của

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Jump to navigation Jump to search
See also: cua, Cua, CUA, cưa, cửa, and cu'a

Vietnamese

[edit]

Etymology

[edit]

For similar grammaticalisations, compare Thai ของ (kɔ̌ɔng), Khmer របស់ (rɔbɑh).

The usage of this word as possessive marker is recent, as even texts as late as early 19th century show của being used exclusively as a noun meaning "belongings, property".

There is no clear evidence if this is a non-Sino-Vietnamese reading of (MC gjuH) (SV: cụ) or (MC xwaH) (SV: hoá), neither of which is straightforwardly connectable to the Vietnamese word.

Pronunciation

[edit]

Noun

[edit]

của (, 𧵑)

  1. property; belongings
    hôi củato loot
    nhà có củaa house with properties
  2. given kind of food
  3. (colloquial) such trash; such a good-for-nothing

Derived terms

[edit]
Derived terms

Preposition

[edit]

của (, 𧵑)

  1. of (belonging to or associated with)
    Trả đây ! Cái đó của tao !
    Give it back! It's mine!

Usage notes

[edit]
  • Possession is not required to be explicitly marked. For example, mặt tôi (my face), lớp (his class), nhà Hải (Hải's family), giám đốc công ti (the director of the company) are all acceptable and commonly used. However, when there is an adjective or classifier accompanying the noun (phrase), của is almost always present: ngày đầu tiên của năm (the first day of the year) (with đầu tiên being an adjective; compare the synonymous phrase ngày đầu năm without của, which can be analyzed as ngày đầu + năm, consisting of a compound noun and a simple noun, without any modifier).