Grammatical particle

In modern grammar, a particle is a function word that must be associated with another word or phrase to impart meaning, i.e., it does not have its own lexical definition.{{Citation needed|date=March 2017}} According to this definition, particles are a separate part of speech and are distinct from other classes of function words, such as articles, prepositions, conjunctions and adverbs.{{Citation needed|date=March 2017}} 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 (such as negation, mood, tense, or case), clitics, fillers or (oral) discourse markers such as well, um, etc. Particles are never inflected.McArthur, Tom: "The Oxford Companion to the English Language", pp. 72-76, Oxford University Press, 1992. {{ISBN|0-19-214183-X}}

Some commonly used particles in Afrikaans include:

• {{lang|af|nie}}₂: Afrikaans has a double negation system, as in:

{{interlinear|lang=af|indent=3|Sy is nie₁ moeg nie₂|She is not tired PTCL.NEG|'She is not tired'}}

:: The first {{lang|af|nie}}₁ is analysed as an adverb, while the second {{lang|af|nie}}₂ as a negation particle.

• {{lang|af|te}}: Infinitive verbs are preceded by the complementiser {{lang|af|om}} and the infinitival particle {{lang|af|te}}, e.g.

{{interlinear|lang=af|indent=3|Jy moet onthou om te eet|You must remember {{gcl|COMP|complementiser}} PTCL.INF eat|'You must remember to eat'}}

• {{lang|af|se}} or {{lang|af|van}}: Both {{lang|af|se}} and {{lang|af|van}} are genitive particles, e.g.

{{interlinear|lang=af|indent=3|Peter se boek|Peter PTCL.GEN book|'Peter's book'}}

{{interlinear|lang=af|indent=3|die boek van Peter|the book PTCL.GEN Peter|'Peter's book'}}

• {{lang|af|so}} and {{lang|af|soos}}: These two particles are found in constructions like

{{interlinear|lang=af|indent=3|abbreviations=CMPR:compare|so groot soos 'n huis|PTCL.CMPR big PTCL.CMPR a house|'as big as a house'}}

Particles in Arabic can take the form of a single root letter before a given word, like "{{lang|ar|-و}}" ('and'), "{{lang|ar|-ف}}" ('so') and "{{lang|ar|-ل}}" ('to'). However, other particles like "{{lang|ar|هل}}" (which marks a question) can be complete words as well.{{Cite book|last1=Wightwick|first1=Jane|title=Mastering Arabic 1|last2=Gaafar|first2=Mahmoud|publisher=Hippocrene Books}}

{{See also|Chinese particles}}

There are three types of {{pinyin|zhùcí}} ({{lang|zh|助詞}}; particles) in Chinese: Structural, Aspectual, and Modal. Structural particles are used for grammatical relations. Aspectual particles signal grammatical aspects. Modal particles express linguistic modality. Note that particles are different from {{pinyin|zhùdòngcí}} ({{lang|zh|助動詞}}; modal verbs) in Chinese.

Particle is a somewhat nebulous term for a variety of small words that do not conveniently fit into other classes of words.{{Cite book|title=A Glossary of English Grammar|first=Geoffrey|last=Leech|year=2006|page=79|isbn=978-0-7486-1729-6|publisher=Edinburgh University Press}} 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".{{Cite book|at=Particle|title=The Concise Oxford Companion to the English Language|last1=McArthur|first1=Thomas Burns|last2=McArthur|first2=Roshan|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780192806376|date=2005|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/conciseoxfordcom00mcar}} 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.

A German modal particle serves no necessary syntactical function, but expresses the speaker's attitude towards the utterance. Modal particles include {{lang|de|ja, halt, doch, aber, denn, schon}} and others. Some of these also appear in non-particle forms. {{lang|de|Aber}}, for example, is also the conjunction but. In {{lang|de|Er ist Amerikaner, aber er spricht gut Deutsch}}, "He is American, but he speaks German well," {{lang|de|aber}} is a conjunction connecting two sentences. But in {{lang|de|Er spricht aber gut Deutsch!}}, the {{lang|de|aber}} is a particle, with the sentence perhaps best translated as "What good German he speaks!"Martin Durrell, Using German, Cambridge University Press, 2nd edition (2003), p. 156-164. These particles are common in speech but rarely found in written language, except that which has a spoken quality (such as online messaging).{{cite journal|first=Fabian|last=Bross|year=2012|url=http://helikon-online.de/2012/Bross_Particles.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130318005540/http://helikon-online.de/2012/Bross_Particles.pdf |archive-date=2013-03-18 |url-status=live|title=German modal particles and the common ground|journal=Helikon. A Multidisciplinary Online Journal|pages=182–209}}{{cite web |title=Modal Particles: schon, ja, halt |url=https://german.yabla.com/lesson-Modal-Particles-schon-ja-halt-278 |publisher=Yabla German |language=en}}{{cite web |last1=Vyatkina |first1=Nina |last2=Johnson |first2=Karen E. |title=German Modal Particles |url=http://calper.la.psu.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/CALPER_GMP_Preface.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190701124443/http://calper.la.psu.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/CALPER_GMP_Preface.pdf |archive-date=2019-07-01 |url-status=live |publisher=Center for Advanced Language Proficiency Education and Research – The Pennsylvania State University}}

