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<DOCINFO AUTHOR ""TITLE "Japanese Discourse Markers: Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis"SUBJECT "Pragmatics & Beyond, New

Series, Volume 132"KEYWORDS ""SIZE HEIGHT "220"WIDTH "150"VOFFSET "4">

Japanese Discourse Markers


Pragmatics & Beyond New Series
Editor
Andreas H. Jucker
University of Zurich, English Department
Plattenstrasse 47, CH-8032 Zurich, Switzerland
e-mail: ahjucker@es.unizh.ch

Associate Editors
Jacob L. Mey
University of Southern Denmark
Herman Parret
Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp
Jef Verschueren
Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp

Editorial Board
Shoshana Blum-Kulka Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni
Hebrew University of Jerusalem University of Lyon 2
Jean Caron Claudia de Lemos
Université de Poitiers University of Campinas, Brazil
Robyn Carston Marina Sbisà
University College London University of Trieste
Bruce Fraser Emanuel Schegloff
Boston University University of California at Los Angeles
Thorstein Fretheim Deborah Schiffrin
University of Trondheim Georgetown University
John Heritage Paul O. Takahara
University of California at Los Angeles Kansai Gaidai University
Susan Herring Sandra Thompson
University of Texas at Arlington University of California at Santa Barbara
Masako K. Hiraga Teun A. Van Dijk
St.Paul’s (Rikkyo) University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona
David Holdcroft Richard J. Watts
University of Leeds University of Berne
Sachiko Ide
Japan Women’s University

Volume 132
Japanese Discourse Markers: Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis
by Noriko O. Onodera
Japanese Discourse Markers
Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis

Noriko O. Onodera
Aoyama Gakuin University

John Benjamins Publishing Company


Amsterdam/Philadelphia
TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
8

of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence


of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Noriko O. Onodera
Japanese Discourse Markers : Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis
/ Noriko O. Onodera.
p. cm. (Pragmatics & Beyond, New Series, issn 0922-842X ; v. 132)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. Japanese language--Discourse analysis. 2. Japanese language--
Conjunctions. I. Title. II. Series.

PL640.5.O66 2004
495.6’0141-dc22 2004059887
isbn 90 272 5375 7 (Eur.) / 1 58811 607 7 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)

© 2004 – John Benjamins B.V.


No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or
any other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O. Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O. Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
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To Ren
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Table of contents

Acknowledgments xi
Transcription conventions xiii

Chapter 1
Introduction 1
1.1 The problem 2
1.1.1 Historical approach 2
1.1.2 Phenomena to be investigated 4
1.1.3 Connection with typological features 8
1.1.4 Problems in diachronic analysis 9
1.1.5 Goals 11
1.2 Conceptual background: Definitions and assumption 12
1.2.1 Definitions 12
1.2.2 Assumption 18
1.3 Data and approach 18
1.3.1 Data 18
1.3.2 Approach for analysis 23
1.4 Sample analyses 24
1.4.1 Analysis of dakedo 24
1.4.2 Analysis of ne 26
1.5 Outline of this book 28

Chapter 2
Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers:
Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis 31
2.1 Discourse/pragmatic perspective 31
2.2 Historical perspective 38
2.3 Typological studies 43
2.4 Syntactic and semantic aspects of conjunctions (demo
and dakedo) and interjections (ne and variants) 46
2.4.1 Syntactic and semantic aspects of conjunctions 46
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 Table of contents

2.4.2 Syntactic and semantic aspects of interjections 53


2.5 Summary 54

Chapter 3
Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo in Present Day
Japanese (synchronic analysis) 57
3.1 Use and distribution of demo and dakedo 57
3.2 Referential contrast and pragmatically inferable contrast 60
3.3 Functional contrast 63
3.3.1 Functional contrast marked by dakedo and kedo 63
3.3.2 Another example of functional contrast 69
3.4 Contrastive actions 73
3.4.1 Point-making device 74
3.4.2 Claiming the floor 77
3.4.3 Opening the conversation 79
3.4.4 Changing the topic 81
3.5 Demo and dakedo: Markers of contrast 83

Chapter 4
Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 85
4.1 Pragmaticalization of demo 86
4.1.1 Clause-final V-te + mo 90
4.1.2 Demo as a discourse marker 92
4.2 Pragmaticalization of dakedo 99
4.2.1 Clause-final V + kedo 100
4.2.2 Dakedo as a discourse marker 104
4.3 Pragmaticalization: Evolution of demo and dakedo
as discourse markers 111
4.4 Motivation for the pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo 114
4.4.1 The grammatical process leading to the adoption of demo
and dakedo as initial markers 115
4.4.2 The discourse process leading to the adoption of demo
and dakedo as markers 120
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Table of contents 

Chapter 5
Functions of the interjections ne and na in Present Day Japanese
(synchronic analysis) 123
5.1 Harmony: The ultimate goal in Japanese conversation 124
5.2 Agreement (affirmative response) 127
5.2.1 Agreement 127
5.2.2 Back channels 129
5.3 Call attention (cataphoric) 132
5.3.1 Before new information 132
5.4 Call attention (anaphoric) 135
5.4.1 Reinforcement 136
5.5 Call attention (anaphoric and cataphoric) 138
5.5.1 Summons 138
5.5.2 Linking prior and upcoming information 140
5.6 Marker of rapport 143
5.7 Fillers 148
5.8 Atmosphere sustainer 150
5.9 Ne(e) and na(a): Markers of involvement 152
5.9.1 Involvement 152
5.9.2 Ne(e)/na(a) as markers of involvement 153
5.9.3 Metamessage level of interaction 154

Chapter 6
Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 157
6.1 Na elements in sentence-final position 160
6.2 Na elements in sentence-internal position 168
6.3 Na elements in initial position (as interjections
and discourse markers) 174
6.4 Pragmaticalization: Evolution of na elements as discourse
markers 185
6.4.1 Functional change relating to Traugott’s hypothesis 185
6.4.2 Subjectification and intersubjectification: From ideational
to interpersonal meanings 188
6.5 Some thoughts on motivation for the pragmaticalization
of na elements 191
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 Table of contents

Chapter 7
Conclusion 197
7.1 Summary of this study 197
7.2 Grammaticalization 200
7.2.1 Development of discourse markers: A case
of grammaticalization 201
7.2.2 Demo and na elements: Grammaticalization or not? 203
7.3 Relevance of findings 205
7.3.1 Relevance to typological characteristics 205
7.3.2 Productivity 211
7.3.3 Conventionalization of conversational implicatures 214

Notes 219
References 227
Name index 241
Subject index 245
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Acknowledgments

In various stages of this work, many people have helped me in different ways.
First and foremost, I am deeply indebted to my professors of linguistics and
sociolinguistics at Georgetown University Ph.D. program, Deborah Schiffrin,
Deborah Tannen and Ralph Fasold. Debby Schiffrin’s guidance in discourse
analysis and support to my challenge of the new field has helped me to form
my uncultivated idea into shape. I would also like to thank Senko K. Maynard
for her useful suggestions and encouragement.
My debt to Sachiko Ide goes yet further back: it was her graduate sem-
inar where I first experienced much inspiration on the study of language in
use. Since those days, Professor Ide has furnished me the model as a scholar
and a teacher. I am grateful not only for her intellectual guidance and al-
lowance to use her collected data (Ide et al. 1984) for this study, but also for
her warmhearted encouragement. These people are the foundation of my own
cognizance in linguistics.
Since graduating from GU, I have been fortunate to work in the present
climate in linguistics. In the last decade, grammaticalization and pragmati-
calization have drawn more attention, and even the development of discourse
markers seems to have offered interesting topics. Relatedly, we now see a grow-
ing new subfield, Historical Pragmatics, under which the diachronic study of
discourse markers also seems to fall. I am thankful to the organizer of the panel
at IPrA ’98, Andreas H. Jucker, who has also probably coined the term, his-
torical pragmatics, and has always been encouraging. I express my gratitude
to Elizabeth C. Traugott who read the earlier chapters and has always given
constructive comments and much inspiration.
Completion of this book does not mean the end of exploration into this
theme. However, to present in this field, I have benefited from discussions with
many colleagues including Susan Fitzmaurice, Scott Saft, Yoko Fujii, Etsuko
Oishi, Hartmut Haberland, Kaoru Horie and Heiko Narrog. Ryoko Suzuki’s in-
sightful comments and good conversations with her helped in my elaboration
of this work. My sincere thanks go to them.
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 Acknowledgments

As mentioned in 1.1.4, the topic of diachrony of discourse markers has not


been a facile one. I am greatly obliged to expertise in historical linguistics, too:
Professor Akio Tanaka has provided crucial suggestions and kind advice. The
anonymous readers’ comments and suggestions have also been appreciated. I
am of course, however, responsible for any inadequacies that remain.
At Aoyama Gakuin University, I am grateful to my students who always
give unfeigned feedback to my ideas and lectures, and also my colleagues;
above all, for completion of this book, Minoji Akimoto, Gregory Strong and
Forrest Nelson.
I would also like to thank Isja Conen at John Benjamins for her support
during the editing process. Part of this work has been supported by JSPS.Grant-
in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (14510630).
Lastly, my thanks go to my family: my parents for their unflagging faith in
me; my husband, Ren, for his understanding, patience and tremendous sup-
port; and my daughters, Momo and Hana, for providing important reasons for
the pursuit of my work.
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Transcription conventions

Japanese transliteration is provided in the Standard system of Romanization,


phonetic orthography. To express a long vowel, the vowel is repeated. (e.g.
aa, uu, oo.)

Key to transcription conventions

. falling intonation followed by a noticeable pause


? rising intonation followed by a noticeable pause
, continuing intonation, with slight rise or fall in contour, followed
by a pause (shorter than . or ?)
. . . noticeable pause or break in rhythm (each half-second pause is
marked by a dot)
: prolonged vowel (not morphologically, but for e.g. emphasis – e.g.
‘e:’ instead of ‘ee’)
= speaker continues
(brackets on two lines) indicate second utterance latched onto first,
without perceptible pause

Abbreviations

In the transcript, a word-for-word (morpheme-for-morpheme) gloss is given


on the line between the Japanese utterance and the free translation. The fol-
lowing abbreviations are used in the examples. However, in the citations from
Kuno (1978a, 1973), I used his original abbreviations that differ slightly from
those used in the present study.
COP copula
DO direct object
EMP emphatic
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 Transcription conventions

FP sentence-final particle
GER gerundive form
GN genitive
HON honorific
HUM humble
IP sentence-internal particle
LK linker
NEG negative
NOM nominalizer
PASS passive
PST past/perfect tense
Q question marker (assigned to a FP ka only)
QT quotative marker
SB subject marker
TAG tag-question-like expressions such as auxiliary verb forms (e.g.
desho, daro, ja-nai) and the interjection and FP ne(e)
TP topic marker
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Chapter 1

Introduction*

This book examines the historical process of how forms in two different groups
in Japanese, (1) demo type connectives and (2) na elements, have developed to
emerge and work as discourse markers (DMs). Demo type connectives seem to
have undergone the development whereby the clause-final connecting expres-
sions (e.g. V-de + mo1 ) eventually became the sentence-initial connectives and
discourse markers (e.g. demo). And na elements seem to have evolved whereby
the sentence-final particles (SFPs) change to the sentence-internal particles
(SIPs), then finally to the sentence-initial interjections. The process in which
an item acquires the functions of a marker, i.e. the process in which a lexical
item with rather restricted functions becomes one with more extended dis-
course functions, is what I call a pragmaticalization. The discourse-pragmatic
functions considered here are either textual or expressive functions, or both (cf.
Traugott 1989: 31).
It will be argued that the diachronic processes of the above two groups of
expressions are not the same. That is, while demo type connectives undergo
pragmaticalization and grammaticalization, na elements undergo pragmati-
calization with a syntactically positional change, which is a less clear case of
grammaticalization (see also 1.2.1.2 and 7.2).
As outlined above, ‘pragmaticalization’ and ‘grammaticalization’, among
conceptual terms and findings disclosed in prior investigations into historical
meaning changes (most indebted to Traugott’s serial works), offer the funda-
mental framework for this study. Traugott (1982) once proposed the direction
in general meaning change, ‘ideational > ((textual) > (expressive))’, based on
the functional-semantic model of language. The current study will employ this
language model because of its usefulness, which still holds today, in analyzing
functions of items.2
This study is a product of a multi-dimensional approach. Besides histor-
ical studies that supply an important frame for this study, several sub-fields
of linguistics provide additional perspectives: discourse studies, pragmatics,
typological studies, and syntax and semantics of conjunctions and interjec-
tions. The four realms, (1) discourse/pragmatic, (2) historical, (3) typological,
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 Chapter 1

and (4) syntactic and semantic aspects of conjunctions and interjections, alto-
gether comprising the perspectives for this study, will be reviewed in Chapter
2. Among the discourse/pragmatic works, Schiffrin (1987) defines “discourse
markers” and offers the guiding principle for analyzing discourse functions of
language. Linguistic typology pertains to this study since the historical changes
to be examined here appear to be productive processes involving typological
characteristics of language. Syntactic and semantic aspects of conjunctions and
interjections are required as the basic knowledge in the linguistic exploration
of these items. This book is thus a product of these multiple domains.
The rest of this chapter does the following. In (1.1) I state the prob-
lem which this study addresses. (1.2) defines the key terms of this study and
presents an assumption in order to build a consistent theoretical background
before starting the argument. In (1.3) the data and approach taken to the anal-
ysis are introduced. Then, (1.4) specifically gives sample analyses of the two
discourse markers. Finally, (1.5) anticipates the content of each chapter.

. The problem

.. Historical approach

While this study owes a lot to the established historical perspective showed in
prior works (such as Heine, Claudi, & Hünnemeyer 1991; Hopper & Traugott
1993; Lehmann 1995; Pagliuca (Ed.) 1994; Traugott 1982, 1986b, 1988b, 1989,
1995a; and Traugott & Dasher 1987), this book will also make suggestions with
interests in developing the approach appropriate for analyzing the pragmatics
of any world languages and in seeking the linguistic universality in a true sense.
I will review my indebtedness to the historical perspective later (in 2.2), so
here I will address what this study suggests and supplements in the previous
historical studies.
The first suggestion is the necessary application of the pragmatic perspec-
tive to the study of semantic-pragmatic change. By the early 1990s, some stud-
ies of semantic-pragmatic change lacked the solid pragmatic perspective with
which to see and capture the speaker’s meanings (both implicature and other
speaker’s strategies). Although capturing such speaker’s meanings is essential in
arguing pragmatic changes, some early works only looked at intuitively made-
up sentences where no such speaker’s interactively negotiated/created mean-
ings exist. They had somewhat theoretical and methodological difficulties.
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Introduction 

This book examines the development of discourse markers in Japanese,


which will be regarded as a case of pragmaticalization from my analysis. Prag-
maticalization has been often discussed in connection with grammaticalization
which had been examined primarily in theoretical linguistics (such as syntax
and semantics). However, pragmaticalization, semantic-pragmatic change of
meaning, seems to be a phenomenon which can be analyzed only in the con-
text where interactive/negotiatory aspect of language is available (cf. Onodera
1999). Such aspect is what the discourse studies and pragmatics address more
directly than the so-called theoretical linguistics. Among the discourse stud-
ies, in particular, “interactional sociolinguistics” (cf. Tannen 1992), one of its
approaches, uncovers this aspect successfully.
By the early 1990s, Traugott’s studies brought to light three evocative issues
for the succeeding research in this area; the predictable direction of mean-
ing change, the generalization of pragmaticalization, and the process – the
development of conventionalized implicatures. The first two issues apply to
pragmatic meaning in general, and the third issue deals with one of the prag-
matic meanings, Grice’s (1975) ‘implicature’. It is noticeable that any of the
three issues are directly relevant to the so-called ‘study of discourse’. It was re-
garded in those days that these issues would be elucidated in an appropriate
discourse/pragmatic framework that defines the unit of analysis as ‘discourse’
and examines the functions of language in the discourse context. It indeed
seems a clearer pragmatic viewpoint that more recently have elucidated further
points of this field. Such new points are: (1) the Invited Inferencing Theory
of Semantic Change (IITSC) (see Traugott & Dasher 2002, 1.3.2: 34–35), (2)
“Subjectification (including intersubjectification)” is “the main mechanism
of semantic change” (Ibid.: 279), and (3) intersubjectification (Ibid.: 31, 229
and elsewhere). No doubt these new points seem to have come along as an
extension of the early three issues.
Although recent pragmaticalization works use more appropriate pragmatic
approach than before, I suggested, for example, Schiffrin (1987) supplies a rigid
and sound pragmatic framework (Onodera 1993) (see also 2.1 and 1.2.1.4 in
this book).
Given my simplified definitions of semantics and pragmatics as ‘the study
of the meaning of sentences’ and ‘the study of the meaning of sentences in
context’, analysis of the items in context will be required for the examination
of pragmatic meanings. For such analysis, the data should include naturally-
occurring discourse.
Another claim against the prior studies of meaning changes is a rethink on
universalness in grammaticalization. Structural unidirectionality co-occurrent
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 Chapter 1

with grammaticalization has for a long time been discussed mainly from the
observations of western languages. However, I wonder whether the same dis-
cussion is possible if phenomena in typologically very different languages
worldwide are fairly observed. Indeed, in my studies on the development of
Japanese discourse markers (Some cases of this process have been uncovered
as grammaticalization: see Onodera 1995, 2000), ‘scope increase’ and ‘decrease
in boundness’ have been recognized against the long discussed premise that
‘scope decrease’ and ‘increase in boundness’ are unidirectional parameters (cf.
Lehmann 1995). Further, at present, with some linguists’ more recent interests
in the evolution of English discourse markers (Brinton 1990, 1996; Traugott
1995b; Tabor & Traugott 1998), scope increase and decrease in boundness
themselves are newly considered as common features of grammaticalization,
based on the observations of English and Japanese discourse markers (Traugott
1995b; Tabor & Traugott 1998; Onodera 1993, 1995). This shows the inevitabil-
ity of surveys done on both western and non-western languages to argue
universality in linguistic phenomena.3
There are surely other works that have explored grammaticalization phe-
nomena in Japanese. Matsumoto (1988, 1998), Horie (1998), Ohori (1998a,
1998b), Suzuki (1998, 1999) and Mori (1996, 1999) are such works. Also, other
studies on grammaticalization in non-western languages include Akatsuka and
Sohn (1994) and Sohn (1996).
As one of the non-western studies, my earlier work (Onodera 2000) also
suggested that pragmaticalization and grammaticalization were processes in-
dependent of each other (see also 7.2.2).

.. Phenomena to be investigated

This section introduces the items chosen for analysis in this study. The items are
selected from two categories, conjunctions (1.1.2.1) and interjections (1.1.2.2).
That is, a set of connecting elements that eventually develop into demo type
connectives whose grammatical class is ‘conjunction’, and a set of particles that
develop into na group of sentence-initial ‘interjections’ in the course of time.
First, in Chapters 3 and 5, demo type connectives and na group of interjections
as developed forms in their historical change will be examined respectively in
the synchronic analysis: Their pragmatic functions in Present Day Japanese will
be revealed. Then, in Chapters 4 and 6, the meanings and structural changes of
the same items will be elucidated in the diachronic analysis.
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Introduction 

... Conjunctions
The two conjunctions demo and dakedo will be investigated. They belong to a
set of conjunctions that I call as demo type connectives. This group of conjunc-
tions are sentence-initial connecting expressions with a noticeable morpholog-
ical structure – all prefaced by d element (copula in Japanese). It seems that the
group members have similar historical processes of development and that such
process is even productive. Connectives4 such as dakara, datte, dewa, de, daga,
and nanoni are included in this category.
A riveting list of conjunctions which first awakened my interest in Japanese
discourse markers will be introduced. Demo and dakedo are included in this list.
The National Language Research Institute (NLRI, 1955) counted the frequency
of conjunctions used in ten hour-long tape-recorded conversations half a cen-
tury ago. Table 1.1 shows their results: the conjunctions are listed in the order
of frequency of appearance. Here, the variants are grouped together under the
numbers, 1, 2, . . . 5. The number besides the items indicates the actual number
of appearance. The percent designates the group’s proportion of appearance of
all the conjunctions.
The National Language Research Institute also counted the frequency of
the conjunctions used in written language (journals), and revealed that the
top-ranking items in spoken language (in Table 1.1) all rank lower in writ-
ten texts: e.g. de ranks 20th, demo 20th and dakara 22nd. This shows that the
set of conjunctions in frequent use in spoken Japanese are in infrequent use
in written Japanese. The National Language Research Institute accounts for
this distinctly high frequency of a certain set of conjunctions in spoken dis-
course by their function as “fillers”. The National Language Research Institute’s

Table 1.1 Frequency of conjunctions in spoken Japanese (National Language Research


Institute 1955)

1. sorede  4. sorekara  (then)




soide 
 (and) seekara 138 (8.9%)
sonde 417 (27%) soikara


de 

nde
2. demo  (but) 5. jaa  (well then)


ndemo 196 (12.6%) njaa 99 (6.4%)
dakedo 

ndakedo

3. dakara (so) *total number of frequency
ndakara 188 (12.1%) of 85 conjunctions = 1558 (100%)
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 Chapter 1

Table 1.2 Frequency of conjunctions in spoken Japanese (1982)



1. sorede 219  (and) 4. dakara 299 (16.4%) (so)

soide 28 539 (29.6%)
de 290 
 5. datte 82 (4.5%) (’cause)
nde 2
2. ja 212  (well then) 6. sorekara 76 (4.1%) (then)
jaa 99 311 (17.1%)

3. demo 262 (but) * total number of frequency of
dakedo 41 304 (16.7%) 160 conjunctions =1819 (100%)
dakedomo 2

(1955: 158) recognition of fillers is that “the items with no connecting function
are added for almost no purpose”.5 This seems close to the notion of “‘stop-gap’
interjections” including expressions such as ‘well’ and ‘ah’ (the Proceedings of
the American Social Psychological Research Association 1885 cited in Schiffrin
1982b).6 There seems to be a similarity between the function of filling and
stopping gap.
I wondered, then, whether the most frequently used conjunctions in spo-
ken Japanese (listed in Table 1.1) were mere fillers. It is conspicuous that
the English equivalents to the conjunctions ranking between 1st and 5th are
‘and’ (sorede), ‘but’ (demo), ‘so’ (dakara), ‘then’ (sorekara) and ‘well then’ (jaa)
(see Table 1.1), that had ‘all’ been found to be discourse markers in English
(Schiffrin 1987). Discourse markers are well known by their efficient pragmatic
functions. Therefore, it seems very plausible to uncover the real functions of
these Japanese conjunctions, possibly pragmatic, were they newly approached
and analyzed in the frame of pragmatics. In this study, such analysis will be
attempted. Thus, my earliest interest in Japanese discourse markers began with
a question of the relevance between the high frequency in spoken language and
the functions.
To supplement the survey of 1955, I counted the frequency of the con-
junctions used in more recent spoken Japanese (of 1982). Table 1.2 presents
the conjunctions the most frequently used in the 1982 corpus of Japanese dis-
course.7 It shows the result strikingly similar to the 1955 survey despite the
gap of thirty years: The five top-ranking items in 1955 still all rank within the
top six, despite an assumption that thirty years would be long enough to see
some language change. This result implies that, for some reason, a limited set
of conjunctions has been the most frequently used in spoken Japanese without
a significant difference over decades.
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Introduction 

Demo and dakedo, chosen for examination in this study, belong to the
group which ranks 2nd in 1955 and 3rd in 1982. It appears that the two ex-
pressions have undergone a similar process in which they developed from their
corresponding unit-final connecting elements. Besides this structural change,
the process whereby the functions of demo and dakedo have changed will be
explored.

