ABSTRACT
This chapter documents the usage and distribution of the Vietnamese sentence-final particle cơ. The particle is found in different sentence types and seemingly used for various purposes. I argue that those uses attributed to the particle can be unified. I propose that Vietnamese cơ is a scalar particle, reflecting a conflict between speaker belief and expectations that arise from the preceding conversation. The proposition marked by cơ is required to be stronger than its contrasting alternatives on a given scale.
