“的”の変遷

Over at the Chinese and Hanzi sub-forum, there is an interesting discussion about "Is it worth it to learn traditional characters?" and the Japanese word の relating to the Chinese 的 and the written Cantonese (書面語) 既 as well as spoken Cantonese (口語) 嘅.
http://forum.koohii.com/thread-13383-pos...#pid229494

eslang wrote:

Quote:Traditional characters [Hong Kong] like 唔 and 佢 in Cantonese are not in the deck.
Japanese characters (more or less, close to the Chinese Hanzi meaning) in this color shade.

不 @唔 [Cantonese] 不 (ふ)   no; not (adverb) un*~~ / in*~~ / im*~~ (negative connotation)
是 @係 [Cantonese] 是 (ぜ)   1:right/agree with <a person> (此れ)2:this/these/such
他 @佢 [Cantonese] 彼 (かれ) he; him [pronoun]
的 @既 [Cantonese] ノ (の)   ~'s (possessive particle) auxiliary

Taishi wrote:

Quote:About の, it is true that の can be written 之, but you can't say that の＝之, since 之 has some specific rules of usage. Also の can also be written 乃. I also believe some usages of の does not follow the connotations of any of the kanji it can be written with. And as eslang pointed out, 之 has meanings that are unrelated to の. Anyway the point I think you missed was that the word that most closely follows the usage of の in Japanese is 的 in Mandarin and 嘅 in Cantonese.

I'm sorry if anything I said is incorrect, as I do not speak Cantonese, and only speak from my own experience.

Below are research studies done by 竹越美奈子 and hopefully, it can be of some help to others who wishes to gain a better understanding.

西洋人編纂資料と日本刊行資料による粤語語法の通時的研究
A Study of Early Cantonese Grammar in Western and Japanese Materials
https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/d/p/20520398/2010/8/ja.ja.html

古代文字資料館発行『KOTONOHA』第114号(2012年5月)
十九世紀の広東語(1)“的”
By 竹越美奈子
http://www.for.aichi-pu.ac.jp/museum/pdf8/minako114.pdf