Sentence-final Particles Research Articles

Sociolinguistic variation in Colloquial Singapore English sia

AbstractColloquial Singapore English (CSE), also known as ‘Singlish’, features a wide range of sentence‐final particles (SFP) influenced by local languages such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin and Malay. This study focuses on the SFP sia, a relatively new and less‐explored particle with Malay roots. We examine sia and its variants (sia, sial, siak and siol) using data from the Corpus of Singapore English Messages, a 6.9‐million‐word text‐message corpus from 2016 to 2022.While previous research has associated sia and its variants with strong illocutionary contexts, particularly among young male Singaporeans due to its vulgar and masculine connotations, our data indicate that sia is now used more broadly among CSE‐speaking youth. It is employed in both strong and weak illocutionary contexts, suggesting a shift away from its negative/vulgar associations. Sia and its variants are emerging as general phatic markers reflecting the identity of CSE‐speaking youth.

How does a structurally similar background language influence L3 grammars? A study on the syntax of L2/L3 Mandarin [SI 21/3]

ABSTRACT This article reports on an empirical study of L3 Mandarin, aiming to shed light on transfer effects and their interaction with other factors throughout the L3 acquisition trajectory. A fill-in-the-blank task was employed to examine L2 and L3 acquisition of three types of Mandarin sentence-final particle clusters. Participants in the study were Mandarin native speakers, L1 English-L2 Mandarin speakers, L1 English-L2 Cantonese-L3 Mandarin speakers, and L1 Cantonese-L2 English-L3 Mandarin speakers at low and high Mandarin proficiency levels. Our data support arguments in the L3 literature that transfer at the L3 initial stages is from a structurally more similar language. Facilitation takes place when the instantiation of the target property in the L3 is exactly the same as that in the transfer source language. Overall typological similarity might be helpful when transfer is from the L1, but it does not always facilitate the L3 acquisition of individual properties. For later L3 development, construction frequency and mapping paradigms have a great impact on the acquisition outcome. Moreover, a certain kind of non-facilitative transfer from an L1 is found to persist in L3 Mandarin grammars, which qualitatively supports the Cumulative Input Threshold Hypothesis.

Grammaticalized Uses of the Postverbal Locative Prepositional Phrase in Lianhua Gan

The postverbal locative prepositional phrase “Prep+DemLoc” of Lianhua Gan Chinese has been grammaticalized as a postverbal durative marker and a sentence-final mood particle. This study examines the syntactic and semantic properties as well as the grammaticalization of these two uses. The postverbal durative “Prep+DemLoc” is attached to some resultative verb compounds with phase complements that have the semantic features of [+dynamic], [–durative], and [+telic], and expresses the durativity of the resultant states expressed by these RVCs. It forms a contrastive distribution with the perfective marker li . The sentence-final “Prep+DemLoc” fits with the distributional and functional properties of a typical sentence-final particle in Chinese. It takes the preceding clause in its scope and can co-occur with other sentence-final particles in a restricted order. It is used to express the subjective mood meaning of emphasizing the existence of the state of affairs expressed by the preceding clause and facilitate the conversation by taking on the discourse function of gaining strength to the speaker’s communicative intention that can be implicit or explicit in the conversation. Based on the synchronic data, I reconstruct two probable pathways of the postverbal “Prep+DemLoc” in Lianhua Gan, i.e., “Locative > Durative > Mood” and “Locative > Mood”. The significance of this study mainly lies in its implications for cross-dialectal comparative studies on the counterparts of the postverbal “Prep+DemLoc” in other Chinese dialects.

