你的文章寫的怎麼樣? Grammar... hmm.

[xiaocai]

because a) the rules aren't that clear, and B) in some cases, sticking to the rules (set by prescriptivists) can come off as pretentious. I'm not saying that's the case here necessarily, but if you get cases where many people are deviating from it, it's worthwhile thinking about it. English has lots of examples like that ("it is I", "whom/who" etc)

in the articles I linked above, one teacher they cite says they'd still run the risk of 扣分 but I'd be interested to know how consistently this is applied across the country...

I might be completely wrong on this, but I thought that it was now acceptable for (Chinese) students to write 的 for all three uses in mainland China... or is this a loud of rubbish? In pre-modern texts (and still in Taiwan) people seem to just use 的 for everything.

The rules are clear in mainland China now at least and all the hight school students are taught to use them correctly. You will definitely lose marks for using the wrong one in 高考. And I think it is also pretentious that you insist on mixing them up while knowing the difference.

[chrix]

follow the links and you'll see the rules are NOT clear. And I didn't INSIST on mixing them up, in fact I gave three different ways people seem to be using..

[xiaocai]

There have always been people suggesting combining them but none of these suggestions are supported by 教育部 at the moment. So I don't know what other standard there is but the only one I know is that they are different words with different functions.

[chrix]

this is up to debate. Also, norms aren't just set by the Ministry. If enough people were to follow you, you could even set up your own. And sometimes a Ministry (or some other organisation) promulgates a norm and almost nobody follows it.

As a linguistically inclined person I like the tripartite distinction myself, but I can't ignore what is going on in the language community as a whole.

[wushijiao]

To be honest, I think we can just let this debate rest.

[xiaocai]

You have your point. But I just thought if there is no statistically significant survey showing which one is supported by the majority, i'd suggest that we stay on the safe side.

[HashiriKata]

I agree!

[renzhe]

Also there are two different sets of official norms across the Strait, so surely you would expect to find differences even in the official standard.

I'm not questioning this, obviously the standard differs here (like it differs between, say, British and American English), and you are fine in my eyes as long as you stick to one of them.

I just didn't expect this particular issue to be open to interpretation in either standard.

During the early Republic, people often used 他 for both men and women (Lu Xun did, for example), but I'd be surprised to see a publishing house insisting on this usage today with new materials.

[Hofmann]

Well, what I was thinking back there is that 忌(ge3, means 之) 得 地 are used in Cantonese as 的 得 地 are used in Mandarin. If 得 and 地 in Mandarin descend from 之, then it is likely that those in Cantonese also descend from 之. I would need some good evidence in order to believe that, though, because 忌 得 地 don't sound the same in Cantonese.

[trien27]

Sometimes I get the feeling it's mostly just textbooks for the Mandarin learner....

That's because ONLY in Mandarin is it pronounced the same for all three characters. Due to more people being aware of the Chinese characters than romanization in Taiwan, therefore they would be more willing to point out the mistake in written characters, whereas learners of Chinese coming to China is only aware of Pinyin being used sometimes too much [to teach children and foreigners anyways], where, you have many dialects in China and people often mistake the pronunciation of Putonghua vs. their own dialects or vice versa or have them all mixed up. You would not mix these three characters up if it was said in Cantonese: all three characters are pronounced differently.

[trien27]

忌(ge3, means 之)

Well... it does, but 忌 isn't used orally as the meaning of 之. It is rather written differently at least in Hong Kong as 嘅. The meaning of 之 probably was written with 忌 in Classical Chinese before 忌 was to be given a newer meaning of envy, fear, etc...

Source: http://www.cantonese.sheik.co.uk/phorum/read.php?1,86557,86562

Source:http://www.nciku.com/search/zh/detail/%E5%BF%8C/1307011

[chrix]

Hofmann, is that sometimes written as 個 as well? I have a friend who did research on the GE particle, but not on the historical aspect of it. When I meet them again, I will ask them about it.

Cantonese GE and Mandarin DE do not need to have the same origin. How do 地 得 sound in Cantonese? They might be of different origin than GE. I personally always thought GE might be cognate to 個, and this is what some Cantonese seem to believe themselves:

你悭啲啦！「嘅」字嘅本字係「个」，全广东人都知，乜你唔知咩？

However, there seem to be two GE in Cantonese (a linking particle and a final particle), so I'm quite confused...

[Hofmann]

I also think it's possible that ge3 (pronounced [kɛː˧]) is 個. In Cantonese, measure words can take the place of possessive particles. For example, 我把劍 is "my sword." 我架車 is "my car." 我支筆 is "my writing instrument." Because 個 ([kɔː˧]) is so popular, it is possible that 個 was used as a possessive particle and got another pronunciation.

得 is pronounced [tɐk˥] and 地 is pronounced [tei˧˥] when used to make adverbs. It is normally pronounced [tei˨]