Sentence-final particle

A sentence-final particle, also sometimes referred to as a "modal particle",cite book | last=Lin | first=Huey Hannah | title=Contextualizing Linguistic Politeness in Chinese [http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi/Lin%20Huey%20Hannah.pdf?acc_num=osu1109961198] | year=2005 | publisher=The Ohio State University | page=108] is an utterance at the end of a sentence that does not carry any meaning by itself and is usually added for prosodic effect, such as to improve the flow of colloquial speech,Fact|date=August 2008 or for pragmatic effect--for example to soften the tone of an otherwise blunt statement. Sentence-final particles are common in the Chinese languages, including particles such as Mandarin "le" 了, "ne" 呢, "ba" 吧, "ou" 哦, "a" 啊, "la" 啦, "ya" 呀, and "ma" 吗, and Cantonese "lo" and "ge". These particles act as qualifiers for the spoken verse. Sentence-final particles are also present in Japanese [Fox, Barbara A (2007). "Principles shaping grammatical practices: an exploration." "Discourse Studies", volume 9. 303.] and many East Asian languages, such as Thai, and especially in languages that have undergone heavy Sino-Tibetan influence, such as the Monguor languages.

tructure and Uses

Yuen Ren Chao has described sentence-final particles as "phrase suffixes": just as a word suffix is in construction with the word preceding it, a sentence-final particle or phrase suffix is "in construction with a preceding phrase or sentence, though phonetically closely attached to the syllable immediately preceding it".cite book | last=Chao |first=Yuen Ren |title=A Grammar of Spoken Chinese |year=1968 |publisher=University of California Press |location=Berkeley |isbn=0-520-00219-9 | page=149] According to Chao, the sentence-final particle is phonetically close to the last word before it, but syntactically it is equidistant from every word in the whole predicate.

While sentence-final particles usually do not carry meaning themselves or denote anything explicit, they may be derived from words that do carry meaning when they occur in other contexts and serve different functions.cite book | last=Li | first=Charles; and Sandra Thompson | title=Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar | year=1981 | publisher=University of California Press | location=Los Angeles | isbn=978-0520066106 | page=238]

A major use of sentence-final particles in Mandarin Chinese is thought to be as a signal of the speaker's attitude, the intended force of the statement to which the particle is attached, and "how the utterance is to be taken by the hearer."cite book | last=Lin | title=Contextualizing Linguistic Politeness in Chinese [http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi/Lin%20Huey%20Hannah.pdf?acc_num=osu1109961198] | page=109] For example, the addition of a particle may soften the tone of a question that might sound presumptuous or inappropriate without the particle. As such, sentence-final particles in this sense often perform an interpersonal function, rather than a grammatical one. Nevertheless, there are cases in which sentence-final particles do perform grammatical functions, such as Mandarin "ma" 吗, the "question particle," which changes the grammatical mood of a sentence to interrogative. Likewise, even though sentence-final particles can usually be omitted from a sentence without making the sentence ungrammatical or changing its meaning,cite book | last=Lin | title=Contextualizing Linguistic Politeness in Chinese [http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/send-pdf.cgi/Lin%20Huey%20Hannah.pdf?acc_num=osu1109961198] | page=109] , some particles do contain information critical to the interpretation of an utterance's meaning, such as Mandarin "le" 了.cite book | last=Li & Thompson | title=Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar | page=238]

Examples

Japanese

In Japanese, there are many sentence final particles which are used in formal speech as well as colloquial. Some examples include:
* "yo" : assertive. It means that you are asserting what preceded the particle as information you are confident in.
* "ne" : agreement. Used when the speaker wants to verify or otherwise show agreement with the the listener.
* "kke" : doubt. Used when one is unsure of something. For example, "Kinou dattakke", "Was it yesterday?". Often used when talking to oneself.

English

English also has some words that act somewhat like sentence final particles, but primarily only in colloquial speech. For example:
* "man" in "Don't do it, man."
* "right" in "The black one, right?"
* "you know" in "That's what it was like back then, you know?"

References

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/siamsmile365/thaiparticles/thaiparticles.htm Thai Particles] (Large list of Thai particles with explanations and example sentences).