A syntactic analysis of the discontinuous construction of function words in Cantonese

Abstract

本文把粤语常见的虚词按照框式的观点 进行描述性的分类。虽然前后置虚词在语义上相当接近,然而,后置虚词对谓语有较多的要求,而且往往进一步表达了一些前置虚词所缺乏的意义和功能。在句法 上,前后置虚词组成一个短语,后置虚词作为这个短语的中心语。此外,从虚词的层面来说,粤语是分析性的,而普通话具有较多综合性的特点。 In this paper, function words in Cantonese are classified into three types in terms of the discontinuous construction. Although pre-function words and post-function words in the discontinuous construction are quite similar semantically , the latter imposes more constraints on the predicate and conveys some additional’ meanings that pre-function words lack. Syntactically, pre-function words and post-function words form a phrase that is headed by a post-function word. Considering the morphology of function words, it is argued that Cantonese is analytic while Putonghua is more synthetic comparatively.