Grammatical Particle
In grammar, a particle is a function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes (such as nouns, pronouns, verbs, or articles). It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition. It is mostly used for words that help to encode grammatical categories (such as negation, mood or case), or fillers or discourse markers that facilitate discourse such as well, ah, anyway, etc. Particles are uninflected. As examples, the English infinitive marker to and negator not are usually considered particles.
Read more about Grammatical Particle: Related Concepts, Other Languages
Famous quotes containing the words grammatical and/or particle:
“Speech and prose are not the same thing. They have different wave-lengths, for speech moves at the speed of light, where prose moves at the speed of the alphabet, and must be consecutive and grammatical and word-perfect. Prose cannot gesticulate. Speech can sometimes do nothing more.”
—James Kenneth Stephens (1882–1950)
“You don’t hold any mystery for me, darling, do you mind? There isn’t a particle of you that I don’t know, remember, and want.”
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