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Both sentential final particles (SFPs) and high modals commonly convey the speakers’ knowledge of the world, their judgments, intentions, and subjective attitudes. This paper aims to explore the correlations between high modals and sentence-final particles in Mandarin Chinese (MC). Specifically, two high modals of MC show the behavior of being unable to precede the subject and eliminating their epistemic reading in the presence of SFPs. The phenomenon discussed in this paper is specifically exemplified with ‘should’ and ‘be likely to’ in MC. We give an analysis about which modals and SFPs are interlaced in terms of their scope positions, so as to explain the phenomena.

This volume brings together sixteen in-depth studies of final particles in various languages of the world, offering a rich variety of approaches to this still relatively underresearched class of elements. The volume is of interest to typologists, to experts in syntax and the analysis of spoken language, and to linguists studying the form and function of final particles in single languages. Final particles offers an overview of the different types of final particles found in typologically distinct languages, different methological approaches to the study of final particles, and of typical grammaticalization pathways that these elements have taken in different languages.

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.

Mandarin Chinese clausal syntax can be described as strictly head-initial, with the exception of certain \"particles\" which are linearized at the end of the clause. Previous work on these sentence-final particles (SFPs) has assumed that all SFPs are very high, in the CP periphery. In this paper I show that a subset of SFPs are in a lower, clause-medial position, based on the scopal interaction of these SFPs with negation, modals, quantificational subjects, and alternative question disjunction. I identify this position as coinciding with the edge of the lower phase, traditionally identified as vP. As SFPs are head-final heads with head-initial complements, they have been discussed as an important apparent exception to the Final-over-Final Constraint (FOFC), a proposed universal on structure-building and linearization. The existence of exceptions to FOFC in a clause-medial position in addition to the CP edge motivates the view that FOFC holds only within individual Spell-Out domains.

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.

This paper re-examines the syntactic properties of the sentence-final particle (henceforth, SFP) in Hong Kong Cantonese (henceforth, Cantonese). Despite studies such as Lam 2014, Tang 2020, and Law et al. 2024, variation persists among native speakers in their judgments regarding the acceptability of SFP clusters such as . Additionally, Law et al.’s (2024) preliminary observation that involves an addressee shift remains underexplored. To address these issues, this paper investigates whether can co-occur with the class of Degree SFPs (Tang 2015a). The results reveal that there are two distinct s: one operating at the propositional level and the other at the speech act level. To capture this contrast, I propose that [A] is an SFP occupying the head of F3P, which is one of the layers of the split-FP under the cartographic approach (Tang 2015b). On the other hand, [B] is a pro-sentence merged with the antecedent sentence by an empty conjunction, forming a general conjunctive structure. The proposed account provides better empirical coverage compared to previous literature (Lam 2014; Law et al. 2024) and enhances our understanding of the nature of the left periphery in natural languages.

It is argued in this paper that a sentence should consist of at least three layers, namely proposition, grounding, and response, which are formed by a number of functional categories, such as Event, Temp, Focus, Degree, and CoA. A cartographic analysis of the performative projections can be supported by the data of the sentence-final particles in Cantonese, focusing on the sentence-final particle ho and other members of the h -family, which may allow us to have a better understanding of the syntax of the speech act domain and should have implications for the cross-linguistic study of the performatives and the theory of the Universal Grammar.

This paper investigates the interpretive restrictions on the subjects of imperative, promissive, and exhortative sentences—what we call the \"jussive\" clause types. It argues that the data cannot be explained by a theory that appeals only to semantic and pragmatic factors, and that an account crucially involving syntax is required. We propose that jussive clauses contain a functional head that bears a person feature. This head is an operator that, when in a sufficiently local configuration, binds the subject and enters an agreement relation with it. The restrictions in person features exhibited by the subjects are a consequence of this agreement relation. Moreover, we show that the syntactic structures produced by our analysis are compatible with a compositional semantics that yields the correct interpretation for imperatives and other jussives.

