Discourse and/or sentential particles in languages

[The Hanged Man]

I'm creating this topic for inspiration (for me, but I'm sure others would make a use of it as well).
So, what sentential and/or discourse particles that you know about are used in languages? It would be great to know phonological values of a particle, its uses, and name of language in which the particle you would like to tell us about is used.

My current examples are:

no [nɔ] - a particle in Polish, used for expressing agreement, or urging someone.
吗 [mɑ] - sentence final particle in Chinese, forming yes-no questions
wszakże [ˈfʃaɡʒɛ] - polish particle, expressing that a statement is true, or obvious

[linguoboy]

It's hard to know where exactly to draw the line between "sentential particles" and other parts of speech. Anyone know some good constituency tests?

German has quite a number. Probably the clearest case is gell (S)/na ~ nö (N), which is a sentence-final question tag similar in usage to Canadian English eh. But I would put halt (S)/eben (N), denn, mal, doch, schon, and a few other words into this category even though some of them have other uses as well. (Or perhaps better to say they are homophonous with words which function as other parts of speech. As I said, it's tricky.)

[Cathbad]

Slovene has a few: no /nO/ is probably used very similar to Polish, although it also occurs in order to express only partial commitment: no ja, as a response to a statement / utterance (and usually introducing a more fully worded reply), would probably best be translated as 'you're right, but I don't fully agree with you' or 'that's right, but that doesn't really cover all the aspects of the matter'... like an english Well. said with a certain, um, intonation.

Then there's ne /nE/, which is often used as a sentence-final / tag question particle (probably a bit more widely than equivalent constructs in English - at least in my dialect), which is short for a ne (which is in turn short for ali ne), literally 'or not?'. I think it usually carries a falling intonation, which I think is consistent with sentence-final falling intonation in some forms of colloquial (! - formal has different intonation patterns) Slovene questions more generally (there's a rising intonation towards the antipenultimate word I think which then falls sharply).

pa is a tricky one: it's technically a conjuction, but it's often used as a very weird, probably untranslateable discourse particle - I guess it could be branded as 'contrastive', but it also often appears to be used simply emphatically when introducing new information. It also often occurs together with no. (I can provide examples of sentences if anyone wants to do a more linguistically informed analysis... which the above comment very probably isn't.)

IMD, pol /pOl/ (short/mangled for potem 'then') also straddles the discourse-particle line, being used very similarly to in English.

[Bob Johnson]

Incomplete list for Japanese:

ka: simple question
kana/kashira: ", I wonder" (kashira is female speech)
ne: asking for confirmation
na(a): "wow, it's really (sentence)"
yo/zo: emphatic assertion (zo is male speech)
wa: female speech marker

[sirred]

So is this something to the effect of, "He's so mean, right?"

[finlay]

Incomplete list for Japanese

I'm finding them really pervasive in Japanese, but maybe that's because they're some of the few words I sort of understand. One of the receptionists that I work with has imperfect English (although better than most of my students) and uses Japanese particles a lot when she speaks English, although perhaps more with the case particles such as は and が...

[Bob Johnson]

Incomplete list for Japanese

I'm finding them really pervasive in Japanese, but maybe that's because they're some of the few words I sort of understand. One of the receptionists that I work with has imperfect English (although better than most of my students) and uses Japanese particles a lot when she speaks English, although perhaps more with the case particles such as は and が...

I've heard people say "me wa you wo kick suru" but I thought that was purely joking..

There are other particles of course but I took OP to be interested only in sentence-final ones.

[The Hanged Man]

There are other particles of course but I took OP to be interested only in sentence-final ones.

That's not the case... Both polish examples that I gave are purely (as far as I know, and I'm polish) sentence-initial.

[finlay]

There are other particles of course but I took OP to be interested only in sentence-final ones.

That's not the case... Both polish examples that I gave are purely (as far as I know, and I'm polish) sentence-initial.

Yeah, but that's not how Japanese syntax works.

[Davoush]

Cantonese FTW.

All are sentence final

呀 aa3 used in questions and neutral statements, makes it sound less abrupt
嘅 ge3 used to assert something
㗎 gaa3 combination of ge3 and aa3
嘞 laa3 change of situation
啦 laa1 used in imperatives
未 mei6 used in questions of the type 'have you....yet?'
先 sin1 'just' like 'I'm just going to the shop'
添 tim1 'also, too'
咩 me1 expresses disbelief
呢 ne1 follow up questions/rhetorical questions
啫 zek1 only, that's all
啩 gwaa3 indicates uncertainty
喎 wo3 indicates reported information
噃 bo3 indicates something is a reminder
囉 lo1 shows an obvious conclusion
吓 haa5 softens question, makes it like a suggestion
呀嘛 aa1 maa3 used when answer to something is obvious

There are also various combinations of the above.