Chinese exclamative particles
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Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...
involves a number of spoken exclamative words and written
onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia is the process of creating a word that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Such a word itself is also called an onomatopoeia. Common onomatopoeias include animal noises such as ''oink'', ''m ...
which are used in everyday speech and informal writing. Such "exclamations" have their own
Chinese character Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the Written Chinese, writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are k ...
, but they are rarely used in formal written documents. Rather, they are found in movie
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, music
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, informal literature and on
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s. Many exclamatives contain the mouth radical.


Use of exclamative particles

Exclamative particles are used as a method of recording aspects of human speech which may not be based entirely on meaning and definition. Specific characters are used to record exclamations, as with any other form of Chinese vocabulary, some characters exclusively representing the expression (such as 哼), others sharing characters with alternate words and meanings (such as 可). As with all Chinese characters, exclamative particles span only one syllable, and are formed in the same structure as other Chinese words (for example, words in
Mandarin Chinese Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
only end in -n, -ng, -r or a vowel). The mouth
radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...
口 found on many exclamative particles represents that the character is a sound, as with onomatopoeia and speech-related words, since
phono-semantic compound All Chinese characters are logograms, but several different types can be identified, based on the manner in which they are formed or derived. There are a handful which derive from pictographs () and a number which are ideographic () in origin, inc ...
subset of
Chinese character Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the Written Chinese, writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are k ...
s are classified through meaning by their radicals. For example, 嘿 ''hei'' is derived from the mouth radical 口 and the character 黑 ''hei'', which literally means "black", while 啞 originates from the mouth radical plus the character 亞 ''ya'', meaning Asia. The practice occurs from adding a radical in front of a same or similar-sounding word, which then introduces a new word with a new meaning, depending on the radical. Most words represented by the mouth radical have something to do with sounds or speech. Use of exclamative particles is highly informal, and it is advised that they not be used in formal documents or academic papers, unless it is specifically required to do so (such as the case of narrative telling). While such exclamations are used in subtitles and descriptions of speech, usage is also popular in social circumstances, such as in
text messaging Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending electronic messages, typically consisting of alphabetic and numeric characters, between two or more users of mobile devices, desktops/laptops, or another type of compatible compute ...
, IM and
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, where the formality of text is not an issue. Peers may use such particles to address and communicate with each other, just as people in English-speaking regions use words such as "Hey!" to address close friends, or use words like "ugh" or "argh" while online, which are also considered to be informal.


Parallels in other East Asian languages

Similarly in Japanese,
particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from su ...
are used to add expression to speech (e.g. よ, an exclamatory particle), however particles are used more thoroughly and frequently in Japanese than in Chinese. Some Japanese particles are also more commonly used within informal written texts than their Chinese counterparts. Exclamative particles are also used in the
Korean language Korean ( South Korean: , ''hangugeo''; North Korean: , ''chosŏnmal'') is the native language for about 80 million people, mostly of Korean descent. It is the official and national language of both North Korea and South Korea (geographic ...
, such as the use of 에 (e) to represent surprise, although such usage is also considered informal.


List of Chinese exclamations


See also

*
Chinese pronouns Chinese pronouns ( or ) differ somewhat from pronouns in English and other Indo-European languages. For instance, there is no differentiation in the spoken language between "he", "she" and "it" (though a written difference was introduced after conta ...
*
Chinese grammar The grammar of Standard Chinese or Mandarin shares many features with other varieties of Chinese. The language almost entirely lacks inflection; words typically have only one grammatical form. Categories such as number (singular or plural) and ...
*
Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...
*
Japanese sound symbolism The Japanese language has a large inventory of sound symbolic or mimetic words, known in linguistics as ideophones. Such words are found in written as well as spoken Japanese. Known popularly as ''onomatopoeia'', these words are not just imitat ...


References


External links


金山词霸 DictionaryDict.CN 海词 在线词典
* * *{{cite book , last=Rimmington , first=Don , title=Chinese: An Essential Grammar, url=https://books.google.com/books?id=an3GxdpST7AC&pg=PA152, page=152 , year=1997 , publisher=
Routledge Routledge () is a British multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanities, behavioural science, education, law, and ...
, isbn=9780415135344 Chinese characters Interjections