The Semantic Origin and Evolutionary Route of the Word"gui"(鬼)in the Cantonese Dialect
The original meaning of the word"gui"(鬼)is"the soul of a person after death",and its derogatory and rich visual colors extended and assumed multiple meanings such as"having properties and states similar to ghosts","a derogatory term for people with certain characteristics","specifically referring to foreigners","indicating universal negation","indicating extreme degrees"and so on.It can be used as a noun,adjective,indefinite pronoun,degree adverb and marked constituent.The semantic evolution of"gui"(鬼)in the Cantonese dialect overlapped with that in Mandarin,forming a total of seven general semantic items and four unique semantic items in the Cantonese dialect.Among them,"specifically referring to foreigners"is a result of the Cantonese dialect entering Mandarin.
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