| Abstract: |
This study analyzes the aspectual values of the particle 了 (le) in Chinese. 1000 random sentences that contain this particle were extracted from the Chinese Web corpus 2017 Simplified (zhTenTen17) for the analysis. Based on the results, we conclude that 了 (le) can denote 3 aspects: perfective, perfect and durative. Moreover, although we treat the perfective and the perfect as two distinct aspects, double interpretation is possible when the context is not sufficiently clear. Furthermore, we have also discussed the position of 了 (le) in a sentence and the use of double 了 (le). Lastly, we have included several nonaspectual uses of 了 (le) in the discussion. We expect that this study will contribute to a better understanding of the use of 了 (le) and the aspect system of Chinese. |
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