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In linguistics, the term 'particle' is often employed as a useful catch-all lacking a strict definition. In general, it is understood that particles are function words that tend to be uninflected — that is, words which do not have suffixes, for example, that reflect grammatical gender, tense or person. However, the term may have a broader definition.
Depending on its context, the meaning of the term may overlap with such notions as "morpheme", "marker", or even "adverb" (another catch-all term). Like many linguistic concepts, the precise content of the notion is very language-specific.
The term ''particle'' is often used in descriptions of Japanese and Korean, where they are used to mark nouns according to their case or their role (subject, object, complement, or topic) in a sentence or clause. Some of these particles are best analysed as case markers and some as postpositions.
Under the strictest definition, which demands that a particle be an uninflected word, English deictics like ''this'' and ''that'' would not be classed as such (since they have plurals), and neither would Romance articles (since they are inflected for number and gender).
On the other hand, if a particle is defined as simply an invariable word, interjections are to be classed as particles, as well as sentence-tagging particles like Japanese and Chinese question markers.

Contents

Different types of particles in English

Articles, infinitival, prepositional, and adverbial particles

Interjections, sentence connectors, and conjunctions

See also

External links

Different types of particles in English

Articles, infinitival, prepositional, and adverbial particles

★ The definite article '' (the indefinite article ''a'' or ''an'' cannot really be classed as uninflected as in the plural it is not used)

★ the infinitive '', as in ''to walk''

★ prepositions, such as ''over'' as in ''I went over the hill''

★ adverbs, such as '' as in ''even the youngest of them''; or phrasal verbs, such as ''put off'' as in ''we put it off too long''

Interjections, sentence connectors, and conjunctions

Sentence connectors, tags or tag questions (also called sentence-finals), and conjunctions connect to what has been said in a previous clause or sentence. These three types of grammatical particles (similarly to modal particles in some other languages) also reflect the speaker's mood and attitude toward what has come before in the conversation, or is likely to follow later. Because of their similar functions,Interjections, sentence connectors, and conjunctions should be grouped together:
Interjections

★

★

★

★

★

★

★

★

★

★

★

★

★

★

★ zzzzzzzzz (as in a cartoon for someone sleeping, one of the few non-vocal interjections)
The list of interjections is probably never-ending as it belongs to the open class word category and is subject to new creations at all times.
Sentence connectors

★ (as in ''So what'')

★ (as in ''Well, we can’t help that'')

★ (as in ''Still, it could have been a lot worse'')

★ (as in ''I am older now, yet I still enjoy some of the things I used to do'')

★

★

★

★

★ otherwise

★ moreover

★ in addition

★ furthermore

★ besides

★ first

★ second

★ finally

★ last but not least

★ still

★ thus

★ hence

★ on the other hand

★

★

★ (as in ''that, too, has been said in the past''}
Tags or tag questions (sentence-finals)

★ "''...didn't they?''"; "''...wasn't it?''"; "''...shouldn't it?''", etc.
Conjunctions

★ (together with)

★

★

★

★ (''while it is true that all line repairs are undertaken on Sundays, not all trains should be assumed to be late'')

★ /though

★ (as in ''she could not see the film, for she was too young''

★

★ unless

★ (as in ''since you asked, I will tell you'')

See also

★ Function word

★ Japanese particles

★ Uninflected word

External links

★ Thai Particles (Large list of Thai particles with explanations and example sentences).