Final particles in Asia: Establishing an areal feature

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents the results of an areal study of the elements known as(sentence-)final particles(FPs) in the languages of Asia. FPs constitute a crucial part of many languages of the region and are reported in language-particular descriptions under various labels. However, they have not been the subject of large-scale areal studies. In this paper, I discuss the morphosyntactic and functional properties typically exhibited by the FPs of Asian languages and the parameters of their variation. On the basis of a sample of 53 languages and 6 sample functional types of FPs, I explore the areal distribution of FPs of the Asian type. I demonstrate that different FP-isoglosses exhibit different geographical coverage, but the overlap of some of them allows us to speak of a structural phenomenon highly typical of a macroarea which includes East, Southeast, and Northeast Asia.