Editing Grammatical particle (section)

== Modern meaning ==
In modern grammar, a '''particle''' is a [[function word]] that must be associated with another word or phrase to impart meaning, i.e., it does not have its own lexical definition.{{Citation needed|date=March 2017}} According to this definition, particles are a separate [[part of speech]] and are distinct from other [[word class|classes]] of function words, such as [[article (grammar)|articles]], [[preposition]]s, [[conjunction (grammar)|conjunctions]] and [[adverbs]].{{Citation needed|date=March 2017}} Languages vary widely in how much they use particles, some using them extensively and others more commonly using alternative devices such as prefixes/suffixes, inflection, [[auxiliary verb]]s and word order. Particles are typically words that encode [[grammatical category|grammatical categories]] (such as [[negation (linguistics)|negation]], [[grammatical mood|mood]], [[grammatical tense|tense]], or [[grammatical case|case]]), [[clitic]]s, [[Filler (linguistics)|filler]]s or (oral) [[discourse markers]] such as ''well'', ''um'', etc. Particles are never [[Inflection|inflected]].<ref>McArthur, Tom: "The Oxford Companion to the English Language", pp. 72-76, Oxford University Press, 1992. {{ISBN|0-19-214183-X}}</ref>