... Interjections
The interjection ne and its variants will also be analyzed. What led me to pay
attention to interjections is that they also undergo an interesting process which
is parallel to that of demo type of connectives: i.e. an interjection ne and its
variants seem to have evolved from their corresponding unit-final elements
(sentence-final particles).
Ne and its variants are markers of involvement (discussed in 5.9). They
display harmony between the speaker and hearer (and also other participants
in conversation) in several ways by involving the participants in what is being
said in the conversation. Inoue (1989) claims that ne plays an important role
in Japanese conversation and points out the similarity in the functions of ne
and the English discourse particle ‘you know’. Inoue (1989: 239) suggests the
usefulness of Schourup’s (1982) analysis of ‘you know’ for that of ne: “‘You
know’ creates solidarity between the speaker and the hearer or their comraderie
in the utterance by confirming the identity of their private worlds”. Ne and ‘you
know’ (Schiffrin 1987; Schourup 1982) seem to function in a similar way in
conversation.
Hayashi’s (1983) proposal concerning the hierarchical expressive struc-
ture of an utterance gives much attention to the three positions where ne
occurs (sentence-final, clause-final and sentence-initial positions). Kitagawa
(1984: 31) states that Hayashi’s attention to these positions tries to capture
the expressive function of an utterance in a three-dimensional/hierarchical
way. Kitagawa then suggests that a structural or functional approach (such as
Hayashi 1983) is also possible in discourse analysis and that such an approach
would make it possible to observe the integrated or holistic function of such
expressive words which at first appear to be randomly placed. This study will
examine ne and its variants in the three positions, and observe the functional
change in each position as well as in the total process of pragmaticalization of
ne viewed as a single item.
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 Chapter 1

.. Connection with typological features

There seems to be linguistic phenomena that occur in a way related to the


typological features of languages. Croft (1990: 27) writes that languages are
classified typologically according to the various linguistic devices used for a
particular grammatical parameter (e.g. expression of grammatical number or
formation of relative clauses). The well-known phenomenon that Japanese
has no relative-pronouns (Kuno 1973: 25, 1978a: 88) seems a case relevant to
linguistic typology. I suggest that another case of phenomenon which arises
connected with typological features is the diachronic evolution of unit-final el-
ements into unit-initial discourse markers in Japanese. As far as I know at this
stage of my research, this evolution involves at least two domains in Japanese,
conjunctions and interjections.
The evolutionary process of unit-final elements into initial markers in
Japanese appears to concern at least two typological features of language. The
first is that Japanese is a post-positional language. Japanese displays all the
characteristics that Greenberg (1963) has attributed to SOV language. One of
them is concerned with adpositions. In Japanese, adpositions are all postpo-
sitional (Kuno 1978a: 78). Among the postpositions, two bear reference to my
study: conjunctive particles that are attached to verbs and form connecting ele-
ments at clause-final positions and sentence-final particles. Since the unit-final
connecting devices containing conjunctive particles and the sentence-final par-
ticles are considered the original forms from which demo, dakedo, ne and na
evolved, careful observation will be made of these postpositions.
Another typological feature seemingly partly involved in the development
of discourse markers from the final elements is the agglutinating nature of
Japanese. Shimizu (1987: 222) makes the following statement about aggluti-
nation in Japanese:
It is auxiliary verbs and particles that mainly contribute to agglutination. By
grace of auxiliary verbs and particles, the ‘case’ of a NP and the relationship
between phrases are made explicit. Therefore the order of phrases is relatively
free. . .

He implies that the relatively free word order in Japanese is ascribed to the
explicitness in the relationship of phrases which auxiliary verbs and particles
mark. Agglutination appears to be another factor which prompts the develop-
mental process of discourse marker formation in some way.
Because there is a distinct shift of the elements from their original final po-
sitions to initial positions, a study of postpositional Japanese could provide
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Introduction 

tangible evidence that final elements start to be used as discourse markers.


Since English is a typical prepositional language, the above positional shift
does not appear, because connectives such as ‘and’ and ‘but’ are already in ini-
tial positions in deep structure (McCawley 1988). A discussion concerning the
relevance of this study to typology of languages will be attempted in (7.3.1).

.. Problems in diachronic analysis

I should mention the problems I faced during the process of this work: The
problems are put together into three points that all pertain to diachronic study
but not to synchronic study.
The first problem which can be the biggest in any diachronic language
study is that in a crucial sense ‘nothing can be evidenced’. Treating language
of earlier days and discussing the diachronic courses since then, we often say
‘development’, ‘evolution’ or ‘changes’. But these processes cannot be evidenced
either visually or audibly. For analysis of today’s language, we have a better tool,
i.e. audio-taped or video-taped language data which facilitates analysis of hu-
man interactional dynamics. However, for diachronic discourse analysis which
I attempt in Chapters 4 and 6 in this book, we can only rely on “written records
of spoken language” (Jacobs & Jucker 1995: 7) that can be said to be second-
rate compared to the above data of naturally-occurring language which we can
indeed listen to or watch. This is the fate of diachronic study of language, es-
pecially concerning its interactional aspect. I should say, however, towards the
completion of this study, that it is still possible to analyze human communica-
tion including the speaker’s intentions and the participants’ possible actions in
this kind of study instead of its limited data. Referring to the feasibility of such
diachronic language study, Jacobs and Jucker (Ibid.) state:
It is plausible to suggest that written records of spoken language are closer to
the actual spoken language of the time than written language not based on
spoken language.

Many works in a new linguistic field now called “historical pragmatics” bear
the same problem, but deal with the same kind of data. In this study, for
data of Japanese of earlier days, ‘written’ colloquial segments (e.g. lines in
play scripts (of noo, kyoogen or kabuki), conversational parts from novels, and
ballads) are used.
The second problem seems to lie in the methodological difference be-
tween the two fields, sociolinguistics and historical linguistics. The current
study started with interests in pragmatic/communicative aspect of language.
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 Chapter 1

To examine such aspect, study and perspective of ‘language in use’, i.e. soci-
olinguistics, seems useful. Here, however, I faced a problem: In sociolinguistics,
methodologically, induction is primarily taken. Sizable amount of data and
its analysis (at times statistical) prove our findings in this field. Works carried
out by this method are valued, and hence judged scientific. In the diachronic
study of language, on the other hand, we realize the limit in both size and
consistency of data from the beginning. Therefore, induction in the sociolin-
guistic sense is impossible. In the diachronic study of language, there is also
inclination, among researchers, to search ‘tendencies’ seen in changes in accu-
mulated examples of the prior scholarship. We attempt to predict the courses
based on the tendencies just mentioned, or try to make predictable sugges-
tions, too. Hypotheses also seem to play an important role in this field. Thus,
argument in such a study may sound ‘speculative’ at times (this feature may be
relevant in the first problem, too). This field indeed has the deductive feature.
During this study, there were at times conflicts raised by the above method-
ological difference in the two fields. A specific conflict was between induction
and deduction.
Thirdly, a specific difficulty in treating data of earlier Japanese was pointed
out while writing this book. This point is concerned with the regional differ-
ence in the history of the Japanese language: i.e. Tokyo (East) Japanese and
Kamigata (Kyoto and Osaka; West) Japanese have undergone two different
developmental courses, so these two Japanese varieties should be analyzed sep-
arately. To preserve the consistency of data, only one Japanese variety (either
Tokyo or Kamigata Japanese) should be the subject of analysis to see the di-
achrony of a linguistic item/expression in question. Tokyo Japanese, which
now also can be called standard Japanese, is considered to have started when
the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu entered Edo (in 1590 (cf. Komatsu 1985: 4–5;
Edo is the old name for Tokyo)). Until then, language used in Kyoto where
Japan’s capital had been located since the Heian period (794–1192) had been
regarded as standard. As Komatsu (1985: 5) states, “Edo Japanese gradually
formed along with the development of Edo city”. Thus, the history of today’s
standard or Tokyo Japanese is short compared to that of Kamigata Japanese:
It is because Tokyo/standard Japanese which was originally Edo Japanese had
started only in the 16th century, whereas Kamigata Japanese had succeeded
from the Heian period (8th–12th century) through Kamakura (12th–14th cen-
tury) and Muromachi (14th–16th century) periods (cf. Ibid.). Tokyo (East) and
Kamigata (West) Japanese, hence, have traveled completely different develop-
mental paths. The course of the language development from the Muromachi
period is considered to have evolved into the modern Japanese. To examine
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Introduction 

the development of ‘Tokyo Japanese’, it seems reasonable to limit the data to


Japanese language from Muromachi onward.
Demo/dakedo and na elements, the subject of analysis in this study, are still
used in today’s Tokyo Japanese. Therefore, strictly, only Edo and Tokyo Japanese
since Muromachi period should be used as data to see the diachrony of ex-
pressions in question. This stance is taken in this study as far as it is possible
and feasible. However, for example, the sentence-final na has been reported
in many prior works that it first appeared in the 8th century texts (Yoshida
1987; Uchio & Okamura 1973; Uchio 1973: 104). Na’s development is quite
relevant in this study. Thus, in this study my basic position is: Japanese data be-
fore Muromachi period is treated only as secondary information. For the same
reason of consistency, Kamigata Japanese is also observed only as secondary
information. When such secondary information is judged quite relevant and
important in exploration of diachrony of the items in question, the informa-
tion is included in the analysis of this study. Specifically, for the diachronic
analysis of demo/dakedo (Chapter 4), basically, Tokyo Japanese only after Muro-
machi period was looked at (with some exceptional Kamigata examples). For
the diachronic analysis of na elements (Chapter 6), basically, Japanese before
Muromachi was observed just as secondary information.8

.. Goals

This study has five main goals. The first is to find and describe the functions
of the linguistic forms in question and reveal how those functions change in
history. This change will be examined mainly relating to Traugott’s proposed
meaning change. In what follows, this study may either support Traugott’s pro-
posal or provide an account for counterexamples to what has been assumed in
this area, from the position of a non-western language.
The second goal is to attempt to explain why or how such pragmatic change
took place. Although what in fact brings about the change is not a simple ques-
tion, I will take the opportunity to consider this “essential question” (Traugott
1982: 265) in semantic change, taking advantage of a sizable amount of data.
This question will be discussed as ‘motivation for the pragmaticalization’ at
the end of Chapters 4 and 6.
The third goal is to see how the functional and structural changes found
in this study would be discussed in the framework of “grammaticalization”.
It includes a question – whether the changes seen in this study are cases of
grammaticalization or not. This issue will be argued in (7.2).
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 Chapter 1

The fourth is to discuss the findings of this project, in relation to the fol-
lowing: (1) typological characteristics of languages, (2) productivity and (3)
conventionalization of implicatures. These issues will be addressed in Chapter
7 as conclusions.
The last goal is to support the original proposals regarding discourse mark-
ers in English (Schiffrin 1987) by showing the existence of the same sort of
markers in Japanese, a language quite different from English. This study is a
combination of the synchronic and diachronic analyses. The synchronic anal-
ysis of discourse markers at each time stage as well as the diachronic approach
to them altogether leads to the integrated understanding of discourse markers.

. Conceptual background: Definitions and assumption

.. Definitions

In this section, I will define or introduce four key terms of this study, “pragmat-
icalization”, “grammaticalization”, “functional-semantic model of language”
and “discourse markers”.

... Pragmaticalization
I define “pragmaticalization”9 as a process of meaning/functional change in-
volving shifts from the semantic to the pragmatic domain. This is closest to
Traugott’s (1986a: 542) notion of “pragmaticization”. She also uses a similar
term “semantic-pragmatic change/process” (1989 and elsewhere).
Pragmaticalization is on the whole associated with two tendencies of
meaning shift: One, shift to a more “speaker-based” meaning, and the other,
shift to more “discourse-based” meaning. The shift to more “speaker-based” is
characterized as more “person-based”/“speaker-attributed” (1986a: 541). The
speaker-based meanings are in fact the result of the discourse-based meanings
since “the speaker-based meanings shift from referencing the situation outside
the discourse to referencing the situation inside the discourse” (Ibid.: 542). This
statement manifests that discourse-based meaning and speaker-based meaning
more or less refer to both sides of the coin. The shift to more discourse-
based meaning is mentioned in Traugott (Ibid.: 545), as referring “less to the
described situation, and more to the discourse situation”.
Traugott has put forward two more specific orientations that accompany
semantic-pragmatic change: the shift from “less to more personal” (1982: 253)
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Introduction 

meanings and the shift “from propositional through textual to expressive”


(256) meanings. They will be further reviewed in the next chapter.
Before going on to the next key term, let me briefly discuss the notion
of “pragmatics” relating to “pragmaticalization”. Although the task of defin-
ing pragmatics is notoriously so disputable (cf. discussion in Chapter 1 in
Levinson 1983; Onodera 1999), I tentatively define pragmatics as the study
of the meaning of sentences in context, i.e. the meaning of the utterances,
while semantics is the study of the meaning of the sentences. This definition
of pragmatics which contrasts with semantics implies the complementary rela-
tionship between pragmatics and semantics (Leech 1983; Levinson 1983; Oishi
1999). Therefore, Gazdar’s (1979: 2) definition “pragmatics = meaning – truth
conditions” contains a similar idea.
As mentioned in (1.1.1), this study will supplement the previous studies
of semantic-pragmatic change by applying the pragmatic theory to capture
the speaker’s meanings seen in dynamics of the speaker-hearer interaction
and the methodology appropriate for such analysis – data including naturally-
occurring language. The pragmaticalization studies by the early 1990s had
started referring to ‘articulation of speaker attitude’, ‘strategic negotiation of
speaker-hearer interaction’, or speakers’ use of discourse markers with the in-
creasing interests in the pragmatic aspect of language. Nonetheless the data
they analyzed was limited range of examples from written records and intuitive
sentences. Besides, Traugott’s (1982: 256) hypothesized direction of semantic-
pragmatic change “propositional > ((textual) > (expressive))” implied that
expressive meaning (such as articulation of speaker attitude) lies in the most
pragmatic domain. Thus, in those days, we needed to seek an approach fit for
the investigation into pragmaticalization. This was a starting point of my study.
To realize a “pragmatic” study of pragmaticalization, I specify the domain
of pragmatic viewpoint this study covers. This viewpoint takes in context-
sensitive meanings including speaker-hearer interactively negotiated/created
meanings, discourse functions, pragmatic inferences, and speaker and hearer’s
actions (cf. Onodera 1999).
Lastly, Aijmer’s view on pragmaticalization should be noted here. That
is, a categorical limit of grammaticalization when applying to the develop-
ment of discourse particles (Aijmer 2002: 18–19). Aijmer agrees with Hansen’s
(1998: 225) suggestion that “instead of making a binary distinction between
lexical and grammatical items,” discourse markers be classified as a third cat-
egory, “discourse items” (Hansen: Ibid.). Then Aijmer (Ibid.: 19) posits the
stance that “the ‘functionalization’ of discourse particles from propositional
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 Chapter 1

meaning to textual and interpersonal uses [. . . ] involves ‘pragmaticalisation’


rather than grammaticalisation”.

... Grammaticalization
Among many other definitions, grammaticalization in this study refers to
the dynamic, unidirectional historical process whereby lexical items in the
course of time acquire a new status as grammatical, morpho-syntactic forms,
and in the process come to code relations that either were not coded before or
were coded differently. (Traugott & König 1991: 189)

This shows rather a broad perspective of grammaticalization, in contrast to


more restrictive ones in the field.10
Grammaticalization and pragmaticalization are at times (maybe too of-
ten) analyzed and discussed in a correlated way. Traugott (1982) argued the
occurrence of pragmaticalization in the early stages of grammaticalization.
Then more recently the correlation between pragmaticalization and grammat-
icalization seems recognized in the larger set of diachronic processes. Today,
pragmaticalization can be considered a common feature of grammaticaliza-
tion as well as other well-known unidirectional features such as boundness,
abstraction, or “parameters” (Lehmann 1995: Chapter 4). However, as it may
be true for the relationship of the other parameters, grammaticalization and
pragmaticalization are originally independent processes. This asymmetric rela-
tionship of grammaticalization and pragmaticalization was self-evident in the
initial literature, but fallaciously their correlation has been emphasized in the
recent discussions. Hence, in Onodera (2000), the independent relationship of
grammaticalization and pragmaticalization was confirmed and suggested (see
also 7.2).

... Functional-semantic model of language


A functional-semantic model of language was introduced in Traugott (1982)
which put forward a predictive tendency in meaning change, from proposi-
tional to textual and expressive meanings. The shift to ‘expressive’ meaning
in this tendency was replaced by the notion of subjectification in the theo-
retical progress of this field, however, the methodological advantage of the
functional-semantic model still seems to hold today. This language model pro-
vides a rigorous framework for analyzing functions of linguistic items. Hence,
this study will employ this model. Here the language model and three functions
of language organized in this model will be introduced.
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Introduction 

Traugott’s (1982) functional-semantic model is a modified version of Hal-


liday and Hasan’s (1976) linguistic system. It is also affiliated with Silverstein’s
(1976) similar approach. Within this model there are three functional-
semantic components; propositional (ideational in Halliday & Hasan), textual
and expressive (interpersonal in Halliday & Hasan) components.
The propositional function has to do with “the resources of the language
for making it possible to talk about something” (Traugott 1982: 248). The same
function is, in Halliday and Hasan (1976: 26), “part of the linguistic system
which is concerned with the expression of ‘content’, with the function that lan-
guage has of being ABOUT something”. This function is, in other words, the
ideational (Halliday & Hasan) or referential function. In my study except the
review of Traugott’s research itself, “propositional” function originally so called
in Traugott (1982) is replaced by “ideational” function to avoid the terminolog-
ical fuzziness. “Propositional” seems too strictly semantic to adequately express
this function discussed in this study. (See detailed discussion on the ideational
component in (3.2).)
The textual function is served by “the resources available for creating a
cohesive discourse” (Traugott Ibid.). In Halliday and Hasan, this text-forming
function is both inside and “outside the hierarchical organization of system”
(in terms of sentences and clauses) (1976: 27), i.e. the textual function (and
also ‘cohesion’) refers to both intrasentential and intersentential relations. In
contrast, in Traugott’s works and this study the full-fledged textual function
refers only to the intersentential linking function.
The expressive function is equipped by:

the resources a language has for expressing personal attitudes to what is be-
ing talked about, to the text itself, and to others in the speech situation. . .
[They] show not only cohesion but also attitudes toward, even evaluation of,
the propositions. . . (Traugott 1982: 248)

Halliday and Hasan (1976: 26–27) illustrate the same function as:

concerned with the social, expressive and conative functions of language, with
expressing the speaker’s ‘angle’: his attitudes and judgements, his encoding of
the role relationships in the situation, and his motive in saying anything at all.

This function is called “interpersonal” function in Halliday and Hasan (1976).


Armed with the notions of the three functions of language specified above, I
will examine the functions of the items chosen for study and their change.
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 Chapter 1

... Discourse markers


I basically follow the concept of discourse markers defined by Schiffrin (1987).
In the book Discourse Markers (1987), Schiffrin provided both operational and
theoretical definitions of markers. Both definitions will be briefly reviewed, and
I will discuss the issues most relevant to my study among the suggested issues
important for understanding discourse markers.
Schiffrin (1987: 31) operationally defines discourse markers as “sequen-
tially dependent elements which bracket units of talk”. The phrase ‘units of
talk’ is left deliberately vague: this shows Schiffrin’s wish “to let units of various
kinds and sizes . . . figure in the analysis as needed” (Schourup 1988: 634) rather
than to bind the definition with a particular kind of unit. It is hence possible
to employ this definition in analyzing different units such as tone groups, sen-
tences, actions, verses, etc. depending upon the research purpose. ‘Sequential
dependence’ and ‘bracketing’ are two qualifying features of markers. By ‘se-
quential dependence’ it is denoted that the level on which markers function is
the “discourse level” (Schiffrin 1987: 37). ‘Brackets’, the notion of which comes
from Goffman (1974), mark “the boundaries of units not only of talk, but
of social life and social organization in general” (Schiffrin 1987: 36). Brackets
“provide frames of understanding through which [the containing activity] is
defined” (Ibid.). Brackets both initiate and terminate units of talk. However the
symbolism and the predominance of initiating brackets are often focused on.
Goffman suggests in his original work (1974: 255) that the beginning bracket
not only will establish an episode but will establish a slot for signals informing
and defining what kind of transformation is to be made of the materials within
the episode. In my study, occurrence of an item in the unit-initial position as a
bracket is a key point in exploring pragmaticalization. As will become apparent
below, initial position is one of the conditions to define an item as a discourse
marker (Schiffrin 1987: 328).
A more theoretical definition of markers (Schiffrin 1987: 40), provided
after the analysis of eleven English expressions is: markers are “contextual co-
ordinates” (Ibid.: 327). That is, the markers index the containing utterance to
the local contexts in which utterances are produced and are to be interpreted
(Ibid.: 326). The main function of contextual coordinates is the indexical func-
tion (indexing an utterance to context). Indexicals are referred to as deictic
features (Ibid.: 322–323; Levinson 1983; Cook 1988: 9). Deictics, in this case,
markers, are grouped into ‘proximal’ (indexing toward the deictic center11 ) and
‘distal’ (indexing away from the deictic center). The context to which markers
index an utterance includes both participants and text. Now markers can be
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Introduction 

Participation coordinates Textual coordinates


(speaker/hearer) (prior/upcoming)
demo speaker/hearer prior

Figure 1.1 Demo as contextual coordinates

classified as participation coordinates or textual coordinates (and in each case


proximal or distal), depending on their indexical function.
Let us examine, for example, one of the elements to be observed in this
study, demo, and see how it is classified according to the proximal/distal op-
position on participation and textual coordinates. Markers as participation
coordinates index the speaker (proximal) or the hearer (distal) or both. Demo,
for example, in playing the role of ‘opening conversation’ or ‘changing topic’
focuses on both the speaker and hearer, since it marks the speaker’s action of
suggesting that the hearer seek for and receive prior information. The textual
coordinates point at prior text (proximal) or forthcoming text (distal). Demo
indexes the current discourse to a portion of prior discourse. Accordingly, how
demo is classified as contextual coordinates is summarized in Figure 1.1.
The other expressions subject to examination in this study could also be
typed as contextual coordinates just as demo has been. I also suggest that the
indexical function of markers falls into the textual function of language, since
it is their indexical function that makes markers contribute to discourse co-
herence (cf. Halliday & Hasan’s argument that cohesion is part of the textual
component 1976: 27).
Discourse deictics argued in Levinson (1983) are indeed what we con-
sider discourse markers. Levinson includes utterance-initial usages of English
expressions such as ‘but’, ‘therefore’, and ‘so’ etc. as ‘discourse deictics’. His
notion of discourse deixis “concerns the use of expressions within some ut-
terance to refer to some portion of the discourse that contains that utterance”
(Ibid.: 85). Then the elements expressing such deixis, i.e. deictics, “indicate
the relationship between an utterance and the prior discourse” (Ibid.: 87).12
Levinson (Ibid.: 87–88) further states that deictics:
have at least a component of meaning that resists truth-conditional treatment.
What they seem to do is indicate, often in very complex ways, just how the ut-
terance that contains them is a response to, or a continuation of, some portion
of the prior discourse.

The characteristics of discourse deictics expressed here are that of discourse


markers, too. With respect to the component of meaning possessed by deic-
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 Chapter 1

tics, quoted above, I suggest that the “component resisting truth-conditional


treatment” can be more specifically defined as the component containing the
textual and expressive functions of language. What Levinson describes as the
task of deictics in the above quotation (i.e. the indication of how the utterance
is a response to, or a continuation of the prior discourse) seems, in fact, the
same as the textual and expressive functions of markers.
Schiffrin (1987: 328) suggests the following criterial conditions that allow
an expression to be used as a marker:
1. it has to be syntactically detachable from a sentence
2. it has to be commonly used in initial position of an utterance
3. it has to have a range of prosodic contours
4. it has to be able to operate at both local and global levels of discourse, and
on different planes of discourse

If the elements about to be examined in this study are truly discourse markers,
they should also fulfill the above conditions.

