher position (SFP1) in the Force field (Rizzi 1997). Following Rooth (1985, 1992), I suggest that the sentence-final particles zaa3 ('only') and tim} ('also') are focus operators that associate with identificational focus (E. Kiss 1998, Ballantyne Cohan 2000). A distinction between information focus and identificational focus is drawn and three identificational focus-marking devices in Cantonese are discussed, namely contrastive stress, Right Dislocation and the cleft hai {'be')-construction. In addition to their respective restrictive and additive semantics, the sentence-final particles also encode procedural information (Blakemore 1987, 2000, 2002) that constrains inferential computations of conceptual representations. It is shown that scalar usage is a reflection of their procedural information encoded, and conditions licensing their usage are also discussed.

Thesis (B.Sc)--University of Hong Kong, 2000.<br>"A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Hearing Sciences), The University of Hong Kong, May 10, 2000." Also available in print.

Fundamental frequency (F0) is the most important feature among the components of prosody in a language, tone and intonation languages alike. In a tone language, how lexical tone and sentence intonation can both use F0 as their main acoustic cues has long been an intriguing question. Will the lexical tones be so resistant to modification that no elaborate intonation is possible in the language? How much of the surface sentential F0 is attributable to lexical tones and intonation? If F0 modification is kept minimal, how will prosodic focus be realized? And will the lack of focus-related F0 change be a disadvantage in terms of focus perception? In this dissertation, experimental studies have been made on Cantonese in some less well-understood aspects of its prosody. Firstly, the tonal characteristics of sentence-final particles (SFPs) in Cantonese as a special case of the interaction between tone and intonation are examined. Secondly, the acoustic correlates of prosodic focus in Cantonese are explored. SFPs are a class of words known to have functions similar to intonation. It is not yet clear, however, whether the F0 contours of SFPs are derived purely from lexical tones, purely intonational, or a combination of tone and intonation. As an attempt to offer a solution, a production experiment was designed in which sentences in Hong Kong Cantonese with ten different SFPs were recorded and detailed analyses of their F0 contours, final F0, final F0 velocity and duration were performed. The results show that most of these SFPs are very similar to the lexical tones in terms of F0 contours, but there are significant differences in durations in more than half the cases. In addition, the occurrence of an SFP does not give rise to differences in F0 and duration in the syllables preceding the SFP in most cases. But differences can be seen in sentences with question SFPs, which indicates that the prosody of the SFPs may be partly due to intonational meanings. One of the SFPs, however, exhibits a component F0 contour that seems to be sequentially attached to the end of the lexical tonal component. These findings suggest that Cantonese SFPs have underlying tonal targets just like those of lexical tones, but they also carry intonational meanings by modifying the lexical tonal contours. Previous research has shown that Beijing Mandarin, a tone language, marks focus not only by on-focus prosodic expansion like many other languages, but also by post-focus compression of pitch range and intensity (PFC). However, recently it is found that PFC is absent in Taiwanese and Taiwan Mandarin, two languages closely related to Beijing Mandarin. This finding both highlights the non-universality of PFC and raises questions about its origin. The present study explores these issues by investigating focus production in Cantonese by native Cantonese speakers born and raised in Hong Kong, and in English and Cantonese by bilingual speakers who were born and raised in Southern England. Results from the Hong Kong speakers show that, just as in Taiwanese and Taiwan Mandarin, PFC is absent in Cantonese, and mean F0, duration, intensity and excursion size were found to be higher in on-focus words. Results from the bilingual speakers show that their Cantonese also lacks PFC. More remarkably, out of the fifteen bilinguals tested, only one-third show PFC in all their English test sentences. These findings suggest that PFC is hard to transmit across languages through bilingualism. Moreover, the differential prosodic patterns among the bilingual speakers suggest that in the bilingual community, PFC may be subject to gradual loss. Although tone-intonation relationship in SFPs and the acoustic correlates have previously been studied, most of the discussion lacked supporting evidence from phonetic experiments. The present study is distinguished in its systematic experimental design and detailed acoustic analyses, and it is hoped that the results will lay the foundations for future investigations into Cantonese phonetics.

This study identifies the semantic invariants of some commonly-used Cantonese utterance particles in Hong Kong Cantonese. The particles are a distinctive and ubiquitous feature of informal, everyday Cantonese, occurring every 1.5 seconds on average (Luke 1990, 11). The particles are necessary for expressing speakers’ transitory attitudes, assumptions, or feelings connected with an utterance. Although they are not grammatically obligatory, conversation sounds unnatural when they are omitted. There are approximately 30 ‘basic’ particles, which can combine with each other to form ‘clusters’, resulting in roughly 100 variations. This number easily surpasses that of comparable particles in Mandarin, and is matched by very few, if any, other languages. Semantic analysis of Cantonese utterance particles is challenging because their meanings are extremely elusive, even to native speakers. The range of use of each particle is so varied and wide- ranging that some Cantonese speakers and scholars have concluded that the particles have no stable semantic content. Prior research on the particles has produced contradictory, vague, obscure or inaccurate descriptions.<br>Thesis (PhD Doctorate)<br>Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)<br>School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science<br>Arts, Education and Law<br>Full Text