In this article, I discuss the semantic and syntactic properties of different types of particles. I argue that it is worth taking into account yet another descriptive dimension, that is, the social dimension. By making reference to three social parameters, that is, ‘social status’, ‘social distance’, and ‘agentive role’, I argue that the particles under analysis can be considered ‘social markers’: together with other linguistic elements, they indicate that a text belongs to a higher social stratum. The corpus used for this study consists of documentary papyri from the Post-classical period (I – VI AD), more in particular letters and petitions contained within so-called ‘archives’
