Grammatical particle

In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes (such as nouns, pronouns, verbs, or articles). It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition. It is mostly used for words that help to encode grammatical categories (such as negation, mood or case), or fillers or discourse markers that facilitate discourse such as well, ah, anyway, etc. Particles are uninflected.^[1] As examples, the English infinitive marker to and negator not are usually considered particles.

Related concepts

Depending on its context, the meaning of the term may overlap with such notions as "morpheme", "marker", or even "adverb" as in phrasal verbs such as out as in get out. Under the strictest definition, which demands that a particle be an uninflected word, English deictics like this and that would not be classed as such (since they have plurals) and are therefore inflected, and neither would Romance articles (since they are inflected for number and gender).

English

Articles, infinitival, prepositional, and adverbial particles

The definite particle the (the indefinite article a or an cannot really be classed as uninflected due to their inherently singular meaning, debarring them from plural usage)
the infinitive to, as in to walk
prepositions, such as over in I went over the hill
adverbs and adverbial portions of phrasal verbs, such as off in we put it off too long

Interjections, sentence connectors, and conjunctions

Sentence connectors, tags or tag questions, and conjunctions connect to what has been said in a previous clause or sentence. These three types of grammatical particles (similarly to modal particles in some other languages) also reflect the speaker's mood and attitude toward what has come before in the conversation, or is likely to follow later. A particle may be defined simply as an invariable word, in that interjections are to be classed as particles.^[2]^[3] Because of their similar functions, interjections, sentence connectors, and conjunctions should be grouped together:

Interjections

The list of interjections is probably never-ending as it belongs to the open class word category and is subject to new creations at all times.

Sentence Connectors

so (as in So what)
well (as in Well, we can’t help that)
still (as in Still, it could have been a lot worse)
yet (as in I am older now, yet I still enjoy some of the things I used to do)
as
also
however
nevertheless
otherwise
moreover
in addition
furthermore
besides
first
second
finally
last but not least
lastly
thus
hence
on the other hand
anyway
then
too (as in that, too, has been said in the past)

Conjunctions

and (together with)
or
nor
but
while (as in The repair takes only a short time while you wait.)
although/though
for (as in she could not see the film, for she was too young)
because
unless
since (as in since you asked, I will tell you)

Other languages

The term particle is often used in descriptions of Japanese^[4] and Korean,^[5] where they are used to mark nouns according to their case or their role (subject, object, complement, or topic) in a sentence or clause. Some of these particles are best analysed as case markers and some as postpositions. There are sentence-tagging particles such as Japanese and Chinese question markers. Thai also has particles.^[6]

References

^ McArthur, Tom: “The Oxford Companion to the English Language”, pp72-76, Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0192114183X. For various keywords
^ http://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Ueberblick/Flexionslos.html?lang=en&darj=1 Interjections
^ http://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/fun/welsh/Glossary_main.html Interjections
^ http://japanese.about.com/blparticles.htm List of Japanese particles
^ http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/portnerp/nsfsite/KoreanParticlesMiokPak.pdf List of Korean particles
^ http://siamsmile.webs.com/thaiparticles/thaiparticles.html Large list of Thai particles and exclamations with explanations and example sentences.

[1] McArthur, Tom: “The Oxford Companion to the English Language”, pp72-76, Oxford University Press, 1992 ISBN 0192114183X. For various keywords

[2] ttp://www.canoo.net/services/OnlineGrammar/Wort/Ueberblick/Flexionslos.html?lang=en&darj=1 Interjections

[3] ttp://www.cs.cf.ac.uk/fun/welsh/Glossary_main.html Interjections

[4] ttp://japanese.about.com/blparticles.htm List of Japanese particles

[5] ttp://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/portnerp/nsfsite/KoreanParticlesMiokPak.pdf List of Korean particles

[6] ttp://siamsmile.webs.com/thaiparticles/thaiparticles.html Large list of Thai particles and exclamations with explanations and example sentences.

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