.. Assumption

An assumption is put forward before the analysis. That is, an item is judged
to have become a discourse marker when it gains either textual or expressive
function. Although the expressive function supplies a characteristic feature of a
marker, i.e. expressing the speaker attitude, acquisition of only textual function
also satisfies the condition of being a marker. Accordingly, there are items that
as markers may have only a textual or only an expressive function. Based on
this assumption, the point in time when an item becomes a marker will be
distinguished in this study.

. Data and approach

.. Data

The pragmatic change of each item will be explored by the incorporated ap-
proach of discourse/pragmatic analysis and diachronic analysis (which will be
described in more detail in (1.3.2)). As stated in (1.2.1.1), this study will ex-
amine the pragmatic functions of language with a special focus on the speaker-
hearer interactive aspect. The language data which represents this aspect (the
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Introduction 

articulation of speaker attitude or speaker-hearer interactive negotiation) most


faithfully seems to be naturally-occurring everyday language.
As is usual in the field of discourse analysis, I will examine tape-recorded
and transcribed everyday conversations of present-day Japanese (PDJ). Al-
though recorded conversations are the ideal for investigating the interactive
aspect of language, such data are unobtainable for the language of earlier days.
Thus I will use conversational segments from literature that are considered
the closest to the naturally-occurring colloquial language of contemporary pe-
riod. Jacobs and Jucker (1995: 7) claim the feasibility of the area of historical
pragmatics, concerning its data as:
It is plausible to suggest that written records of spoken language are closer to
the actual spoken language of the time than written language not based on
spoken language. Features that are consistently more frequent in records of
spoken language than in written language proper can fairly safely be hypothe-
sized to be even more frequent in the spoken language of that period.

Such written records of spoken language include play scripts (e.g. kyoogen and
kabuki scripts), popular ballads and conversational segments of popular fictions.
On the whole, my data consist of the best representatives of conversational
discourse for a given time period. These data are thought to reflect the inter-
active aspect of language the best. As stated in Jacobs and Jucker (1995: 10),
“historical pragmatics, [as a whole area,] will always have to rely on written
material. However, this should no longer be seen as detrimental” or restricted.
Modern sociolinguistic methodologies and attentive work will make it pos-
sible to distinguish which texts may be used as rough approximations to the
spoken language of that time. Such discreet treatment would bridge the tra-
ditional (and potential) problem in this area, the discrepancy of the mode,
spoken language vs. written language.
In the rest of this section, the profile of data will be provided. Data for
Present Day Japanese (1.3.1.1) and data for Japanese of earlier days (1.3.1.2)
are introduced.

... Data for Present Day Japanese


The data representing the Present Day Japanese are tape-recorded and tran-
scribed Japanese conversations among native speakers. The data comprise two
sets of corpora.
The first set consists of recorded conversations in which I also partici-
pated. We owe a great deal to recent works (especially those within the last
decade) which have developed discourse models or principles and organized
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 Chapter 1

prior works more systematically, while the discourse studies conducted in the
1980s were not provided with “guidelines based on cumulative results from
past studies” (Schiffrin 1987: 44). With respect to data collection for discourse
analysis, I am personally indebted to the professors who taught my sociolin-
guistics classes. A few important points in collecting conversation as data are
noted from Professor Deborah Tannen’s graduate seminar of “Discourse Anal-
ysis (conversation)”:13
1. Naturally-occurring conversation where 2–4 people are participating would
be the best.
2. Participants should be those we are in regular contact with so we can play
back the tape afterward and get their reactions.
3. To avoid invasion of their privacy, ask permission first or get blanket per-
mission. In the transcript use pseudonyms.

As for the transcription conventions, I mainly followed those in Schiffrin


(1987) and Tannen (1984).
Two conversations were chosen for examination: a family conversation
when my in-laws visited our home in Tokyo in November 1987 (participants
were: my husband, in-laws, and myself) and a conversation among three female
graduate students at Georgetown University, recorded in April 1989 (Midori,
Mari and myself). The two conversations were casual ones, and the topics cov-
ered were a variety of ordinary ones (e.g. Sendai-city where my in-laws live,
plans for summer vacation, etc.). In addition to these conversations, two in-
terviews I conducted in Washington DC during March and April 1989 are also
analyzed. An interview was made with Miki, a female Japanese undergraduate
student. I requested that she describe the preparation of some dishes. Another
was made with Jun, a male Japanese graduate student. Questions referring to
various languages and cultural differences were given and answered.
The second corpus contains recorded and transcribed everyday conversa-
tions which Mrs. K, a Japanese housewife, had with her family members as
well as people with whom she interacted verbally during one week in August
1982 (Ide et al. 1984). A total of ten hours of discourse was recorded. This
corpus comprises two volumes: a 229-page long transcription and its keyword-
in-context (KWIC) index. Owing to the index which lists all the uses of an item
in textual context (in succession), it is extremely useful for a study of discourse
markers which requires a considerable number of examples of each marker. I
take advantage of this index for two reasons. First, in order to get a general idea
of which items function as markers in Japanese, I looked over the examples of
items that might actually function as markers. This supplies a pre-analysis, and
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Introduction 

makes it possible to pick out the items truly used as markers. Second, to up-
date the survey run by the National Language Research Institute (1955) which
revealed the most frequently-used conjunctions in spoken Japanese (Table 1.1),
I offer a 1982 version of this survey by counting the frequency of conjunctions
that appeared in this corpus (Table 1.2). Both tables are shown in (1.1.2.1).
The profile of the main participant, Mrs. K, will be briefly given. She is in
her 40s, the wife of a middle class office worker, and has two daughters – Rika,
a senior in college, and Saki, a third-year student in high school. Mrs. K is also
a cooking instructor and is a PTA official at Saki’s school.
The topics of conversations vary in the given situations; as in the first
corpus, the conversations are all naturally-occurring. The situations where
tape-recording took place include a family conversation on Sunday morning;
conversations during and after cooking classes; talks when the daughter’s pro-
fessor visited the K’s; telephone conversations with other PTA members. They
were all recorded during Mrs. K’s everyday activities.

... Data for Japanese of earlier days


For the data for Japanese of earlier time periods, discourse containing con-
versational segments was collected. Labeling the time periods of history relies
upon the traditional categorization of eras14 (e.g. Matsumura 1972, 1977; Fujii
1938; Shuzui 1956; Hayashi & Ikegami (Eds.) 1979), rather than the corre-
sponding time classification applied to Western languages such as Old, Middle,
and Early modern English, etc. (This is to avoid the confusion which may oc-
cur because of the slight difference in the classification of antiquity, the middle
(medieval) ages and modern times in Western and Japanese histories.) Earlier
time stages to be examined include the following eras: Nara period (710–
784), Heian period (794–1192), Muromachi period (1336–1573), Edo period
(1603–1867) and the present age (Meiji (1868–1912), Taishoo (1912–1926) and
Shoowa (1926–1989). This categorization corresponds to the political divisions
of ages. This seems natural because “the language is used in the society and it
changes along with the political revolutions” (Matsumura 1972: 14). As men-
tioned in 1.1.4 (Problems in Diachronic Analysis), data of Nara and Heian
periods will be looked at as secondary information only.
In the rest of this section, let us look over the Japanese language and liter-
ature in each era represented in this study. For this review, mainly Matsumura
(1972) and Shuzui (1956) are referred to, and complementarily Matsumura
(1977) and Hisamatsu (1955). The historical range within which the items are
used is first noted: [V-te + mo/demo]: Muromachi → Present Day Japanese,
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 Chapter 1

[V + kedo/dakedo]: Edo → Present Day Japanese, [ne and its variants]: Nara →
Present Day Japanese.
The Nara period (710–784) is the earliest age in which Japanese language
is examinable through literature.15 There was no Japanese orthography at that
point, and Chinese writing was utilized. During this period, a modification of
the Chinese writing system was developed and it appeared as kana (Japanese
alphabet) in the next Heian period. The basic literature of this age includes
Kojiki (‘Record of Ancient Matters’),16 Nihonshoki and Manyooshuu. Songs will
be taken out of these collections and examined as examples.
The Heian period (794–1192) commenced when the capital was trans-
ferred from Nara to Kyoto. The prominent and substantial change in language
is that in the 9th century kana (hiragana and katakana) developed and became
widespread. This means that the Japanese first possessed a writing system of
their own. In the mid Heian, a collection of poems Kokin wakashuu (‘Collection
of Ancient and Modern Poems’) (905) appeared, and due to this appearance
the prosperity of the poetry and literature performed in the Japanese orthog-
raphy was predictable. One hundred years later, Genji monogatari (‘The Tale of
Genji’) (1008) and Makura no sooshi (‘The Pillow Book’) (1000) marked the
peak of such literature. The aristocracy of this period enjoyed singing the local
ballads Fuuzoku uta. Since interjections were used especially in the ballads and
poems, such texts are beneficial to this study and are examined. Ryoojin Hishoo
(1171) is a collection of ballads of the Heian period.
One of the features of language in the Muromachi (1336–1573) is the
separation of the spoken and written languages (‘genbun nito’). This fact is re-
flected in the texts of this period. Noo scripts and kyoogen scripts are comprised
mostly of the performers’ lines considered close to the spoken language of
those days. The collection of populace’s love songs reflect their candid everyday
spoken language.
The next period, Edo (1603–1867), begins and ends along with the Toku-
gawa shogunate. Since the government was established in Edo (later called
Tokyo), this period is so named. During this period, feudalism increased and
the system of the four social classes was settled. Also urban centers such as Ky-
oto, Osaka and Tokyo developed. This politically and socially shifting situation
brought about variety in spoken language according to the social classes and
regions. Gradually, the Edo language came into a model. The Edo period is also
the time when the townspeople, not the ruling classes, first gained their own
literature. An example of such literature is Ukiyoburo, a comic novel. Its text
is full of the Edo townspeople’s colloquial expressions, and therefore it is often
called the storehouse of the Edo spoken language. The gay-quarter novelettes
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Introduction 

(share-bon) such as Yuushi Hoogen and Tatsumi no sono describe the life and
manners in gay quarters of those days.
The following three periods, Meiji (1868–1912), Taishoo (1912–1926) and
Shoowa (1926–1989), are grouped together as modern times. This age accords
the modernization of Japan. During this new epoch of Japanese history, a sig-
nificant change in language use is marked. The distinctive change was the uni-
fication of the spoken and written modes (‘genbun icchi’) of Japanese. Since the
Heian period, the written and spoken modes had evolved almost individually.
However after around 1888, novelists agitated for and practiced this unifica-
tion. Consequently, written language based on the spoken language (called
spoken-written unified style (genbun icchi-tai)) was well-developed and ex-
panded. Without doubt, the spoken mode includes various styles that are not
exactly copied in the written mode; however, in comparison to earlier periods,
from this point on, the two modes of Japanese came to be assimilated.
In the new epoch, the modern novels as well as the new-style poems and
traditional-style poems (tanka and haiku) grew all more or less under the in-
fluence of Western culture. A Meiji novelist Futabatei succeeded in writing a
novel Ukigumo (‘The Drifting Cloud’) (1887) in the spoken-written unified
style and made a great contribution to the foundation of this style. Hakai (‘The
Broken Commandment’) (1906) written by Shimazaki is another typical Meiji
novel. In the Taishoo era, novels of sensual romanticism such as Udekurabe
(1917) by Nagai appeared. Yuujoo (1920) by Mushanokooji describes the life
and manners of a growing class, the intelligentsia. In the Shoowa period, much
influenced by American and English writers, Tanizaki described human plea-
sure in novels such as Tade kuu mushi (‘Some Prefer Nettles’) (1929). A neo-
sensualist Kawabata also published Yukiguni (‘Snow Country’) (1938) in this
age. All these modern works were already written in the spoken-written uni-
fied style; I extracted only the conversational segments out of these novels for
use in the analysis.

.. Approach for analysis

This section will explain the approach taken for this study. In order to reveal
the functional change of each item, two types of analyses, discourse/pragmatic
analysis and diachronic analysis, are required. Figure 1.2 illustrates that the two
analyses form two axes in my whole data analysis, the x and y = axes.
To begin with, for each item, I will conduct a discourse/pragmatic anal-
ysis which is to reveal the uses and functions of the item in Time 4 (Present
Day Japanese). The discourse/pragmatic analysis is the synchronic analysis.
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 Chapter 1

Time 1
Time 2
Time 3
Time 4

Figure 1.2 Approach taken for analysis

Chapters 3 and 5 will provide the result of discourse/pragmatic analysis of con-


junctions and interjections respectively. I will then carry out the diachronic
analysis which looks at the items used in Times 1, 2, 3. . . (ranging from Old
Japanese to the Shoowa era). In this analysis, the structural as well as functional
changes of each item will be investigated. Chapters 4 and 6 will show the result
of such analysis.
Discourse/pragmatic and diachronic analyses together will bring us to a
position where we can discuss the direction of shifts in meaning/function and
structure. I will start with the former analysis simply because we are more
familiar with synchronic discourse analysis both theoretically and methodolog-
ically than dealing with the language of earlier days.

. Sample analyses

This section shows sample analyses of the two discourse markers – a con-
junction dakedo and an interjection ne. Sample analyses will be provided
to epitomize the problem I address. Throughout this book, in my analysis,
propositional function defined in Traugott’s (1982) functional-semantic model
of language is called “ideational” function, to avoid terminological confu-
sion. “Ideational”, textual and expressive functions comprise the three funda-
mental functions of language in Traugott’s (1982) model (see 1.2.1.3 for the
functional-semantic model of language).

.. Analysis of dakedo

Figure 1.3 presents the direction of pragmaticalization of dakedo revealed in


my pilot study. The pilot study examined one of the earliest cases of the source
element, clause-final V + kedo (1758), and a case of the developed element, an
initial dakedo, which appeared around the Taishoo period.
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Introduction 

Time 1 (1758) Time 2 (1922)


V + kedo (final) Dakedo (initial)
ideational
ideational > textual
expressive

Figure 1.3 Direction of pragmaticalization of Dakedo (revealed in pilot study)

This figure shows a case of pragmaticalization: Whereas V + kedo bears


mainly the ideational function only in the final position, Dakedo has all three
functions, ideational, textual and expressive, on occurring in the sentence-
initial position. For dakedo in the initial position, the possession of textual (and
expressive) function(s) fulfills the criterion to be counted as a discourse marker.
(1) illustrates V + kedo in 1758. It is an example taken out of Sanjikkoku
yofune no hajimari, a kabuki script.17
(1) Sanjikkoku yofune no hajimari (1758)18
a. Chitto ome ni wa irimasu mai kedo,
a.little eyes in enter would not but
b. suwa to iwaba donata demo,
when the time comes anyone (HON)
c. doitsu demo kiri kanenu
anyone cut would
d. wazamono degozarimasu.
fine.sword COP
<‘Although it doesn’t usually draw (people’s) attention, it is a fine
sword which would cut just anybody when the time comes.’>

The sequence V (irimasu mai) + kedo (a conjunctive particle) is a clause-final


connecting element. This element forms the subordinate clause (a), whose
main clause is (b–d). It links the preceding and the following: this linking
function is intrasentential. V + kedo has an ideational function of conveying
the adversative meaning between (a) and (b–d) and an intrasentential linking
function but no other function clearly recognized.
(2) shows a case of dakedo, a conjunction which seems to have first ap-
peared in the Taishoo period. (2) is an excerpt from Anya kooro, a novel.
(2) Anya kooro (1922)
Kensaku: a. Oniisan ni tsurete kite
Brother take-GER come-GER
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 Chapter 1

b. morau sa.
receive FP
<‘You can ask your brother to take you.’>
Taeko: c. Ee, sono tsumori.
Yes, that intention
d. Dakedo, itsu na no?
But, when COP FP
e. Gakkoo ga oyasumi de
School SB off COP
f. nai to dame na no yo.
NEG impossible COP FP FP
<‘Yes, I’m planning to do that. But, when will it be? It’s
impossible unless I have no school.’>

When (2) took place, Kensaku was meeting his two younger sisters. The sis-
ters were asking about the brother’s wedding. Prior to (2) the youngest sister
Taeko mentioned her desire to attend the wedding. Dakedo in (d) seems to
mark the speaker’s contrastive action of changing the sub-topic. In (c) Taeko
agrees with Kensaku’s suggestion (a–b): the same sub-topic is maintained from
(a) to (c). However, in (d) Taeko brings up a question about the time of the
wedding: This is regarded as the speaker’s shift of the sub-topic. Dakedo marks
this speaker’s action, which is realized by an expressive function. Dakedo also
marks a referential contrast, since sub-topics (topics) are referentially differ-
ent discourse chunks. In addition, dakedo links two utterances (c and d): this
linking function is intersentential which is counted as a textual function. While
the contrastive action is served by dakedo’s expressive function, the referential
contrast is served by ideational function. Therefore dakedo in (2) contributes
to the ideational, textual and expressive components of language.
As shown in Figure 1.3, an overview of analyses of (1) and (2) reveals
the direction of functional change in dakedo, which roughly accords with the
direction once suggested to be general in meaning change (Traugott 1982),
ideational > (textual > expressive).19

.. Analysis of ne

Figure 1.4 exhibits the direction of pragmaticalization of ne. In the pilot study,
each example of the first appearances of final ne and initial ne in my data
was examined. I have approached ne, applying the same functional-semantic
model of language which will be used for the analysis of the conjunctions. Un-
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Introduction 

Time 1 (1768) Time 2 (1906)


Ne (final) Ne (initial)
expressive > expressive
textual

Figure 1.4 Direction of pragmaticalization of ne (revealed in pilot study)

like the conjunctions, the pilot study has revealed that the pragmatic change
which ne underwent deviates from the general direction of pragmaticaliza-
tion, (ideational > textual > expressive) (Traugott 1982). This deviation seems
to arise simply because ne starts with an expressive function, not with an
ideational function. This result will be discussed more substantially in my
full analysis.
Figure 1.4 shows that while ne in the final position carries only the expres-
sive function, in the initial position it has both expressive and textual functions
as a marker.
(3) illustrates the case of the final ne in 1768. It is extracted from Yuushi
Hoogen, a gay-quarter novelette (share-bon).
(3) Yuushi Hoogen (1768)
Anatasama wa donatasama degozarimashita ne.
You TP who COP FP
<‘(I wonder) who you are.’>

(3) is judged to be uttered to someone superior to the speaker because of the


use of honorific title (sama) appended to the pronouns anata (you) and donata
(who) and the polite form of the copula degozarimas. Due to these expressions,
the speech style of this utterance is fairly formal. Ne adds nothing semantic.
However its use at the end softens the formality of the utterance because ne
expresses the speaker’s attitude of involving herself and the hearer in what is
being said (Martin 1975). This is counted as ne’s expressive function. More
specifically, ne indicates the speaker’s attempt to share the unsolved problem
‘who you are’ with the hearer, or more directly to request the answer from the
hearer. Ne in (3) carries an expressive function but nothing else.
In (4) we see an example of the interjection ne which emerges in the Meiji
era for the first time in my data. (4) is taken out of Hakai, a novel. In this
example ne works as ‘reinforcement’ (see 5.4.1) and shows its expressive and
textual functions.
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 Chapter 1

(4) Hakai (1906)


Segawa: a. Atode gakkoo no kozukai
Later school LK janitor
b. o tori ni yokoshimasu
DO take send
c. kara tte. Ne.
because QT OK
<‘Later (I’ll) send the janitor to fetch it (the dinner). OK?’>

Preceding (4), Segawa asked the hearer to tell the landlady to make his din-
ner. The information in (a–c) ‘I’ll send the janitor to fetch it’ is then a support
for his request. Ne operates the expressive function in conveying the speaker’s
confirmation of the hearer’s reception of his request. (Ne might also seek agree-
ment from or transfer responsibility to the hearer.) Here we also recognize ne’s
textual function. Ne in fact looks backward and points at the preceding in-
formation (a–c). In pointing to the preceding utterance ne indeed contributes
to creating discourse coherence. Ne in (4) serves both expressive and textual
functions.
As Figure 1.4 presents, the functional change of ne is from expressive to
expressive and textual. In the diachronic process of ne, the expressive function
remains throughout the process.
Synchronic analysis of the items in Chapters 3 and 5 and diachronic analy-
sis of the same items in Chapters 4 and 6 will bring the more detailed findings in
the functions of each discourse marker. Besides, in later chapters, the question
of the motivation of each pragmaticalization will be addressed as well.

. Outline of this book

An outline of this study is presented. In this introductory chapter, the back-


ground material to advance this study has been given: the problem; definitions
and assumption; data and approach; and sample analyses. The definitions of
key concepts and assumption provide criteria for this analysis. Chapter 2 re-
views prior studies in four perspectives of my study: (1) discourse/pragmatic,
(2) historical, (3) typological studies, and (4) syntactic and semantic aspects
of conjunctions and interjections. This review reinforces the backbone of the
study by clarifying the points of argument in each area.
Chapter 3 explores the functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo used
in Present Day Japanese. Their basic and specified functions will be revealed as
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Introduction 

a result of the synchronic discourse analysis. Chapter 4 conducts the diachronic


analysis of demo and dakedo. The functions of the items in the unit-final and
initial positions that appear in Japanese of different time stages will be observed
chronologically. The process of how such functions seem to change over time
is an issue to be addressed and it will be discussed relating to the assumptions
and suggestions in the field. What provoked such functional change will also
be considered.
The same procedure will be taken for the exploration of the historical
change of the interjection ne and its variants. Chapter 5 analyzes the functions
of ne and na used in Present Day Japanese. Since the use of ne and na may
pertain to some cultural aspect of Japanese conversation, such cultural feature
connected with a goal in practice of Japanese conversation will be argued. The
relationship between ne/na and interpersonal involvement at a metamessage
level of interaction will also be examined. In Chapter 6, the functions of ne
and its variants in the three different positions within an utterance used in the
succeeding time stages since antiquity will be inspected. The process of their
functional change will then be studied. In addition, a question concerning the
motivation for such functional change will also be raised.
For the readers whose main interests go to the functions of discourse mark-
ers in modern Japanese, pay close attention to Chapters 3 and 5 where the
analysis of such functions will be discussed. For those who are interested in
diachrony as well as synchrony of Japanese discourse markers, read Chapters
4 and 6.
Lastly, Chapter 7 summarizes the findings of this study and concludes it
with discussions of a few more linguistic issues relevant to the subjects treated
in this book. In this chapter, some thoughts on “grammaticalization” will also
be illustrated. The issue of development of discourse markers in the framework
of grammaticalization will be discussed.
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Chapter 2

Perspectives on Japanese
Discourse Markers
Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis

Four diverse linguistic areas supply the theoretical perspectives of this study.
This chapter will review the related literature of the four areas.
First is a discourse/pragmatic perspective: The related areas of discourse
analysis and pragmatics provide a fundamental method for my discourse/prag-
matic analysis.
Second is an historical perspective: Among prior scholarship, Traugott’s
hypothesized orders of meaning change define the direction of my study as a
historical one. I will attempt to reveal the functional shifts in the evolution of
some Japanese unit-final elements into markers, relating to Traugott’s findings.
The third perspective is derived from typological studies: Whereas the po-
sition where connectives appear holds when they start serving as markers in
English, there is a positional shift in the case of Japanese: some of the items
do shift from final to initial positions. This specific linguistic phenomenon
seems related to typological differences in languages. Two typological charac-
teristics of Japanese that seem involved in the evolution of discourse markers
will be reviewed.
The fourth and final perspective concerns syntactic and semantic aspects of
conjunctions and interjections: Some of the previous literature on syntax and
semantics of the items to be investigated will be reviewed as basic linguistic
information for this study.

