A NEW LOOK AT CANTONESE EXPLETIVES
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Cantonese is more interested in the method, carefully distinguishing to carry something light in the hand (NHENG14), something heavy in both hands (TOK'), something heavier on both ends of a pole (DHAAMM1), something still heavier slung at the middle of a pole (TROY17); and more again for carrying slung round the neck, on the head, along the ground, on an animal, a vehicle, boat, ship or aircraft. The direction (up, down, in when you're in, in when you're out, out when you're out, out when you're in, away, close up, back, forwards, etc.) for which in English we use different words and in Latin & Greek is taken care of by prefixes, in Cantonese as in most kinds of Chinese is done by adverbs or particles, with which I'll deal later.
But just as there is a word for elder brother and a word for younger brother, but no word for 'brother' (so that if you are obliged to say 'brother' without specifying older or younger you have to get round it), so it is much easier to learn all the words for different methods of fetching and carrying than to go to a lot of trouble to find an expression that will do for all, and then find you're not understood. I have put 19 of these fetch and carry words into four lines of Cantonese doggerel: it doesn't exhaust the subject but you may find it useful:
NHENG FHENQ TOK BOK CEAR DHAAMM TROY, FRUNG SUNG JRIH GHAAW PAAI WRORNG LROY, ZOI XEOI CHEAH LRAY TROH MRAAR BUUI, LHAAY ZHONQ DRAI DAAI ZURNG FHANN XHOY13,
Now perhaps you're beginning to see what I'm getting at. When we communicate with one another in speech, we don't dot all the i's and cross all the t's; we leave a dickens of a lot out. What we put in, and what we leave out, is dictated partly, of course, by what we think important at the moment; but also partly by the custom of the language in selecting what is essential and leaving out what is not. This we learn not from the grammar books but from the accepted models given to us by our early reading and by the way those around us speak when we are children,
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18 檸拹托賻扯擔抬,奉送移交派往來,載去車嚟駐馬背,𨋢裝帶總分開。
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