Using 129 natural conversations and 185 episodes of television drama conversations as well as the theoretical frameworks of usage-based theory and grammaticalization, I investigate two forms of ‘or’ in Korean, tunci and kena. Generally believed to be largely interchangeable, these two forms’ actual usages have never been compared. I demonstrate that the two are selectively used in conversation, and propose that three types of factor influence the selection. The first factors are genre and setting. In formal settings and formal descriptive writing, kena is preferred. The second factor is the presence of negative markers: while 43% of kena tokens were used in negative sentences, only one token of tunci was. The third factor is the distinction between ‘propositive’ tunci and ‘descriptive’ kena. In conversation, tunci occurs mainly in making suggestions and presenting plans, and hence is oriented toward the future tense and the irrealis domain. Kena occurs mainly in describing present and past situations, facts, or premises, and hence is oriented toward the present and past tense and the realis domain. This study confirms the usage-based theory’s argument that speakers possess extensive procedural knowledge of language: Korean speakers may not be conscious of it, but they differentiate tunci and kena with high regularity. Lastly, I explain their differences based on their history. The older form, kena, dates back to the 8th century, whereas tunci became widespread only in the 19th century. Because tunci retains its original semantics of probability, tunci tends to occur in presenting suggestions and plans (irrealis) and not in factual descriptions.

本文旨在探討在線上互動中實習教師與學生句末語氣詞使用情形。結果顯示,教師句末語氣詞的使用比例為37%,明顯高於學生的15%。教師使用頻率最高的為「嗎」, 佔教師出現語氣詞總數的58%, 學生使用頻率最高的為「嗎」、「啊」,各佔學生出現語氣詞總數的36%。本文亦對兩岸教師、母語為華語與非華語之教師以及家中使用與不使用華語之學生的句末語氣詞使用頻率差異進行了比較。最後, 輔以說話者的身分類別進行綜合比較, 發現教師身分對華語母語教師的語氣詞使用類型及頻率皆有影響。本文分析真實教學互動情境中出現的語氣詞研究結果, 不僅能為現有兩岸句末語氣詞研究的語料佐證, 亦能實際應用於華語教學。 The purpose of this study is to explore the use of Mandarin utterance-final particles in online teacher-student interactions. The interactions were carried out by 15 preservice teachers who were graduate students at the Department of Chinese as a Second Language and 6 learners of Chinese as a second language in Singapore. After four online-interaction sessions (24 classes in total), we tagged utterance-final particles in the sentences of the corpus produced from conversation between the teachers and students. The results show that utterance-final particles spoken by students are Ma (嗎) >  A (啊) >  O (喔) >  Ba (吧) >  Ye (耶) >  Ne (呢) =  La (啦) >  Wa (哇), in the order of decreasing frequency. Yo (唷) or Ma (嘛) did not appear in the students’ speech. The utterance-final particles were used in 15% of the total number of turns by the students, and their most frequently used particles were Ma (嗎) and A (啊), each accounted for 36% of their total number of utterance-final particles. Utterance-final particles produced by the preservice teachers are Ma (嗎) >  Ne (呢) > A (啊) >  O (喔) >  Ba (吧) >  Ye (耶) >  Ma (嘛) >  Luo (囉) >  La (啦) =  Wa (哇) >  Yo (唷), in the order of decreasing frequency. The utterance-final particles were used in 37% of the total number of turns by the preservice teachers, and their most frequently used utterance-final particle was Ma (嗎), which accounted for 58% of their total number of utterance-final particles. This study also looked into the factors that may influence the use of utterance-final particles, such as regional Mandarin variations (Taiwan vs. Mainland China), preservice teachers’ primary language (Mandarin or other languages), where the second language learners are originally from, and whether Chinese heritage students speak Mandarin at home. The rate using utterance-final particles of Taiwanese teachers was 8% higher than that of Mainland Chinese teachers, and this result agrees with our general impression on utterance-final particles occur more frequent in Taiwanese Mandarin. The heritage students who speak Mandarin at home used utterance-final particles 2% more than those who do not. The teachers whose primary language is Mandarin used 11% more of the utterance-final particles than those who speak other languages. In addition, the rate using utterance-final particles of Taiwanese teachers was 8% higher than that of Mainland Chinese teachers, and this result agrees with our general impression on utterance-final particles occur more frequent in Taiwanese Mandarin. In this study, we realized that various factors may affect the frequency of using specific utterance-final particle, such as the power and solidarity between the speaker and the hearer, such as teacher to student. Additionally, our result shows that language background also plays a role in how a speaker uses utterance-final particles. In our future research, we will further analyze the factors that determine the frequency of Mandarin utterance-final particles.