. Discourse/pragmatic perspective

Conjunctions and interjections, the subject of this study, have been long dis-
cussed from a traditional semantic viewpoint (this is especially true for con-
junctions). However, I start the review with Lakoff (1971) because hers is one
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 Chapter 2

of the earliest studies that took a more pragmatically-oriented approach to the


conjunctions.
While the semantic view considers the connective ‘but’ to be truth-
functionally equivalent to ‘and’, Lakoff (1971) proposes that ‘but’ has a prag-
matic meaning requiring the hearer to make a presupposition. Lakoff (Ibid.:
132–134) divides the use of ‘but’ into two kinds; (a) the semantic opposition
‘but’ and (b) the denial of expectation ‘but’. (1) and (2) represent examples of
each use.
(1) John is tall but Bill is short.
(2) John is tall but he’s no good at basketball.

In (1) the meaning of contrast lies overtly in the lexical items in the two con-
juncts, which form a pair of antonyms. In the case of (2), ‘but’ is used without
any notion of semantic opposition. However, there is an inconsistency implied
between the two conjuncts. In such a case, to interpret the implied meaning of
contrast the hearer must supply a presupposition. What is presupposed here
is: “If someone is tall, then one would expect him to be good at basketball”
(Ibid.: 133). The presupposition involves a general expectation. This is the use
of denial of expectation ‘but’. Blakemore (1987) also discusses the two uses of
‘but’; however, she gives them different labels. The uses of ‘but’ in (1) and (2)
are called ‘contrast’ ‘but’ and ‘denial’ ‘but’ respectively. In my study, the refer-
ential contrast (Schiffrin 1987) marked by Japanese adversative conjunctions is
considered similar to the ‘semantic opposition ‘but” (or ‘contrast ‘but”).
Van Dijk (1979) clearly distinguishes between semantic and pragmatic
connectives: while semantic connectives express relations between denoted
facts/propositions, pragmatic connectives express relations between speech
acts. The use of what van Dijk regards as a pragmatic connective ‘but’ can
be tentatively grouped into two types. The two types are exemplified in
(3) and (4).
(3) Harry was ill, but he came to the meeting anyway.
(4) A: Let’s go!
B: But, I am not ready yet!

The use of ‘but’ in (3) is identical with Lakoff ’s (1971) denial of expectation
‘but’. A case such as (4), in van Dijk (1979), presents another pragmatic use
of ‘but’. In (4) ‘but’ links the relation between the speech acts, which is the
pragmatic interpretation in van Dijk’s sense; request and its non-acceptance
(here, protest). ‘but’ in this case indicates that the speaker does not accept a
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

previous speech act; it signals that a prerequisite condition, i.e. the hearer is able
to perform the action expressed in the directive, is not fulfilled. The meaning
of contrast in (4) pertains to actions not to propositions.
Van Dijk (1979: 452) also mentions that a weaker form of ‘but’ is used as
a conversational starter, e.g. “when a speaker interrupts another speaker” even
in cases without semantic contrast. Cases similar to this use will be observed in
my examples of demo/dakedo.
A condition for the occurrence of pragmatic connectives is noted in van
Dijk (1979). This condition involves the accompaniment of different phono-
logical and syntactic constraints on such connectives. More specifically, prag-
matic connectives are (usually) “sentence-initial, followed by a pause, and
uttered with a specific intonation contour” (Ibid.: 449). These constraints
are also suggested as the conditions for the occurrence of discourse markers
(Schiffrin 1987).
What van Dijk (Ibid.) poses as the “main problem” in the field is having no
unambiguous meta-language to characterize the meanings of use of pragmatic
connectives. As a means of solving this problem, I will employ the functional-
semantic model of language to characterize the meanings in question.
Consistent with Lakoff (1971), Lakoff (1972) claims that we must consider
assumptions about the social context of an utterance in order to make correct
predictions about the applicability of linguistic rules. In Japanese, for example,
honorifics and final particles are linguistic phenomena linked with the social
context. With respect to the final particle ne, Lakoff suggests that the felicity
condition, which concerns the relative status of the speaker and the addressee,
must be operating in order for the acceptable use of ne. This condition can be
specified as in (a) and (b): (a) The status of the addressee should be higher
(but not very much higher) than that of the speaker (H > S, but *H >> S).
(b) The status of the addressee cannot be lower than that of the speaker (*H <
S). However, this condition which led from the observation of invented data is
questionable. In my analysis of actual conversation, uses of ne in conversations
where H >> S or H < S will be seen.
In the 1980s, the increase of interest in the structural organization of
conversation and the speaker-hearer dynamics of interactional negotiation in
conversation resulted in systematically-organized research on common En-
glish expressions that serve a variety of discourse functions (Schourup 1982;
Warner 1985; Schiffrin 1987; Östman 1981; Schleppegrell 1989). Schourup
(1982) and Östman (1981) seem to have been inspired by the conviction that
discourse particles/pragmatic expressions should not be simply regarded as
“fillers” (Schourup 1982: 2) or “pause-fillers” (Östman 1981: 9). These labels
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 Chapter 2

were the result of analyses based on truth-conditional semantics which found


little contribution of such particles to the ideational component of meaning.
Schourup (1982) suggests that what discourse particles do is disclose the
speaker’s covert thinking to the overt world. This work is characterized by a
tripartite model concerning the participants’ knowledge and meta-knowledge
state. From the speaker’s viewpoint, there are three worlds: (1) the private
world – the covert thinking of the speaker, what s/he has presently in mind;
(2) the other world – the covert thinking of other participants, invisible to the
speaker and (3) the shared world – what is on display as verbal or non-verbal
behavior and is thus available to all the participants.
The core meaning of ‘you know’, one of the particles, which seems to
function similarly to the Japanese particle ne is proposed as follows:
‘You know’ indicates that the speaker expects that there is no significant dis-
crepancy between what is now in the private world and what is now in the
other world, with respect to what is now in the shared world.
(Schourup 1982: 74)

This core use of ‘you know’ in addition to its specific functions (discussed
in Chapter 5 in Schourup 1982) such as “initiating a topic”, “tracking topic”,
“repair marker” and “sympathetic circularity sequence” truly indicates the par-
allelism between ‘you know’ and ne. The main function of the interjection ne
seems closely related to displaying the ‘harmony’ among conversants which is
essential in Japanese conversation. Schourup’s descriptions of ‘you know’, “the
speaker’s anticipation, upon its use, of a positive response indicating that the
private and other worlds are in harmony” (1982: 103) and “intimacy ploy” (79)
all predict a similar role for ‘you know’ and ne in discourse.
Östman’s (1981) study of ‘you know’ is also suggestive for the investigation
of Japanese particles. The general meaning, which every occurrence of ‘you
know’ has, is formulated as follows:
The speaker strives towards getting the addressee to cooperate and/or to accept
the propositional content of his utterance as mutual background knowledge.
(Ibid.: 17)

Elsewhere, ‘you know’ is observed to “imply and invoke prior information,


or a prior agreement. . . with the addressee” (Ibid.: 22). The speaker in fact in-
vokes a prior agreement “as the source for the trustworthiness of ” his statement
(Ibid.). In my analysis of ne, a very similar function is anticipated. More impor-
tantly, the indexing function of the particle, introducing “its ‘referent’ as being
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

supposedly already mutual (the speaker and hearer’s) background knowledge”


(Ibid.: 25) is suggested.
Schiffrin (1987) proposes an integrated model of discourse in which dis-
course is analyzable as comprised of five different planes: ideational structure,
action structure, exchange structure, participation framework and information
state. Schiffrin also suggests the indexical functions of markers and that the
markers act as contextual coordinates of talk, indexing utterances to both par-
ticipants and text. Eleven markers are shown to be functionally differentiated
from one another, using the above five planes of talk and the ideas of participa-
tion and textual coordinates. The discourse viewpoint developed in Schiffrin’s
book provides us with an efficient and applicable model for the analysis of
actual conversational discourse.
Among a number of stimulating discussions in Schiffrin (1987), a help-
ful suggestion is the approach toward the notion of “action” (10–12). Several
branches of scholarship such as functional analyses of language, speech acts,
conversation analysis and ethnography of communication have contributed to
the understanding of discourse as a means of action. In the five planes of talk
in Schiffrin (Ibid.), exchange and action structure and participation frame-
work are considered to be pragmatic. Studies of semantic-pragmatic change
(e.g. Traugott 1982, 1989) required a clear position towards actions such as
Schiffrin’s exchange and action structure and participation framework: this had
not been taken till recently in previous studies.
In Schiffrin (1987), the items ‘and’, ‘but’ and ‘or’ are categorized as ‘dis-
course connectives’. As stated, it is necessary to take a somewhat different ap-
proach to this group of markers from that taken with other groups of markers
such as interjections, since connectives have grammatical roles in English. The
analysis of these English connectives will be a helpful contrast for my analysis
of Japanese connectives.
Lastly, a further discussion in my study directly addresses an important
finding in Schiffrin (1987), i.e. in English, some connectives came to be put into
service as discourse markers. My aim is to illustrate the same phenomenon in
Japanese and support the above finding. Since in English, connectives such as
‘and’ and ‘but’ already emerge in initial positions in deep structure (McCawley
1988), the functional shift (ideational > textual > (expressive)) is implicit. By
contrast, a study of Japanese, a postpositional language in which connectives
originally emerge in final positions, could show the explicit functional change
which is accompanied by positional shift (from final to initial) as visible ev-
idence. As noted in Chapter 1, one of the goals in my study is to support
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 Chapter 2

proposals regarding markers in English by providing analysis of a language


quite unlike English.
Warner (1985) provides another extensive study. He analyzes language
taking “discourse fragment” as a unit, which consists of two sentences and a
connective (Ibid.: 9).
Schourup (1982: 7) has suggested an important question in the discussion
of discourse particles, routinization. He cites Coulmas (1981: 3), who contends
that routines are “highly conventionalized prepatterned expressions whose oc-
currence is tied to more or less standard communication situations”. Schourup
(1982: 8) goes on to argue that “the degree of meaningfulness of an item may
depend to an extent on its frequency of occurrence”, and he considers the
basic/core use of an item to define the possibilities for its multiple routine
uses. This inquiry is closely related to one of Traugott’s (1989: 52) tasks which
is to specify the exact process by which conversational implicature becomes
conventionalized.
Discourse studies of Japanese conversation are also relevant to my research.
Maynard (1989b) has investigated both the structure and interactional strate-
gies of Japanese conversation, with a special focus on self-contextualization
which seems a culture/language-specific process associated with on-going
Japanese conversation. Initially, several fundamental features of Japanese con-
versation are described. At least four features pointed out in Maynard’s work
are distinctive characteristics of Japanese and suggestive for my study, although
no direct discussion of typological characteristics is given.
First, in a comparison of spoken vs. written language, Maynard points out
that the most striking feature in the spoken language is its fragmentedness and
involvement. Second, she proposes Pause-bounded Phrasal Unit (PPU) as a
basic unit of Japanese discourse, replacing Chafe’s notion of ‘idea unit’. It is
further claimed that a significant point in the fragmentation in Japanese is that
PPUs are frequently marked by final particles. Third, in this work “final par-
ticles” include both sentence-final particles and insertion particles. Although
some are strictly sentence-final, this group of particles are found to appear
not only at sentence-final but sentence-internal positions as well. It is also ex-
plained that the primary function of final particles is to express modality based
on Tokieda’s (1950) concept of “ji”. In Japanese conversation, frequent use of
final particles appeals to the interpersonal feelings of the recipient of the mes-
sage (“involvement” in Chafe 1982). Elements such as ne, sa, ka, wa and ze
are included in “final particles”. Finally, it is noted that many of the sentence-
final expressions in Japanese are characterized by the function of “solicit(ing)
rapport” (Maynard 1989b: 39).
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

Maynard (1989a) has revealed that dakara, a conjunction widely recog-


nized as a logical connective of ‘cause and result’, is in fact also used as a
discourse marker. In addition to dakara’s primary functions that retain the
original cause-result meaning, dakara’s secondary functions in which the orig-
inal logical relationships are no longer recognizable have been found. The pri-
mary functions are: (1) express the ‘cause-result’ relationship of two connected
propositions and (2) signal a point where supplementary explanation starts in
discourse. The secondary functions are: (3) express a speaker’s reluctant rep-
etition and (4) signal the end of the speaker’s turn. In addition to the already
known textual function of dakara, the finding of its expressive functions is the
main point in this work.
A study of the social meanings of the Japanese sentential particles ne, yo
and no was conducted by Cook (1988). She regards these particles as indexicals
(referring to those such as Pierce 1931–1958; Morris 1946 or Silverstein 1976)
and the key idea of this work is that language uses indexicals to express vari-
ous social contexts (Cook 1988: 12). Cook accounts for her use of audio-taped
actual conversation by suggesting that observation of language use in social in-
teraction is a requirement for the analysis of indexicals because they are what
create context. This claim regarding data is convincing and valid.
According to Cook (1988), the particle ne directly indexes mutual agree-
ment between the speaker and hearer (the direct meaning here is thought
to correspond to core/general meaning used in the work of other scholars).
Additionally, the use of ne is considered to keep harmonious or intimate re-
lations with the addressee (Ibid.: 171). Indirect meanings (specific meanings
opposed to the core meaning) of ne are only briefly mentioned in this work:
“initiating interaction, introducing a new topic, displaying or seeking agree-
ment/confirmation/cooperation” (Ibid.: 155). French studies of “markers of
conversational structure” (Auchlin 1981) and interjections (Brunet 1983) have
also appeared. They are not reviewed in detail, here, though.
Finally, Stein (1985) should be included in this section, since this work
has also examined discourse markers historically: variability in Early Mod-
ern English – the ‘s’/‘th’ contrast of the third person sing. pres. ind. and the
choice between ‘do’ or ‘finite form’ in declarative sentences. Let us consider
the ‘s’/‘th’ contrast to capture the idea of its discourse functions and asserted
textual function. The ‘s’/‘th’ contrast is likely to have a discourse function in
the sense of differentiating between two alternating modes of narrating and re-
porting (Ibid.: 284). (This discourse marker has been found in the data, Robert
Greene’s Art of Conny-Catching (1591).) In the portion of text where ‘s’ repre-
sents the third person sing. pres. ind., the agents, places and circumstances are
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 Chapter 2

described in detail, which gives us the impression that a scene is set up in front
of us. In the portion where ‘th’ serves the same grammatical function, the event
(in this case, ‘conny-catching’) is illustrated from a more general/generic view-
point (Ibid.). This variable is further claimed to have a textual function since it
is “functionalized as a broad denominator for a broad range of heterogeneous
functions” (Ibid.: 294).
More importantly, Stein (1985: 300) suggests, based on Brown and Yule’s
(1983) idea, that one of the constraints on the degree of functionalization of
these variables as discourse markers is “how long such a variable state persists
in a particular compartment of the grammar”. His conclusion is that historical
studies in the past “without the benefit of modern variation studies and dis-
course analysis” (Ibid.: 301) were likely to overlook pragmatic patterns lying in
textual history.

. Historical perspective

Up to present, Traugott’s research into historical semantic change has recov-


ered regularities in many cases of meaning change, covering various domains
of language. In fact the results she obtained were so regular that Traugott de-
veloped predictive hypotheses. From the results of her research by 1990 (such
as 1982, 1985, 1986a, 1986b, 1988a, 1988b, 1989, 1990 and Traugott & Dasher
1987), the hypothesized orders of semantic change can be put together into two
tendencies:
(1) propositional > ((textual) > (expressive)) (Traugott 1982, 1989)
(2) less to more personal (Traugott 1982)

In tendency (1), meanings with largely propositional (ideational) content


acquire either textual (cohesion-making) and expressive meanings or both
(Traugott 1989: 31). Although tendency (1) was originally associated only with
the early stages of grammaticalization types of changes (1982), later it was
extended to involve general lexical changes (Traugott & Dasher 1987). Ten-
dency (2) should be understood to mean not ‘more individualized’ but ‘more
interpersonal/interactive’. In this tendency an item starts being used to inject
the speaker’s point of view/belief-state/attitude into what is stated. Two addi-
tional tendencies that are more specific seem to be associated with tendency
(2), i.e. a shift to ‘more speaker-based’ and a shift to ‘more discourse-based’
meanings. The more speaker-based meaning is, in other words, more “person-
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

based”/“speaker-attributed”. Overall in this tendency, speaker informativeness


about his/her attitude increases. The more discourse-based meaning refers to
a shift from referencing the situation outside the discourse to referencing the
situation inside the discourse. Developing tendency (2), Traugott (1989: 31)
further demonstrates the development of epistemic meanings in certain do-
mains in English, in which “epistemics develop from less to more strongly
subjective epistemicity.”
Later, as a theoretical development, the shift to more ‘expressive’ in ten-
dency (1) was replaced by the shift to more ‘subjective’, i.e. subjectification
(Traugott 1995a). Subjectification refers to:
a pragmatic-semantic process whereby ‘meanings become increasingly based
in the speaker’s subjective belief state/attitude toward the proposition’, in other
words, towards what the speaker is talking about (31).

Returning to the tendencies (1) and (2), they have been well evidenced
both within English and in other languages (e.g. Myhill 1988 in Spanish;
Genetti 1986 in Bodic languages). Traugott also clarifies the optionality (non-
obligation) of the tendencies in meaning change: they “represent mere ten-
dencies, not a strictly unidirectional path” (1982: 258). From the beginning,
Traugott’s suggested tendencies underlying many semantic changes guided the
line of this study.
Traugott (1989) mentions that, for the future of historical linguistics, a
sociolinguistic study (Guy et al. 1986) which has examined present-day vari-
ation is suggestive since it evidences change in progress. Indeed in the field of
sociolinguistic/discourse studies, not only markers to check for listener com-
prehension (Guy et al. 1986), but many other pragmatic markers have been
found. More importantly, some works have provided a framework for dis-
course/pragmatic studies (cf. Schiffrin 1987). To take another step forward in
the theoretical studies of semantic-pragmatic change, it seemed necessary to
take a more sound discourse/pragmatic position such as the one suggested in
Schiffrin (1987).
The contribution of Traugott’s research into pragmatic changes lies not
only in descriptions of individual changes, but more significantly, in pre-
dictions about changes. Meaning changes which have often been considered
random are actually subject to systematic analysis, and furthermore, they are
predictable. These meaning changes are thought to be products of convention-
alization of conversational implicatures (Traugott 1989, 1988b).
The optimal theory which Traugott (1986b) supposes is the one which will
account for the greater number of facts. What motivates form-function (or
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 Chapter 2

form-meaning, especially form-newly acquired meanings) mappings is a moot


point in any semantic change, but Traugott suggests that the conventionaliza-
tion of pragmatic inferences motivates such mappings. The conventionaliza-
tion of inferences is accounted for as “the historical result of the operation
of Levinson’s Principle of Informativeness” (Traugott 1988b: 411): “Read as
much into an utterance as is consistent with what you know about the world”
(Levinson 1983: 146–147). In conversation we often need to make pragmatic
inferences to interpret what is implied in a given utterance. When the impli-
cature associated with a particular word becomes conventionalized enough,
the word takes on a new meaning (or becomes polysemous). This process is
thought to account for pragmatic change better than semantic treatments such
as metaphor, amelioration, pejoration and generalization (Traugott & Dasher
1987 and elsewhere).
Following these serial works of Traugott, during the last decade (since 1991
to present), her works has shown more pragmatics-related findings. Traugott’s
more recent works will be reviewed later, together with the establishment of a
field of historical pragmatics.
Another theoretical and systematic work on historical semantic change
is Sweetser (1990). Unlike Traugott, Sweetser claims that “metaphor” is the
source of links between multiple senses of a single form. According to Sweetser
(1990: 19), metaphor is a major structuring force in semantic change since
metaphor operates between domains. It operates so pervasively that an inter-
domain connection such as that between knowledge and vision/time or space
is as natural as the intra-domain connection such as that between ‘finger’ and
‘hand’. For example, regarding a meaning shift that physical-domain verbs ac-
quire speech-act and/or mental-state meanings, and mental-state verbs acquire
speech-act meanings (Traugott & Dasher 1987), Sweetser (1990: 19–20) pro-
claims it possible to metaphorically refer to speech and intellectual activity in
terms from the domain of physical action. In Sweetser (1990), conjunctions
are also examined and it is shown that they are ambiguous among three-
way usages, i.e. in the content, epistemic and conversational (speech-act) do-
mains. As for ‘but’, “semantic opposition” ‘but’ and “denial of expectation”
‘but’ in Lakoff ’s (1971) classification are accounted for based on inter-domain
metaphorical connections.
Thus, the accounts of what motivates the pragmatic change provided by
Traugott and Sweetser differ. However, Traugott (1989: 51) further states that
their explanations based on pragmatic implicature and metaphor do not deny
each other’s force. She sees the difference rather in their perspectives: While
the metaphoric process is an individual’s activity of reasoning and his/her at-
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

tempt to increase the informativeness of an abstract notion, the process of


coding pragmatic implicature is an attempt oriented toward communication
with others.
Matsumoto (1988) examines both formal and functional changes in some
Japanese connective expressions, relating to grammaticalization and language
change in general. In the beginning part of this paper, the formal change of
connectives: e.g. a final element ‘a copula (da) + a connective particle (kara)’
shifts into an initial connective (dakara), is inspected in the domain of ex-
isting theories of grammaticalization. It is claimed that the formal change of
Japanese connectives such as dakara increases the freeness of morphemes and
that it provides a counterexample to the widely-accepted theory of grammat-
icalization and language change (Givón 1971, 1979; Lehmann 1985). That is,
while Japanese connectives undergo a process toward increasing independence
of morphemes, all other grammatical markers undergo the opposite process –
toward increasing boundedness of morphemes (as Givón and Lehmann as-
sume). The formal change of these connectives is quite unique among other
cases of historical formal change. The treatment of this change of a certain set
of Japanese connectives (e.g. dakara) as a case of grammaticalization is subject
to further consideration (but see 7.2 on grammaticalization).
The functional change of the same connectives is argued to be “toward
discourse/pragmatics-oriented meanings” (Ibid.: 345). Apparently interactively
created meanings such as the speaker’s and hearer’s interactive moves in con-
versation are described, however, as data, invented sentences are used here.
The rise of interests in pragmatic aspect of language change, along with the
growing interests in the field of pragmatics per se, led to the inauguration of
Journal of Historical Pragmatics in January, 2000. As a new sub-field of prag-
matics, Historical Pragmatics was first proposed by Jucker’s (1995) volume.
Many of its contributors presented at a panel at IPrA 1998, the outcome of
which later appeared in the inaugural issue of the above journal. This inaugu-
ration seems to mark a fruitful token of this growing sub-field to be established
in linguistics of the new century.
The scope of historical pragmatics is clarified in Jacobs and Jucker (1995).
It subsumes two approaches, “pragmaphilology” and “diachronic pragmatics”.
Pragmaphilology “goes one step further [than traditional philology does] and
describes the contextual aspects of historical texts, including the addressers and
addressees, their social and personal relationship . . . ” (Ibid.: 11). Diachronic
pragmatics, on the other hand, converges on “linguistic inventory and its
communicative use across different historical stages of the same language”
(13). Two subtypes of diachronic pragmatics, “diachronic form-to-function
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 Chapter 2

mapping” and “diachronic function-to-form mapping” are distinguished. If


a linguistic form (e.g. discourse markers, relative pronouns or lexical items) is
taken as a starting point in diachronic investigation of meaning change, such
studies fall into the former; and if linguistic functions (e.g. a specific speech
act or politeness) are taken as a starting point in investigating their changing
realizations, such studies are labeled the latter (Ibid.).
Development of discourse markers across time, such as this study, is clearly
a topic in the diachronic research on form-to-function mapping in diachronic
pragmatics (see Fitzmaurice 2000). Within the last decade, this topic has been
pursued by several researchers, most of who relate their analysis to grammati-
calization. In Japanese, Mori (1996), Suzuki (1998, 1999), and Onodera (1993,
1995, 2000), and in English, Traugott (1995b), Brinton (1996), and Schwenter
and Traugott (2000) appeared as their works.
In addition to her prior works reviewed above, Traugott (1999) which
demonstrates her more recent theoretical framework should be included here.
Surveying current research on meaning changes and their motivations, Trau-
gott points out three central questions: Question 1 “Given the form-meaning
pair L (lexeme) what changes did meaning M undergo?” Question 2 “Given
the concept C, what lexemes can it be expressed by?” (e.g. Concept CONDI-
TIONAL expressed by if, when, as long as, etc.; CONCESSIVE by although,
while, etc.) Question 3 “Given the concept C, what other conceptual domain is
it likely to develop into?” (e.g. TEMPORAL > CONDITIONAL, etc.) (Ibid.: 93–
94). Then, three approaches are focused on as those to the above three ques-
tions. One is Cognitive Linguistics, and it is concerned with metaphoric pro-
cesses. “It privileges metaphorical mapping from one conceptual domain to
another; . . . (see Sweetser 1990; . . . Langacker 1990)” (94). Although “under-
standing metaphors requires pragmatic inferencing to relevant meanings (see
e.g. Sperber & Wilson 1995, etc.)”, “pragmatics has not been the main focus of
historical work in the Cognitive Linguistics tradition” (Ibid.).
Another approach seems Historical Pragmatics which “combines certain
aspects of sociolinguistics with formal pragmatics and theories of action”. Its
primary interests go to “communicative acts in speech events” and “the con-
texts in which communication takes place” in order to account for language in
use (Ibid.), referring to Jucker (1995).
Then, as a third approach, Traugott’s Invited Inferencing Theory of Se-
mantic Change (IITSC) is introduced. This theory suggests that “the key moti-
vations for change are associative, metonymic, indexical meanings that arise in
the process of speech and writing” (Traugott 1999: 94). Special attention is paid
to “ways in which they [such motivations] lead to changes in the linguistic sys-
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

tem, that is, in the semantics of the lexicon, constructions, and in grammatical
markers”. IITSC “combines cognitive linguistics with communication-based
historical discourse analysis/historical pragmatics (Schwenter & Traugott 1995,
etc.)” (Ibid.). It is explained that IITSC emerged during consideration of cross-
linguistic regularities in grammaticalization, however, it “currently ranges over
domain in which semantic change occurs” (Ibid.).

