These are unique to Chinese. These are used to express the mood of the sentence or the intent inherent in the sentence. Among them, the most important are:
- Le (inceptive)
o Wo mei you qian le
As of now, I have no money. (I've gone broke.)
- Ne (pending) — frequently co-ordinates with hái
o Ta hai mei you hui jia ne
He still has not returned home. (There has been no change in the old situation)
The sentence given above can have two different meanings. In one case, someone is perhaps engaged in a long distance telephone call with Mother. He is trying to convince her to travel to where he is for some celebration. He hangs up the phone and says, "Māma (yào) lái le!"
‘le’ comes after a transitive or intransitive verb, at the end of a sentence and governs the entire sentence. When an intransitive verb comes at the end of a sentence, then the only way to determine whether the le at the end of the sentence is perfective or inceptive is to look at the social context.
That sentence gives the information that Mother had not previously agreed to travel here, but the situation has changed and she will be coming after all. If, however, there is a knock on the front door and someone who has gone to answer the door shouts, "Māma lái le!" it means that she has come