Leung, Helen Hue Lam (2020). Combining NSM explications for clusters of Cantonese utterance particles: laa3-wo3 and zaa3-wo3. In Bert Peeters, Kerry Mullan, & Lauren Sadow (Eds.), Studies in ethnopragmatics, cultural semantics, and intercultural communication: Vol. 2. Meaning and culture (pp. 187-206). Singapore: Springer.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-32-9975-7_10
Abstract:
Utterance particles expressing speakers’ attitudes, assumptions or feelings are indispensable in informal Hong Kong Cantonese. Everyday conversation would sound very unusual if they were omitted. There are approximately 30 ‘basic’ (monosyllabic) particles, which can be either used on their own or combined with each other in ‘clusters’, i.e. polysyllabic combinations where two or more particles occur one after the other in immediate succession. Clusters of particles have consistently been claimed to have the combined meaning of the separate particles of
which they are made up; however, in the absence of rigorous semantic analyses of the individual particles involved, evidence for this has been scant at best. Indeed, the range of use of each of the particles is broad and varied, and it is extremely difficult, even for native speakers, to satisfactorily explain their meanings and functions. Most prior studies provide semantic descriptions that are vague, contradictory, and sometimes untrue. The current chapter builds on some of the evidence-based, translatable and testable NSM explications of individual particles put forward in the author’s earlier work, which demonstrated that the particles have stable and identifiable meanings. It shows how, using NSM, the semantic content of clusters of Cantonese utterance particles can effectively be derived from the meaning of individual particles.
Two clusters are examined, laa3-wo3 and zaa3-wo3, which are formed from three ‘basic’ particles: laa3, zaa3 and wo3. The short explications of the individual particles are combined to create ‘joint’ explications, with the resulting cluster definitions tested by substitution into real examples taken from the Hong Kong Cantonese Corpus. It is found that the combined NSM explications adequately portray the meanings of the particle clusters.
Rating:
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
