Re: Chinese question (was: noun forms of verbs)

From: "J Y S Czhang"

>     Mandarin [Guoyu/Putonghua] uses V-O constructions, i.e.
>                         literally:      English Translation:
>         _yu.how_  "joy-good"                    Feel Good
>
>             _yue_ also means "music"!!!!
>
>     (to all Sinophiles: excuse my bad, sloppy Romanization of Guoyu...  :)
Abysmal pinyin aside ;-) , I don't understand this one. The character you
cite as also meaning "music" is pronounced "yue4" in that meaning but "le4"
when it refers to happiness. (Canto makes a similar distinction; "ngok6" for
its musical aspect and "lok6" for the unbridled happiness). There is a
separate character "yu2" (Canto: "yu4"), which also refers to happiness (the
"yu2" in "yu2kuai4" [Canto: "yu4faai3"], "contented, pleased"), but it's not
related to the music thang. And in either case, I don't recognize the
expression "yu?hao3" for "feel good" (where "?" means I don't know what tone
we're talking about). Your other examples make sense, where does this one
come from? Is this highly colloquial? Is it a Cantoism? I've never hoid of
it.

Kou