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This study compares the frequencies, distributional properties, collocations, and discourse-pragmatic functions of the Mandarin Chinese sentence-final particles de, ne, and ma in naturally occurring conversations. Although de, ne, and ma may at first appear similar in that they reflect speaker’s certainty about the utterance preceding the sentence-final particle, they perform markedly different functions in various contexts. When the speaker has more knowledge or a primary right to make assertions and assessments, he/she uses de to demonstrate his/her assertive and affirmative stance. Further, ma is used to show the speaker’s confidence and belief in the information shared by him/herself with a recipient. The use of ne reflects the speaker’s belief that he/she and the recipient share a prior commitment. From a subjective perspective, de, ne, and ma vary in the degree to which they express the speaker’s certainty about his/her utterance. de is used to express a lower degree of certainty about the utterance immediately preceding the use of the sentence-final particle; ne expresses a higher degree of certainty than de, while ma shows a degree of certainty higher than that of de and ne. From an intersubjective perspective, among de, ne, and ma, ma carries the highest degree of certainty in creating intersubjectivity between conversational co-participants, while de shows the least, with ne positioned in between. This study contributes to conversation analytic research by showing how the use of de, ne, and ma can display striking systematicity and orderliness. They exhibit a certain level of unity and can be deployed to accomplish a variety of interactional work that may not otherwise be possible with similar effect.
