Clausal Integration and the Emergence of Mitigative and Adhortative Sentence-Final Particles in Chinese

Abstract

本文提出了漢語中產生句末助詞的不同途徑，並集中討論「小句整合」的策略。本文採用了古漢語中「而已矣」及「也已矣」的歷時證據。本文進一步提供早期現代漢語和當代漢語的例子，以證明小句整合的過程非常強大並具有遞歸性。此過程產生了中文裡許多句子右端的語用標記，對其他語言亦有一定意義。

This paper identifies a number of different pathways that give rise to sentence final particles in Chinese. In particular, it focuses on a strategy referred to as ‘clausal integration’. Diachronic evidence is given for the emergence of sentence final particles er yi yi and ye yi yi in Old Chinese. Additional examples are further provided from Early Modern Chinese and contemporary Chinese to show that the process of clausal integration is a highly robust, recursive process that gives rise to numerous pragmatic markers at the right periphery within the Chinese language, with possible implications for other languages as well.