Basic Cantonese

A Grammar and Workbook

Virginia Yip, Stephen Matthews

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781315277677
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Basic Cantonese introduces the essentials of Cantonese grammar in a straightforward and systematic way.

Each of the 28 units deals with a grammatical topic and provides associated exercises, designed to put grammar into a communicative context. Special attention is paid to topics which differ from English and European language structures.

This new edition features:

• clear, accessible format

• lively examples to illustrate each grammar point

• informative keys to all exercises

• glossary of grammatical terms

Basic Cantonese is ideal for students new to the language. Together with its sister volume, Intermediate Cantonese, it forms a structured course of the essentials of Cantonese grammar.

Unit 1
Consonants

In Cantonese, it is useful to distinguish initial consonants, that is those which occur at the beginning of a syllable, from those found at the end of a syllable.

Initial consonants

Unaspirated	Aspirated	Fricative	Nasal/liquid
Bilabial/labiodental	b	p	f	m
Dental/alveolar	d	t	s	n/l
Velar/glottal	g	k	h	ng
Labiovelar	gw	kw
Alveolar affricates	j	ch

The consonant sounds in the third and fourth columns – the fricatives f, s, h and the nasals m, n, ng – are pronounced much as in English, while the first two columns pose greater difficulty. Whereas English stops such as p and b are distinguished by the fact that p is voiceless and b voiced, no Cantonese stops are distinctively voiced; instead they are distinguished by aspiration – a burst of air emitted in the process of articulation. In English, this feature is also present in that initial p is normally aspirated and b not; however, this contrast is not a distinctive one. To an English speaker, Cantonese b as in béi 畀 ‘give’ may sound either like p (because of the lack of voicing) or like b (because of the lack of aspiration). This combination of features – voiceless and unaspirated – is not found in English, making the Cantonese consonants b/d/g difficult to recognize and produce at first. Remember that b- as in bāt 筆 ‘pen’, d- as in deui 對 ‘pair’ and g- as in gwai 貴 ‘expensive’ are not voiced. The problem also arises in romanized place names: Kowloon, for example, is generally pronounced by English speakers with an aspirated [k], but in the Cantonese form Gáulùhng 九 龍 the initial consonant is not aspirated.

In the labiovelar consonants gw and kw, the initial velar consonant is articulated more or less simultaneously with the bilabial [w] as in gwa 掛 ‘hang’ and kwàhn 裙 ‘skirt’. There is a tendency to simplify gw and kw to [ɡ] and [k], respectively, before o or u, e.g. gwok 國 ‘country’ sounds identical to gok 覺 ‘feel’. Similarly:

Gwóngjāu 廣州	→	Góngjāu Canton (Guangzhou)
gwú 估	→	gú guess
gwun 罐	→	gun can (of beer, Coke, etc.)
kwòhng 狂	→	kòhng crazy

The affricates j and ch are probably the most difficult of the initial consonants. They are distinguished by aspiration: ch is accompanied by a breath of air while j is not. There are two rather different pronunciations for each consonant, depending on the follo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Preface to the second edition
• Introduction
• 1 Consonants
• 2 Vowels and diphthongs
• 3 Tone
• 4 Pronouns
• 5 Possession: ge 嘅
• 6 Possession and existence: yáuh 有
• 7 Being: haih 係
• 8 Noun classifiers
• 9 Adjectives
• 10 Adverbs of manner
• 11 Adverbs of time, frequency and duration
• 12 Comparison: gwo 過 and dī 啲
• 13 Prepositions: space and time
• 14 Negation
• 15 Verbs of motion: heui 去 and làih 嚟
• 16 Verbs of giving: béi 畀
• 17 Verbs and particles
• 18 Actions and events: jó 咗 and gwo 過
• 19 Activities: gán 緊 and jyuh 住
• 20 Auxiliary verbs
• 21 Passives
• 22 Word order and topicalization
• 23 Yes/no questions
• 24 Wh-questions
• 25 Sentence particles
• 26 Imperatives
• 27 Requests and thanks
• 28 Numbers, dates and times
• Key to exercises
• Glossary of grammatical terms
• Index