Cantonese Made Easy: Sentence-final Particles in Early Cantonese

Abstract

This paper represents the first attempt of its kind to conduct an historical study of the particle system in Cantonese, a dialect known for its exceptionally rich inventory of sentence final particles. By closely analyzing more than 500 sentences in Cantonese Made Easy (1888) and also its list of more than 70 particles, the paper proposes a phonological scheme with which to account for the versatility and complexity of the particle system in early Cantonese. Specifically, the investigation examines the pitch height and the vocalic nature of the particles and argues that the number of particles could be greatly reduced by taking variations in pitch and vowel quality as two parameters that underscore and inform the emotive connotation of each particle in its basic phonetic form.