. Typological studies

The pragmaticalization of a certain set of Japanese conjunctions and inter-


jections explored in this study appears to be related, in some way, to typo-
logical characteristics of language. The original forms of the items examined
in this study, demo, dakedo, ne and its variants seem all unit-final elements
(expressions that appear in unit-final positions). The question then is the cor-
relation between the pragmaticalization in which unit-final elements evolve
into initial markers and the typological features of Japanese which might allow
such change.
Two typological features of Japanese are taken into consideration, i.e. fea-
tures of a postpositional language and of an agglutinative language. Each of
these is reviewed below.
Japanese is an SOV language according to Greenberg’s (1963) word order
typology. Kuno (1973: 4) states that many of the characteristics of Japanese are
ascribable or at least relevant to the fact that Japanese is an SOV language:
among these characteristics one is that “Japanese is a postpositional (as op-
posed to prepositional) language.” Being postpositional is referred to as one of
syntactic universals in Greenberg (1963: 81):
Universal 9. With well more than chance frequency, when question particles
or affixes are specified in position by reference to the sentence as a whole, if
initial, such elements are found in prepositional languages, and, if final, in
postpositional.

According to this criterion also, Japanese is recognized to be postposi-


tional since a sentence-final question particle ka forms interrogative sentences
in Japanese.
McCawley (1988) discusses the postpositionality of Japanese in relation to
the position of conjunctions in the surface constituent structure and in deep
structure. A Japanese phrase “Tom to Dick to Harry to” in which to conjoins
NPs corresponds to English “Tom ‘and’ Dick ‘and’ Harry”. In the surface con-
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 Chapter 2

stituent structures to and ‘and’ are postposed and preposed respectively as


illustrated in (5).1
(5) Japanese
NP

NP NP NP

NP to NP to NP to

Tom Dick Harry

English NP

NP NP NP

Tom ‘and’ NP ‘and’ NP

Dick Harry

Furthermore, it is argued that the difference of postposed to and preposed


‘and’ in the surface structures is attributed to the difference of final and initial
position of to and ‘and’ in deep structure as presented in (6).
(6) Japanese
X

X ... X to

English
X

‘and’ X ... X

The postpositional nature of Japanese connective elements has thus been illus-
trated in the generative syntactic structure.
Kuno (1978a) classifies Japanese postpositions according to their func-
tions. In Japanese, adpositions are all postpositional. Among those, two post-
positions are reviewed here since they represent the original elements of demo,
dakedo and ne that evolved into markers. One is sentence-final particle (SFP)
expressing the speaker’s attitude to his/her statement: From one such sentence-
final particle, ne, an interjection ne is derived. The other is a clause-final particle
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

which is appended to a verb and forms a clause-connecting device: conjunc-


tions demo and dakedo are thought to have developed from such final con-
necting devices. (7) and (8) show examples of the above two postpositions, a
sentence-final particle ne (7) and a clause-final connective particle kedo (8).
(7) Kimi wa kinoo gakkoo o yasunda ne.
you yesterday school rested Tag Q
<‘You did’t come to school yesterday, did you?’> (Kuno 1978a: 79)
2
(8) Taroo wa, toshokan ni itta kedo, hon o yomanakatta.
library to went although book didn’t-read
<‘Taroo, although he went to the library, didn’t read books.’>

As reviewed thus far, Japanese has features of a postpositional language.


The second typological feature of Japanese is its agglutinating nature. Ac-
cording to a syntax-based typology classifying languages into four groups
(isolating; agglutinative; inflecting and polysynthetic) (Mallinson & Blake
1981: 20), Japanese is an agglutinative language. Mallinson and Blake describe
the feature “agglutinating” as “separable affixes on verbs and other roots”.
Some works refer to the correlation between the agglutinating nature of
Japanese and the fact that Japanese has many separable affix-like elements, par-
ticles and auxiliary verbs. Kitahara et al. (Eds.) (1981: 215) and Hayashi and
Ikegami (Eds.) (1979: 188) both admit the fact that for Japanese to be typed as
agglutinative, well-developed particles play a significant role.
Shimizu (1987: 222–223) also states that the agglutination in Japanese is as-
cribed to particles and auxiliary verbs. He further writes that since the particles
and auxiliary verbs designate the relationship between phrases or they clearly
mark the case of each phrase, the order of phrases in a Japanese sentence is rel-
atively free. Focusing on Japanese particles, they are attached to verbs which are
grammatically strictly required to be in final positions, and they clearly mark
the case of the attached phrase, hence the relationship among the phrases. In
addition to Shimizu’s statement, Kuno (1973: 3 and elsewhere) also refers to the
relatively free word order of Japanese. An example, (9), shows the clear case-
relation among phrases by virtue of case-marking particles and the relatively
free word order as a consequence of the clearly marked case-relation. In (9),
(a) is realizable as (b) through (f).
(9) a. John ga Mary o Cambridge de mita.
nominative accusative in saw
particle particle
<‘John saw Mary in Cambridge.’>
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 Chapter 2

b. John ga Cambridge de Mary o mita.


c. Mary o John ga Cambridge de mita.
d. Mary o Cambridge de John ga mita.
e. Cambridge de John ga Mary o mita.
f. Cambridge de Mary o John ga mita.
(Kuno 1973: 351–352)

All the sentences in (9) are grammatical. In Japanese, except for the constraint
that verbs must appear in the sentence-final position, the word order is not so
restricted due to the function of particles.
Above, two typological features of Japanese, i.e. the postpositionality and
agglutinating nature, have been reviewed. The fact that the phrase order in
Japanese is relatively free, which is at least partly ascribable to the distinct
case-relation of phrases marked by particles, has also been discussed. The rela-
tionship between such typological features and pragmaticalization in Japanese
is an interesting issue. It will be discussed in (7.3).

. Syntactic and semantic aspects of conjunctions (demo and dakedo)


and interjections (ne and variants)

In prior studies of Japanese conjunctions and interjections, their syntactic and


semantic aspects have been mostly observed and discussed together: This seems
to come from the approach taken in Japanese studies of national language
(called Kokugogaku). Once two aspects are discussed in combination, it is a
hard task to extract two separate aspects from the fused discussion. There-
fore, this review will also reflect the above trend; the combined observation
of syntactic and semantic aspects of language.

.. Syntactic and semantic aspects of conjunctions

Conjunctions are elements that connect two discourses/sentences/clauses/


words (Ide 1965a: 293; Tsukahara 1970: 10). In connecting two units, conjunc-
tions make the relationship between the preceding and following units clear.
Here, it is explained that the relationship between the two units is judged by
the speaker subjectively. According to Ide (1965a), conjunctions do not con-
jugate; they become neither subjects nor predicates; they do not modify other
elements, nor do they get modified (see also Hashimoto 1959).
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

The category (word class) ‘conjunction’ was not originally used by Japanese
scholars. The term, conjunction, per se was loaned from Western (such as
Dutch) grammar and first used in the nineteenth century (Ide 1973). Most con-
junctions, now recognized, are derived from other elements such as adverbs,
demonstrative pronouns, auxiliaries and connective particles – sometimes a
combination of two such elements. They then become conventionalized as
conjunctions (Ide 1965a).
Thus, ‘conjunction’ is a new grammatical category. Nagayama (1970: 25)
suggests a way to judge whether a form is included in this category. That is, a
form is judged a conjunction, if it shows only the connecting function rather
than other functions (meanings) of its original elements (such as pronouns
and adverbs mentioned above).
While Japanese conjunctions are typed according to their connecting func-
tion, as (i) word-connecting and (ii) clause-, sentence- or discourse-connecting
conjunctions, the following classification is based on their specific functions
(Ide 1965a: 303). First, Ide’s (Ibid.: 294–295, 303) classification divides con-
junctions into (1) those which express temporally/spatially/psychologically
paratactic/additional relationship and (2) those which express logical relation-
ship. This dichotomy is further specified as (1) <a> additional, <b> paratactic,
<c> disjunctive, <d> topic change and (2) <a> causal, <b> adversative, <c>
explanatory, <d> supplementary. Demo and dakedo are classified as (2) <b>
adversative (Ide 1965a).
That demo and dakedo seem to be derived from a clause-final sequence of
a copula de/da and a conjunctive particle mo/kedo is widely-accepted in the
field. In Morita (1967), the functions of conjunctions are well described by
distinguishing them from the functions of corresponding conjunctive particles.
Morita points out a clear dissimilarity between conjunctions and conjunctive
particles in the function of ‘unfolding’ discourse.
Two specific categories in Japanese traditional studies, ‘statement’ (chin-
jutsu) (Watanabe 1971) and ‘unfolding’ (tenkai) should be explained. Although
there is a variety of views (some conflicting) concerning ‘chinjutsu’, ‘chin-
jutsu’ is paraphrased as an expression of a speaker’s subjectivity, as opposed
to ‘jojutsu’ (predication) which is an expression of ideational content. ‘Chin-
jutsu’ and ‘jojutsu’ seem to be close to expressive and ideational functions
respectively.
A predominant view in regard to ‘chinjutsu’ always claims that ‘chinjutsu’
operates in a sentence-final position, hence a sentence is completed as the
embodiment of both ideational and expressive materials.
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 Chapter 2

Conjunctions are said to materialize/formalize the potential to continue


the discourse right after a sentence-final position. At sentence-final position
‘chinjutsu’ is complete; therefore, it is unnecessary though possible to have a
following sentence, thus the potential to continue the discourse. Only when
there is a following sentence, is this potential realized: in this case what realizes
the potential is a conjunction. Thus conjunctions preface the following sen-
tence, and the story line of the discourse unfolds further. The main function of
conjunctions is, in other words, to show the relationship between two intrinsi-
cally separate sentences in which chinjutsu (statement) is already complete.
On the other hand, at a clause-final position, which is at the end of a
subordinate clause, chinjutsu is incomplete; thus a following clause is neces-
sary to conclude chinjutsu. Here what unfolds the story line, i.e. connects the
prior and the following clauses, is a conjunctive particle. The main function
of conjunctive particles is to directly unfold the discourse by connecting two
clauses. Thus, here is the difference between a conjunction and a conjunctive
particle: a conjunction only formalizes the potential between two sentences to
continue the discourse by designating their relationship, while a conjunctive
particle actually unfolds the story line (seemingly more purely grammatically)
as a required task between two clauses.
Structural analogy and difference among chinjutsu adverbs (tentatively
translated as expressive adverbs), conjunctions and interjections in Japanese
are discussed in Kitahara (1974): he claims an important analogy among the
three word classes. The analogy is that although they bear no ideational or
conceptualized notion, i.e. they belong to ji (Tokieda 1950). They are all inde-
pendent elements in terms of constituting a sentence (they are not appended to
other elements). According to Tokieda, word classes in Japanese are grammati-
cally categorized as either ji or shi. Ji is “an expression representing the speaker’s
perspective toward the referent”, while shi is “an expression representing an ob-
jective and conceptualized notion of referents” (translation is from Maynard
1989b: 30). Considering the fact that expressive adverbs, conjunctions and in-
terjections, that are all independent elements and ji, do not carry ideational
function, they are exceptional in Japanese grammar. This is because an or-
dinary form-meaning mapping is that independent elements bear ideational
content and dependents bear no such content.
Kitahara (1974) considers that conjunctions structurally belong to the
‘connecting’ component of language, and interjections are part of the com-
ponent which marks ‘paratactic relationship’ between two linguistic portions.
Likewise, expressive adverbs fall under the ‘modifying’ component.
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

Some conjunctions are derived from conjunctive particles, e.g. dakedo


from da + a particle kedo, and daga from da + a particle ga. Here kedo/ga can be
appended to da and modal auxiliaries such as daroo/rashii that belong to ji as
well as to other verbs that belong to shi just expressing propositional content.
When a particle kedo/ga is attached to ji, the clause-final part consists of jojutsu
(ideational predication) + chinjutsu (expression of speaker’s subjectivity). (It
should be noted that jojutsu (ideational part) precedes chinjutsu (expressive
part) in a sentence, while chinjutsu operates at the end of a sentence.) By con-
trast, when kedo/ga is attached to shi, the final part consists only of jojutsu. It
is suggested in Kitahara (1974) that conjunctions dakedo and daga are derived
from clause-ending da + kedo and da + ga because the particles kedo and ga
can be attached to chinjutsu (subjective) part. Other conjunctive particles like
node, ba and nagara do not derive conjunctions because they cannot be joined
to chinjutsu but only to jojutsu (ideational part). Take an intersentential con-
necting part such as a sentence comprised of jojutsu + chinjutsu and a following
conjunction dakedo into consideration: We now have a continuum of expres-
sion of subjectivity which starts with the non-subjective (jojutsu) part and ends
with the most subjective part (dakedo). Thus the conjunctions that consist be-
ing appended to the chinjutsu part are the most subjective elements within the
connecting component of Japanese.
Within the component marking paratactic relationships, interjections are
considered to be the most subjective elements. This component consists of
different levels of paratactic relationships: parataxis of words, parataxis of sen-
tences, etc. An interjection and a following sentence are thought to be parataxis
of subjective (ji-like) elements. For instance, a sentence Aa, omoshiroi hon da.
(“Oh’, it’s an interesting book.’) is comprised of a subjective expression of ex-
clamation (aa) and a verbal analysis of such subjective exclamation (Kitahara
1974: 36; citing Tokieda 1950: 180). In sum, interjections are the most subjec-
tive elements in the component indicating paratactic relationships.
Likewise, within the modifying component of Japanese, expressive adverbs
are said to be the most subjective elements (Kitahara 1974: 25–33). As surveyed
above, the difference among Japanese conjunctions, interjections and expres-
sive adverbs is recognized in that they contribute to different components
of language, i.e. connecting, marking paratactic relationships and modifying
components. However there is an important analogy among the three word
classes: they are the most subjective (ji-like) elements on the continuum of
“fully ideational ←→ fully subjective” expressions within the component to
which they are affiliated.
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 Chapter 2

A critical syntactic feature of conjunctions, demo and dakedo, is posses-


sion of a morpheme d within their structure. The possession of da (de) which
is widely-recognized as a copula is very important for demo/dakedo since the
function of da/de seems to involve equipping these conjunctions with ‘textual
function’. Two works analyze da functionally and show somewhat different as-
pects of da from those found in the traditional approach. Kuno (1978b) and
Okutsu (1978) clarify the mechanism of da (de) being involved in the textual
function of dakedo/demo.
In his analysis of ‘ellipsis’ in Japanese, Kuno (1978b) suggests the use of da
as one of the main strategies to create ellipsis. First, “the basic rule for ellipsis”
(Ibid.: 8) is:
The elements to be omitted must be recoverable from either verbal or non-
verbal context.

What Kuno calls da strategy is then defined as:


(Available only when the main verb is recoverable.) Omit recoverable ele-
ments. Then embed the remaining elements in da (des) pattern to qualify it
to be a sentence. (Ibid.)

The following examples illustrate the cases of ‘ellipsis’ with da strategy. Desu in
(B) is the polite form of da.
(10) A. Kimi wa kinoo Hanako to doko ni itta ka.
You TP yesterday with where to went Q
<‘Where did you go with Hanako yesterday?’>
B. Kanda desu.
is
<‘It’s Kanda.’> (Ibid.: 9)
(11) A. Dare ga kyoo gakkoo o yasun de imasu ka.
Who SB today school DO absent COP Q
<‘Who is absent from school today?’>
B. Yamada-kun desu.
Mr. Yamada is
<‘Mr. Yamada is.’> (Ibid.)

In (10) and (11), A asks B a wh-question. According to the da strategy, B need


not repeat the recoverable elements. In other words, only the element in focus
(Kanda in (10), Yamada-kun in (11)) need be overtly stated. The recoverable
elements (e.g. in (10), ‘you went somewhere with Hanako yesterday’) are not
repeated but omitted in B. Here, in B, Kanda or Yamada-kun alone do not
constitute sentences. The recoverable part gets embedded in a des pattern. And
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

the ‘element in focus’ + ‘desu (or da)’ is qualified as a sentence. B creates a


perfect sentence with only the unrecoverable element + desu. The da strategy
is thus “the most economical pattern” (Ibid.: 80) to create a sentence when the
omitted elements are recoverable from verbal or non-verbal context.
Furthermore, Kuno explains two discourse constraints on the da strategy.
First, if the recoverable elements are not established as given information in
prior discourse, they cannot be omitted. (The da strategy cannot be used.) Sec-
ond, when more than two elements are to be embedded in the da pattern, the
syntactic and semantic relationships between the elements must be able to be
defined only by recovering one verb. (When more than one recoverable verb is
involved, the da strategy cannot be used.)
Another useful grammatical analysis of da for understanding the evolu-
tion of some conjunctions is Okutsu (1978). Da is widely analyzed as a copula.
However, Okutsu claims that the function of da is not always as a copula
(linking verb), but often it replaces a predicate in some prior sentence. The
meaning in the da sentence pattern is vague: This pattern can have more than
one meaning. Nonetheless, it is frequently used in our everyday conversation
and is interpreted correctly as the speaker intends. This is possible only when
verbal or non-verbal context is shared by the speaker and hearer. The da sen-
tence pattern is a context-dependent system which is used as an economical
and convenient strategy in discourse.
Although this pattern is context-dependent, Okutsu reveals specifically: (1)
da replaces a predicate in a sentence, (2) the kind and range of predicate that
can be involved in this operation.
A da sentence (12) can have various meanings as in (13), (14) and (15).
(12) Boku wa unagi da.
(13) Boku wa unagi o tsuru. <‘I will catch an eel.’>
(14) Boku wa unagi o chuumon suru. <‘I will order an eel.’>
(15) Boku wa unagi o taberu. <‘I will eat an eel.’>

The meaning depends upon the context in which the utterance takes place. For
(12) to have the sense in (15), the speaker and hearer must share a context such
as (a) in (16).
(16) a. Konban kimi wa tomodachi to Futaba de nanika taberu sooda
Tonight you TP friend with at something eat
ga,
but
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 Chapter 2

b. nani o taberu ka.


what DO (will) eat
<‘(I’ve heard that) you will eat something with your friend at Futaba.
What will you eat?’> (Okutsu 1978: 28)

The portion (a) must be shared as a “presupposition” in the conversation.


Between the speaker and hearer only what in (b) is the point in question. If
we call this point the “focus”, the focus is the element which precedes da in a
da sentence.
In Okutsu’s view, unagi da in (12) forms a predicate and unagi plays the
role of a complement of an imperfect predicate da. In addition, Okutsu shows
cases where the da pattern need not have a complement. He discusses two sub-
ordinate clauses formed by da + conjunctive particles, kara (because) and kedo
(although) respectively, and shows that da replaces the preceding sentence. (17)
is an example of da + kara structure.
(17)

In this case, a predicate in (a) futta or extendedly the meaning of the whole
utterance (a) is replaced by da in (b). (17) shows that da does not take a
complement when used as part of a conjunction such as dakara.
Okutsu proposes that da also replaces adjectival predicates. Not only the
verbal predicate described earlier ((12), (13), (14) and (15)) but the adjectival
part as predicate is replaced by da. The example is as follows:
(18) (Dare ga chiisai ka.) <‘Who is small?’> (presupposition)
a. Taroo ga chiisai. <‘Taroo is small.’>
b. Taroo da. <‘Taroo is.’> (Okutsu Ibid.: 36)

In (18), (a) containing an adjectival part as predicate is replaced by a da sen-


tence pattern (b). In addition, Okutsu shows that da replaces numbers of
adverbs as well.
Furthermore, Okutsu also clarifies the range to which the da replacement is
applicable in a sentence-final structure of Japanese. He proposes that a Japanese
sentence-final expression has the following structure:
Pred1 . . . Predn Tense Confirmation Final
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

Pred1 is a stem of a verb or an adjective. Following Pred1 , any number of pred-


icates which take a complement such as causative, passive and negative come
(Predn , n can be 0). After this, elements which express Tense and Confirmation
and sentence-final particles (Final) follow. In this sentence-final structure, the
extent to which da can replace is Pred1 . . . Predn. Okutsu’s analysis will be again
referred to in my account of the motivation for the pragmatic change of demo
and dakedo (4.4).

