Temporal information in sentence-final particles

Abstract This paper scrutinizes the claim that modern Shanghainese has sentence-final particles tse and keh that have tense-marking functions. We review works by Qian ( 2006 ; 2009 ), Chao (1926) and Li, Thompson & Thompson (1982) and analyze Shanghainese missionary texts on the use of these SFPs. Through a functional-discoursal investigation, we identify the IN-cluster use and the END-cluster use of tse . We take the temporal marking function of tse as a consequence of its discourse function, which introduces a (con)-current reference time in the discourse. On the other hand, we take keh as an assertion particle, whose occasional sense of recent past comes from its confirmation of a completed event.