The independent or vocative is denoted by the word 阿 ó, following the noun. But this rather belongs to the written language. In the colloquial the particles 吓 a and 嚡 á are used, the latter being often enunciated with considerable emphasis or stress.
- 主吓 chio a Lord! O Lord!
- 先生吓 sing sang a, or sing sang á, Ho, Teacher!
The dative and ablative often have no distinguishing mark. When preceded by a preposition they may be parsed as objectives or accusatives in like regimen.
These form a very peculiar and important class of nouns in regimen with other nouns. Some are collectives or nouns of multitude. In their literal sense they indicate a common accident or quality, pertaining to the members of the class of objects made the subject of discourse, as state, condition, shape, size, use, material, etc. They occur very frequently in the spoken language, and in common or diffuse composition, but are seldom required in the higher, classic styles.
The Chinese noun, as already observed, has no inflection. Most common nouns seem to be regarded as names of things in the abstract, or as mere ideal quantities. They require a numeral and a classifying word to individualize and define them. Hence the Chinese, in their crude attempts to speak English, think it necessary generally to use such adjuncts; for instance, saying "two-piece-men" instead of two men".
The classifiers are such words as 個 ka (or a), 其 ki, 隻 chiāh an individual (person or thing), 枳 chi, skein, small bunch, 合 hak pair, 結 kaik bunch, 對 tói piece, 丸 wong, lump or ball (as seen in List of Classifiers in a subsequent part of the volume). They are termed classifiers by some because they relate to individuals as pertaining to a class, and numeratives by others, because used in combination with numeral adjectives to indicate the number of individuals made the subject of discourse.