.. Syntactic and semantic aspects of interjections

Japanese grammar books appear to spend fewer pages on an account of inter-


jections than other word classes. Most of the books give a brief explanation and
a list of elements that belong to this category, or list the summarized analyses of
prior studies. Interjections have been treated marginally in Japanese grammar.
This inclination comes from the fact that interjections carry no ideational func-
tion and no grammatical function: Overall, it is true that interjections make a
smaller contribution to the meaning construction of language than other word
classes. In this section, I will first introduce the definition and classification of
interjections and the most widely-accepted perspective to the analysis of these
elements. Second, I will mention James’ work (1972, 1974) which points out
the somewhat grammatical function of interjections.
An interjection is defined as an element which expresses the speaker’s sub-
jective sentiments and intentions straightforwardly, either inside or outside of a
sentence. An interjection is a word which is a “sentence equivalent” (originally
mentioned in Tokieda 1950: 179), and it does not conjugate (Ide 1965b: 304).
A reliable classification of Japanese interjections seems as the following
dichotomy: (1) those which express the speaker’s inner sentiments (e.g. ex-
clamation, anger, surprise, doubt, etc.) (without intention of communicating
these sentiments to others), and (2) those which express the speaker’s com-
municative intention of responding, calling others’ attention etc. (Ide 1965b;
Yamada 1908; Hoshina 1911; Yasuda 1928; Suzuki 1973; Morita 1973).
Interjections can be used by themselves; e.g. Aa. (‘Oh.’), Waa. (‘Wow.’),
or another clause can follow them; e.g. Aa, omoshiroi hon da. (“Oh’, it’s an
interesting book.’). When a clause follows an interjection, such a clause con-
veys the verbal version of the speaker’s sentiment expressed by the interjection.
Although an interjection per se forms an independent component, grammati-
cally like a sentence (Tokieda 1950: 180), a comma instead of a period is usually
used between an interjection and the following clause since there is the close
relationship between them (i.e. sentiment and its verbal version) (Ibid.).
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 Chapter 2

A prosodic feature of interjections which is useful in distinguishing the el-


ements of this category is pointed out by Martin (1975: 1041): these elements
“are characteristically set off from the rest of the discourse by major junctures
and are often accompanied by special voice qualifiers or intonation features”.
According to Martin, the functions of interjections are the following four (also
quoted in Hinds 1986: 443): (a) to express the speaker’s emotional reactions –
pleasure, relief, surprise, hesitation, disgust, etc.; (b) to call attention; (c) to re-
spond to a question, a command, or a social transaction; (d) to hold the floor
when fluency fails and one is searching for a desired expression. Martin’s classi-
fication is similar to the dichotomous grouping given above; i.e. (a) illustrates
exactly the same function as type (1) expressing the speaker’s inner emotions,
and (b) and (c) fall under type (2) expressing the speaker’s communicative
intentions.
James (1972, 1974) suggests that interjections and hesitations, long ignored
by linguists, are constrained by grammatical rules and they themselves have
a somewhat grammatical function. When sentence-initial, James (1974: 242)
claims, interjections and hesitations mark that the speaker has had to stop to
think about what to say: the speaker may be trying to remember something;
choose an alternative out of several possible ones; think of the best way to de-
scribe something; or s/he may be hesitating because of reluctance to tell his/her
hearer something. The element which the speaker stops to think about is called
“referent” of the interjection or hesitation, and the interjection or hesitation
“refers to” that element.3 James further argues the main finding in her work
that interjections or hesitations seem able to refer only to elements that are
constituents. Although James’ analysis is based on English data including items
like ‘oh’, ‘ah’, ‘say’, ‘well’ and ‘uh’, the function of “referring to” some element in
discourse can be a crucial function of interjections in general, namely in other
languages as well.

. Summary

In the field of discourse/pragmatic studies, numbers of researchers have ad-


dressed the discourse/pragmatic and interactional aspects of language along
with the rise of interest in these aspects. Those studies have taken a variety
of approaches and focused on different questions, however, as a whole, they
added new findings to the study of ‘language in use’. A few specific findings
(issues) are suggestive in developing the current study: observations of En-
glish ‘y’know’ in Schourup (1982) and Östman (1981), Maynard’s (1989b)
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Perspectives on Japanese Discourse Markers 

“self-contextualization” and and Stein’s (1985) suggestion of “functionaliza-


tion”. There is a stream of investigating ‘common expressions in conversation’
in world languages, which had started in the 1980s.
This study is one of those investigating common expressions in conversa-
tion. While Stein (1985) suggests a study of discourse markers in a certain past
time stage, my study views the whole history or substantive time range of some
markers. Unlike most previous research, my study will pinpoint the stage at
which some Japanese expressions started to be used as discourse markers.4 The
time when pragmaticalization of some expressions took place will be revealed.
In the domain of historical studies, above all Traugott’s research since 1980s
guides the line of this study as a diachronic one. Two hypothesized tendencies
of meaning change in general have already been verified in different domains
of many languages: (1) “propositional (ideational) > ((textual) > (expressive))”
(Traugott 1982, 1989) and (2) “less to more personal” (Traugott 1982). Thus,
Traugott’s research does not only describe the individual changes, but predict
changes. After the analysis of functional changes of Japanese demo, dakedo, ne
and its variants, these two tendencies will be also examined. Traugott (1989: 50)
also suggests an important issue ‘conventionalization of conversational impli-
catures’ which might induce all the pragmatic changes. I will discuss this issue
after having discussed my results.
My study will add to this field by revealing when and how the pragmati-
calization of some Japanese expressions happened. The results will also show
whether or not Traugott’s hypotheses are supported in the Japanese language
which is unlike English.
In the field of linguistic typology, the fact that Japanese is a postpositional
and agglutinative language is relevant to this study. The items to be analyzed
involve these two typological features. Ne and its variants as sentence-final par-
ticles are themselves postpositions. Demo and dakedo contain postpositions mo
and kedo that are clause-final particles. It is particles and auxiliary verbs that
realize the agglutination in Japanese. Related to agglutination, free word order
in Japanese has also been reviewed. On the whole, postpositionality, aggluti-
nating nature, together with free word order, seem to be relevant to the process
of pragmaticalization of demo, dakedo, ne and its variants. In this study, it will
be shown that some typological characteristics of languages are concerned in
the productive process of pragmaticalization.
In the review of the syntactic and semantic aspects of conjunctions and
interjections, conjunctions have been defined as elements that connect two
discourses/sentences/clauses/words (Ide 1965a: 293; Tsukahara 1970: 10). In-
terjections have been defined as elements that express the speaker’s subjective
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 Chapter 2

sentiments and intentions straightforwardly inside and outside a sentence (Ide


1965b: 304). As for conjunctions, their classification, functions and a brief his-
torical note concerning the establishment of this category have been discussed.
In addition, a critical feature of the conjunctions demo and dakedo, i.e. posses-
sion of d in their structure has been reviewed. Okutsu (1978) suggests that d is
not always a copula, but that its fundamental function is to replace a predicate
in a prior sentence. I have suggested further that the possession of d allows the
textual function of demo and dakedo. As for interjections, their classification,
prosodic feature and functions have been reviewed.
The current study will suggest that in addition to their semantic and syn-
tactic aspects, conjunctions and interjections have a variety of discourse/prag-
matic functions. Such functions have not been examined or revealed by the
previous traditional studies of Japanese conjunctions and interjections.
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Chapter 3

Functions of the conjunctions demo


and dakedo in Present Day Japanese
(synchronic analysis)

Prior scholarship has revealed the semantic and syntactic aspects of adversative
conjunctions1 in Japanese quite clearly. However, till recently, researchers have
long neglected the pragmatic aspects of Japanese adversative conjunctions.
I will examine demo and dakedo, adversative conjunctions (reviewed in
(2.4.1)), that appear to be semantically and syntactically most equivalent to
the English ‘but’. My approach is to examine them from a synthesized dis-
course/pragmatic perspective.
In English, ‘but’ has been found by Schiffrin (1987: 152–177) to be a dis-
course marker which encodes three types of contrast, i.e. referential contrast,
functional contrast and contrastive actions. I will show that Japanese demo and
dakedo also mark these three contrasts, and in addition, pragmatically inferable
contrast. Some specific functions that ‘but’ does not have in English conversa-
tion will be also demonstrated. In this chapter, first, I discuss whether or not
there are any differences in use and distribution between demo and dakedo in
(3.1). Second, I demonstrate the four kinds of contrastive relationships marked
by demo and dakedo: referential contrast and pragmatically inferable contrast
in (3.2); functional contrast in (3.3); and contrastive actions in (3.4), by first
defining each contrast and next exemplifying it.

. Use and distribution of demo and dakedo

Before starting the analysis in which I treat demo and dakedo as markers with
the same functions, I first clarify a question – are there any differences in the
use and distribution between demo and dakedo? In response to this question,
in this section, I show that (1) the only difference in the use of these two words
is associated with “language style” (speech level), and that (2) there is no sig-
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 Chapter 3

Table 3.1 Demo and dakedo in careful and casual styles

Careful style Casual style

demo 35 : 34
dakedo 0 : 11

nificant difference in the distribution of demo and dakedo with each of the four
contrasting functions.
As already discussed in (2.4.1), demo and dakedo are widely accepted and
classified as logical conjunctions, more specifically as “adversative” ones in
previous studies (e.g. Ide 1965a; Saji 1970; Tanaka 1984). According to such
traditional classifications of conjunctions, it is suggested that demo and dakedo
have the same functions. Then, what is the difference, if any, in the use of these
two words?
I propose that a difference is recognized in the language style (speech level)
in which the words are used. In his paper discussing speech levels in Japanese,
Martin (1964: 408) claims that the Japanese are forced to make a choice of
speech level before starting to talk. Jorden (1987: 32 and elsewhere) also asserts
the importance of choice of style in Japanese conversation. Although Jorden
(Ibid.) admits the extreme complexity of the concept of style in Japanese, I
will provide a basic idea of this concept here. In Japanese, the style in a given
conversational situation is determined mostly by the speaker’s relation to the
addressee. Thus, style reflects how the speaker addresses a partner in a con-
versation. When one talks with superiors or those in relations of non-intimacy
(cf. Brown & Levinson 1987: 45; Brown & Gilman 1960), one must use “care-
ful style”. In contrast, when one talks with social equals or those in relations of
intimacy, one is allowed to use “casual style”.
Table 3.1 illustrates the use of demo and dakedo in careful and casual styles
of Japanese. The appearance of demo and dakedo in a conversation spoken in
careful style and two conversations spoken in casual style are counted. Conver-
sations are taken out of the discourse corpus (Ide et al. 1984), used as data in
the current study. The length of the conversation in careful style and that of the
two conversations in casual style are approximately the same.
The results indicate that demo is used in both careful and casual styles with
same frequency. On the other hand, dakedo appears in casual style, but not in
careful style, at least in my data. I suggest that in Japanese conversation there
is a tendency in which dakedo is more likely to be used in casual style than in
careful style, while demo is used equally in both styles. Thus, a difference in the
use of demo and dakedo is seen in the language style in which each is used.
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

Table 3.2 Demo and dakedo with contrasting functions

demo dakedo

ref. + func. 1 ref. + func. 1


ref. + func. + ac. 1 ref. + ac. 1
prag. inf. 2 prag. inf. 5
prag. inf. + ac. 3 prag. inf. + func. 2
prag. inf. + func. + ac. 4 prag. inf. + ac. 4
func. + ac. 2 prag. inf. + func. + ac. 3
ac. 7 func. + ac. 2
ac. 2
total 20 total 20
(In this table, the abbreviations ref., prag. inf., func. and ac. represent referential contrast,
pragmatically inferable contrast, functional contrast and contrastive actions.)

Next, I show, however, that there is no significant difference in the distri-


bution of demo and dakedo (the appearance with the four kinds of contrastive
relationships they mark). Table 3.2 illustrates the distribution of demo and
dakedo with each of the four contrasting functions. Twenty examples each
of demo and dakedo from my data are presented along with their respective
functions.
As shown, demo and dakedo are used with all four contrasting functions
(referential contrast, pragmatically inferable contrast, functional contrast and
contrastive actions) and with the combinations of more than two functions
that sometimes co-occur (ref.-func., ref.-ac., prag. inf.-func., prag. inf.-ac. and
func.-ac.).2 The ratio of the use of demo with only contrastive actions to all the
uses of demo is slightly high (7/20): This might indicate that demo is a more es-
tablished discourse marker than dakedo because demo is frequently used with
expressive function (an extended function), marking the speaker’s interactional
action, only. There is no other salient difference in the distribution of contrast-
ing functions of demo and dakedo (Table 3.2). Thus, there is no substantial
difference in the distribution of demo and dakedo with the four contrasting
functions, though the two conjunctions appear in the different speech levels.
Hence, it is suggested that the operation of demo and dakedo’s contrasting func-
tions is independent of language style. The validity of the analysis given below,
in which demo and dakedo are treated as markers with the same functions, is
thus supported.
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 Chapter 3

. Referential contrast and pragmatically inferable contrast

Referential contrast is the contrast between contraries that are overtly stated in
the discourse (e.g. John is tall, but Bill is short). ‘Referential’ here has a rather
narrow semantic sense: the contrast lies between propositions with semantic
content. In this type of contrast, the contrastive meaning resides in the lexical
items being contrasted.
Pragmatically inferable contrast is the contrast between contraries that are
inferred. For the analysis of demo and dakedo, this type of contrast needs
to be added to the three contrasts marked by English ‘but’, referential and
functional contrasts and contrastive actions (Schiffrin 1987: 177). In Japanese
conversation we rarely see purely referential contrast, but instead we see many
pragmatically inferable contrasts. A possible reason for the frequency of the lat-
ter contrast is given. Generally, Japanese speakers do not say exactly what they
mean, but they often use indirect or metaphorical phrases and even ambiguous
expressions in order to avoid being assertive. Accordingly, in Japanese conver-
sation, very often inference is required to understand what is meant more than
what is actually ‘said’. In the case of pragmatically inferred contrasts marked by
demo/dakedo, a hearer must make an inference to understand the contrastive
meaning lying between the parts of the utterance, following demo/dakedo and
prior to them.
The pragmatically inferred meanings discussed here are, in other words,
derived “conversational implicatures” (“implicatures” for short) in Grice’s
(1975) sense. Owing to implicatures, “it is possible to mean. . . more than what
is literally expressed by the conventional sense of the linguistic expressions
uttered” (Levinson 1983: 97).
Now that referential contrast and pragmatically inferable contrast have
been defined, the fact that these two contrasts add to the “ideational” com-
ponent of language will be discussed. “Ideational” component, as I employ
the term, along with the “textual” and “expressive” components constitute
the three fundamental functional-semantic components of language (sug-
gested in Traugott 1982, based on Halliday & Hasan’s 1976 linguistic sys-
tem). “Ideational” component is called “propositional” component in Traugott
(1982). This term is somewhat misleading because Traugott (1982: 248) claims
that this component is not only the locus of truth-conditional relations (gen-
erally, termed “propositional”) but that it also includes categories which need
pragmatic interpretation.3 For example, deictics are given as such a category:
It is pointed out that the features of deictics are directly connected with face-
to-face communication, because deictics are fully referential only if speakers’
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

and hearers’ (spatial) positions are known (Traugott Ibid.). Therefore, instead
of Traugott’s “propositional” component, I will use the term, ideational com-
ponent, to represent the component of language which is not strictly truth-
conditional, but more like what Levinson (1983: 132) calls “the total signifi-
cation or communicative content of an utterance”.4 Referential contrast and
pragmatically inferable contrast both add to the ideational component of lan-
guage.
Incidentally, among demo and dakedo’s four kinds of contrasting functions,
referential contrast and pragmatically inferable contrast seem to be the most
basic functions. They are basic because functional contrast and contrastive ac-
tions are identified only after the identification of referential or pragmatically
inferable contrast. (I will return to the basicness of referential and pragmat-
ically inferable contrasts later.) Below, I provide examples (1) and (2) which
respectively illustrate referential contrast and pragmatically inferable contrast.
(1) illustrates a case in which demo marks referential contrast. In fact, it
has not been easy to find clear cases of referential contrast such as “John is
tall, but Bill is short” in Japanese conversation. In addition to the preference
for metaphorical and overall indirect expressions in Japanese, discussed above,
subject and/or object deletion, which is a common phenomenon in Japanese,
seems to promote the infrequency of referential contrast.
(1) is an excerpt from a conversation which took place when my in-laws
visited my house in Tokyo. In this segment, we were discussing the activeness
of Sendai-city’s current tourism (Sendai is the city where my husband, Ren,
had lived and where his parents now live) since a popular TV historical drama
had recently been set in Sendai. In (1), Ren raises the issue that the popularity
of the city will fade away when the TV drama is over. Then his mother, Yasuko,
gives her opinion, which is the opposite of his.
(1)

c. auto ni nacchau n da kara.


out become NOM COP FP
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 Chapter 3

<‘Um, by next March, .. if (Sendai) does not make a profit by


next March, (it’s popularity and benefit due to the drama) will
all fade away.’>
Yasuko: d. Demo ne, nokoru no wa noko n janai,
But FP remain NOM TP remain NOM TAG
e. mae kara atta mono.
for a long time (the city) has been FP
<‘But, Sendai’s popularity will remain, since it has been there
for a long time.’>

After self-repairing his false start in (a), Ren points out in (b–c) the possible
decline in the popularity of Sendai upon the completion of the TV drama next
March. However, Yasuko, who lives in the city, predicts in (d) that its popu-
larity will remain as it is. In (c) and (d), the predicates of Ren’s and Yasuko’s
utterances (auto ni nacchau (fade away) vs. nokoru (remain)) are clearly stated,
and they are in semantic contrast. The portion (e), ‘Sendai’s popularity has
been there for a long time’, is support for Yasuko’s position in (d). Therefore,
Demo in (d) marks the referential contrast between Ren’s and Yasuko’s ideas
(in (c) and (d)): “the popularity will fade away” vs. “the popularity will re-
main.” (Demo in (d) does not mark a speaker’s contrastive action such as a
topic (/sub-topic) change (see 3.4.4): rather the topic in (a–c) (the activeness
of Sendai’s tourism) is maintained in (d–e).)
(2) illustrates a case of pragmatically inferable contrast. In an interview I
had with a college student, Miki, at my request, she told how she made ham-
burgers. In (2), Miki talks about how to deal with the chopped onion to be put
into the ground meat.
(2) Miki: a. Dee, anoo, watashi wa nama demo
And well I TP fresh even
b. ii keredomo, hontowa anoo, sukoshi
OK though actually well a.little
c. abura de itameta hoo ga ii kamo
oil in sauté had better may
d. shirenai.
e. Demo, shinnari shitara, anmari
But soft become much
f. itamesuginakutte ii kara,
overcook NEG OK
g. de, sore irete, . . .
and it put.in
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

<‘And well, though I don’t mind fresh (onion), it might be


better to sauté (the onion) in a little oil. But when (the onion)
becomes soft, don’t overcook it. And put it in (ground meat).’>

In (a–d), Miki suggests that ‘it might be better to sauté (the onion).’ Following
that, she says demo in (e) and adds another piece of information ‘don’t over-
cook it’ in (f). From what is uttered in (a–d) and (e–f), the following contrast
is pragmatically inferred: “advantage of cooking” vs. “potential disadvantage
of cooking”. This is the kind of contrast that I call pragmatically inferable con-
trast. In (2), Demo (e) marks this contrast. (Many examples of pragmatically
inferable contrast also appear in Chapter 4 (diachronic analysis of demo and
dakedo).)

. Functional contrast

.. Functional contrast marked by dakedo and kedo

Another contrast which demo and dakedo mark is a functional contrast. This is
the contrast between functionally differentiated portions of discourse. Demo
and dakedo contrast the functional relation of discourse portions, e.g. in a
question-answer sequence, the relation of the request for information, the
requested information, and any extra information, etc.
In discourse such as question-answer sequences or arguments, it is rela-
tively easy to see how each utterance in the discourse is related by its functional
role. I will examine question-answer sequences to show the functional con-
trasts.
Question-answer is well-known as an adjancency pair (Schegloff & Sacks
1973), i.e. two adjacent utterances, the first part of which requires the second
part, and the two parts are produced by different speakers. Adjacency pairs
such as question-answer seem a fundamental unit in conversational organi-
zation (Goffman 1976). Schiffrin (1987: 159–163) also suggests that a certain
kind of complementary social expectation may also sometimes govern the use
of adjacency pairs.
Schiffrin has found that her interviewees often provide more informa-
tion than what is propositionally needed to fulfill a question-answer sequence.
When they cannot answer “yes” to the interviewer’s yes-no question, they
sometimes make efforts to find some connection to its affirmative option to
avoid a direct denial and thus to save the interviewer’s face (Brown & Levinson
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 Chapter 3

1987: 2; Goffman 1967). When they cannot comply with the interviewer’s re-
quest, they often give their reason for this. Thus interviewees tend to add
information which is not requested in order to be informationally and socially
cooperative. All these efforts to give more information than is requested work
together with what Schegloff and Sacks (1973) call “a basic rule of adjacency
pair operation”. Such a rule requires that:
given the recognizable production of a first pair part, on its first possible com-
pletion its speaker should stop and a next speaker should start and produce a
second pair part from the pair type of which the first is recognizably a member.
(Schegloff & Sacks 1973: 74. Also cf. Levinson 1983: 304)

That is, the social expectation adds to this adjacency pair-rule.


We will see cases in which dakedo marks the contrast between the informa-
tion requested and the information not requested, the functionally differenti-
ated portions in the answer part.
(3), (4) and (5) are question-answer sequences which took place succes-
sively as part of my interview with Jun, a male graduate student at Georgetown
University. (3), (4) and (5) comprise one discourse which developed after my
original question, ‘Do you speak other languages in addition to English and
Japanese?’ I will treat (3), (4) and (5) as individual adjacency pairs to examine
how functional contrast is shown in conversation. (4) shows that dakedo has a
function parallel to that of English ‘but’ in a question-answer pair. By contrast,
(3) and (5) show that the speaker uses the other connecting expression kedo,
which functions similarly to dakedo.
(3) Noriko: a. Hoka no.. gaikokugo wa doo desu ka?
Other LK foreign.languages TP how COP
<‘How about other foreign languages?’>
Jun: b. Boku wa hoka no gaikokugo wa
I TP other LK foreign.languages TP
c. shaberenai desu ne.
speak can NEG COP FP
d. Uun, dekitara benkyoo shitai to wa
Um, possible-if study would.like.to QT
e. omoi masu kedo ne..
think but FP
f. Uun, zannen nagara.
Um, a.pity though
<‘I can’t speak other foreign languages. Um, although I’d like
to learn to speak them if possible. Um, though it’s a pity..’>
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

(4) Noriko: g. Koremade ni gakkoo de anoo benkyoo


By-now school at well study
h. shita toka.
PST
<‘Have you studied (any language) at school?’>
Jun: i. Hoka no gaikokugo?
Other LK foreign.languages?
<‘Other foreign languages?’>
Noriko: j. Hai..
Yes.
<‘Yes.’>
Jun: k. Daigaku no soo desu ne,
College LK well
l. Daigaku no toki ni,
College LK days in
m. Ee, dai ni gaikokugo desu ka ne.
Well, the second foreign.language COP Q FP
<‘At college, well, in college days, well (I’ve taken) the second
foreign language.’>
Noriko: n. A, soo desu ne.
Yeh, so COP FP
<‘Yeh, (we) have.’>
Jun: o. Are wa Furansugo datta kara.=
That TP French COP-PST FP
<‘It was French (that I’ve learned).’>
Noriko: p. =A, soo desu ka.=
Oh, so COP Q
<‘Oh, was it?’>
Jun: q. =Dakedo Furansugo wa moo wasurete
But French TP already forget-GER
r. shimaimashita ne.
PST FP
<‘But, I’ve already forgotten French.’>
(5) Noriko: s. Soo desu ka?=
So COP Q
<‘Have you?’>
Jun: t. =Hai. Hanasenai desu ne.
Yes. Speak can NEG FP
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 Chapter 3

u. Hanashitai kedo.
Speak want but
<‘Yes. I can’t speak it. Although I want to speak it.’>

In question-answer pair (4), I will first look at dakedo. In (g), I ask Jun ‘Have
you studied any (language) at school?’ Jun then requests clarification of my
question in (i), and I comply with his request in (j). Then Jun provides part
of the information requested in my original question (g) in (k–m), ‘the sec-
ond foreign language in college days’. After my backchanneling in (n), he gives
the requested information fully, ‘French’ in (o). However, Jun continues with
another piece of information in (q–r), ‘But (Dakedo), I’ve already forgotten
French.’ Thus the functional contrast marked in (4) is as follows:
Noriko: Request for Information X (g–h)
Jun: Compliance with request (k–o)
partial provision of Information X (k–m)
complete provision of Information X (o)
Dakedo Provision of additional Information Y (q–r)

Dakedo marks the contrast between the functionally differentiated portions of


discourse: what is requested (Information X) vs. what is not requested (Infor-
mation Y). It can also be noticed that dakedo in (q) marks a referential contrast
between the propositions in Information X and Y: ‘I’ve learned French (o)’ vs.
‘I’ve forgotten French (q–r)’.
I stated earlier that referential and pragmatically inferable contrasts are
basic among the four types of contrast marked by demo and dakedo. This is
because we (analysts) have to recognize what the functionally related portions
mean, before we actually discover their role in discourse. In other words, be-
fore we can realize the functional structure, we must differentiate the portions
of discourse according to the ideational meaning of each portion. It becomes
possible to label each portion ‘Request for Information X’, ‘Information Y’ etc.
only after we interpret what each portion means ideationally. Since referential
and pragmatically inferable contrasts are basic, they often co-occur with the
other two types of contrast; however, this co-occurrence is not obligatory.5
In (3), another connecting expression other than a conjunction, i.e. V +
kedo, is used to mark the functional contrast in a question-answer pair. In (a)
I pose the original question, ‘(In addition to Japanese and English you speak,)
how about other languages?’ Following (a), Jun gives a straightforward answer
in (b–c), ‘I can’t speak other foreign languages.’ Although he has given a full an-
swer to my question, Jun adds another piece of information, ‘Although I’d like
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

to learn to speak them’ in (d–e). (D–e) sounds cooperative to the interviewer.