Comprehending irony via sentence-final particles by Chinese children with autism spectrum disorders

We examined the effects of sentence-final particles (SFPs) in comprehending different types of irony by Chinese-speaking children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs). We tested 15 children with ASDs, along with another 15 typically developing (TD) children. In our test, by manipulating the use of the prototypical SFP /a/, participants were required to judge the speaker's attitude and real intention in ironic utterances of 16 stories and to further explain the language phenomenon. The results of a three-way analysis of variance showed a significant difference between the two groups: first, children with ASDs performed significantly worse than did their TD counterparts; second, while TD children relied more on SFPs to understand irony of compliment, children with ASDs only performed better with SFPs in comprehending irony of criticism. The differences are discussed in relation to theory of mind, the frequency of utterance, and rules of cognition.

Co-occurrence of Epistemic Modality in Chinese

In Chinese, epistemic modality expressions include adverbs, auxiliary verbs, and sentence-final particles. This study focuses on the co-occurrence of various degrees of epistemic modality expressions and discusses the effect of their co-occurrence on the likelihood of sentences. First, we collected data on co-occurrence cases of various expressions from a large-scale corpus and analyzed the characteristics of the distribution of these co-occurrence patterns. Second, we examined how modal adverbs and sentence-final particles of different scales of modality affect the likelihood of sentences when they co-occur. We observed that lower certainty expressions precede higher ones, following a hierarchy of Modpossibility > Modprobability > Modcertainty, regardless of their categories. Moreover, the sentence-final particle 吧ba diminishes the likelihood of a proposition, while the sentence-final particle （是）…的 (shi)…de strengthens it. The findings in this study contribute to a deeper understanding of epistemic modality in Chinese and offer novel resources for the acquisition of the language.

Unconventional Usage of Gender-Based Japanese Sentence-Final Particles: A Study of wa and no in Youth Conversations

Japanese society’s traditional gender norms are reflected by sentence-final particles (SFPs) in daily conversation. However, recently, Japanese young people have started to use gendered SFPs in “unclassical” ways. This study mainly examines the usage of the so-called “female” SFPs wa and no by male speakers. In total, 68 cases of wa (43 by male speakers and 25 by female speakers) and 84 cases of no (47 by male speakers and 37 by female speakers) usage were collected from casual conversations of Japanese college students in TalkBank, a public linguistic database. This study demonstrates that the “female” SFPs wa and no are used more frequently by male speakers than by female speakers. Different from the female speakers’ usage to soften the utterances and enhance conversational rapport, wa and no used by male speakers perform other functions. In particular, wa directly indexes self-centeredness, serving the speaker to express emotion, share personal ideas, or perform speech acts such as teasing or amae in a self-focused way, while no directly indexes truthfulness, which allows the speaker to share a story in a vivid tone, reconfirm the speaker’s prior statement, or provide the speaker’s explanation/reasoning in an assertive tone. This study suggests that the new, unconventional gender-based usages of SFPs reveal the social changes in gender dynamics in modern Japanese society, which should not be overlooked in language education.

Proximity, polarity and scalarity: A semantic study of approximative sentence-final particles in Cantonese

This paper studies the semantics of Cantonese approximative sentence-final particles mat1zai3 ‘MATZAI’ and gam3zai3 ‘GAMZAI’, which have their meaning predominantly determined by the polarity of the proposition. I argue that polarity sensitivity of mat1zai3 and gam3zai3 is due to their semantics as scalar operators, with their interpretations governed by two components. The proximal component requires the realization of the proposition come close to the proposition prejacent to mat1zai3 and gam3zai3 to be true. The polar-minimal component not only reverses the polarity of the prejacent proposition, but requires the proposition to mark a point in a minimal or small interval from the low-end or the high-end of the scale. Adapting a scalar model, the close relation of mat1zai3 and gam3zai3 with polarity can be accounted for by the two semantic properties encoded in polarity items in relation to the informative value. Approximatives require scalar ordering from top-end/high-end to bottom-end/low-end, or from bottom-end/low-end to top-end/high-end of the scale, in order to satisfy the requirement of giving high informative value. The scalar analysis is preliminarily extended to English approximatives to provide a unified analysis under a scalar model for approximatives in natural language.

