Final Particles

[Yeleixingfeng]

Er, in 是汝乎 (si lu hor), wouldn't 乎 be the 本字 of hor? They are both phonetically and semantically related to 乎, as seen:

汝食去乎新年糕? (Lu jiak ki hor sinjia kuih?)
汝食去新年糕乎? (Lu jiak ki sinjia kuih hor?)
Sorry, I know my transcriptions are weird. >.< But its usage matches nearly exactly as that of Classical Chinese. Just wondering....

[amhoanna]

It's possible.

Is "hor" nasal in Penang, like it is in Taiwan? (Just out of curiosity.)

Iu2-koan soa2-ui7 hounnh*, I think it'll be a great idea, when it becomes possible. My biggest problem with this forum is how hard it is to log in and stay logged in. I get taken back to an empty login screen at the drop of a hat, inc. just after keying in username and pswd and hitting enter. Then I have to go fish for the thread I was working with, all over again. (Or hell, just post off-topic. Post it while the posting's good. ) And hope that I don't somehow get logged out on the way. I think Sim mentioned login problems too.

* My "hor".

[Yeleixingfeng]

Actually I still have trouble differentiating nasalised and non-nasalised ones. Anyway I found the real word for hor. It is 歟. Since 與 is read as hor (give), then naturally 歟 would follow the trend. Besides, 歟 is a combination of 也 and 乎, which fits perfectly into our current usage of hor.

As far as I know, hor is not nasalised.

[SimL]

Hi am-hoanna,

No, PgHk "hO" is not nasalized.

[AndrewAndrew]

Hi am-hoanna,

No, PgHk "hO" is not nasalized.

I'm not so sure. I think it can also be nasalised.

[amhoanna]

Menarik. Thanks.

[SimL]

Hi am-hoanna,

No, PgHk "hO" is not nasalized.

I'm not so sure. I think it can also be nasalised.

Hehe! Hi Andrew. Thanks for that. I was being "pontifical" again (something I try not to do). I should have said "in my usage, and - AFAIK - in that of my Penang relatives, 'hO' is not nasalized".

[amhoanna]

Seems like a good explanation of Penang Hokkien final "·koh".
http://angkukuehblog.blogspot.com/2007/02/part-ii.html

[SimL]

Hi Amhoanna,

Thanks for finding and posting this link. Indeed, quite a nice analysis of "koh4". I feel that the basic meaning is simply the equivalent to English "still". But I wouldn't have thought of one of the constructs. That's the one the writer illustrates with "mai ciah pheng-ko koh", which is slightly different from English "still". [The English "I still don't want to eat that apple" would imply that the speaker didn't want to eat the apple up to the time of speaking, but is also not intending to do so in the near or medium-term future, whereas - as the writer says - there is an implication that the speaker *will* want to eat the apple soon, in the Hokkien version.]

I find it a bit odd that the sample sentences given are all in Mandarin (at least, that's my impression), except for the Hokkien (or rather, borrowed Malay) word being illustrated. I mean, it's fair enough that the explanatory text is in Mandarin, but the sample sentences...?

I was also quite amazed that I could actually *read* the text. I suppose the 6 years of slog are (very) slowly starting to pay off.

[amhoanna]

Right, Sim, I know exactly what U mean. But it didn't surprise me -- this is just how Manducated Malaysians do things. There is a "religious belief" that the written form of Hokkien IS Mandarin.

Not to knock this guy, though. I can't say I've ever read a Malaysian Mandoblog that showed this much pride and awareness (even technical awareness) of Hokkien.