Grammar of the internal expressive sentences in Japanese
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Shoichi Iwasaki
Abstract
‘Internal expressive sentences’ such as a! itai ‘Oh, it hurts,’ or aa yokatta ‘Oh, I’m so happy!,’ reveal directly what the speaker perceives or senses internally, and contrast sharply with ‘descriptive sentences,’ such as taroo wa kuma o uchitometa ‘Taro shot the bear.’ This distinction has been noted in both Japanese and European languages but has not received much attention in linguistics in general. This paper explores this neglected type of sentence in terms of their morphosyntactic patterns (co-occurrence with outcry vocalization, such as a!, aa, waa, restricted predicate forms, the clipped adjective form, and inability to code an experiencer), semantic primitives labeled as Experience, Stimulus and Receptor, and extralinguistic factors based on neurological states of perception, emotion and feeling.
Abstract
‘Internal expressive sentences’ such as a! itai ‘Oh, it hurts,’ or aa yokatta ‘Oh, I’m so happy!,’ reveal directly what the speaker perceives or senses internally, and contrast sharply with ‘descriptive sentences,’ such as taroo wa kuma o uchitometa ‘Taro shot the bear.’ This distinction has been noted in both Japanese and European languages but has not received much attention in linguistics in general. This paper explores this neglected type of sentence in terms of their morphosyntactic patterns (co-occurrence with outcry vocalization, such as a!, aa, waa, restricted predicate forms, the clipped adjective form, and inability to code an experiencer), semantic primitives labeled as Experience, Stimulus and Receptor, and extralinguistic factors based on neurological states of perception, emotion and feeling.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgement vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction: Situating usage-based (Japanese) linguistics 1
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Part 1. Cognition and language use
- Subordination and information status 13
- On state of mind and grammatical forms from functional perspectives 37
- Grammar of the internal expressive sentences in Japanese 55
- Subjectivity, intersubjectivity and Japanese grammar 85
- What typology reveals about modality in Japanese 109
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Part 2. Frequency, interaction and language use
- If rendaku isn’t a rule, what in the world is it? 137
- The semantic basis of grammatical development 153
- Interchangeability of so-called interchangeable particles 171
- The re-examination of so-called ‘clefts’ 193
- Activity, participation, and joint turn construction 223
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Part 3. Language change and variation
- Context in constructions 261
- The use and interpretation of “regional” and “standard” variants in Japanese conversation 279
- Index 305
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgement vii
- List of contributors ix
- Introduction: Situating usage-based (Japanese) linguistics 1
-
Part 1. Cognition and language use
- Subordination and information status 13
- On state of mind and grammatical forms from functional perspectives 37
- Grammar of the internal expressive sentences in Japanese 55
- Subjectivity, intersubjectivity and Japanese grammar 85
- What typology reveals about modality in Japanese 109
-
Part 2. Frequency, interaction and language use
- If rendaku isn’t a rule, what in the world is it? 137
- The semantic basis of grammatical development 153
- Interchangeability of so-called interchangeable particles 171
- The re-examination of so-called ‘clefts’ 193
- Activity, participation, and joint turn construction 223
-
Part 3. Language change and variation
- Context in constructions 261
- The use and interpretation of “regional” and “standard” variants in Japanese conversation 279
- Index 305