Commitment Phrase: Linking Proposition to Illocutionary Force

This article provides empirical support for the projection of a Commitment Phrase (CommitP) in the field that maps the conversational pragmatics at the periphery of clauses. Krifka (2015, 2019, 2020) proposes CommitP as a projection that maps the speaker’s commitment to act on the proposition insofar as the speaker has evidence for the truth condition or expects the addressee to produce and commit to such evidence. CommitP replaces Ross’s (1970) idea that the speaker/addressee is related to the proposition by a speech-act predicate such as declare. Krifka argues for the alternative approach primarily on theoretical grounds. This article verifies and validates this proposal on the basis of Japanese sentence-final particles and Romanian speechact particles. We extend our analysis beyond these languages that overtly mark CommitP to English, which does not, by proposing an analysis of so-called biased questions that incorporates CommitP.

A Study on English Equivalents of Cantonese Sentence-Final Particles: Zaa3 and Ze1 as an Example

This study explores English equivalents of the Cantonese sentence-final particles (SFPs) zaa3 and ze1 by utilizing Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) explications to analyze their semantic components and roles and conducting a phonetic experiment to find the English intonational equivalents. While zaa3 and ze1 both convey the meaning of “only” or “just” in Cantonese, this research reveals that they differ in connotations, are contextually specific, and their implied meanings cannot be adequately captured through direct translation into English. To address this, the study employs NSM explications as the analytical framework and a phonetic experiment involving research participants of two Cantonese native speakers and one English native speaker is conducted to identify the English intonational equivalents of these Cantonese SFPs. The study aims to answer two research questions: (i) What are the NSM explications of the Cantonese sentence-final particles zaa3 and ze1? (ii) Do either of the two Cantonese SFPs possess English intonational equivalents, and if so, what are they? Zaa3 often conveys a sense of complaint or dissatisfaction, suggesting insufficient quantity, while ze1 typically conveys modesty or humility, implying an unremarkable or ordinary quantity. An NSM explication for zaa3 involves the Cantonese semantic primes M4 DO1, SEONG2 DO1 DI1, which translate to “NOT MORE, WANT MORE” in English equivalents. On the other hand, an NSM explication for ze1 comprises M4 DO1, M4 SEONG2 JAN4 GOK3 DAK1 DO1 in Cantonese semantic primes, corresponding to “NOT MORE, DON’T WANT SOMEONE FEEL MUCH~MANY” in English equivalents. These nuanced implied meanings cannot be effectively conveyed through direct translation alone, requiring consideration of intonation patterns in English. The phonetic experiment conducted using Praat software clearly demonstrates distinct pitch contours when participants read English sentences translated from Cantonese sentences containing zaa3 and ze1, respectively. The findings indicate that the English equivalents of the Cantonese SFP zaa3 encompass the meanings of “only” or “just”, accompanied by a falling pitch contour when speakers read the corresponding English translation. Conversely, the English equivalents of the Cantonese SFP ze1 entail the meanings of “only” or “just”, along with the highest pitch point occurring at the end of the sentence in the English translation. In conclusion, this research sheds light on the English equivalents of the Cantonese SFPs zaa3 and ze1, highlighting their divergent connotations and nuanced implied meanings. The study emphasizes the importance of considering intonation patterns to accurately convey these nuances in English translations.

Positive cross-linguistic influence in the representation and processing of sentence-final particle le by L2 and heritage learners of Chinese.

