PART: particle
Definition
Particles are function words that must be associated with another word, phrase, or clause to impart meaning and that do not satisfy definitions of other universal parts of speech (such as ADP, AUX, CCONJ, or SCONJ).
In Chinese, particles include the genitive/associative/relativizer/nominalizer marker 的 / de; 得 / de in V-得 extent/descriptive constructions (see compound:ext); the manner adverbializer 地 / de; the “et cetera” markers 等(等) / děng(děng); sentence-final particles (句末助詞 / jùmuò zhùcí); and the object relativizer 所 / suǒ.
Examples
- Genitive 的
- 狗 的 尾巴 ／ gǒu de wěibā “a dog’s tail”
- Associative 的
- 高興 的 孩子 / gāoxìng de háizi “happy children”
- Relativizer 的
- 走路 的 人 ／ zǒulù de rén “people who are walking”
- Nominalizer 的
- 吃 不 完 的 不 准 走 ／ chī bù wán de bù zhǔn zǒu “those who don’t finish eating aren’t allowed to go”
- Extent/descriptive 得 - 他 跑 得 很 快 ／tā pǎo de hěn kuài “He runs very fast.”
- Adverbializer 地
- 他 慢慢 地 跑 ／ tā mànmàn de pǎo “He’s running slowly.”
- Etc. marker
- 這裡 有 梨子，橘子，等等 ／ zhèlǐ yǒu lízi, júzi, děngděng “There are pears, oranges, etc. here.”
- Sentence-final particles
- 你 想 去 嗎 ？ ／ nǐ xiǎng qù ma “Do you want to go?”
- 我們 一起 去 吧 ／ wǒmen yīqǐ qù ba “Let’s go together.”
- 他 只 是 一 個 人 而已 ／ tā zhǐ shì yī gè rén éryǐ “He’s just one person.”
- 他們 一定 來 的 ／ tāmen yīdìng lái de “They will definitely come.”
- Object relativizer 所
- 他 所 戴 的 帽子 / tā suǒ dài de màozi “the hat that he wears”
PART in other languages: [bej] [bg] [bm] [cs] [cy] [da] [el] [en] [ess] [et] [fi] [fr] [ga] [grc] [hu] [hy] [it] [ja] [ka] [kpv] [myv] [no] [pcm] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tr] [tt] [uk] [u] [urj] [yue] [zh]