Sentence-final particles, including modal particles and interactional particles, are minimal lexemes (words) that occur at the end of a sentence and that do not carry referential meaning, but may relate to linguistic modality, register or other pragmatic effects. Sentence-final particles are common in Chinese, including particles such as Mandarin le 了, ne 呢, ba 吧, ou 哦, a 啊, la 啦, ya 呀, and ma 嗎/吗, and Cantonese lo 囉 and ge 嘅. These particles act as qualifiers of the clause or sentence they end. Sentence-final particles are also present in Japanese and many East Asian languages, such as Thai, and especially in languages that have undergone heavy Sino-Tibetan influence, such as the Monguor languages.

Examples

Chinese

Yuen Ren Chao has described sentence-final particles as "phrase suffixes": just as a word suffix is in construction with the word preceding it, a sentence-final particle or phrase suffix is "in construction with a preceding phrase or sentence, though phonetically closely attached to the syllable immediately preceding it". According to Chao, the sentence-final particle is phonetically close to the last word before it, but syntactically it is equidistant from every word in the whole predicate.

While sentence-final particles usually do not carry meaning themselves or denote anything explicit, they may be derived from words that do carry meaning when they occur in other contexts and serve different functions.

All of the sentence-final particles of Standard Chinese are unstressed and, unlike most syllables in the language, do not carry tone.

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 force of the statement to which the particle is attached, and "how the utterance is to be taken by the hearer." Common sentence-final particles include the following:

  • ද da: interrogative. Marks a polar question by attaching to a declarative statement. E.g., "ඔයා එනවා" (oyā enavā) "You are coming" → "ඔයා එනවා ද?" (oyā enavā da?) "Are you coming?"
  • ලු lu: reportive evidential. Indicates that the speaker is reporting second-hand information in the statement, often implying reduced epistemic commitment. E.g., "එයා එනවා" (eyā enavā) "S/he is coming" → "එයා එනවා ලු" (eyā enavā lu) "I’ve heard that s/he is coming"
  • නෙ/ නේ ne / nē: evaluative/ confirmation seeking/ solidarity building. Used when the speaker expects the addressee to share, confirm, or ratify the proposition; frequently strengthens common-ground alignment. E.g., "එයා එනවා" (eyā enavā) "S/he is coming" → "එයා එනවා නෙ" (eyā enavā ne?) "S/he is coming, right?"
  • යැ yæ: dubitative. Expresses doubt, suspicion, or weak epistemic commitment on the part of the speaker. E.g., "එයා එනවා" (eyā enavā) "S/he is coming" → "එයා එනවා යැ" (eyā enavā yæ?) "I doubt if s/he is coming."
  • තමා/ තමයි tamā/ tamai: exhaustivity. Indicates that the appended statement exhausts the possible set of alternatives; often conveys “it is X (and not anything else).” E.g., "එයා එනවා" (eyā enavā) "S/he is coming" → "එයා එනවා තමයි" (eyā enavā tamai) "She is coming indeed"
  • විතරයි witarai: exclusivity. Restricts the statement to a minimal interpretation, similar to English “only.” E.g., "එයා එනවා" (eyā enavā) "S/he is coming" C "එයා එනවා විතරයි. වෙන මුකුත් කරන්නේ නැහැ" (eyā enavā witari) "S/he is just coming; she is not going to do anything else."
  • කො ko: intensifier/ downtoner. Strengthens imperatives, often adding urgency, or softens commissives by signalling lowered speaker commitment. E.g., "අනේ එන්න" (anē enna) "Please come" → "අනේ එන්න කො" (anē enna ko) "Come, will you!" vs. "මං මොනවා හරි කරන්නම්" (maṁ monawa hari karannam) "I'll do something (about it)" → "මං මොනවා හරි කරන්නම් කො" (maṁ monawa hari karannam ko) "I'll try do something (about it)"

Some of these forms occur with phonologically conditioned alternations (e.g., ne ~ nē, tamā ~ tamai), and their pragmatic profiles vary with genre, region, and the formality of the interaction.

English

English also has some words and phrases that act somewhat like sentence final particles, but primarily only in colloquial speech. However, there are others, called tag questions, which are less colloquial and can be used for any situation. All are generally discourse particles rather than modal particles. For example:

  • "man" in "Don't do it, man."
  • "right" in "The blue one, right?"
  • "no" in "You want to go, no?"
  • "don't you" in "You want to, don't you?"
  • "are they" in "They're not hurt, are they?"
  • "aren't they" in "They're here, aren't they?"
  • "is it" in "The plate isn't broken, is it?"
  • "isn't it" in "The plane is here, isn't it?"

All but the first are tag questions. Notice how when the main sentence is affirmative, the tag question is negative, and vice versa.

Portuguese

Portuguese uses several sentence-final particles. For example:

  • "né": mainly used to seek confirmation or agreement. It may also be used to denote sarcasm or to express that a statement is obvious.
  • "sim": mainly used to emphasize a statement. It is often translated as "do" as in:
  • "lá": used with some verbs to emphasize a negation as in 'I don't know.'
  • "já": has many different uses; one of them is to express surprise.
  • "ó": rarely used in writing, but common in speech. Used to draw the listener's attention to something.
  • "aí": has many different uses, one of them is to soften a request or to make a sentence sound more colloquial.

Spanish

In the same way that certain words and phrases are used as sentence final particles above in the section on English (as discourse particles), some Spanish words and phrases can be used this way as well; once again, these are usually called tag questions. For example:

  • "verdad" (right) in "Te gustan los libros, ¿verdad?" (You (informal) like books, right?)
  • "no" (no) in "Le toca pasar la aspiradora, ¿no?" (It's your (formal) turn to vacuum, no?)
  • "no es verdad" (isn't that right) in "Eres de Perú, ¿no es verdad?" (You're (informal) from Peru, isn't that right?)

Note that in Spanish, the question marks are placed around the tag question, and not around the entire sentence (although English only uses the single final question mark, it is implied that the entire sentence, and not just the tag, is the question).

References

  • Thai Particles (Large list of Thai particles and exclamations with explanations and example sentences).
  • The Typological Value of the Chinese Modality Particles (.doc)