Initialness of Sentence-final Particles in Mandarin Chinese

This paper gives a thorough investigation into Mandarin sentence-final particles (henceforth SFPs). First I induce core grammatical functions and semantic interpretations of SFPs. Based on Rizzi’s (1997) Split CP hypothesis, I make some modifications to accommodate Mandarin SFPs and map them onto separate functional heads within a proper hierarchy. I also examine some empirical evidence of head directionality and tentatively assume Mandarin C is head-initial. To explain the surface head-final order, in light of Chomsky’s (2001) Phase Theory and Hsieh’s (2005) revised Spell-out hypothesis, I pose a CP complement to Spec movement. Following Moro’s (2000) idea, I further claim the motivation behind is to seek for antisymetry.