In some words very commonly occurring, that dialect differs from Shánghái and agrees with mandarin.
| This, m. 道个 ché‘ kú‘. | s. 第个 tí‘ kú‘. |
| He, m. 他 t’á. | s. 伊 í. |
| How? m. 怎麽樣 ’tsun ’mó yáng‘? | |
Section 3. On the Substantive.
100. The native grammarian already introduced to the reader defines substantives, or rather substances, thus 天地名物, 象數事理 T’íen dí‘ ming veh‘ ziáng‘ sú‘ zz‘ ’li, “Heaven, earth, names and things, images, numbers, facts and principles;” 凡有形有質, 有氣有聲 van ’yeu yiung ’yeu tseh ’yeu k’i ’yeu sung, “all things that have form, material substances, breath and sound;” 一切有端可指者 ih t’sih ’yeu tön ’k’ó ’tsz ’tsé, “all things having any property that can be pointed out;” 皆謂之實字 kia wé‘ tsz seh zz‘, “are called substantives.”
“The names of substances,” he adds, “may consist of one or several characters, which must be arranged in classes, brought under the dominion of the rhythmus, and stored in the memory for use when required.” Such nouns as express the properties of substances he calls 子字 ’tsz zz‘, “son characters,” while the names of the substances themselves are termed 毋字 ’mú zz‘, “mother characters.” Attributes he further subdivides into “universal,” 公共子字 kóng góng‘ ’tsz zz‘, and “special,” 實在子字 seh zé ’tsz zz‘.
Combined and uncombined substantives. 101. One of the most striking peculiarities of Chinese words, whether nouns, verbs or particles, is the strictness with which the laws of combination and order are observed. Each dialect has many words that can be used with or without an adjunct, and may be regarded as purely monosyllabic; another large class embraces such as are never used by the natives, except in apposition with some other word, and constituting for that dialect, what may be considered dissyllables. Of the former or monosyllabic kind are the following examples (s. c).
| 飯 van‘, cooked rice. | 貓 mau‘, cat. | 狗 ’keu, dog. |
| 雲 yün, clouds. | 墨 muh, ink. | 藥 yáh, medicine. |
| 理 ’lí, moral law. | 煤 mé, coal. | 雪 sih, snow. |
102. In construction, these and similar words may be observed to remain in an uncombined state. The first word in each, of the following sentences exemplifies this remark.
- 米糴好否 ’mi tih ’hau ’vá? have you brought rice?
- 人是一樣个 niun ’zz ih yáng‘ kú, I am a man as you.
- 袖要大 dzien‘ yau‘ dú‘, let the sleeve be large.
These words may all of them be used in combination, according to some of the laws described in the succeeding paragraphs. Thus they appear in dissyllabic forms such as—