grammatical particle
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In grammar, the term ''particle'' ( abbreviated ) has a traditional meaning, as a part of speech that cannot be inflected, and a modern meaning, as a
function word In linguistics, function words (also called functors) are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker. ...
(functor) associated with another word or phrase, in order to impart meaning. Although a particle may have an intrinsic meaning, and may fit into other grammatical categories, the fundamental idea of the particle is to add context to the sentence, expressing a mood or indicating a specific action. In English, for example, the phrase "oh well" has no purpose in speech other than to convey a mood. The word 'up' would be a particle in the phrase to 'look up' (as in the phrase ''"''look up this topic''"''), implying that one researches something, rather than literally gazing skywards. Many languages use particles, in varying amounts and for varying reasons. In Hindi, they may be used as honorifics, or to indicate emphasis or negation. In some languages they are clearly defined, e.g. Chinese which has three types of ''zhùcí'' (助詞; particles): ''Structural'', ''Aspectual'', and ''Modal''. ''Structural'' particles are used for grammatical relations. ''Aspectual'' particles signal
grammatical aspect In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to ...
s. ''Modal'' particles express linguistic modality. Polynesian languages, which are almost devoid of inflection, use particles extensively to indicate mood, tense, and case.


Modern meaning

In modern grammar, a particle is a
function word In linguistics, function words (also called functors) are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speaker. ...
that must be associated with another word or phrase to impart meaning, i.e., it does not have its own lexical definition. According to this definition, particles are a separate part of speech and are distinct from other classes of function words, such as
articles Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...
,
preposition Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s, conjunctions and adverbs. Languages vary widely in how much they use particles, some using them extensively and others more commonly using alternative devices such as prefixes/suffixes, inflection, auxiliary verbs and word order. Particles are typically words that encode
grammatical categories In linguistics, a grammatical category or grammatical feature is a property of items within the grammar of a language. Within each category there are two or more possible values (sometimes called grammemes), which are normally mutually exclusiv ...
(such as
negation In logic, negation, also called the logical complement, is an operation that takes a proposition P to another proposition "not P", written \neg P, \mathord P or \overline. It is interpreted intuitively as being true when P is false, and false ...
, mood, tense, or
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
),
clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
s, fillers or (oral)
discourse markers A discourse marker is a word or a phrase that plays a role in managing the flow and structure of discourse. Since their main function is at the level of discourse (sequences of utterances) rather than at the level of utterances or sentences, disco ...
such as ''well'', ''um'', etc. Particles are never inflected.


Afrikaans

The following particles can be considered the most prominent in Afrikaans: * ''nie''2: Afrikaans has a double negation system, as in ''Sy is nie1 moeg nie2'' 'She is not tired PTCL.NEG' (meaning 'She is not tired'). The first ''nie''1 is analysed as an adverb, while the second ''nie''2 as a negation particle. * ''te'': Infinitive verbs are preceded by the complementiser ''om'' and the infinitival particle ''te'', e.g. ''Jy moet onthou om te eet'' 'You must remember for COMP PTCL.INF eat' (meaning 'You must remember to eat'). * ''se'' or ''van'': Both ''se'' and ''van'' are
genitive In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
particles, e.g. ''Peter se boek'' 'Peter PTCL.GEN book' (meaning 'Peter's book'), or ''die boek van Peter'' 'the book PTCL.GEN Peter' (meaning 'Peter's book'). * ''so'' and ''soos'': These two particles are found in constructions like ''so groot soos 'n huis'' 'PTCL.CMPR big PTCL.CMPR a house' (meaning 'as big as a house').


Arabic

Particles in Arabic can take the form of a single root letter before a given word, like "-و" (''and''), "-ف" (''so'') and "-ل" (''to''). However, other particles like "هل" (which marks a question) can be complete words as well.


Chinese

There are three types of zhùcí (助詞; particles) in Chinese: Structural, Aspectual, and Modal. Structural particles are used for grammatical relations. Aspectual particles signal
grammatical aspect In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how an action, event, or state, as denoted by a verb, extends over time. Perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to ...
s. Modal particles express linguistic modality. Note that particles are different from zhùdòngcí (助動詞; modal verbs) in Chinese.


English

''Particle'' is a somewhat nebulous term for a variety of small words that do not conveniently fit into other classes of words. ''The Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language'' defines a particle as a "word that does not change its form through inflection and does not fit easily into the established system of parts of speech". The term includes the "adverbial particles" like ''up'' or ''out'' in verbal idioms ( phrasal verbs) such as "look up" or "knock out"; it also includes the "infinitival particle" ''to'', the "negative particle" ''not'', the "imperative particles" ''do'' and ''let'', and sometimes "pragmatic particles" (also called "fillers" or "discourse markers") like ''oh'' and ''well''.


German

A
German modal particle German modal particles ( or ''Abtönungspartikel'') are uninflected words that are used mainly in the spontaneous spoken language in colloquial registers in German. Their dual function is to reflect the mood or the attitude of the speaker or the n ...
serves no necessary syntactical function, but expresses the speaker's attitude towards the utterance. Modal particles include ''ja, halt, doch, aber, denn, schon'' and others. Some of these also appear in non-particle forms. ''Aber'', for example, is also the conjunction ''but''. In ''Er ist Amerikaner, aber er spricht gut Deutsch'', "He is American, but he speaks German well," ''aber'' is a conjunction connecting two sentences. But in ''Er spricht aber gut Deutsch!'', the ''aber'' is a particle, with the sentence perhaps best translated as "What good German he speaks!" These particles are common in speech but rarely found in written language, except that which has a spoken quality (such as online messaging).


