ABSTRACT
The particle le is one of the most frequently used and discussed, but least understood, elements in Chinese grammar. While le regularly features in everyday discourse, traditional studies have mainly focused on its role in the sentence without paying adequate attention to the cognitive marking involved or the interactive social context in which it is used. As a result, the questions of why and when the particle le is used in Chinese have so far remained unanswered. What complicates the matter more is the fact that LE in Mandarin Chinese has two homophonous forms: the particle le, which normally occurs at the end of a sentence, and the verb suffix le, written as -le, which follows a verb. The two forms with potentially different functions, as mentioned in Chapter 1, have led to four positions on LE in the literature:
1 Two different morphemes (-le, and le), many uses of both verbal -le and the particle le.
