Title

Two Types of Neutral Question Markers Found in Handbook of the Swatow Vernacular

Author

Zhang, Jingfen

Genre

Article  

Pages

487-517

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese  

Key words

Handbook of the Swatow Vernacular, neutral questions, sentence-final
markers, mie, negative auxiliary verbs

Abstract

      Published in 1886, Handbook of the Swatow Vernacular 《汕頭話讀本》 is of great significance to the study of the phonology and grammar of the Chaozhou dialect at that time. One of the neutral question markers recorded in this handbook, mie 咩, is no longer used in the Chaozhou dialect today. This paper explores the distributions of two types of neutral question markers found in the handbook, namely negative auxiliary verbs and mie, and the relationship between these two kinds of markers. The paper also makes a comparative study with the neutral questions of the Southern Min
and Yue dialects.