A Study of Cathartic Pragmatic Marker“Ta-ma-de”

The Chinese cathartic phrase “ta-ma-de” has its unique pragmatic function. However, the previous studies have started from its abusing and non-abusing meanings, and probed into the motivation and mechanism of the formation of such meanings. Nevertheless, this cannot reveal its overall pragmatic functions. This paper has attempted to start from the pragmatic marker and has studied the diversity of its syntactic functions and its unique pragmatic ones, hoping to have a comprehensive understanding of this phrase and provide reference for the overseas' understanding of such pragmatic markers.