Abstract
This chapter presents evidence that strongly indicates six Cantonese sentence-final particles (SFPs) have English intonational equivalents. These six SFPs divide into three pairs of related particles: the evidential particles lo1 and aa1maa3; the question particles me1 and aa4; and the “only” particles zaa3 and ze1. Each SFP’s meaning is described, and a Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) definition of it is presented before showing and discussing the data related to its English equivalent. The data comprise Cantonese-to-English oral translations and their accompanying F0 contours. The translators were ambilingual speakers of L1 Cantonese and L1 English. Based on the fact that each SFP translated into English as the same form of intonation by more than one ambilingual translator in more than one context, it is assumed that the definition given to each SFP also applies to its English intonational equivalent. It is further proposed that these English forms of intonation are tonal morphemes that reside in native-English speakers’ lexicons.
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