| Summary: | This paper is an investigation of the use of a class of deictic particles in Lai Chin. The particles tsuu, khaa, hii, and khii have a wide variety of uses; they can be appended to nouns, phrases and clauses as discourse particles with various meanings; they also function as demonstratives, and occur in a number of fixed expressions with an adverbial function. The full range of uses and meanings of these particles is a vast and often-vexing topic, and I make no pretense of even approaching a complete description here. Rather, I will provide an overview of certain basic contexts in which the particles are used, and from this show the constancies and variances in their meaning as I understand them at present.
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