On the grammaticalization of Japanese verbal negative marker
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Hideki Kishimoto
Abstract
In Japanese, the verbal negative marker nai appears in both negated verbs (as a sentential negator) and compound negative adjectives (as an affix). Negative nai used as a sentential negator is a syntactically independent word devoid of adjectival properties despite its adjectival inflection, whereas negative nai appearing in negative adjectives is a derivational affix. On the basis of idiomatic expressions, the present article argues that the lexical word nai ‘null, empty’ has developed into the affix nai while retaining its lexical properties via morphologization. On the other hand, the functional negator nai is argued to have emerged from the same lexical word nai via decategorialization, which induces a shift from a lexical to a functional category. The analysis taking the two uses of nai to trace back to the common source of the lexical negative adjective word nai provides a natural account for why nai has these two totally different uses.
Acknowledgements
Earlier versions of the present paper were presented at NINJAL Collaborative Research Project Meeting (April 2012) and NINJAL International Symposium: Grammaticalization in Japanese and Across Languages (July 2015). I am grateful to John Whitman, Hirohumi Aoki, Tomokazu Koyanagi, Taro Kageyama, Yoko Yumoto, Keiko Murasugi, Asako Miyaji, as well as the audience of the meetings, for their comments and suggestions. I am also thankful to the reviewers for their comments on the contents of the paper. Needless to say, I am solely responsible for any remaining errors and inadequacies.
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© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Lexical V-V compounds in child Japanese: An experimental study
- Psychological deictic –te kuru compared to passive: The case of victims’ stories in Japanese
- Japanese pronoun hon-nin
- On the grammaticalization of Japanese verbal negative marker
- Onset Cy and High Vowel Devoicing in Japanese
- How native speakers of Japanese try to sound polite
- Book Review
- Mineharu Nakayama Yi-ching Su Aijun Huang John Benjamins: Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In Honor of Stephen Crain
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Editorial
- Lexical V-V compounds in child Japanese: An experimental study
- Psychological deictic –te kuru compared to passive: The case of victims’ stories in Japanese
- Japanese pronoun hon-nin
- On the grammaticalization of Japanese verbal negative marker
- Onset Cy and High Vowel Devoicing in Japanese
- How native speakers of Japanese try to sound polite
- Book Review
- Mineharu Nakayama Yi-ching Su Aijun Huang John Benjamins: Studies in Chinese and Japanese Language Acquisition: In Honor of Stephen Crain
