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Article published In:
Chinese Language and Discourse
Vol. 12:2 (2021) ► pp.135–157

The use of le 了 in Mandarin Chinese oral discourse

A sociolinguistic perspective

ORCID logo | Michigan State University
| Nagoya University of Commerce & Business
| University of Chinese Academy of Sciences

le is the mostly widely studied aspect marker in Chinese. In addition to perfective aspect marker to indicate action completion, le can also serve as a sentence-final particle to indicate a currently relevant state. This study investigates how Chinese native speakers use le in oral discourse and the factors that influence their use. The data were collected from three discourses including informal conversations, elicited narratives, and teacher classroom speech. Multivariate analysis of 2,359 tokens revealed that verb complement type and verb type have the strongest effects, followed by le position, serial verb relationship, sentence type, discourse context, and time word presence/absence.

Keywords: aspect maker, sentence-final particle, sociolinguistics, oral discourse
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The use of le in Chinese
    • 2.1 le as a perfective aspect marker
    • 2.2 le as a sentence-final particle
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data collection
    • 3.3Data analysis and coding variables
      • 3.3.1Linguistic factors
        • Position of le
        • Verb type
        • Verb complement type
        • Sentence polarity and sentence type
        • Time word in sentences
        • le position in serial verbs and serial verb relationship
      • 3.3.2Social factors
        • Gender and occupation
        • Discourse context
    • 3.4Coding exclusions
    • 3.5Interrater reliability
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion
    • 5.1Post-verbal le and sentence-final le
    • 5.2Aspect in Chinese and post-verbal le
    • 5.3Optionality of le
  • 6.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 12 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cld.00033.li
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