Cantonese Foot

This contrastive study examines the morphological characteristics of disyllabic constructions in Cantonese and Mandarin from the perspective of Prosodic Morphology. In an effort to interpret Cantonese word structures distinct from Mandarin, the author proposes a bimoraic foot model. The enduring linguistic conundrum of disyllabification (雙音化 shuāngyīnhuà) in Mandarin has increasingly captivated the attention of researchers. Not only do the majority of Mandarin words consist of two syllables, but disyllabic constructions also often serve syntactically as words rather than phrases. Building upon these observations, previous studies posit the existence of a disyllabic foot in Mandarin, functioning as a prosodic template in word formation. However, the applicability of the Mandarin foot to the morphological characteristics of other Chinese varieties remains uncertain. To address this quandary, this paper conducted a comparative analysis of the morphological characteristics of disyllabic constructions in Cantonese and Mandarin. This included Verb-Complement constructions (動補結構 dòngbǔjiégòu) and Verb-Object constructions (離合詞 líhécí). Notably, the criterion for determining the word status of disyllabic Verb-Object constructions involves assessing whether they can be followed by a direct object. This is explored through a corpus-based examination of Mandarin and a remote questionnaire survey involving Cantonese-speaking respondents. The findings reveal a more pronounced constraint on taking a direct object for Cantonese Verb-Object constructions compared to Mandarin, indicating a stronger inclination for these constructions to function as phrases in Cantonese. We interpret these findings in light of a disparity in foot structures, positing that unlike Mandarin’s disyllabic foot, Cantonese incorporates a bimoraic foot, comprising two morae within one syllable. This structural distinction implies that disyllabic constructions in Mandarin are more likely to function as words, whereas they are more commonly analyzed as phrases in Cantonese.