Both Classical Chinese and modern Chinese contain a number of grammatical particles. These can have a number of different functions depending on their placement in a sentence; however, some general roles played by particles in Chinese include indicating possession, a continuous action, completion, addition of emotion, softening of a command, and so forth. In Mandarin, particles are known as yǔzhù (语助), zhùzì (助字), zhùcí (助词/助辭) or yǔcí (语词).