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Article published In: Asian Languages and Linguistics
Vol. 6:2 (2025) ► pp.353–383

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Reported thought in Cantonese

 | Australian National University, Australia
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Australian National University.

Published online: 29 January 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/alal.24019.pun
Abstract
This study explores the reported thought (RT) construction with the RT verb sam1nam2 [lit. ‘heart think’] in Cantonese. First, it is argued that sam1nam2 ‘think’ is a subject-verb compound with a dedicated RT function. Second, in written Cantonese the thought complement of sam1nam2 can take the form of a clause, emojis, underscores and/or dots meaning ‘speechless’. Third, in conversational contexts, thought complements which would be impolite if articulated may be left implicit. Fourth, the RT construction is structurally different from the reported speech construction with waa6 ‘say’, therefore these two constructions should be treated as distinct. Finally, sam1nam2 may have been grammaticalized from a possessive construction go3sam1nam5 ‘subject’s heart thinks’ since the 1950s. This study narrows the research gap of reported thought in Cantonese, encouraging future study on reported thought in other Chinese varieties.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data and method
  • 3.General properties of the reported thought construction
    • 3.1The reported thought verb 心諗 sam1nam2
    • 3.2Types of thought complements of 心諗 sam1nam2
    • 3.3Direct thought and indirect thought
  • 4.Impolite thought complements in a (potential) conversation
  • 5.Comparing reported thought and reported speech constructions
  • 6.Hypothetical grammaticalization of 心諗 sam1nam2
  • 7.Discussion
  • 8.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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