106
K. M. A. BARNETT
emerges: these are not possessed of separate life, but occupy the place of what in English are not treated as separate words but as prefixes, suffixes and the like.
I propose to dissect only three of these classes: the pronouns, or pointing-words; the nouns, or thing-words; and the verbs, or become-words. I prefer to call them by different names to avoid the slight misunderstanding which might come from using the English, that is the Latin, terms.
The pronouns or pointing-words fall into two distinct groups: personal and general. The personal are very much like our personal pronouns, with 4 points of difference:
(a) they don't really have plural forms; though each of the three can be expanded by a particle (-DREI) to a generalized sense which I will explain when I come to nouns;
(b) they are omitted unless emphatic or unless their omission would cause doubt;
(c) they refer to animate things; except that the third person in the objective position only, and without the generalizing particle, can refer to an inanimate thing or things.
(d) as objects, direct or indirect, of a compound verb they are often infixed.
(and one further point for Mandarin speakers — the Cantonese indirect object cannot come before the direct.)
The general pointing-words are four in number and are particles inasmuch as they cannot stand unbound but only with a congruence-class word or classifier. With the classifier they behave like the pronouns this, that/near, that/far and which (including who and what), but with measure-words and the class of nouns which take no congruence-word they are bound directly to the noun: an odd point being that cardinal numbers are infixed, e.g. NHI-SHAAMM-ZHEONQ40, NHI-GEE-NRINN41 42
39 呢三張41 呢幾年
+
42 This may be an echo of the classical order noun-number-classifier which survives in some Cantonese usages, and is the usual rule in Thai. See, however, DOBSON op. cit. (19), para. 2.6.4.4.1 and p. 21 footnote 5; and the same author's Early Archaic Chinese (University of Toronto Press, 1962) paras. 2.6.7.4.4 and 5.
106
K. M. A. BARNETT
emerges: these are not possessed of separate life, but occupy the place of what in English are not treated as separate words but as prefixes, suffixes and the like.
I propose to dissect only three of these classes: the pronouns, or pointing-words; the nouns, or thing-words; and the verbs, or become-words. I prefer to call them by different names to avoid the slight misunderstanding which might come from using the English, that is the Latin, terms.
The pronouns or pointing-words fall into two distinct groups: personal and general. The personal are very much like our personal pronouns, with 4 points of difference:
(a) they don't really have plural forms; though each of the three can be expanded by a particle (-DREI) to a generalized
sense which I will explain when I come to nouns;
(b) they are omitted unless emphatic or unless their omission
would cause doubt;
(c) they refer to animate things; except that the third person in the objective position only, and without the generalizing particle, can refer to an inanimate thing or things.
(d) as objects, direct or indirect, of a compound verb they are
often infixed.
(and one further point for Mandarin speakers — the Cantonese indirect object cannot come before the direct.)
The general pointing-words are four in number and are particles inasmuch as they cannot stand unbound but only with a congruence-class word or classifier. With the classifier they behave like the pronouns this, that/near, that/far and which (including who and what), but with measure-words and the class of nouns which take no congruence-word they are bound directly to the noun: an odd point being that cardinal numbers are infixed, e.g. NHI-SHAAMM-ZHEONQ4o, NHI-GEE-NRINN41 42
39 ehk 40 呢三張 41 呢幾年
+
42 This may be an echo of the classical order noun-number-classifier which survives in some Cantonese usages, and is the usual rule in Thai. See, however, DOBSON op. cit. (19), para, 2.6.4.4.1 and p. 21 footnote 5; and the same author's Early Archaic Chinese (University of Toronto Press, 1962) paras, 2.6.7.4.4 and 5.
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