The sentence final particle 住 and the discontinuous constructions in Cantonese

Abstract

本文主要研究香港粤语句末"住"的语 法特点,发现一些新的语料,补充过去文献的不足,提出论据支持把"暂时……住"分析为一个"框式结构"的观点,并且讨论"住"跟"暂时"和否定词的关系, 研究所谓"多重虚词"的问题。此外,我们认为"住"应该归属跟时间相关的词语类别,而并非位于句子最高的位置。 Based on the grammatical properties of the sentence final particle [tsy 22 ] in Hong Kong Cantonese that are unveiled in this paper,it is argued that the adverb [tsa m 22 si 21 ](暂时) ’temporarily’ and the sentence final particle [tsy 22 ] form a discontinuous construction.The negation and [tsy 22 ] do not form a discontinuous construction.It is also argued that [tsy 22 ] should be analyzed syntactically as a category associated with tense and aspect,rather than a category in the highest position of the clause expressing mood and clause type.