The modal meaning of the " jau5 (有)have+VP" in Hong Kong Cantonese

摘要: 香港粤语的"有 VP"表达相对非将来的动态事件，如"佢有食早餐嘅 他吃了早饭的"。这种"有 VP"句受到严格的语篇限制，它难以作对话的始 发句单独成为一个话语片段，其陈述句排斥报导新信息，在叙事语篇 中也无法作前景句。本文发现，"有 VP"在非断言句中偏向用于一般 问句、假设条件句和否定句，在断言句中要求前文预设一个在议问题 "是否 VP？"。"有"的这种分布态势证明该词编码了情态义"肯定凸 显"，它往往起到强调确认的语用效果。本文的讨论可为研究东南汉语 里相应功能的"有"提供一个分析框架。 ABSTRACT: In Hong Kong Cantonese, the possessive verb jau5 (有) 'have' can also function as an auxiliary. It surfaces only in non-futurate dynamic episodic sentences, e.g., keoi5 gam1 jat6 jau5 sik6 zou2 caan1 (佢今日有食早餐) 'he had breakfast today'. The auxiliary use of jau5 exhibits strict selectional restrictions to the context it appears in: Jau5 fails to occur in conversation starters, is incompatible with declaratives that bring up new information, and cannot surface in foregrounded sentences in narrative discourse. This study discovers certain patterns jau5 -VP construction shows: For non-assertive sentences, jau5 is inclined to appear in polar questions, conditional clauses, and negative sentences. As for assertions, the occurrence of jau5 is only grammatical if VP-or-not? has, in previous conversation, already become the question under discussion (QUD). The contextual distribution of jau5 demonstrated in this study proves that jau5 encodes highlighted affirmation . It puts emphasis on the speaker's belief that the content proposition of the utterance is true. This study may provide a useful framework for analyzing the forms corresponding to jau5 in other south-eastern Chinese dialects.