*** Welcome to piglix ***

Cantonese pronouns


Pronouns in Cantonese are less numerous than their Indo-European languages counterparts. Cantonese uses pronouns that apply the same meaning to function as both subjective (English: I, he, we) and objective (me, him, us) just like many other Sinitic languages.

There exist many more pronouns in Classical Chinese and in literary works, including (jyu5) or (ji5) for "you", and (ng4) for "I" (see Chinese honorifics) and However, they are not used in colloquial speech.

Third person singular (keoi5) Although (keoi5) is primarily used to refer to animate nouns (people or animals)in higher registers, it can also refer to inanimate objects and abstract entities in some restricted contexts. When (keoi5) is being referred to an inanimate item it is primarily found in the object position, rather than the subject position. In colloquial speech, its use is frequently extended to refer to nothing at all.

Plural suffix (-dei6) One of the few grammatical suffixes in the language, the suffix (-dei6) cannot be used to form plural forms of nouns.

Other than the personal pronouns as shown above, its two other uses are:

1. In the form (jan4-dei6) which is used for indefinite pronouns (people, one, etc.)

In this usage, the word (jan4) 'person' can also take (dei6) to mean 'people'. Despite the suffix (-dei6), (jan4-dei6) may have a singular or plural reference depending on the content.

This form can also be used to refer indirectly to oneself:

2. In contracted forms with names

To indicate possession (ge3) is appended to the pronoun.

For serious use, (ling6) to replace , as in 令尊 (ling6 zyun1) "Your father" as 你老頭 (nei5 lou5 dau4). In literary style, (kei4) is sometimes used for "his" or "her"; e.g., 其父 (kei4 fu6) means "his father" or "her father".

In literature, daily phrases (especially ones about family or concepts very close to the owner, or when the subject or object of the sentence is already known, then it may be omitted, e.g. 我老母 (ngo5 lou5 mou5) or replace possession indicator with classifier, e.g. 我架車 (ngo5 gaa3 ce1).


...
Wikipedia

...