Shanghainese grammar

[ala]

[Romanization borrowed from a site I saw a while ago voiced initials are b,d,g,z,ng, voiceless aspirated (like pinyin k-,t-,p-) are Romanized here as k'-, t'-, p'-), voiceless unaspirated (like pinyin g-,d-,b-) are Romanized as k-, t-, p-. Hence k'- = pinyin k-, k- = pinyin g-, and g- = voiced g- (Mandarin does not have voiced consonants)

"-ch" or double consonant (between syllables) = glottal stop; equivalent to Cantonese -k/-p/-t finals except don't pronounce the -ch.

z- = English 'z', ts- = Pinyin c, tz- = Pinyin z, sh- ~ Pinyin x, ch- ~ Pinyin q]

Shanghainese for "to be at" is "lahei" and is usually said at the end of the sentence in Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) order. Is there any other Chinese dialect with this concept? It seems that Shanghainese is even today very SOV based in many ways, which leads me to see that Mandarin is sometimes SOV too, although not nearly as extensive as Shanghainese.

Examples:

1: non vei chikkula va?

儂 飯 喫過拉 伐？

you / food / have eaten / va?

Have you eaten the food?

2: ngu vei chillahei. non ne?

我 飯 喫辣海。 儂 呢？

I / food / am eating (eat + am being). you / ne?

I am eating the food. How about you?

1: ei mach chilla. non ei chillahei ah?

還 末 喫拉。儂 還 喫辣海 啊？

Still / not / have been eating. You / still / are eating / ah?

Still haven't eaten. You are still eating?

2: ei. K'uro ei mach hatt'arei.

哎。可樂 還 末 喝特來。

Yeah. Coke / still / not / finished drinking

Yeah. Still haven't finished drinking my Coke.

1: konkonchitswu-zeidou lei aritach?

公共汽車站頭 勒 何裏搭？

Bus stop / at, is at / where?

Where's the bus stop?

2: leila immitach.

勒拉 伊面搭。

has been at / over there.

It's over there.

1: ngu besshan tarei chillisset'ala.

我 白相 得來 喫力色特拉。

I / play / resulting / have been very tired

I'm really tired from playing.

2: ei.. zi-e zi-e. ngu-e jich yijin chii p'oh lahei.

哎。。 是厄是厄。 我厄 腳 已經 起 泡 辣海。

Yeah.. / It is so, it is so.. / my / feet / already / to form / blisters / are being.

Yeah... My feet are already blistering.

Pronouns

I = ngu 我

You = non 儂

He/she/it = yi 伊

We = alla 阿拉

You all = na 哪

They = yila 伊拉

Here = guttach, tsidik'ue 搿搭、此地塊

There = ittach/eitach 伊搭

Over there = immitach/eimitach 伊面搭

Where = aritach 何裏搭

[Guest greenpine]

hehe, this version of spelling scheme of shanghaian looks like a european language superficially ...

[Quest]

1: non vei chikkula va?

儂 飯 喫過拉 伐？

you / food / have eaten / va?

Have you eaten the food?

2: ngu vei chillahei. non ne?

我 飯 喫辣海。 儂 呢？

I / food / am eating (eat + am being). you / ne?

I am eating the food. How about you?

1: ei mach chilla. non ei chillahei ah?

還 末 喫拉。儂 還 喫辣海 啊？

Still / not / have been eating. You / still / are eating / ah?

Still haven't eaten. You are still eating?

2: ei. K'uro ei mach hatt'arei.

哎。可樂 還 末 喝特來。

Yeah. Coke / still / not / finished drinking

Yeah. Still haven't finished drinking my Coke.

Your examples are more like sentences in the passive voice.

1: non vei chikkula va?

儂 飯 喫過拉 伐？

you / food / have eaten / va?

Have you eaten the food?

In Mandarin and Cantonese, this would be:

你 （的） 饭 吃过了 吗？

你 啲 饭 食咗 未？

your / food / have been eaten / * ?

2: ei. K'uro ei mach hatt'arei.

哎。可樂 還 末 喝特來。

Yeah. Coke / still / not / finished drinking

Yeah. Still haven't finished drinking my Coke.

Mand/Cant:

（我的）可乐 还 没 喝完。

（我啲）可乐 仲 未 饮嗮。

In both examples, the SOVs could be interpreted as SVO in the passive voice. What you thought to be the objects were really subjects. But you've raised an interesting point, I do think there are occassions in which Chinese is used in the SOV form. Anyone care to give an uncontrovesial example?

[Quest]

Actually Chinese can also be in the OSV order.

e.g. 那饭你吃了吗？

作业你都做完了吗？

[Ian_Lee]

Does 白相 (White face) mean playing in Shanghaiese?

That looks like the Japanese Kanji 面白 (Face White) which means interesting.

[ala]

Your examples are more like sentences in the passive voice.

In both examples' date=' the SOVs could be interpreted as SVO in the passive voice. What you thought to be the objects were really subjects. But you've raised an interesting point, I do think there are occassions in which Chinese is used in the SOV form. Anyone care to give an uncontrovesial example?[/quote']

No, it's not passive. It's instead topic-comment sentence structure. Very similar to Japanese -wa, -desu constructions.

For example, you cannot explain this as passive for the following sentence (response) in Shanghainese:

我 电视 看辣海.

ngu dizi keu-lahei.

I am watching the TV.

The verb is 看 (to watch), the tense aspect is 辣海 (present progressive). The object is 电视 (television), 电视 is not a subject in passive voice. Passive voice would have been: my television is being watched. The subject in my example is clearly 我, and independent of 电视 (object). It is not "my television." The specific (definite) topic is 电视, and general topic is 我. A better English translation of the sentence above would be: As for the television, I am watching. The only case I can think of where it is inherently passive is -特拉 ending (as in 饭 吃特拉), but that is because 特拉 serves as completion/exhaustion of the subject (ie: my food has been eaten), equivalent to Mandarin -掉了/完了.

About the topic-comment structure... The above sentence I gave would be used if the topic of the conversation was "television." You address the topic, and then you comment about the topic. Hence structure can be SOV or OSV.

I need to think about it more.

[Quest]

I think Chinese as a language hasn't been understood well in Western studies. That is true to Asian languages in general and is probably why the asian languistic map is very fragmented.

[ala]

Does 白相 (White face) mean playing in Shanghaiese? That looks like the Japanese Kanji 面白 (Face White) which means interesting.

yes, 白相 means to play in Shanghainese, from Tang Dynasty usage 孛相. 白 character often interchanged. A few other common COLLOQUIAL Tang Dynasty words still used in Shanghainese and other Wu dialects:

相打 fight

衣裳 clothes

着衣裳 to wear clothes

着棋 to play checkers, chess

面孔 face

温吞 lethargic

方便 easy (Mandarin loaned this from Wu recently)

etc

[cuthbert]

I am shanghaiese.your research is very deeply.

[Guest dodo]

no kidding, this is so interesting. reading written shanghainese is even more weird. are they going to make shanghainese pop songs? that will be cool