Table 21. Specific matrix for Akha modal sentence particles Egerod 1985:102 Epistemic \ Speaker’s
mood \ involvement Involved
Not involved Fear or doubt
Speaker personally fears or doubts the outcome [á]
General, ceremonial or ritual fear or doubt [
ḿ] Threat or certainty
Speaker expresses a threat or a certainty [njá]
Generally accepted certainty for example, duty [má]
According to Egerod, these particles follow the predicate. If the predicate is nominal, only groups 1–3 in their nonlow nonpast tonality are acceptable 1985:102.
229 àj ɔq ḿ ə
já m
ỳ ŋá He do nonpast field good nonexpected direct, visual perception
‘The field he is doing looks good.’ Egerod 1985:99 230
ŋá mɔ́ nja ə́ má
I see can nonpast expected, nonpast, first person prime mover information ‘I can see it.’ Egerod 1985:99
9.7.3 Bisu sentence-final particles
9.7.3.1 In Chinese Lanmeng dialect
According to Xu, the final particles in a Bisu sentence are illocutionary particles, and one of the following may be sentence-final, for example: ‘objective-declarative’
tɕi
55
a
31
, ‘subjective-declarative’ tɕi
55
, ‘probable’ ga
33
, ‘yes-no question’ la
31
, or ‘wh-question’ ni
55
ɣ
31
Xu 2001:117, 129–131. Where there is no illocutionary particle, the final particle can be aspectual Xu 2001:117, 129–131. The relevant
discussion and examples for aspectual particles are in section 9.4.3.
9.7.3.1 In northern Thai dialect
The northern Thai dialect of Bisu, which is spoken by less than 1,000 people in two villages Person 2000:2, contrasts considerably with Xu’s description of the Chinese Lanmeng dialect of Bisu. Person
notes that “many of the ‘markers’ discussed by Xu 2001 are not present in Bisu as spoken in Thailand, one indication of the seemingly significant differences between the Chinese and Thai dialects” 2000:69.
In the Thai dialect, there can be up to six sentence-final particles, as exemplified below Person 2000:106.
231 jàakee maŋ jèet mi bàa ʃʉ̀ʉj
kaa l
ʉʉ child
CLF
both well
NEG
go_together permanent stateability return læ̀æ
t ɔɔ
kaa jèe
downwardsoutherly motion unable permanent stateability reported event ‘The two children were unable to return together.’ Person 2000:107, 288
The Thailand dialect of Bisu gives evidence of “seventy-five distinct sentence-final particles” even though, in the thirteen folk tales and two biographical texts examined, nine of the particles account for
just over seventy-three percent of the particle occurrences Person 2000:108. Of the seventy-five sentence-final particles, two are especially salient in the Thai Bisu folk tale corpus:
• the particle for completion • the particle for reported events not personally participated in Person 2000:126–127
These appear in more than one-third of all the sentences of the corpus, and they appear juxtaposed in almost one-quarter of all the sentences in the corpus Person 2000:127. These high frequencies
contrast sharply with conversational use, where the “completion” particle drops to about ten percent and the “reported” particle even lower Person 2000:127. This is a second dimension in which Person’s
description of Bisu differs significantly from Xu’s.
9.7.4 Lahu clause-final particles and sentence-final particles