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.{{Cite journal|last=PARGHI|first=KHUSHBOO|date=2016|title=ON DISTRIBUTION AND SENSES OF THE EMPHATIC PARTICLE hI IN HINDI|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26264771|journal=Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute|volume=76|pages=93–100|jstor=26264771|issn=0045-9801}} Some common particles of Hindi are mentioned in the table below:

|

1. {{lang|hi|उसने उसको उससे मारा।}} ({{transl|hi|usne usko usse mārā.}})
2. * He/she hit him/her with it.
3. {{lang|hi|उसका है?}} ({{transl|hi|uskā hai?}})
4. * Is it his?
5. {{lang|hi|उससे निकालो और इसपे रखो।}} ({{transl|hi|usmē̃ se nikālo aur ispe rakho.}})
6. * Take it out from that a keep it on this.
7. {{lang|hi|उसमें होगा।}} ({{transl|hi|usmē̃ hogā.}})
8. * It must be inside it.
9. {{lang|hi|उसपे ढालना।}} ({{transl|hi|uspe ḍhālnā.}})
10. * Pour it on that.
11. {{lang|hi|कोई मुझसा नहीं।}} ({{transl|hi|koi mujhsā nahī̃.}})
12. * No one's like me.
13. {{lang|hi|चार बजे तक करना।}} ({{transl|hi|cār baje tak karnā.}})
14. * Do it until four o'clock.

|}

{{See also|Japanese particles|Korean particles}}

The term particle is often used in descriptions of Japanese{{cite web |url=http://japanese.about.com/blparticles.htm |title=All About the Japanese Particles Wa and Ga |access-date=2009-10-29 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090303200426/http://japanese.about.com/blparticles.htm |archive-date=2009-03-03 }} List of Japanese particles and Korean,{{cite web |url=http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/portnerp/nsfsite/KoreanParticlesMiokPak.pdf |title=Paul H. Portner – Paul Portner's academic homepage |access-date=2008-04-07 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090306201122/http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/portnerp/nsfsite/KoreanParticlesMiokPak.pdf |archive-date=2009-03-06 }} List of Korean particles where they are used to mark nouns according to their grammatical case or thematic relation in a sentence or clause.{{cite web|url=http://conf.ling.cornell.edu/japanese_historical_linguistics/3.3%20Particles.pdf|title=conf.ling.cornell.edu|website=cornell.edu|access-date=7 May 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100724192923/http://conf.ling.cornell.edu/japanese_historical_linguistics/3.3%20Particles.pdf |archive-date=24 July 2010}} Linguistic analyses describe them as suffixes, clitics, or postpositions. There are sentence-tagging particles such as Japanese question markers.

Polynesian languages are almost devoid of inflection, and use particles extensively to indicate mood, tense, and case. Suggs,{{cite book|last=Suggs|first=Robert C|title=The Island Civilizations of Polynesia|year=1960|publisher=[New York] New American Library|url=https://archive.org/details/islandcivilizati00sugg|url-access=registration}} discussing the deciphering of the rongorongo script of Easter Island, describes them as all-important. In Māori for example, the versatile particle {{lang|mi|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 {{lang|mi|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.{{cite book|last=Foster|first=John|title=He Whakamarama: A Short Course in Maori}}

In Tokelauan, {{lang|tkl|ia}} is used when describing personal names, month names, and nouns used to describe a collaborative group of people participating in something together.{{cite book|last1=Simona|first1=Ropati|title=Tokelau Dictionary|date=1986|publisher=Office of Tokelau Affairs|location=New Zealand|page=Introduction}} 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. {{lang|tkl|Ia}} cannot be used if the noun it is describing follows any of the prepositions {{lang|tkl|e, o, a}}, or {{lang|tkl|ko}}. A couple of the other ways unrelated to what is listed above that {{lang|tkl|ia}} is used is when preceding a locative or place name. However, if {{lang|tkl|ia}} is being used in this fashion, the locative or place name must be the subject of the sentence. Another particle in Tokelauan is {{lang|tkl|a}}, or sometimes {{lang|tkl|ā}}. This article is used before a person's name as well as the names of months and the particle {{lang|tkl|a te}} is used before pronouns when these instances are following the prepositions {{lang|tkl|i}} or {{lang|tkl|ki}}. {{lang|tkl|Ia te}} is a particle used if following the preposition {{lang|tkl|mai}}.

