Grammatical Particle
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In
grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...
, the term ''particle'' (
abbreviated An abbreviation (from Latin ''brevis'', meaning ''short'') is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method. It may consist of a group of letters or words taken from the full version of the word or phrase; for example, the word ''abbrevia ...
) has a traditional meaning, as a
part of speech In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are assi ...
that cannot be
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defi ...
, and a modern meaning, as a function word associated with another word or phrase, generally in order to impart meaning. Although a particle may have an intrinsic meaning, and indeed 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 instance, 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, for instance, they may be used as honorifics, or to indicate emphasis or negation. In some languages they are more clearly defined, such as Chinese, which has three types of ''zhùcí'' (助詞; particles): ''Structural'', ''Aspectual'', and ''Modal''. ''Structural'' particles are used for
grammatical relations In linguistics, grammatical relations (also called grammatical functions, grammatical roles, or syntactic functions) are functional relationships between constituents in a clause. The standard examples of grammatical functions from traditional gra ...
. ''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 In linguistics and philosophy, modality refers to the ways language can express various relationships to reality or truth. For instance, a modal expression may convey that something is likely, desirable, or permissible. Quintessential modal ex ...
.
Polynesian languages The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...
, which are almost devoid of inflection, use particles extensively to indicate mood, tense, and case.


Modern meaning

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),
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 such as ''well'', ''um'', etc. Particles are never
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defi ...
.


Related concepts and ambiguities

Depending on context, the meaning of the term may overlap with concepts such as ''
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
'', '' marker'', or even ''
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering ...
'' as in English
phrasal verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...
s such as ''out'' in ''get out''. Under a strict definition, in which a particle must be uninflected, English
deictics In linguistics, deixis (, ) is the use of general words and phrases to refer to a specific time, place, or person in context, e.g., the words ''tomorrow'', ''there'', and ''they''. Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their de ...
like ''this'' and ''that'' would not be classed as such (since they have plurals and are therefore inflected), and neither would
Romance Romance (from Vulgar Latin , "in the Roman language", i.e., "Latin") may refer to: Common meanings * Romance (love), emotional attraction towards another person and the courtship behaviors undertaken to express the feelings * Romance languages, ...
articles (since they are inflected for number and gender). This assumes that ''any'' function word incapable of inflection is by definition a particle. However, this conflicts with the above statement that particles have no specific lexical function , since non-inflecting words that function as articles, prepositions, conjunctions, interjections have a clear lexical function. This disappears if particles are taken to be a separate class of words, where one characteristic (which they share with some words of other classes) is that they do not inflect.


In 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 verb In the traditional grammar of Modern English, a phrasal verb typically constitutes a single semantic unit composed of a verb followed by a particle (examples: ''turn down'', ''run into'' or ''sit up''), sometimes combined with a preposition (ex ...
s) 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''.


In other languages


Afrikaans

The following particles can be considered the most prominent in
Afrikaans Afrikaans (, ) is a West Germanic language that evolved in the Dutch Cape Colony from the Dutch vernacular of Holland proper (i.e., the Hollandic dialect) used by Dutch, French, and German settlers and their enslaved people. Afrikaans gra ...
: * ''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 In linguistics (especially generative grammar), complementizer or complementiser (glossing abbreviation: ) is a functional category (part of speech) that includes those words that can be used to turn a clause into the subject or object of a se ...
''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 In linguistics, grammatical relations (also called grammatical functions, grammatical roles, or syntactic functions) are functional relationships between constituents in a clause. The standard examples of grammatical functions from traditional gra ...
. 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 In linguistics and philosophy, modality refers to the ways language can express various relationships to reality or truth. For instance, a modal expression may convey that something is likely, desirable, or permissible. Quintessential modal ex ...
. Note that particles are different from zhùdòngcí (助動詞; modal verbs) in Chinese.


Hindi

There are different types of particles present in
Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...
. 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:


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).


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.


Japanese and Korean

The term ''particle'' is often used in descriptions of
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
and
Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula * Korean cuisine * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl **Korean dialects and the Jeju language ** ...
, where they are used to mark
noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, d ...
s according to their
grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In vari ...
or
thematic relation In certain theories of linguistics, thematic relations, also known as semantic roles, are the various roles that a noun phrase may play with respect to the action or state described by a governing verb, commonly the sentence's main verb. For exam ...
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
postposition 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. There are sentence-tagging particles such as Japanese and Chinese question markers.


Polynesian languages

Polynesian languages The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family. There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austro ...
are almost devoid of inflection, and use particles extensively to indicate mood, tense, and case. Suggs, discussing the deciphering of the
rongorongo Rongorongo (Rapa Nui: ) is a system of glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that appears to be writing or proto-writing. Numerous attempts at decipherment have been made, with none being successful. Although some c ...
script of
Easter Island Easter Island ( rap, Rapa Nui; es, Isla de Pascua) is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearl ...
, 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 imperative mood is a grammatical mood that forms a command or request. The imperative mood is used to demand or require that an action be performed. It is usually found only in the present tense, second person. To form 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 Tokelauan is a Polynesian language spoken in Tokelau and on Swains Island (or Olohega) in American Samoa. It is closely related to Tuvaluan and is related to Samoan and other Polynesian languages. Tokelauan has a co-official status with Engli ...
, ''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.


See also

* Nobiliary particle *
Sentence-final particle Sentence-final particles, including modal particles, interactional particles, etc., 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 p ...
*
Uninflected word In linguistic morphology, an uninflected word is a word that has no morphological markers (inflection) such as affixes, ablaut, consonant gradation, etc., indicating declension or conjugation. If a word has an uninflected form, this is usually ...
* Ilocano particles * Okinawan particles * Proto-Indo-European particles


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grammatical Particle Parts of speech