Wh-Placeholders
The following is a small collection of audio clips of spontaneous Cantonese speech containing wh-placeholders. Many of them are taken from programs on HKReporter.com and OurRadio.
- Cheung, Lawrence Y. L. (2015) “Uttering the Unutterable with Wh-placeholders.” Journal of East Asian Linguistics 24(3): 271-308. (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10831-014-9130-x) | (http://ling.auf.net/lingbuzz/002031)
Wh-placeholder expressions
Key: VLC = vulgar language circumlocution; MOM = Momentary lexical retrieval problem; ADQ = Avoid direct quotation
You need a browser that supports HTML5 to play the audio clips in the table below. They include Chrome 4+, Firefox 3.6+, Opera 10.5+ and Safari4+.
| Utterance | Wh-word | Reason | Sound Clip | |
| 1 | 香港嘅廠商就覺得麻乜煩，就杯葛嘅。 | 'what' | VLC | |
| 2 |
咁就係話邊個啲股份呢就可以賣畀人嘅，但係呢個冇意思。 因爲即係賣咗 er er 其實因爲一定要dilute咗阿邊個啲股份先至得嘅。啫係呢一個 啊 啊 啊 阿蔡衍明。 |
'who' | MOM | |
| 3 | 最典型杜拜嗰個，杜拜嗰個咩咩咩咩咩 | 'what' | MOM | |
| 4 | 佢舉咗個例。譬如 er 嗰啲馮咩光會唔會有好多人想deoi2佢呢？ | 'what' | ADQ | |
| 5 | 因爲得罪咗阿邊個又死得快啲。 | 'who' | ADQ* | |
| 6 | 我真係得乜閒上去睇啦。 | 'what' | VLC | |
| 7 | 然之後入去一間乜乜千嘅拉麵。 | 'what' | VLC |
Other types of metalinguistic (non-wh) placeholder expressions
| Utterance | Reason | Sound Clip | |
| 1 | 超過七點零就唔 X 交差正常。 | VLC |
Last Updated: 2010/10/20