Jun could have stopped after (b–c), i.e. the discourse could close as a complete
question-answer unless the interviewer brought up another topic/subtopic, or
posed another question which could open a new topic. However, Jun’s giving
the information not requested ((d–e), extra information) helps to continue our
conversation. More importantly, it saves the interviewer’s face: she might have
expected to develop the topic about foreign languages because she mentioned
it in her question.
In (d–e) Uun, dekitara benkyoo shitai to wa omoi masu kedo ne, we see a
connecting device at a unit-final position, V + kedo, instead of a conjunction
dakedo. (3’) provides a closer look at this device in (3).
(3’) . . . omoimasu + kedo
[S1 [V1 ] ]
think a conjunctive particle

A conjunctive particle kedo is appended to the main verb of this clause


omoimasu (think-polite form, cf. Martin 1964). In Japanese, verbs are strictly
required to be at the final position of a sentence (Kuno 1973: 3). What kedo usu-
ally does is to subordinate S1 (a sentence preceding kedo) to a main sentence
which usually follows kedo.
prototypical structure
[[S1 kedo] S2 ]
(sub.) (main)
In (3), however, the main sentence to which (d–e) is subordinate is the sentence
which precedes (d–e), i.e. (b–c).
Jun’s utterances (reversed)
[S2 [S1 kedo]]
(main) (sub.)
What happens here is in fact understood as the reverse order of subordinate
and main sentences (postposing) which takes place at times in Japanese. Jun’s
original discourse, b–c–d–e is actually the reversed version of a prototypical S1
+ kedo, S2 structure. The prototype of Jun’s original (b–c, d–e) thus would be
(d–e, b–c) ‘Although I’d like to learn to speak them, I can’t speak other foreign
languages’, i.e. Dekitara benkyoo shitai to wa omoimasu kedo, boku wa hoka no
gaikokugo wa shaberenai desu ne. This is a less marked (i.e. syntactically more
basic, cf. Huddleston 1984: 11) clause order than the original.
The functional contrast marked in (3) is as follows:
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 Chapter 3

Noriko: Request for Information X (a)


Jun: Information X (b–c)
Information Y kedo. (d–e)

Thus the formal difference between (4) and (3) is that in (4) an explicit con-
junction dakedo contrasts the functions in discourse; in (3) a conjunctive par-
ticle kedo marks the functional contrast (Information X vs. Information Y).
Kedo simultaneously marks the referential contrast; ‘I can’t speak other foreign
languages (b–c)’ vs. ‘I’d like to learn to speak other foreign languages (d–e).’
Another example of a question-answer pair is (5). It is repeated below for
convenience.
(5) Noriko: s. Soo desu ka?=
So COP Q
<‘Have you?’>
Jun: t. =Hai. Hanasenai desu ne.
Yes. Speak can NEG FP
u. Hanashitai kedo.
Speak want but
<‘Yes. I can’t speak it. Although I want to speak it.’>

In (5), the connecting device V + kedo is used, which is the same formal struc-
ture as (3). Following up Jun’s statement (q–r) in (4) ‘I’ve already forgotten
French’, I, as the interviewer, request clarification of his statement in (s) ‘Have
you (really forgotten it)?’ Jun clarifies in (t) ‘Yes. I can’t speak it’, then adds
his wish about French in (u). Here the referential contrast kedo (u) marks is ‘I
can’t speak it (t)’ vs. ‘I want to speak it (u).’ The formal structure of (5) is like
that of (3):
prototypical structure Jun’s utterance
[[S1 kedo] S2 ] [S2 [S1 kedo]]
(sub.) (main) (main) (sub.)
Jun’s utterance (t, u) is, in fact, the reversed version of its prototypical structure
(u, t).
The functional contrast in (5) is also like that in (3):
(J: Dakedo Information X (4)(q–r))
(5) N: Request for clarification of Information X (s)
J: Clarified Information X (t)
Information Y kedo (u)
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

In both (3) and (5), we have observed that the order of the main and the sub-
ordinate clauses is reversed. Although the prototypical sentence structure is
the order (sub.-main), it is also true that the reversed sentence pattern is in
common use. I suggest that the reversed pattern is used customarily as a strat-
egy in Japanese conversation: The speaker provides the main sentence first in
order to give the requested information right after the interviewer’s question;
then s/he goes to the postposed subordinate clause in order to add some ex-
tra information. The postposing is thus used as a convenient (and cooperative)
strategy which gives the information immediately demanded, then adds some-
thing extra. Postposing seems to happen in part because of the relatively free
word order in Japanese (cf. Kuno 1973: 3). In a kedo connection, a conjunc-
tive particle kedo is attached to a verb which is at the final position of a clause.
This connecting element (V + kedo) at a clause-final position, then, connects
the main and subordinate clauses of a sentence. Therefore, even if the order of
these two clauses is reversed, the relationship between them is clearly shown.
Thus far, we have seen that the functional contrast marked in a question-
answer sequence can be realized by two connecting expressions – one is a con-
junction dakedo, and the other is a conjunctive particle kedo. While dakedo is a
free morpheme, kedo is a bound morpheme which must be attached to a verb.

.. Another example of functional contrast

Thus far, in (3), (4) and (5), we have seen relatively simple functional contrasts
marked in each question-answer sequence (Information X vs. Information Y).
I will now look at an example where a more complex functional contrast is
marked by dakedo.
In the somewhat lengthy example (6), I ask another question (a–c) in
my on-going interview with Jun. The overall structure of the question-answer
sequence in (6) will be given later.
(6) Noriko: a. Nanka teineisa toka kangaeru to ne,
Well politeness like think FP
b. Igirisujin no hoo ga Amerikajin yori
the.British SB the.Americans
c. zutto Nihonjin ni chikai yoo na.
than the.Japanese close seem
d. Chikai,=
close
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 Chapter 3

<‘Well, as to politeness, (do you think) that the British are


closer to the Japanese than the Americans are?’>
Jun: e. =Un, un, soo desu ne.
Yeh yeh so COP FP
f. Maa, boku no semai ningen kankei kara
Well my limited human relations
g. amari ienai kedo..
much say can NEG but
h. amari suterotaipu mitai ni natte shimau
Very stereotypes like become
i. kara desu ne.
because COP FP
j. Dakedo, boku ga amari koo gaikoku tte iu
But, I SB much umm foreign.countries
k. yoona koto shiranakatta toki tte iu no
knew NEG when QT
l. wa, dooshitemo koo anoo kono kuni no hito
TP (can’t help) um well this country
m. wa kooiu kanji da tte iu fuu ni
TP this type COP QT
n. kimete shimau desho.
decide TAG
o. Dakedo, soo ja nakute, jibun ga nannin ka
But, so COP NEG, myself SB some
p. no hito to attari toka, ato, hito kara
LK people meet well others
q. kiitari, soko ni itta kuni no hito kara
hear there went country people
r. kiitari desu ne. Sore to ka, kooiu
hear COP FP And, here
s. tokoro ni kite iru hito de, ironna
in have come people various
t. Yooroppa no kuni kara kiteiru hito nanka
Europe LK countries come people
u. to hanashi shitetara.. yappari Yooroppa
with talk do anyhow Europe
v. tte iu no wa kanari hoshuteki.. de,
QT NOM TP rather conservative COP
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

w. hijooni kenjitsu na mono no kangaekata o


very sound things LK viewpoint
x. shita hito ga ooi n janai kana, to iu
do people SB many NOM COP NEG QT
y. kanji wa shimasu kedo ne.
impression do but FP
<‘Yeh, yeh. OK. Well, I can’t say much from my limited hu-
man relations, though. Because it could be rather a stereo-
typical opinion. But, before I became familiar with foreign
countries, I couldn’t help having the image that people from
this country are like this. But, through meeting several peo-
ple, hearing from others, those who have been there, not
from the image. Or, through talking with people, who are
here, from various European countries, I think that in Eu-
rope, many people seem to be rather conservative and have
very sound viewpoints.’>

In (a–c), I ask a question ‘As to politeness, (do you think) that the British are
closer to the Japanese than the Americans?’ Before this question is completed,
Jun starts to acknowledge the request of Information (X); ‘Yeh, yeh’ (e) may
also show agreement with the content of my question (a–c).
Then, instead of providing his answer right away, in (f–g) Jun shows his
inability to comply with my request: By saying ‘I can’t say much from my lim-
ited human relations’, he conveys what sounds like non-compliance. But the
reason for this non-compliance follows in (h–i) ‘Because it could be rather a
stereotypical opinion.’ Providing reasons performs remedial work, as Schiffrin
(1987: 159 and elsewhere) found in English discourse. (H–i) is a reason, but
also Jun’s negative evaluation of the notion of stereotypes, which I label as
Information (Y). (Y) contrasts with the following information which is (Z):
another opinion Jun wanted to provide about stereotypes, that goes from (j–n)
‘But (Dakedo), before I became familiar with foreign countries, I couldn’t help
having the image that people from this country are like this.’ Thus dakedo in
(j) marks the functional contrast, by linking Information (Y) and Information
(Z). At the same time, dakedo in (j) marks the pragmatically inferable contrast
“stereotypes are no good (h–i)” vs. “stereotypes still exist (j–n).”
After showing his reluctance (f–n) to answer my question, since he first
needed to clarify his opinion about stereotypes, Jun finally starts providing the
requested Information (X) in (o). Thus Information (X) is his opinion about
the Europeans’ way of thinking, implying their closeness to the Japanese in
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 Chapter 3

Figure 3.1 Overall functional structure of (6)

(o–y) which has been gained from his own experience: ‘I think the Europeans
are conservative and have sound points of view.’ This statement (o–y) is more
relevant to my question (a–c). Dakedo in (o) marks both the pragmatically
inferable contrast “opinion based on stereotypes” vs. “opinion not based on
stereotypes” and the functional contrast between two pieces of information
(i.e. what is not requested (j–n) vs. what is requested (o–y)).
Figure 3.1 illustrates the functional structure of example (6). It is clearly
shown that dakedo in (o) divides the structure of (6) into superordinate and
subordinate parts. Whereas my question (a–c) and Information (X) in (o–y)
form the superordinate part, the intervening discourse (a tangent before arriv-
ing at the main point, (e–n)) forms the subordinate part.6 I have mentioned
a social expectation which adds to the basic rule of adjacency pair operation
(see 3.3.1). I suggest that the subordinate part of the discourse in Figure 3.1 is
due to social expectation. Right after my request for information X (question,
a–c), Jun’s answer in fact starts in (e). However, in the digressive section (sub-
ordinate part), the speaker first presents a few socially-motivated deeds before
actually providing information more directly relevant to my question in (o–y).
Such socially-motivated deeds are acknowledging the question, showing inabil-
ity to comply, and providing the reason for non-compliance, all to be polite in
conversation.
Levinson (1983: 303–304) summarizes the characterization of adjacency
pairs along the following lines. Adjacency pairs are:
(i) adjacent, (ii) produced by different speakers, (iii) ordered as a first part and
a second part, (iv) typed, so that a particular first part requires a particular
second (part). . .

Focusing on (i) and (iv), Levinson (1983: 304) points out that “strict adja-
cency is actually too strong a requirement” and shows the frequent occurrence
of “insertion sequences” (Schegloff 1972) in which a question-answer pair is
embedded within another. One such nested adjacency pair structure is well ex-
hibited in Merritt’s (1976) example of “questions following questions in service
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

encounters”. Schiffrin (1982a: 10) also illustrates a case of nested structure in a


question-answer sequence: In her example, in the subordinate part the speaker
explains his lack of qualification to answer the question. My example (6) in
which the speaker shows his incompliance and its reason, as well as the exam-
ples in Merritt (1976) and Schiffrin (1982a), all indicate that the subordinate
part (intervening discourse) within a question-answer pair structure can attend
to a social expectation.
We have spent a great deal of time in this section discussing (6), an ex-
ample where dakedo displays functional and pragmatically inferable contrasts
simultaneously. In fact, dakedo in (o) also displays another contrast, contrastive
action. I will examine this in the next section.

. Contrastive actions

The fourth contrast demo and dakedo mark is contrastive action. I define con-
trastive actions as contrast between actions, which highlights some contrasting
aspect of the speaker-hearer interactional dynamics in the on-going discourse.
Four types of contrastive actions marked by demo and dakedo are found in my
Japanese data: (1) point-making, (2) claiming the floor, (3) opening the con-
versation, and (4) changing the topic. The contrasts marked in each function
are summarized as follows. In each case, the contrast lies between:
1. point-making: action of talking about material which is tangential in dis-
course (e.g. self-repairs, digression, interruption) vs. action of returning to
material essential in discourse
2. claiming the floor: Speaker A’s action of holding the floor vs. Speaker B’s
action of holding the floor
3. opening the conversation: action of opening a conversation vs. preceding
lack of action (no speech activity)
4. changing the topic: action of talking about Topic A vs. action of talking
about Topic B

Below, these four types of contrastive actions are examined.

Speaker A: Request for information (X) question


Speaker B: intervening discourse
Dakedo Information (X) answer

Figure 3.2 Return to the speaker’s point in question-answer


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 Chapter 3

.. Point-making device

... Point-making in question/answer


Many examples are found, in my data, in which demo and dakedo are used to
help make a speaker’s point. This point-making function has also been found
for ‘but’ in English conversation (Schiffrin 1987: 164–176).
The first example is (6), a question-answer sequence where we have al-
ready observed the pragmatically inferable and functional contrasts marked
by dakedo. In (6), before giving an answer to my question, Jun talked about
stereotyped images of countries. Before giving information more relevant to
my question, Jun digressed to a subtopic. When this subtopic ends, he says
dakedo in (o), and returns to the prior concern of providing an answer. This
returning to the speaker’s point (the information requested by the interviewer)
is the speaker’s contrastive action here. Figure 3.2 summarizes this action,
speaker-return in the question-answer sequence.
Speaker B returned to his point with dakedo, and finally provided the
requested information. Thus, dakedo in (o) in (6), in fact, marks not only prag-
matically inferable and functional contrasts (3.3.2) but contrastive action as
well, such that (6) is actually an example where three contrasts are marked by
dakedo.

... Point-making to index back to speaker’s position


(7) is taken out of a conversation between Mrs. K and her teen-age daughter,
Saki. In (7), Mrs. K asks Saki if she knows the story of the life of the principal
at her high school; after an answer is given, she goes back to her position which
had been established earlier.
(7) Mrs. K: a. Anata koochoosensei wa sensoo de ano
You principal TP war in well
b. goshujin nakusarete sorede okosan o
husband lost HON-GER and child DO
c. hikiageru toki ni nakushita tte iu
return when lost QT
d. ohanashi shitteru?
story know
<‘Do you know the story that your principal lost her husband
in the war and lost her child when she returned?’>
Saki: e. Shitteru yo.
I know FP
<‘I do.’>
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

Mrs. K: h. kata wa are ne soo iu eiga o mitara


person TP well that movie DO see-if
i. hitoichibai kanzuru tokoro ga
more than others moved place SB
j. are de shoo ne.
well TAG FP
<‘But a person in such a situation will be moved more than
others when she watches that movie. Don’t you think?’>

In this excerpt, Mrs. K’s general position that the principal is an admirable per-
son is suggested in (a–d); this seems to differ from Saki’s opinion in (g) ‘That’s
all!’ which shows Saki’s disagreement with her mother’s position. This general
position of Mrs. K will be sustained throughout discourse (7) and the follow-
ing discourse (8). Mrs. K’s purpose is not to start a story about the principal
in (a–d); rather, she mentions the story and checks on Saki’s shared knowledge
of it. In (e) Saki manifests her knowledge of the story. Mrs. K now can use
the story shared by the hearer as support for her position. After checking her
daughter’s knowledge of the story, Mrs. K needs to re-establish her general po-
sition that the principal is an admirable person. She thus returns to her general
position with demo in (f), and gives another comment (f, h–j) based on her
position. Demo in (f) thus marks the speaker’s return to her position. There
is no referential/pragmatically inferable contrast which demo in (f) marks. (7)
shows a contrastive action marked by demo, the speaker’s return to her position
provided earlier.
Following (7), Mrs. K’s position (The principal is an admirable person)
is interrupted by Saki’s question concerning whether the principal had been
teaching at her school since those days. After answering that she doesn’t know,
Mrs. K again says demo and makes another point, shown in (8).
(8) Mrs.K: a. Demo: kokoro ga tsuyoi kata de nai to.
But mind SB strong person COP NEG if
<‘But, if not a strong-minded person . . . (she couldn’t pursue
her path).’>
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 Chapter 3

After digressing to Saki’s subtopic (whether the principal had been teaching
at her school since then), Mrs. K still continues her main position. Demo
in (a) displays Mrs. K’s effort to return to her position. Based on this posi-
tion, she makes another point implying that if the principal were not strong-
minded, she couldn’t pursue her path. In the sense of getting back to the main
point, it is possible to say that demo in both (7) and (8) functions as a ‘POP’
marker (Polanyi 1978). (7) and (8) show where demo indexes/pops back to the
speaker’s position and functions as a point-making device. (9) is a similar ex-
ample in which the speaker uses a point-making device after she is challenged.
(9) is from another conversation between Mrs. K and Saki.
(9) Mrs. K: a. Dakara seiseki wa moo yudan shicha ikenai
So grades TP take your eyes off
b. shi, sore igai ni yappari kisoku o ano
shouldn’t besides anyway regulations DO
c. kichitto mamotte tte osshatta koto
properly obey-GER QT said
d. yoku oboeteru deshoo keredo.
well remember TAG but
<‘So you remember well that (your teacher) told us that we
shouldn’t take our eyes off your grades, and in addition that
you should obey the regulations properly, don’t you?’>
Saki: e. Mamotteru janai. Jaa watashi mamotte
Obey TAG Well I obey-GER
f. nai koto nante nai wa yo.
NEG things no FP
<‘I do obey (regulations)! Well there’s nothing I don’t obey!’>
Mrs. K: g. Dakedo anata wa /?/ wariaini sa soo iu
But you TP rather FP like that
h. koto ittemo sono toki dake wa moo a tto
say-if that time only TP ah QT
i. omotte ki o tsukeru kedo chotto koo,=
think attention DO pay but soon
<‘But you rather become careful, being startled only when
the teacher says such a thing, but soon, ..’>
Saki: j. =Sonna no omowareta tte . . .
Like that NOM think PASS QT
<‘Even if I was thought to be like that. . . ’>
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

Mrs. K is arguing with her somewhat rebellious daughter regarding the points
about which Saki should be careful and about which she had been warned by
her high school teacher. In (a–d), Mrs. K repeats the warnings from the teacher,
‘Saki shouldn’t take her eyes off her grades and should obey regulations.’ By
doing so, Mrs. K in fact establishes her position in this conversation that Saki
should be careful. In (e), Saki challenges by making her point ‘I DO obey reg-
ulations!’ Then Mrs. K begins her turn with dakedo and defends her position
in (g–i) until her utterance is interrupted by Saki in (j). Thus (9) shows a case
where dakedo is used to mark the speaker’s return to her position after being
challenged.

.. Claiming the floor

The second type of contrastive action marked by dakedo and demo is to claim
the floor. Demo and dakedo mark this action especially in the situation where
the speaker makes an effort in order to claim the floor. In other words, it is the
situation where the speaker attempts such an action, going through difficulty
in getting a floor in the on-going conversation. In my data, many examples are
seen in multi-party conversations or in heated discussions. (10) illustrates an
example. In this conversation, three Japanese female graduate students, Midori,
Mari and I, were discussing computers. Showing a special interest in getting a
computer, I attempt to point out the shortcomings of my word processor in
(a–e).
(10) Noriko: a. De atashi wa seven o okutte
And I TP seven DO send-GER
b. ima tsukatteru no ne. Dakedo
now using NOM FP But
c. are wa motomoto nihongo waapuro de,
it TP originally Japanese word.processor COP
d. eigo no vaajon wa, nanteiukana
English LK version TP say

g. Eibun kinoo tsuiteru,


English version carry
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 Chapter 3

h. eibun kinoo tte iuno?


English version QT say

Noriko: <‘And I’m now using ‘Seven’ which I sent. But it’s originally
a Japanese word processor, and its English version is, say, not
really. . . ’>
Midori: <‘But can’t you do it? Doesn’t it carry the English version, if
it’s called the English version?’>

In (e), my turn is not completed. However Midori’s demo in (f) latching


onto my utterance starts her question to me ‘Can’t you do it (use the English
version)?’ Midori got the floor at a location which is not a TRP (transition
relevance place; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson 1978) (henceforth, I call such a
location a non-TRP). I think that the use of demo is less likely if the floor is
claimed at a TRP, because a TRP is originally a location where speakers may
change (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson 1978). Taking the floor at a TRP is indeed
cooperative because such transition allows “the current speaker to reach a pos-
sible completion point” (Schiffrin 1987: 174). In contrast, taking the floor in
the middle of the current speaker’s utterance, as in (10), is an uncooperative
transition since it does not allow for a possible completion of the utterance.7 I
assume that Midori must have made more effort to take the floor in (f) in (10)
than if she had attempted the same action at a TRP. Demo in (f) marks such
speaker-effort to claim the floor, as well as the pragmatically inferable contrast
“Inefficiency of the word processor” in (b–e) vs. “its capability” in (f–h).
Although I will not discuss them here, in other examples of claiming the
floor in my data, the utterance which demo prefaces sometimes latches onto the
preceding uncompleted utterance of another speaker.8 This suggests that demo
is part of the speaker’s effort to get a turn and hold the floor at non-TRPs.
We have seen that in Japanese conversation demo and dakedo mark the
contrastive actions of claiming the floor with effort as well as of making the
speaker’s point (3.4.1). These two types of action have also been found in the
use of ‘but’ in English conversation (Schiffrin 1987: 164–176). However, there
are two other contrastive actions marked by demo and dakedo, but not shared
by ‘but’. I will now turn to these, “opening the conversation” and “changing the
topic”.
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

.. Opening the conversation

When people get together, it seems that very often somebody in the group tries
to start a conversation by introducing a particular topic. After a discussion
about our group project, for example, Mari, Midori and I went to the student
hall to have a break. (The three graduate students know each other fairly well
as classmates.) First, we talked about plans for the summer for a while. Ear-
lier in the same day Mari had brought up plans for the upcoming summer: we
knew already that Midori and I were going to visit Japan. Prior to (11), while
walking to the student hall, I remember that we were not talking, or not paying
attention to a single topic. When we found seats and sat down, I turned on a
recorder and Mari started talking:
(11) Mari: a.Demo, nihon ni kaettara tanoshimi desu ne.
But Japan to go.back fun COP FP
b. Minasan. Oishii mono ippai tabete kite
Guys. Delicious food much eat come
c. kudasai.
give
<‘But, it will be fun, won’t it, when you go back to Japan,
guys? Eat a lot of delicious food.’>
Noriko: d. Nee. E, kaeranai no?
Yeh. Well go.back NEG
<‘Yeh. Well, won’t you go back?’>

Notice that (a) is the first utterance of the entire conversation. By saying demo,
Mari tries to enter into a conversation and furnishes the first topic “it will be
good when you go back to Japan (for vacation).” Notice also that there is no ref-
erential contrast. Because (a) is the first utterance in discourse, there is nothing
to refer to before (a) is made. Even without marking referential contrast, demo
in (a) was clearly heard as a marker to start a conversation by the other two par-
ticipants. Demo in this case marks a contrastive action by connecting no speech
activity (silence prior to (a)) and a lively conversation. Demo thus contrasts
acts, i.e. no speech activity vs. speech activity (i.e. opening a conversation).
Another example of a speaker’s effort to open a conversation is seen in (12).
(12) Mrs. K: a. Moo kore kyoo de moo owari ni shimasu
Soon this today soon end make
b. kara moo hitoban kyooryoku shite kudasai
because one-night cooperate
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 Chapter 3

c. ne.
FP
<‘Please cooperate in this one more night since we will finish
this (recording) today.’>
Mr. K: d. N?
Hmm?
<‘Hmm?’>
Mrs. K: e. Demo daibu hieta de sho, a hieteru
But quite cooled TAG well cool
f. de sho?
TAG
g. Moo shooshoo no are datte hienai n desu
Well a.little LK that cool NEG NOM
h. mon kyoo.
today
<‘But (the room) got quite cooled, well it’s quite cool, isn’t
it? Well (the air conditioner) doesn’t cool (the room) easily
today.’>
Mr. K: i. Un, zuibun hieteru ne.
Yeh, quite cool FP
<‘Yeh, it’s quite cool.’>
Mrs. K: j. Atsui desu ne, hontoo. Denwa sureba
Hot COP FP really Call make-if
k. mukae ni itte ageru noni.
meet go-GER give though
<‘Isn’t it hot! If you gave me a call, I’d drive to meet you,
though.’>

(12) is a conversation between Mr. and Mrs. K when Mr. K returned home from
work. Mrs. K first asks her husband for cooperation in recording conversation
for the last day in (a–c). I regard (a–c) as meta-linguistic activity of talking
about the conversation that will follow. In (e) Mrs. K then attempts to enter
into conversation: this kind of exchange (the segment after (e)) is imagined
to take place as a daily routine upon her husband’s return. Mrs. K starts the
conversation with demo and utterances implying that it was hot that day (e–
h), then says that she could drive (to the station, perhaps) to meet him (j–k).
Following (12), she mentions that the bath is ready, all to show her appreciation
for her husband’s labor for the day.
I suggest that demo in (e) marks the speaker’s contrastive action of starting
the conversation:9 here she is opening the conversation, instead of engaging
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

in the metalinguistic activity of talking about the conversation. There is no


referential or pragmatically inferable contrast: There is no ideational contrast
between what precedes demo (a–c) and what follows demo (e–h). Thus it is
more plausible to take this as a case of a contrastive action contrasting the pref-
ace to the conversation (a–c) with the actual conversation upon the husband’s
return (e–k). It is also noted that demo in (e), as well as in (11), denotes a frame
shift.

