地 in the end of a sentence

[daiwei]

Hi!

I've been reading some Cantonese texts, and often enough they use 地 in the end of a sentence, not adding a verb after it (normally it should be used like 我快快地跑), but i've seen samples like "我看他一眼，不开心地", i've never seen it mandarin before. Does anyone know if this is an accepted way of writing according to standards, or is it something they just do in canton?

[skylee]

I don't think it is Cantonese. It seems more like a kind of writing style to me. You can write like this in a poem, for example.

[Hofmann]

Not Cantonese. Probably Mandarin, with the 地 at the end meaning 的 but pronounced like "di" or /tɛ/ or something like that.

[daiwei]

i think it was 我睇他一眼，唔开心地 from the beginning, but i altered it so as not to confuse anyone

thanks

[Hofmann]

Still not Cantonese. 他 means "other." The normal third person pronoun is 渠.

[Glenn]

Is it really? I thought it was 佢. Are they interchangeable?

[xiaocai]

You may want to have a read of this and this.

[anthonchai]

Third person is 佢, 渠 means pipe...they are not interchangeable

and refer to daiwei's question, I don't see this is Cantonese and "地" is seldom used in verbal Cantonese. It always appears in written Chinese instead.

[Michaelyus]

I've certainly heard it in [Cantonese] conversation. I've always thought it was just an adverb, just used in an adjective-like sense when the verb is missing. I seem to hear it most commonly when asking how people are.

But according to Cantonese: a comprehensive grammar by Matthews & Yip (1994), pages 39-40, it has a diminutive meaning with reduplicated adjectives and stative verbs.