Hindi

There are different types of particles present in Hindi: emphatic particles, limiter particles, negation particles, affirmative particles, honorific particles, topic-marker particle and case-marking particles. Some common particles of Hindi are mentioned in the table below:


Japanese and Korean

The term ''particle'' is often used in descriptions of Japanese and Korean, where they are used to mark nouns according to their grammatical case or thematic relation in a sentence or clause. Linguistic analyses describe them as
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...
es,
clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a w ...
s, or postpositions. There are sentence-tagging particles such as Japanese question markers.


Polynesian languages

Polynesian languages are almost devoid of inflection, and use particles extensively to indicate mood, tense, and case. Suggs, discussing the deciphering of the rongorongo script of Easter Island, describes them as all-important. In
Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
for example, the versatile particle "e" can signal the imperative mood, the vocative case, the future tense, or the subject of a sentence formed with most passive verbs. The particle "i" signals the past imperfect tense, the object of a transitive verb or the subject of a sentence formed with "neuter verbs" (a form of passive verb), as well as the prepositions ''in'', ''at'' and ''from''.


Tokelauan

In Tokelauan, ''ia'' is used when describing personal names, month names, and nouns used to describe a collaborative group of people participating in something together. It also can be used when a verb does not directly precede a pronoun to describe said pronouns. Its use for pronouns is optional but mostly in this way. ''Ia'' cannot be used if the noun it is describing follows any of the prepositions ''e, o, a'', or ''ko''. A couple of the other ways unrelated to what is listed above that ''ia'' is used is when preceding a locative or place name. However, if ''ia'' is being used in this fashion, the locative or place name must be the subject of the sentence. Another particle in Tokelauan is ''a'', or sometimes ''ā''. This article is used before a person's name as well as the names of months and the particle ''a te'' is used before pronouns when these instances are following the prepositions ''i'' or ''ki''. ''Ia te'' is a particle used if following the preposition ''ma''i.


Turkish

Turkish particles have no meaning alone; among other words, it takes part in the sentence. In some sources, exclamations and conjunctions are also considered Turkish particles. In this article, exclamations and conjunctions will not be dealt with, but only Turkish particles. The main particles used in Turkish are: * ancakused with "Ama, fakat, lakin" (but). * başka, another * beri, since * bir, one * bir tek, only * dair, regarding * doğru, right * değil, not * değin, mention * denli, as much * dek, until * dolayı, due * diye, so * evvel, before * gayri, informal * gibi, like * göre, by * için, for * ile, withused with "Ve" (and) * kadar, until * karşı, against * karşın, although or despite * mukabil, corresponding * önce, prior to * ötürü, due to * öte, beyond * rağmen, despite * sadece, only * sanki, as if * sonra, then * sıra, row * üzere, to * yalnız, alone Particles can be used with the simple form of the names to which they are attached or in other cases. Some of particles uses with attached form, and some particles are always used after the relevant form. For examples, "-den ötürü", "-e dek", "-den öte", "-e doğru": * Bu çiçekleri annem için alıyorum. ("anne" is nominative) * Yarına kadar bu ödevi bitirmem lazım. (dative) * Düşük notlarından ötürü çok çalışman gerekiyor. (ablative) Turkish particles according to their functions. Başka, gayrı, özge used for ''other, another, otherwise, new, diverse, either'' * Senden gayrı kimsem yok. No one other than you. * Yardım istemekten başka çaremiz kalmadı. We have no choice but to ask for help. Göre, nazaran, dâir, rağmen used for ''by, in comparison, about, despite''. * Çok çalışmama rağmen sınavda hedeflediğim başarıyı yakalayamadım. * Duyduğuma göre bitirme sınavları bir hafta erken gerçekleşecekmiş. * Şirketteki son değişikliklere dâir bilgi almak istiyorum. İçin, üzere, dolayı, ötürü, nâşi, diye used for ''for, with, because, because of, how''. * Açılış konuşmasını yapmak üzere kürsüye çıktı. * Bu raporu bitirebilmek için zamana ihtiyacım var. * Kardeşim hastalığından nâşi gelemedi.


See also

*
Ilocano particles Ilocano particles are an aspect of Ilocano grammar. Grammatical particle, Particles lack a meaning independent of a phrase or clause. For the most part, they impart meaning to the phrase or clause in which they occur. Ilocano has two morphologica ...
*
Nobiliary particle A nobiliary particle is used in a surname or family name in many Western cultures to signal the nobility of a family. The particle used varies depending on the country, language and period of time. In some languages, it is the same as a regular p ...
* Okinawan particles *
Proto-Indo-European particles The particles of the Proto-Indo-European language (PIE) have been reconstructed by modern linguists based on similarities found across all Indo-European languages. Adverbs Adverbs used as adpositions Many particles could be used both as adverbs ...
* Sentence-final particle * Uninflected word


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grammatical Particle Parts of speech