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26 - Syntax of Sentence-final Particles in Chinese

from Part Four - Syntax-semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse Issues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2022

By
Siu-Pong Cheng  and
Sze-Wing Tang
Edited by
Chu-Ren Huang ,
Yen-Hwei Lin ,
I-Hsuan Chen  and
Yu-Yin Hsu
Chu-Ren Huang
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
Yen-Hwei Lin
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
I-Hsuan Chen
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Yu-Yin Hsu
Affiliation:
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
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Summary

Sentence-final particles are normally assumed to occur in the CP domain, i.e., the domain of the complementizer phrase. Their exact syntactic position varies given the heterogeneity of these elements. The position of these particles usually depends on how they are categorized semantically, and also on how they conform to different syntactic principles. Several distinctive and often competing approaches are addressed here. This chapter also discusses those 'sentence-final particles' that are found in the lower domains and revisits the question of whether some, if not all, elements that are said to belong to the category of sentence-final particles should be construed as non-CP elements.

Keywords

sentence-final particlecomplementizerhead directionalitycartographic syntaxChinese dialectal grammar
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Chinese Linguistics , pp. 578 - 596
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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