This study investigates the representation and processing of written Chinese sentences subject to a semantic condition (i.e., "direction of change") attached to the sentence-final particle (SFP) le in Mandarin Chinese. Three groups of bilingual speakers of Chinese and English who differ in their onset age of bilingualism and proficiency of English were studied. It was anticipated that there would be a positive cross-linguistic influence (CLI) from English due to similarities between the SFP le and the English adverb already in terms of direct semantic transfer. An acceptability judgment (AJ) task and a self-paced reading (SPR) task were conducted to elicit judgment and processing difficulty with and without semantic violations. The participants included English-dominant second language (L2) learners (n = 18) and heritage learners (n = 19) who had advanced proficiency in Chinese, as well as monolingually raised Mandarin speakers from China as a baseline control group (n = 18). The results indicated that sensitivity to violations of the semantic condition varied depending on factors such as the specific structure (noun vs. verb phrase), the task type (offline vs. online), and the type of bilingual speaker (early vs. late). Among the three groups of bilinguals, the heritage learners demonstrated a representation of the semantic condition that resembled the target language across different sentence structures, whereas the L2 learners did not. Furthermore, the heritage learners exhibited earlier sensitivity to violations during online processing compared to the baseline control group. These exceptional results can be attributed to the heritage learners' early exposure to and positive CLI between the SFP le in Mandarin and the English adverb already.

Six reconstruction effects in Mandarin Chinese

Abstract The paper presents empirical evidence for six reconstruction effects in Mandarin Chinese. It includes data concerning the copula verb, epistemic modals, scope of aspectual sentence-final particle –le over indefinite wh-phrases, downward entailing quantifiers, predicates of creation, Binding Condition B, quantifier scope and dōu-quantification. The syntactic structures in which reconstruction applies can be derived either by A- or A-bar-movement. Our investigation brings empirical facts to bear on the syntax-semantics interface showing an essential property of natural language that semantic properties and syntactic structures do not vary freely.

Looking for default vocabulary insertion rules: Diachronic morphosyntax of the Japanese addressee-honorification system

As opposed to syntactic operations (such as Merge), morphology has been seen as the source of language variation. But few attempts have been made in the field of Distributed Morphology to explicitly and formally identify the role of postsyntactic rules in language change. By analyzing the change in the Japanese addressee-honorification system (Yamada 2019c), this paper proposes that the emergence of the new grammar — which seems to be an instance of a microparametric change in the Agree operation (Kayne 2000; 2005; Biberauer & Roberts 2012; Barbiers 2013) — is, in fact, explained as a morphological reanalysis: the reanalysis is caused by overgeneralization of vocabulary insertion rules resulting from abductive reasoning in pursuit of default rules. It is also suggested from a quantitative corpus survey using Time Series Analysis (the Dynamic Generalized Linear Mixed Effects Model) that the reanalysis is facilitated particularly in the configuration where the addressee-honorific marking is immediately followed by a sentence-final particle.

Particle stacking in Singlish – New data from the National Speech Corpus

Particle stacking, a phenomenon that sees more than one sentence-final particle used to mark an utterance, occurs in various languages, including Singlish, also commonly known as Colloquial Singapore English (CSE) or Singapore Colloquial English (SCE). In this paper, we provide novel empirical data on particle stacking in Singlish using the National Speech Corpus (NSC). A frequency analysis of particle stacks containing the Singlish particles hor, lah and meh in the NSC shows that most of the particle stacks are declarative-interrogative pairs where the first particle is used in assertions while the second particle has a backchannelling function, which is consistent with particles stacks observed in other languages. We also identify two particle stacks in Singlish – lah dey and lah sia – where the second particle does not overtly solicit the addressee’s response. We propose that dey and sia, together with the backchannelling particles, form a larger class of addressee-oriented particles based on their shared function of targeting the addressee’s attention.

An Acoustic Study on The Effects Intonation Imposes on Sentence-final Particles in Nanjing Dialect

To investigate the interaction between tone and intonation on the production of the sentence-final syllables and the effects of a specific type of characters, i.e. sentence-final particles (SFPs) in Nanjing dialect, acoustic analyses were carried out in the current study. Participants were asked to produce sentences under four conditions: (1) SFPs in interrogative sentences; (2) SFPs in declarative sentences; (3) homophones of the SFPs in interrogative sentences; (4) homophones of the SFPs in declarative sentences. The acoustic productions were analyzed in order to compare the same SFPs in different intonation patterns, i.e., interrogatives and declaratives, and SFPs and their homophones in the carrier sentences. Results showed that the influence of intonation on tones within sentence-final syllables indeed exists, but SFPs mitigate the extent to which intonation functions. These results suggest that intonation is present in tonal languages as well, whereas SFPs influence the realization of intonation by reducing the extent of global rising.

