Chinese

啦

/lä/
Used at the end of a sentence to indicate a change of state with a strong emotion.
  • Phono-semantic compound 形聲
  • HSK 6
  • TOCFL 3
  • radical 口
  • 11 strokes

Etymology graph

  • inherited
  • borrowed
  • derived
  • parts
  • meaning component
  • sound component
  • related
React Flow

點擊節點放大 · Click a node to zoom in

Origin

Etymology 1

Phono-semantic compound (形聲 /形声): semantic 口 (“mouth”) + phonetic 拉.

Etymology 5

From 了 + 啊

From Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Lineage

  • meaningChinese口 “mouth, especially the lips and internal mouth cavity (Classifier: 把 c)”
  • soundChinese拉 “to pull; to drag; to tug”
    • meaningChinese手 “hand (Classifier: 隻／只 m c mn; 雙／双 m mn; 對／对 c)”
    • soundChinese立 “to stand”
  • partChinese了 “Used after a verb to indicate perfective aspect (action completion).”
  • partChinese啊 “Used as an initial interjection particle to express surprise. ah, oh, ha”

Sources