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Article published In:
Language and Linguistics
Vol. 21:1 (2020) ► pp.80–103

Two types of aa3-nominals in Cantonese

| Palacky University Olomouc
| The Chinese University of Hong Kong

This paper provides an overview of the grammatical properties of the Cantonese aa3, a nominal element that only attaches itself to [+human] nouns. We provide evidence to show that there are in fact two types of aa3-nominals. Their syntactic and semantic properties correlate with the number of syllables they consist of. There is a two-way split between disyllabic aa3-nominals and multisyllabic aa3-nominals. Aa3 in disyllabic aa3-nominals should be treated as a prosodic template filler while aa3 in multisyllabic aa3-nominals occupies a syntactic position in the referential layer of the Chinese nominal.

Keywords: proper names, phonological filler, dialectal grammar, Cantonese, familiarity
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.An overview
  • 3.Previous analyses
  • 4.Disyllabic aa3-nominals vs. multisyllabic aa3-nominals
    • 4.1Compatibility with classifiers
    • 4.2Ability to be non-referential
    • 4.3Possessor reference possibility
  • 5.Disyllabic aa3-nominals
  • 6.Multisyllabic aa3-nominals
    • 6.1Not just definite
    • 6.2Resistance to modification
    • 6.3Analysis
  • 7.Some consequences and loose ends
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 2 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00058.sio
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