The Semantic And Syntactic Properties Of Sentence Final Particle "Le" And Its Effects On Word Order In Mandarin Chinese

Any syntactic components can not be analyzed without the consideration of its context.Otherwise it will inevitably lead to misunderstanding.From the perspective of formal syntax,the final-slot of Sentence Final Particles(SFP)in linear order conflicts with its top-position in hierarchical layer.So linguists should make a reasonable explanation on this disparity.As far as SFP "le" is concerned,it is always ordered the first among so many mood particles or sentence-final particles according to Zhu Dexi(1982)and Paul(2005,2014).Therefore,the syntactic position of SFP "le" comes to the leading task in the study of SFP.And it becomes more prominent under the principle of "Final-Over-Final Constraint" by Biberauer,Holmberg & Robert(2007,2014).However,in the previous studies,scholars seldom take SFP "le" into consideration especially in the study of word order.Certainly,the word order here is not the order as "SVO" or "SOV" in typology(Jin Lixin & Yu Xiujin 2012),but the word order between C-head and T-head in Formal syntax.The C-heads are not limited in traditional complementizers as "that" or "for",and Chinese SFPs "ne,ma,ba,a,ou" are all included(Tang 1998).Then what about the syntactic and semantic properties of SFP "le" ?Based on the analysis above,this paper tries to explore the syntactic and semantic properties of SFP "le" from the following 5 aspects:Firstly,the universality of FOFC and its effects on Mandarin Chinese.Holmberg(2000),BHR(2007,2014)put forward FOFC typologically according to syntactic derivation and statistical data in word order.FOFC holds that the same category with [±V] feature and its extension order harmoniously.However,the SFP in Mandarin Chinese or in South-Eastern Asia languages challenges toughly this claim.Therefore,the study of SFP in MC under the principle of FOFC can not only help us further understand the syntactic and semantic properties of SFP "le",but also can help us determine its syntactic category.Secondly,the "Speaker-Prominent" in the discourse.The literature of SFP "le" mainly focus on temporal explanation such as "perfect","perfective","inchoative","past tense" etc.,or subjective explanation such as the speaker's stance,attitude etc.All of these explanations obviously reflect the different understanding of the event or the proposition itself.However,if we have a bird view of them,these explanations also embody a speech event.The temporal explanation of "le" shows the speaker's speech time and the subjective explanation reflects the speaker's speech space.The speech time and the speech space can lead to a generalization of a prominent speaker in the discourse.Thirdly,the grammaticalization of SFP "le".Generally speaking,SFP mostly have gone through a process of grammaticalization,"le" included.Then how did SFP "le" obtain these properties diachronically?Normally,SFP "le" and "le1" are thought to be of the same origin.they are both related to temporal explanation.However,from the diachronic text analysis,SFP "le" appears as a verb meaning "accomplish" before Sui Dynasty,and gradually shifts into a verb following an event.here are two different events.subsequently,"le " entered into the front event,reanalyzed as a particle.By Northern Song Dynasty,"le" and "ye" incorporated and the present SFP "le" come into being.This grammaticalization process helps to explain the present syntactic and semantic properties of present SFP "le".Fourthly,finiteness marker of SFP "le".With the confirmation of its semantic properties,the syntactic position of SFP "le" comes to fore.Whether Mandarin Chinese has finiteness is always a debated topic.From literature,this debate is related to the inflection of verbs in Mandarin,and this is related to the concept of Finiteness ultimately.with the deepening of syntactic study,finiteness is not restricted to the tense or agree inflections any more,but related to the speech time or speech event.Any event must be anchored to a spatial axil from the speaker.Now that finiteness can have more formal reflection other than verb's inflection,then finiteness is not only a semantic concept,but also a syntactic one and it has its specific syntactic position.SFP "le",based on its semantic and syntactic properties matching the concept of finiteness,can be regarded as the Fin head syntactically.Fifthly,the categorial feature of Fin-head.Since SFP "le" belongs to Fin-head,a part of CP layer,then the hierarchical position of SFP "le" is derived by movement or merge? Does Fin-head share the same [+V] feature with TP,vP and VP?The CP layer in India European languages reflects on the verbal inflection,such as the V2 phenomenon in German and WH-movement in English.Certainly these syntactic change are related to T-to-C movement.However,the semantics and morphological form of CP layer in Mandarin Chinese differ from that in India European languages.There is no WH-movement in Mandarin Chinese,instead the CP layer is fulfilled by the merger of SFPs.So these SFP can not be definitely regarded as the extension of [+V] feature.Meanwhile,SFP "le" is a speaker-prominent particle and it is speaker oriented instead of the subject oriented.All of these facts can show that SFP "le" does not possess a [+V] feature.And the Linear order of SFP "le" does not go against the principle of FOFC.