SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The present study attempts an over-all investigation into the grammar of Malayan Cantonese, using an adapted tagmemio model, taking the sentence as the highest unit and the Morpheme as the lowest unit. Chapter 1 discusses the tagmemio model and its adaptations for the present study. The language described in the thesis is defined and its scope delimited in Chapter 2. A phonological statement is given in Chapter 3 as the basis of the romanisatien formulated by the author and used in the present study. The phonological statement does not attempt to be mere than a justification for the romanisation and much more work can be done on the sound system of the language, especially on tone and intonation. In Chapter 4 the levels of analysis are discussed. Chapter 5 deals with the sentence level. Chapters 6, 7 and 8 are concerned with the clause level In Chapter 6, all the emic clause types except the passive clause types are presented and dealt with. In Chapter 7, the emic passive clause types are dealt with Chapter 8 is concerned with the etic variants of emic clause types through the optional expansion of clause types and the change in the order of tagments within clause types. Chapters 9 and 10 are concerned with the phrase and word levels respectively. Chapter 11 consists of lists of affixes and particles with examples of their usage. Chapter 12 consists of a text (a narrative) and a textual analysis of part of the text. Malayan Cantonese, in becoming a language of Malaya, has absorbed certain Malay loan-words and loan translations through contact between Cantonese and Malay speakers. There are no Tamil loan-words (except for names of food), because Tamil speakers speaking to monolingual Cantonese speakers would use some form of Basaar Malay. A short list of Malay loan-words is appended to the present work; this list is not meant to be exhaustive as it is probably increasing all the time. 1 See Chapter 2. 2 Bazaar Malay is a pidgin language used as a Lingua franca when interlocutors have no other common language, e.g., a monolingual Chinese speaking to a monolingual Indian.