Re: Genders

From: "H. S. Teoh"

> I've seen "you, fem." and "her, fem." occurring in comic books, fiction
> prose, etc.. And this is in Mandarin, not Cantonese.
I have seen "you fem." in Cantopop tunes. The Cantonese equivalent of "ta1",
"kui5" has no corresponding feminine form that I'm aware of. Most of the
stuff I cited is limited to Mandarin, though.

> (Aside: Believe it or not, Cantonese does have a few characters not shared
> by other dialects. The opposite of the Mandarin "shi4" (yes, to be) is one
> example, written like the regular "shi4" but visibly missing a few
> strokes, to convey the idea of not being. So "improvisations" do occur in
> Chinese writing, which lends credence to your missionary theory.)
What would that be? Mandarin "you3", "there is, have" has the negative
"mei2you3", not have. Cantonese "yau5" has the negative "mo5", written as
the "yau" character minus two strokes (conveying a sense of emptiness and
"there not being any"). Mandarin "shi4", "be",  becomes Canto "hai6", but as
far as I know, the negative "bu4shi4", "is not", becomes Canto "m4hai6". Is
there a special character to express this concept?

Kou