On the Verb Huaiyi with Passive Voice in Hong Kong-Style Chinese

Different from Putonghua, the verb “huaiyi” ‘suspect’ in Hong Kong-style Chinese, can be used in the passive voice without a passive marker. It generally acts as an attributive or a predicate. A comparison of the Chinese and English versions of the Hong Kong government gazettes shows that “huaiyi” in Hong Kong-style Chinese has multiple correspondences with the English word “suspect”. The usage of is influenced by the linguistic and pragmatic factors of English, as well as the phenomenon of the implicit experiencer of Chinese grammar.