Sentence-final particle: Difference between revisions

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A major use of sentence-final particles in Mandarin Chinese specifically is thought to be as a signal of the speaker's attitude, the intended [[Illocutionary act|force]] of the statement to which the particle is attached, and "how the utterance is to be taken by the hearer."<ref name="Lin1"/> For example, the addition of a particle may soften the tone of a question that might sound presumptuous or inappropriate without the particle. As such, sentence-final particles in this sense often perform an interpersonal function, rather than a grammatical one. Nevertheless, there are cases in which sentence-final particles do perform grammatical functions, such as Mandarin ''ma'' 吗, the "question particle," which changes the grammatical mood of a sentence to [[Interrogative mood|interrogative]]. Likewise, even though sentence-final particles can usually be omitted from a sentence without making the sentence ungrammatical or changing its meaning,<ref name="Lin1"/> some particles do contain information critical to the interpretation of an utterance's meaning, such as Mandarin ''le'' 了.<ref name="Li & Thompson 1"/>

==Examples==

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===Mandarin===