What's the role of ネ・サ・ヨ in Japanese Grammar?


Recently I looked up an explanation for 文節【ぶんせつ】 on here
[国語文法](http://%E5%9B%BD%E8%AA%9E%E6%96%87%E6%B3%95.com/%E6%96%87%E7%AF%80%E3%81%A8%E3%81%AF.html),
which I learned are the phrases/units that make up sentences while
theoretically still standing on their own out of context.

During that explanation they used the concept of ネ・サ・ヨ to illustrate their
points, by separating each 文節 of a sentence with one of these. E.g.

> 「机のネ/上にネ/バッグをネ/置いてネ/おく。」

I didn't understand why at first as this seemed rather specific for an
arbitrary separator, so I searched for other mentions of ネ・サ・ヨ on the net.
What I found was only a mention of some movement around 1958 in some
elementary schools to avoid using these sounds at the end of sentences, as
they were supposedly not part of standard language. See
[here](http://d.hatena.ne.jp/oomesikurai/20071003).

From that I pieced together that in the initial 文節 explanation ネ・サ・ヨ were used
because conceptionally they could be appended at the end of each basic phrase
in a sentence so Japanese people might have a natural feel for what a
phrase/文節 is.

That's all just my limited speculation however, thus my question:  
**Is ネ・サ・ヨ used with any frequency in Japanese grammar explanations, and if
yes, to what end?**




ネ・サ・ヨ (and ナ) are basically meaningless fillers. See: [What does さあ (saa)
mean?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/14922/5010) Some of the fillers
are indeed dialectal, but at least ネ and サ are fairly commonly used in
conversations in modern standard Japanese. In English, fillers sometimes come
between a preposition and a noun (e.g., "at, _you know_ , school", "in spite
of, _well_ , his opinion"), but in Japanese you cannot insert a filler between
a noun and a case particle.

I think all students learn "[trying to insert ネ is a quick way to separate
文節](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/27624/5010)" at grammar classes at
around 7th grade or so. As you can see, people who try to explain 文節 of 国語文法
would usually explain this method, too. Of course this method works only for
those who are already fluent Japanese speakers, though. IMEs convert hiragana
sentences into kanji by separating 文節 first, so I believe most Japanese people
roughly remember the idea of 文節 they learnt at school.




ネ・サ・ヨ (and ナ) are basically meaningless fillers. See: [What does さあ (saa)
mean?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/14922/5010) Some of the fillers
are indeed dialectal, but at least ネ and サ are fairly commonly used in
conversations in modern standard Japanese. In English, fillers sometimes come
between a preposition and a noun (e.g., "at, _you know_ , school", "in spite
of, _well_ , his opinion"), but in Japanese you cannot insert a filler between
a noun and a case particle.

I think all students learn "[trying to insert ネ is a quick way to separate
文節](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/27624/5010)" at grammar classes at
around 7th grade or so. As you can see, people who try to explain 文節 of 国語文法
would usually explain this method, too. Of course this method works only for
those who are already fluent Japanese speakers, though. IMEs convert hiragana
sentences into kanji by separating 文節 first, so I believe most Japanese people
roughly remember the idea of 文節 they learnt at school.

