A Comparative Study of the Korean Sentence-final Ending ‘-ney(-네)’ and the Chinese Modal Particles ‘啊(a), 呢(ne)’

This paper aims to first confirm that in declarative sentences, the Chinese modal particles ‘啊(a)’ and ‘呢(ne)’ correspond to the Korean ‘-ney(-네)’ with a distinction: ‘啊(a)’ expresses the speaker's emotions, while ‘呢(ne)’ indicates the speaker's content, meaning that the speaker wants the listener to pay attention to what is being said. Additionally, the current Korean ‘-ney(-네)’ is discussed within the categories of evidentiality and mirativity based on its semantic functions. This paper intends to discuss the evidentiality and mirativity of Korean sentence-final ending ‘-ney(-네)’ separately, and to reveal that the corresponding Chinese Modal Particles ‘啊(a)’ and ‘呢(ne)’ also fall within the categories of evidentiality and mirativity in declarative sentences. Evidentiality refers to the observation of information, which varies depending on the observer and is related to the deictic category of person. The Korean sentence-final ending ‘-ney(-네)’ generally has a first-person subject, whereas this study seeks to confirm that the Chinese ‘啊(a)’ and ‘呢(ne)’ are restricted by a second-person subject.