In Russian, particles sometimes play an important role making an additional nuance for a meaning of a phrase or of a whole sentence. One example is the particle {{lang|ru|бы}}, which imparts conditional mood (subjunctive) to a verb it is applied to or to a whole sentence. Other examples are {{lang|ru|-то}} and {{lang|ru|же}} which are usually used to emphasise or accent other words. Generally there are lots of different particles in Russian of many kinds. Some of them are complex, consisting of other particles, others are as simple as one letter ({{lang|ru|б, -с}}).

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:

{{Columns-start|num=3}}

• {{lang|tr|ancak}}used with {{lang|tr|ama, fakat, lakin}} ('but').
• {{lang|tr|başka}}, another
• {{lang|tr|beri}}, since
• {{lang|tr|bir}}, one
• {{lang|tr|bir tek}}, only
• {{lang|tr|dair}}, regarding
• {{lang|tr|doğru}}, right
• {{lang|tr|değil}}, not
• {{lang|tr|değin}}, mention
• {{lang|tr|denli}}, as much
• {{lang|tr|dek}}, until

{{Column}}

• {{lang|tr|dolayı}}, due
• {{lang|tr|diye}}, so
• {{lang|tr|evvel}}, before
• {{lang|tr|gayri}}, informal
• {{lang|tr|gibi}}, like
• {{lang|tr|göre}}, by
• {{lang|tr|için}}, for
• {{lang|tr|ile}}, withused with {{lang|tr|ve}} ('and')
• {{lang|tr|kadar}}, until
• {{lang|tr|karşı}}, against
• {{lang|tr|karşın}}, although or despite

{{Column}}

• {{lang|tr|mukabil}}, corresponding
• {{lang|tr|önce}}, prior to
• {{lang|tr|ötürü}}, due to
• {{lang|tr|öte}}, beyond
• {{lang|tr|rağmen}}, despite
• {{lang|tr|sadece}}, only
• {{lang|tr|sanki}}, as if
• {{lang|tr|sonra}}, then
• {{lang|tr|sıra}}, row
• {{lang|tr|üzere}}, to
• {{lang|tr|yalnız}}, alone

{{Columns-end}}

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, {{lang|tr|-den ötürü}}, {{lang|tr|-e dek}}, {{lang|tr|-den öte}}, {{lang|tr|-e doğru}}:

• {{lang|tr|Bu çiçekleri annem için alıyorum.}} ({{lang|tr|anne}} is nominative)
• {{lang|tr|Yarına kadar bu ödevi bitirmem lazım.}} (dative)
• {{lang|tr|Düşük notlarından ötürü çok çalışman gerekiyor.}} (ablative)

Turkish particles according to their functions. {{lang|tr|Başka, gayrı, özge}} used for 'other, another, otherwise, new, diverse, either'.

• {{lang|tr|Senden gayrı kimsem yok. No one other than you.}}
• {{lang|tr|Yardım istemekten başka çaremiz kalmadı. We have no choice but to ask for help.}}

{{lang|tr|Göre, nazaran, dâir, rağmen}} used for 'by, in comparison, about, despite'.

• {{lang|tr|Çok çalışmama rağmen sınavda hedeflediğim başarıyı yakalayamadım.}}
• {{lang|tr|Duyduğuma göre bitirme sınavları bir hafta erken gerçekleşecekmiş.}}
• {{lang|tr|Şirketteki son değişikliklere dâir bilgi almak istiyorum.}}

{{lang|tr|İçin, üzere, dolayı, ötürü, nâşi, diye}} used for 'for, with, because, because of, how'.

• {{lang|tr|Açılış konuşmasını yapmak üzere kürsüye çıktı.}}
• {{lang|tr|Bu raporu bitirebilmek için zamana ihtiyacım var.}}
• {{lang|tr|Kardeşim hastalığından nâşi gelemedi.}}

• Ilocano particles
• Nobiliary particle
• Okinawan particles
• Proto-Indo-European particles
• Sentence-final particle
• Uninflected word

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Category:Parts of speech