What's Borrowed, and What's Not: Revisiting the Which-Constructions In Hong Kong Cantonese
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Date
2024-11
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Publisher
Ohio State University. Libraries
Abstract
This paper discusses an understudied, emerging type of relative constructions in Cantonese code-mixing speeches. The signature property is the usage of the English relative pronoun which, and it constitutes a relative construction that resembles its English counterpart. Earlier studies suggest that the constructions instantiate a case of lexicosyntactic transferences, involving both (i) lexical borrowing of the English relative pronoun which and (ii) syntactic borrowing of relative structures of English. However, I suggest that neither English-style relative structures nor post-modification gets into Cantonese grammar. More specifically, drawing on data collected from online forums, blogposts, magazines, and so on, I argue that the parallels between which-RCs and English RCs are only superficial. The lexical item which is lexically borrowed as a clausal-level grammatical marker that introduces a discourse relevant proposition. The grammatical function of which as a relative pronoun is bleached, and it bears a minimal relation to the head noun.
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Keywords
Relative clauses, code-mixing, borrowing, which-constructions, Cantonese
Citation
Lee, Tommy Tsz-Ming. "What's Borrowed, and What's Not: Revisiting the Which-Constructions In Hong Kong Cantonese." Buckeye East Asian Linguistics, vol. 9 (November 2024), p. 83-93.