A Corpus-based Analysis of Near-Synonymous Sentence-final Particles in Mandarin Chinese: “bale” and “eryi”

31st Pacific Asia Conference on Language, Information and Computation (PACLIC 31), pages 222–230 Cebu City, Philippines, November 16-18, 2017 Copyright c⃝2017 Xuefeng Gao and Yat-Mei Lee A Corpus-based Analysis of Near-Synonymous Sentence-final Particles in Mandarin Chinese: “bale” and “eryi” Xuefeng Gao Sophia Yat-mei Lee Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies The Hong Kong Polytechnic University The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Hong Kong Hong Kong gaoxuefeng0812@163.com ym.lee@polyu.edu.hk Abstract This paper explores the differences between two near-synonymous disyllabic sentence-final particles in Mandarin Chinese bale and eryi based on a corpus-based approach. We argue that there is a close interaction between adverbs and sentence-final particles. Firstly, the usage of adverbs in the local proposition of two different SFPs has a strong tendency. 仅 jin ‘only’ is only used in the local proposition of eryi, and 仅仅 jin-jin ‘only’ tends to use in the local propositions of eryi. 最多 zui-duo/顶 多 ding-duo/至多 zhi-duo ‘at most’ are only used in the local propositions of bale, while 决 不是 jue-bu-shi/绝非 jue-fei/决非 jue-fei/绝 不 jue-bu ‘definitely not’ are only used in the local propositions of eryi. Eryi expresses minimal value and bale expresses maximal value. Moreover, the position of the adverbs also presents a tendency: the adverbs in the local proposition of bale are always in the initial position, while eryi in the middle position. In addition, the polarity of the local propositions of two SFPs are also different: the local proposition of bale tends to express negativity, while the local proposition of eryi obtains a tone of neutrality. We believe that this study will significantly enhance the research on sentence-final particles and second language teaching. 1 Introduction 罢了 bale and 而已 eryi are two Chinese disyllabic sentence-final particles (SFPs) which are believed to be almost equivalent in terms of meaning and usage (Lü 1980, Wang 1984, Hou 1998, Zhang 2001), and can be used interchangeably in most cases (Fang 2006). For instance: （1） 有些人认为，所谓野人，不过是一些猿 猴罢了/而已。 you3xie1 ren2 ren4wei2, suo3wei4 some people think so-called ye3ren2, bu2guo4 shi4 yi4xie1 yuan2hou2 savages merely is some monkey ba4le/er2yi3. BALE/ERYI ‘Some people think that the so-called savages are merely some monkeys.’ （2） 从另一个角度说，生活又是极其简单的， 它只不过是过去的简单重复而已/罢了。 cong2 ling4yi2ge4 jiao3du4 shuo1, from another point of view say sheng1huo2 you4 shi4 ji2qi2 jian3dan1 life also is extremely simple de, ta1 zhi3bu2guo4 shi4 guo4qu4 DE it just is past de jian3dan1 chong2fu4 er2yi3/ba4le. DE simple repetition ERYI/BALE ‘On another point of view, life is extremely simple, and it is just a simple repetition of the past.’ There is no difference when the two SFPs interchange in (1) and (2). Yet, there remain some cases where the two SFPs bale and eryi cannot be used interchangeably. For example: （3） 卢梭一生清贫，但他的清贫和我们当时 的清贫之间有着一个本质的区别：我们 是物质匮乏，迫不得已；而卢梭则是自 222 愿贫困。无衣可穿时打补丁称不上朴素， 不过是不折不扣地穷罢了。 Lu2suo1 yi4 sheng1 qing1pin2, dan4 ta1 Rousseau one life poor but he de qing1pin2 he wo3men de qing1pin2 DE poor with we DE poor zhi1jian1 you3zhe yi2 ge4 ben3zhi4 de between have one CL essential DE qu1bie2, wo3men shi4 wu4zhi4 kui4fa2, difference we is material short …

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