“It can do me1 (‘what’)?” — On the development of a Cantonese interrogative pronoun into a negative stance marker

Based on data obtained from Cantonese corpora and interactions in everyday contexts, this paper identifies and analyzes the range of pragmatic functions that the interrogative pronoun me1 has. Focusing on the subjective evaluative functions of me1 that go beyond interrogation, this present study attempts to suggest the development pathway of me1 becoming a negative stance marker. Derived from combining the interrogative pronoun mat1 ‘what’ and the general noun je5 ‘thing’ followed by phonological reduction, it is observed that me1 (<mat1je5) has gone a long way, from replacing an item of enquiry, to substituting for an unretrievable or unutterable item to avoid taboo and embarrassment, and further to a negative evaluative attitudinal marker that can occupy a range of syntactic positions (including the pre-nominal and clause-initial positions) to signal the speaker's disagreement and derogatory attitude, and finally to become an interrogative sentence-final particle which is essentially subjective and negatively biased. Adopting a broadly interactional linguistic perspective (Ochs et al., 1996; Selting and Couper-Kuhlen, 2001), our present study looks at how me1 can be used to negotiate interpersonal functions in the course of conversational interactions. Findings in this paper will have significant contributions to the study of wh-markers generally, and provide important insights into how extended functions of wh-markers can be developed in Sinitic languages specifically.

Translating the Chinese Modal Particle 啊 (a)

The Chinese language has many modal particles, which often appear at the end of a sentence, hence also known as sentence-final particles. Such particles have specific functions and carry implied meanings in different contexts. However, modal particles are generally considered not existing in English, so their translation from Chinese into English presents a challenge for translators. This study focuses on the English translation of the Chinese modal particle 啊 (a) in sentence-final positions based on examples from three Chinese movies. The translated subtitles with the modal particle 啊 (a) are categorised into four types of sentences – namely, declarative, interrogative, exclamative and imperative. The examples are analysed within the framework of Nida’s functional equivalence theory by comparing the modal particle’s functions and meanings in the source and target texts. It was found that omission, explicitation and linguistic amplification are the three strategies used for rendering this modal particle, while omission is the dominant strategy. Though acceptable in many cases, omission may lead to the loss of functions or implied meanings. The findings suggest that translators should rely on an analysis of the context to decide which strategy is most appropriate to convey the function and implied meaning of 啊 (a).

The combinative use of “imperative + final particle” in Tokyo language in the Meiji period

Abstract Honorifics in Japanese as a rare linguistic system has received consistent attention in social and cultural linguistic studies. A typical linguistic structure of honorifics is “imperative + sentence-final particles (shuu-joshi)” (henceforth, “final particle”), which has been studied mainly as a compound expression in Tokyo language. Different from previous studies with separated attention towards imperative expressions and sentence-final particles in the Edo era as well as in modern Japan, this paper investigates the combinative use and diachronic changes of “imperative + final particle” during the Meiji period – a period of upheaval in the Tokyo dialect. The investigation takes multiple views including the positions and relations (social and psychological) between the interlocutors, and the context of the utterance. Results of the investigation lead to an insight into pragmatic norms and diachronic changes of the modern Tokyo dialect, specifically the tendencies, characteristics and the driving force. This study finds the particular expressive effect accomplished by the combinational use of “imperative + final particle” in the modern Tokyo dialect. The speaker shapes the degree of respect or politeness with the selective use of imperatives, and signals the communicative attitude by adding sentence-final particles. This linguistic form manifests the demand for “acting upon”, unveils the social construct and cultural norms embedded in inter-personal communication. The analysis on the developmental trend of “imperative + final particle” suggests that the prototype of the Tokyo dialect brings to prominence the across-status expressions as a result of social, political and educational reforms.

