Lahu clause-final particles and sentence-final particles

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

In Lahu there are two sorts of sentence-final particles that is, particles which follow sentence-final clauses: • Those which can also be nonfinal particles are called “universal particles.” • Those which can only be final particles are called “final unrestricted particles.” Matisoff 1973:360 9.7.4.1 Universal sentence-final particles The first type of sentence-final particle can be called a “universal particle” since its distribution in larger. There are six such universal particles, five of which are usually followed by final unrestricted particles: • a nominalizing particle ve • two minimizing particles ~ ‘just’ cɛ and tí • a causal particle ~ ‘because’ lɛ • a temporal particle ~ ‘when’ thâ, and • an emphatic particle ~ ‘really’ tɛ̀ The nominalizing particle ve is exceptional in this group, in that it frequently stands in “absolutely final position” Matisoff 1973:364. 9.7.4.2 Final unrestricted particles Lahu “final unrestricted particles” apply to the whole sentence, and not only to the VP , in a way similar to punctuation marks in English. Up to four of these sentence-final particles may follow one another, in an order that is not completely fixed Matisoff 1973:365–366. Lahu “final unrestricted particles” fit into six categories: • three declarative particles • two dubitative particles • five interrogative particles • one persuasive particle • one quotative particle • at least six monosyllabic interjectory particles and eight compound interjectory sentence-final particles Matisoff states that there are “at least six” monosyllabic interjectory particles, because new interjectories “are coming into the language all the time.” 1973:381. 9.7.4.2.1 Declarative particles Among the three declarative particles, Matisoff 1973:367–369 makes the following distinctions: • ‘general affirmation as a matter of fact’ yò, • ‘affirmation of a process as a matter of fact’ ɔ, • ‘emphatic declaration of factuality’ lɔ. Their co-occurrence restrictions are shown in this table: Table 22. Declarative particles co-occurrence restrictions General affirmation Emphatic surprised declaration Process affirmation 9.7.4.2.2 Dubitative particles The two dubitative particles are distinguished into categories of • neutral doubt ‘maybe so, maybe not’ hɛ́ , and • opinionated doubt ‘I daresay…’ nɛ̀-ɔ̄. They may co-occur in the order neutral-opinionated Matisoff 1973:371. 9.7.4.2.3 Interrogative particles There are five interrogative particles: • yesno question • wh-question • rhetorical question ~ ‘I wonder…’ • confirmation request ~ a tag question • topic-question ~ ‘What about…’ These five may not co-occur with one another Matisoff 1973:374–376. 9.7.4.2.4 Persuasive particle The persuasive particle indicates polite but firm insistence ~ ‘I assure you’ Matisoff 1973:377. 9.7.4.2.5 Quotative particle The quotative particle conveys information “reported at second-hand” Matisoff 1973:377, and can also be used to quote one’s own previous imperative Matisoff 1973:380. 9.7.4.2.6 Interjectory particles The simple interjectories make statements more vivid. They are similar to an exclamation point in English. They vary in usage from speaker to speaker in one village and from village to village Matisoff 1973:380. They have syntactic co-occurrence restrictions among themselves and in sequence after the dubative particles Matisoff 1973:381. Inferentially, these are unrelated to any semantic feature of the interjectories. The compound interjectories are sometimes used after very short utterances Matisoff 1973:385. 9.7.4.2.7 Summary Co-occurrence restrictions of these sentence-final particles, without details on semantically indistinguishable interjectory particles, are shown in tabular form Matisoff 1973:390: Table 23. Declarative, dubative, question, and persuasive particles co-occurrence restrictions Interjectory Declaratives: general affirmation process affirmation Interjectory Interjectories Interjectories Particle requesting confirmation Neutral dubative particle Surprised declarative particle Opinionated dubative Yesno question wh-question Rhetorical question Persuasive particle Interjectories Even though a string of six such particles seems possible from the chart, “strings of more than three are excessively rare” Matisoff 1973:391. The following examples demonstrate the application of co-occurrence restrictions for sentence-final unrestricted particles: 232 ŋà kàʔ phɛ̀ʔ ɔ và I also able AFFIRM interjection ADV V P P ‘I can do that, too’ Matisoff 1973:383 233 ph ɛ̀ʔ b ɔ̀ jâ yâ- o nē lê be group 2bored group 3excess interjection interjection confirmation V -head two posthead verbs three verb particles ‘Oh, I’m so bored, I could die—you know?’ Matisoff 1973:231, 226, 235, 380, 383

9.7.5 Lalo clause-final and sentence-final particles