The present and past of the particle \u27LE\u27 in Mandarin Chinese

In the field of Tense and Aspect, semantic categories such as perfectivity and imperfectivity have been assumed to be universal. However, these categories have not always been explicitly defined, and furthermore, their purported universal status has not been tested in languages other than the well-studied few. Researchers studying the particle LE in Mandarin Chinese have assumed the universality of such categories as perfectivity, inchoativity and current relevance. The particle LE may occur post-verbally or sentence-finally. When occurring after the verb, LE often signals completion, and when at the end of the sentence, it ususally marks new situations. It has therefore been concluded that there are two different LEs in Chinese, one a perfective marker and the other a marker of inchoativity or current relevance. However, the obvious alternative to this conclusion, i.e. there is only one LE which encodes some semantic distinction underlying both perfectivity and inchoativity/current relevance, is left unexplored. In this dissertation, I seek first, to examine this alternative analysis of the particle LE. In the process, attempts are made to define such semantic categories as perfectivity and inchoativity explicitly. It will be argued that the function of the particle can be identified as marking relative anteriority, and that perfective and inchoative interpretations are a result of the interaction between the boundedness of situations and their relatively anterior status as signalled by the aspectual marker. Second, I explore the origin and development of the particle LE through time. It will be shown that the particle started out as a main verb taking sentential subjects and then went on to replace competing forms in the language. Once the function of the new grammaticalized abstract particle was established, it became stable over a long period of time. Finally, I investigate the variation of the particle LE in actual use. Possible factors conditioning the variation are identified and explanations of the variation proposed