From the incomplete to the complete: The emergence of a new paradigm of sentence-final particles in Korean

This paper analyzes a case of grammaticalization of a sentence-final particle (sfp) -tanun that developed from an adnominal complementizer (comp) structure ta hA-non in Middle Korean (mk). This newly emerging sfp carries a wide range of subjectified and intersubjectified, i.e., stance-marking, meanings such as boastful talk, fake-mirativity, pejoration, self-degradation, attention-seeking, and attracting sympathy. It is argued that this grammaticalization process was initially triggered by the constructional similarities between the mk comp sentences and the desiderative and doubt-marking indirect interrogative sentences. In the course of grammaticalization, this marker shows increasing collocational compatibility and expansion of its use as a stance marker in Present-Day Korean (pdk). Ellipsis of the head noun induces the addressee to reconstruct the missing noun that is compatible with the explicitly presented comp sequence with which the utterance is ended. As it frequently occurs sentence finally, -tanun becomes conventionalized as a sfp. Notably, the development of the declarative-based sfp -tanun triggered a parallel development involving the other sfps, i.e., imperative, interrogative, and hortative markers. Based on these observations, this paper argues that grammaticalization processes can be paradigm-based and can be triggered by analogy by virtue of structural similarity among the forms involved.

On the “one+verbal classifier” sequence as a delimitative aspect marker in Taiwanese Southern Min

AbstractThis paper studies the “one+verbal classifier” sequencetsi̍t-ēthat appears after an indefinite object complement in Taiwanese Southern Min. We call it the post-complement (PC)tsi̍t-ē. While thetsi̍t-ēsequence can be a durative phrase when it is immediately preceded by a verb, the PCtsi̍t-ēcannot be replaced by the durative phrasetsi̍t-ē-á‘a while’ (tsi̍t-ēplus the diminutive suffixá) or other durative phrases. We show that the PCtsi̍t-ēis a sentence-final particle, not a durative phrase serving as a predicate or complement. Moreover, it marks delimitativity, which means ‘termination in a short time.’ It is the same kind of delimitativity that verb reduplication in Mandarin Chinese expresses despite the fact that the latter targets on the verb and is more selective in terms of the verb types that it can occur with. Moreover, the PCtsi̍t-ēcarries the ‘down-play’ meaning. Syntactically, we suggest that it heads an AspP, which occurs above avP.

인식론적 관점에서 바라본 문말조사 ‘了’

From a grammatical perspective, the Sentence-final Particle '了' originated from the verb 'liao(了)', which has Temporality. However, It has been grammaticalized since the mid-late period of the Southern Song Dynasty. In addition, through the absorption of the function of 'ye(也)', it develops into a mirativity marker that is involved in the recognition of the speaker and the listener. This function has been passed down to modern Chinese, and the Sentence-Final Particle 'liao' still functions as an mirativity marker, and its meaning is distinguished as (1) new information to the speaker and the listener, and (2) contrary things to the speaker and listener's expectations. This mirativity of 'liao' is implemented in two ways as follows. First, it is compatible with the negative. Previously, the Sentence-Final Particle 'liao' was considered a particle in the tense-aspect category, so an explanation of the phenomenon of a negative and '了' co-occurring within a sentence was required. However, 'liao' in the epistemological category can be the subject of recognition, whether the proposition is positive or negative, so no problem occurs unless there is a problem in the context of discourse. Second, it is not constrained by a tense-aspect. ‘The 'mirality' of 'liao' allows for events that correspond to the ’past perfective aspect’ and the ‘future perfective aspect’, as well as events that correspond to the ’stative setense’ and even the progressive event corresponding to the ‘imperfective aspect’.