Modeling the role in discourse of the Mandarin utterance - final particle ba

While there has been some research into the nature and function of the Mandarin Chinese utterance-final particle ba, none has identified a sufficiently explicit core function from which all of the particle's various effects may be adequately derived. Furthermore, while previous research has made use of various theoretical frameworks in analyzing the particle, none has yielded a satisfactory falsifiable, formal account of the particle's function within discourse. Using corpus data to gain a comprehensive view of the particle's distribution, this investigation seeks to identify such a core function, within a theoretical framework aimed specifically at establishing an explicit model of the particle's role in discourse. I identify a core function which I refer to as distribution of authority, and I illustrate in detail the manner in which this function is able to account for the behavior of the particle. The core function which I identify raises questions as to the scope that lexical meaning may have, as the particle appears to have encoded in its meaning certain information regarding not only the speech act with which is associated, but the manner in which the speech act is to be handled in discourse.