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Discourse Particles: Syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and historical aspects
Edited by Xabier Artiagoitia, Arantzazu Elordieta and Sergio Monforte
[Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today 276] 2022
► pp. 179–206

Chapter 7
Sentence-final particles in Mandarin Chinese

Syntax, semantics and acquisition

| CNRS-EHESS-INALCO, CRLAO, Paris
| School of Chinese as a second language, Peking University

Sentence-final particles (SFPs) in Mandarin Chinese realize the heads of three projections in the rigidly ordered head-final CP ‘Low CP < ForceP < AttitudeP’. Only the highest projection AttitudeP encodes discourse-related properties, whereas ForceP encodes the sentence-type (interrogative, imperative). Low Cs interact with properties of the TP-internal extended verbal projection and are obligatory when acting as (non-default) anchors. They play an important role in determining the temporal interpretation and finiteness in Mandarin Chinese and can therefore no longer be neglected by studies addressing these issues. There is no evidence for an “incremental” acquisition “up the tree” of the different projections in the split CP nor for the acquisition of TP prior to CP, as postulated by the cartographic approach.

Keywords: split CP, sentence type, finiteness, tense, aspect
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The three-layered CP in Chinese: Overview and some in-depth case studies
    • 2.1Low CP
      • 2.1.1The C-heads láizhe1, ne1, le as “expressing tense” (Zhu 1982)
      • 2.1.2The selectional properties of the low Cs
      • 2.1.3Low CP: Interim summary
    • 2.2SFPs realizing ForceP
      • 2.2.1The yes/no-question force head ma2
      • 2.2.2The Force head baQconfirmation: confirmation request or conjecture
      • 2.2.3The Force head baImp: advice or suggestion
      • 2.2.4ForceP: Interim summary
    • 2.3Attitude Phrase
      • 2.3.1The Attitude heads ne3 and bale
      • 2.3.2The Attitude head ma
      • 2.3.3The Attitude head láizhe
      • 2.3.4The Attitude head a
      • 2.3.5Wrap-up
  • 3.The cartographic approach and the acquisition of SFPs
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 17 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/la.276.07pau
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