.. Changing the topic

The fourth contrastive action marked by dakedo and demo is change of topic.
This strategy is commonly used in Japanese conversation. There is a more spe-
cialized conjunction in Japanese, tokorode,10 which prior scholarship (e.g. Ide
1973; Tanaka 1984; Shoogaku Tosho (Ed.) 1981 (Shoogakkan Japanese Dictio-
nary)) identifies as a conjunction for changing topics. However, tokorode does
not occur often when changing topics in my corpus of naturally-occurring con-
versation: In “A Housewife’s Discourse Corpus” (Ide et al. 1984) tokorode is
used only twice.11 Instead, throughout my entire corpus, people use demo and
dakedo when they shift topics. I suggest that this is an established strategy in
Japanese conversation.12
In the following examples (13) and (14), when a sub-topic of the conversa-
tion changes, demo seems to mark this change. In Schiffrin (1988: 3), the most
general notion of “topic” is “what something is about”. Schiffrin suggests that
there are differences among scholars as to the size of a topic: (1) entities such
as people, objects and ideas, (2) propositions encoded at the clause or sentence
level, and (3) general frameworks or macro-propositions underlying an entire
text, something like the “title” of a story. In this analysis, I tentatively take the
third definition of topic, i.e. the largest size.
When the talk in (13) took place, the three women were comparing the
convenience of word processors with computers. The topic of this conversa-
tion is comparison between word processors and computers. Under this topic,
smaller units of topic (“what is talked about”, i.e. sub-topics) change in this
conversation. In (a–b) Mari tries to provide a sub-topic “people in the MBA
program buy their own computers.” However, in (c–h), latching onto (b),
Midori also tries to furnish another sub-topic.
(13) Mari: a. MBA no hito nanka wa jibun de katteru
MBA LK people like TP themselves buy
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 Chapter 3

b. mitai ne.=
seem FP
Midori: c. =Demo ne, gakkoo de kau to sa, . . .
But FP school at buy FP
d. daigaku n naka de aaiu Educational program
university inside that Educational program
e. mitai n de,
like NOM
f. IBM toka Apple wa nan paasento biki?
IBM or Apple TP what percent discount
g. Yonju (p)paasento biki gurai de kaeru n da
40 percent discount about buy NOM COP

Mari: <‘People in MBA seem to buy their own ones.’>


Midori: <‘But, if we buy one at school, . . . at university through some-
thing like Educational program, we can buy IBM or Apple at what
percent discount? At about 40 percent discount, we can buy one.’>
Noriko: <‘Really?’>

Midori provided a new sub-topic “we can buy a computer at a discount at


school” in (c–h) and we talked on this sub-topic for a while. Therefore (c) is
thought of as a point of shifting to a new sub-topic. Demo (ne)13 in (c) marks
the speaker’s sub-topic change. Demo (c) seems not to mark a pragmatically
inferable contrast, because nothing in (a–b) is in contrast with what is inferred
from (c–h). If inferences were derived from (a–b), such as that MBA people buy
computers from places other than school or that they buy computers without a
discount, there would be inferred contrasts between (a–b) and (c–h).
(14) also illustrates that demo marks a sub-topic change. In this segment,
we talk about composition (writing). Mari says ‘I’m weak in writing’ in (a). She
sounds discouraged. I, then, try to provide a new sub-topic about Dr. X’s class
in (b), to encourage her.
(14) Mari: a. Kaku no nigate da waa. Honto.
write NOM weak COP FP really
<‘I’m weak in writing, really.’>
Noriko: b. Ya, demo, Dr. X no kurasu mo totte ita de
um but GN class also take PST
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Functions of the conjunctions demo and dakedo 

c. sho. Kare nanka mo kanari kibishikute ne.


TAG he also rather strict FP
<‘Um but, I was also taking Dr. X’s class. He was also rather
strict.’>

In (a), Mari confessed her having a hard time in writing. Therefore, I informed
her that many others (such as those in Dr. X’s class) were also suffering a hard
time with writing, implied in (b–c). Demo in (b) marks a pragmatically infer-
able contrast “Just Mari is suffering a hard time with writing” (a) vs. “Many
others are suffering a hard time with writing” (b–c). After my utterance in
(b–c), the three participants talked about Dr. X’s class for a while. Again, in
(14) the first utterance in (b–c) beginning with demo seems the point where
the new sub-topic develops. Thus, demo in (b) marks a sub-topic change. My
act of changing the sub-topic here can be seen as a face saving strategy for Mari
who originally mentioned the hardship.

. Demo and dakedo: Markers of contrast

In this chapter, we have seen that the so-called adversative conjunctions demo
and dakedo mark four kinds of contrast: referential contrast, pragmatically in-
ferable contrast, functional contrast and contrastive actions. I suggested that
among these contrasts, the referential and pragmatically inferable contrasts are
the most basic. Perhaps as a consequence of this basicness, we have seen that
referential and pragmatically inferable contrasts often co-occur with the other
two contrasts.
We have seen that demo and dakedo mark a contrast between functionally
related portions of discourse. It has been revealed that another connecting ele-
ment other than conjunctions fulfills the same function of marking functional
contrast. That is, the clause-final connecting device, V + a conjunctive particle
kedo.
Although the fact that so-called adversative conjunctions, demo and
dakedo, mark referential and functional contrasts could have been predicted
by relying on previous studies, the additional function of marking contrastive
actions was not predicted by prior scholarship. This newly-discovered function
is discourse/pragmatic function, indeed. We have found that demo and dakedo
mark four types of contrastive actions in Japanese: (1) they are point-making
devices in question/answer sequences, and relatedly, they help index back to
the speaker’s position, (2) they claim the floor; (3) open the conversation; and
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 Chapter 3

(4) change the topic/sub-topic. (1) and (2) are also found in the use of ‘but’ in
English (Schiffrin 1987: 164–176); however (3) and (4) have been found only
in Japanese data.
As mentioned in (1.1.2.1), my early interest was in the relation between the
most frequently-used conjunctions in Japanese conversation and their prag-
matic functions. As seen, demo and dakedo mark pragmatically inferable con-
trasts and contrastive actions that show pragmatic functions. Therefore, in the
case of demo and dakedo, the idea that the most frequently-used conjunctions
in Japanese conversation have pragmatic functions is supported.
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Chapter 4

Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo


(diachronic analysis)

Let us now look at the historical aspect of demo and dakedo. While I have dis-
cussed the use of the two conjunctions in Present Day Japanese (PDJ) together
(Chapter 3), I will examine them separately in the diachronic analysis. This
is because while the two conjunctions have parallel functions in Present Day
Japanese, the histories of the two words diverge, simply because of their mor-
phological difference. The morphemes that constitute each of the two words
first appeared at different stages in history and each pursued its own develop-
mental path. In this section, I trace the evolution of the two conjunctions and
attempt to reveal how they have developed into discourse markers, relating this
process to Traugott’s (1982) suggested functional-semantic model of language1
(see also 1.2.1.3).
Before starting the diachronic analysis of demo and dakedo, I will suggest
the basic relationship between the four types of contrast marked by demo and
dakedo, referential, pragmatically inferable and functional contrasts, and con-
trastive actions, and the three domains identified in functional-semantic mod-
els of language. When marking referential or pragmatically inferable contrast,
demo is assumed to have an ideational function. When demo marks functional
contrast it is considered to have a textual function. When it marks contrastive
actions it is suggested to have an expressive function. However, it must be also
noted that the relation between the contrastive functions of adversative con-
junctions and the suggested three functions of language can not be a clear-cut
one-to-one correspondence. This is because there can be functions running
between the three functions of language or because there are other kinds of
functions of language which do not fall into Traugott’s (1982) or Halliday and
Hasan’s (1976) trichotomy (cf. Jakobson 1960; Lyons 1977).
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 Chapter 4

. Pragmaticalization of demo

In this section, I examine the historical process by which the unit-final element
V-te + mo seems to have developed into the initial demo. There are indeed a
few different views on the formation of the sentence-initial conjunction demo
in the prior studies of the field. It is the most difficult part of this kind of di-
achronic examination to judge which path (or what path) the item has actually
traced. Such a path is invisible. It has not been audio-recorded, nor can be
evidenced. I rather see that demo comes from de (a gerundive form of the so-
called copula da) + mo (an adversative clause-final particle) mainly from the
viewpoint of analysis of discourse/spoken language.
First I should review the two assumptions about word-formation of demo
type connectives (Onodera 2000) shown in previous studies. One is that
the correspondent clause-final connecting expressions develop to shift into
the sentence-initial position and work as independent demo type connec-
tives/conjunctions. The other is that demo type conjunctions are formed based
on the construction [so type demonstrative + copula d]. I support the for-
mer assumption from the standpoint of analysis of discourse/spoken language.
However, both views will be briefly reviewed.
The former view assumes that the clause-final connecting expressions V-te
+ mo and V + kedo developed to be lexicalized as sentence-initial independent
and conjunctive elements, demo and dakedo. This standpoint is implied in Mio
(1995: 207–212), Nagayama (1970: 26–27) and Kyogoku and Matsui (1973: 115,
118–119). As for word-formation, Kyogoku and Matsui (Ibid.: 115) states that
“Daga, temo and naredomo were detached from the preceding sentence and be-
came independent [sentence-initial conjunctions].” Another page of Kyogoku
and Matsui (Ibid.: 118–119) writes that “[as for] daga, dakara, datte, dewa and
demo, elements formed as <a verb or a proverb + a conjunctive particle [ga,
kara, wa, mo etc.]> shift into conjunctions.”
Mio’s classic which analyzed spoken Japanese (Grammar of Spoken Japanese,
first published in 1942, reprinted in 1995) offers an interesting description
implying word-formation of demo type conjunctions.
(1) Boku wa kimi o sonkee site iru.
I TP you DO respect
Sonkee site iru kara sukui ni kita.
Respect because save come-PST
<‘I have a lot of respect for you. Because I have a lot of respect for you, I
came to save you.’>
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

(2) Sorya, watasi wa muron baka desu wa.


Well I TP certainly fool COP FP
Baka desu keredomo, niisan mo baka yo.
Fool COP although elder.brother also FP
<‘I am of course a fool. Although I am a fool, so you are.’>
(from Sooseki Natsume Gubijinsoo, cited in Mio 1995: 207–208)

Offering examples (1) and (2) (and five similar cases in his book), Mio
(Ibid.: 207–208) explains that in these examples the beginning part of the sec-
ond sentence is repetition of the last part (predicate) of the preceding sentence.
The language style (either da-style, desu-style or degozaimasu-style2 ), which
indicates the politeness level in Japanese is also repeated because in a Japanese
sentence, style always appears sentence-finally. Here, instead of repeating the
predicate of the first sentence, the proverbs da or desu (degozaimasu) is used
(Mio Ibid.: 208) to replace such a predicate. Use of da/desu at the beginning of
the second sentence can avoid redundancy, which sometimes arises because of
the repetition. Da/desu functions as a pro-predicate. Da or desu plus the follow-
ing conjunctive particle, e.g., kara (example 1) or keredomo (example 2) then
function as conjunctions sentence-initially, which, as a result, is an economical
and effective discourse device (see also 4.4.1 on da’s pro-predicate function).
In my tape-recorded conversations of Present Day Japanese, too, the dis-
course pattern shown in (1) and (2) appears frequently. It seems that in our
natural production of spoken Japanese, repetition of the predicate of the pre-
ceding sentence is in frequent use, then the replacement of such repetition by
da or desu (degozaimasu) is a useful strategy in conversational management.
This usefulness in language use (or in our communication) may have pro-
moted the expanding use of initial demo and dakedo. It is assumed that useful
demo and dakedo have gradually come to be used by more and more speakers
and eventually recognized as sentence-initiating markers and conjunctions. I
support this view on word-formation of demo type conjunctions: i.e. based
on the clause-final connecting device [copula da, de or desu + connecting
particle (e.g. mo, kedo, keredo and kara)], the initial demo type conjunctions
developed.3
The latter assumption about the word-formation of demo type conjunc-
tions suggests that these conjunctions come from the construction [so type
demonstrative + copula da]. The following list exemplifies:
soredakara → dakara
soredemo → demo
sorede → de
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 Chapter 4

sorenara → nara
soodakedo → dakedo

This view is implied in Tanaka (1984: 113) among others. In this view, it is as-
sumed that soredemo was originally sorenitemo, composed of [a demonstrative
pronoun, sore] + ni, which is an inflected form of an archaic copula nari + a
particle te + a particle mo. In Tanaka’s perspective, the initial conjunction demo
came from the expression, sorenitemo. Although I declared my support to the
former view, Tanaka’s opinion is also plausible. As mentioned above, since it
is indeed difficult to judge the very way the item has come along, for a safer
conclusion, in the next section I will analyze an example of ‘-nitemo’, too.
Once the former view of formation of demo and dakedo is taken, there is
still diversity in treatment of structure of V-te + mo, the source element of
demo. While the treatment of the structure of the source element of dakedo
as da + kedo seems substantially consistent among scholars, there are differ-
ent treatments about how to look at the structure of V-te + mo. I briefly
review the main points in this controversy which are relevant to my study.
First, many previous works in Kokugogaku (National Language Studies)4 re-
gard te as a conjunctive particle. Kokugogaku considers the sequence te + mo
as a conjunctive particle + another particle, and it suggests that this sequence
later developed into one conjunctive particle, temo (e.g. Shoogakkan Japanese
Dictionary (Shoogaku Tosho (Ed.) 1981); Uchio 1973). Tokieda (1950) and
Yuzawa (1954) explain that temo is one conjunctive particle. Another group
of researchers (those on whom my perspective is based e.g. Hinds 1986: 84;
Jorden 1962 Part 1: 46; Jorden 1987 Part 1: 94; Kuno 1973: 28 and elsewhere;
Martin 1975: 330) look upon te as part of a verbal, i.e. gerundive.
Researchers from both positions consider that mo (an adversative conjunc-
tive particle) is appended to te, and there seems general agreement on the func-
tion of te + mo. Konoshima (1960: 148) in Kokugogaku states that “te is a particle
which expresses continuation without considering whether the connection is
adversative or affirmative”. Yuzawa (1970a: 278–280) also in Kokugogaku lists
the functions of the particle te as “to link two matters, prior and upcoming” and
“to express cause-result relationship”. What the two scholars describe conforms
exactly to what we think of as the functions of -te gerundive.
In addition, as pointed out in Uchio (1973: 94), the particle mo seems to
have first appeared earlier than temo. Uchio writes that:
the sentence-final particle mo evolved into an adversative conjunctive particle
during the end of the Heian period [the end of the 12th century] and the
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

Kamakura period [from the end of the 12th century through the mid 14th
century]. [Bracketed information is my contribution]

Shindo (1973: 185) also provides a similar view:


a conjunctive particle mo which expresses an established adversative condi-
tion first occurred in the mid Heian period [the end of the 10th century] and
spread in the Kamakura period [ditto].

According to these Kokugogaku views, it is apparent that mo appeared earlier


than temo as a particle expressing adversative meaning. Consequently, before
the temo connection occurred (e.g. ittemo meaning “although (S)5 goes”), there
was another adversative connecting device V-noun modifying form + mo (e.g.
ikumo meaning “although (S) goes”). However, in this study, I will start by ob-
serving the time when the V-te + mo device first arose, because it is the element
directly related to the developed element demo. Also, for analysis of this chap-
ter, I will observe the Japanese language only after the Muromachi period from
which standard Japanese/Tokyo Japanese flows.
As for language data for the diachrony of demo and dakedo, one impor-
tant point should be noted. Both expressions, demo and dakedo, are used in
Present Day Standard Japanese. This Standard Japanese has developed from
Edo Japanese through Tokyo Japanese. Edo is the old name for Japan’s capi-
tal, which was renamed in 1868 and is now called Tokyo. Since the Tokugawa
Shogunate government started in Edo in 1603, Edo developed rapidly to be-
come a big city. Japanese spoken in this city has gradually matured into the
shape of a standard, along with the development of the city (Matsumura
1998: 3). This is one developmental path which has led to today’s Standard
Japanese, a language similar to one spoken in and around Tokyo (Kanto) area.
(Tokyo is located in the Kanto area. Kanto is located in the East part of Japan.)
Meantime, there is another developmental path of language, which has led to
Kansai (Kamigata) Japanese. Before the capital was opened in Edo, Kyoto, a
city in the West part of Japan (Kansai), had been the capital for 200 years since
Muromachi period. In those days Kamigata Japanese spoken in this capital had
been regarded as standard (Ibid.: 19–23). The important point is the difference
between the languages of West and East Japan, which have their own diachronic
and evolutionary paths. In each language, each specific expression or word has
evolved in its own diachrony. Thus, it is significant to capture such diachrony
in consistency of language data. Although many works still observe the data
mixed of Kansai (West) and Kanto (East) Japanese, in this chapter I carefully
chose the sources to see the evolution of Tokyo standard in which demo and
dakedo, the expressions in question, have emerged and been used.6 In addi-
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 Chapter 4

tion, another importance in data choice was that the origin of today’s Tokyo
or Standard Japanese seems the beginning of Edo Japanese or at the earliest
the late Muromachi Japanese. That is, I should see the Japanese language after
Muromachi period to observe the development of demo/dakedo. It is common
practice in historical Japanese linguistics to consider language development
from the Muromachi period (14th century – 16th century) through today as
the path that Tokyo or Standard Japanese has taken.7
One more thing must be noted before proceeding the diachronic analy-
sis. (This note is effective in the two chapters on diachronic analysis, Chapters
4 and 6.) In this study, when the first appearance of an item is discussed, this
means the first time that I have found a particular expression with a given func-
tion in my data. In the diachronic chapters, I will provide the tables that show
the time lines of expressions (to indicate when each expression starts and is
used). However, these time lines should be understood as descriptive devices
only. That is, I treat the appearance of a form/function correlation in my data
as a description of when something occurred in my data – not a description of
when something occurred in the language.
It will be helpful to show where and when the different forms are found,
before showing my specific analysis. Table 4.1 presents a summarized chrono-
logical view of clause-final V-te + mo, demo, clause-final V + kedo and
dakedo. In the table, the point at which each item starts in my data and then
continues is shown.

.. Clause-final V-te + mo

The earliest examples of the clause-final connecting device V-te + mo are seen
in Muromachi Noo play scripts. (3) illustrates an example of V-te + mo taken
out of Jinenkoji (before 1384). It is an utterance by the main character.
(3) Jinenkoji (before 1384)
a. Mi o kokkani kudakite mo,
body DO now break-GER but
b. kano mono o tasuken tame nari,. . .
that person DO save purpose COP
<‘Although my body would fall apart, it (my body falling apart) is to
save that person. . . ’>

V-te + mo in (a) forms a connecting device but it is within a sentence. It marks


a contrast pragmatically inferred from (a) and (b): “it can be a problem that
my body would fall apart” vs. “it is no problem that my body would fall apart
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

Table 4.1 Chronological view of final V-te + mo, demo, final V + kedo and dakedo

* ‘b’ stands for before’. The years prefaced by ‘b’ are those of the death of the playwrights,
because of the unavailability of the exact dates of publication.
** (W) indicates that the text is written in Kamigata Japanese (Japanese used in West Japan).
As for the Japanese data from the Edo era, basically the texts for analysis are written in Edo
and Tokyo Japanese, to be consistent. However, as mentioned in 4.1 and 1.1.4, a few Kamigata
texts were exceptionally analyzed for reference.
† Japanese language from Muromachi period onward is regarded as a course, i.e. the course

of ‘modern (kindai) Japanese’.

(for saving that person)” (b). This marking of the adversative sense mostly con-
tributes to the ideational function of language. V-te + mo has an ideational and
a clause-connecting function.
V-te + mo in (a) seems to have a function linking a and b.
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 Chapter 4

As mentioned, another expression, -nitemo, which later appears and is used


as -demo, is another possibility of the source element of the initial demo. An
example of such an expression will be also analyzed here. (4) is an excerpt from
Ukiyoburo (1809), right after a tumult caused by the young women.
(4) Ukiyoburo (1809)
Woman a. Ima no yo sekee jaa nakuto
Today LK age world in cry
b. kuwau no nenesan demo.
eat LK women COP although
c. Mumenmoku jaa nee wa na.
absurd COP NEG EMP FP
<‘Even today’s young women like them are not absurd, are
they?’>

The expression ‘nenesan demo’ was shifted from ‘nenesan nitemo’. ‘-Nitemo’ is
constructed as: [an inflected form of an archaic copula nari, ni] + a particle te
+ a particle mo. Some assume that the part, demo, as in b. becomes an indepen-
dent and initial conjunction demo. In (4) -demo in (b) expresses the adversative
sense, i.e. ‘although I (the speaker) cannot understand the young women who
caused such a tumult, they shouldn’t be just absurd.’ This function contributes
to the ideational function. -Demo in (4b) seems not to carry an explicit clause-
nor sentence- linking function.
Through the analysis of (3) and (4), it is seen that the clause-final V-te +
mo has the ideational function and a clause-connecting function, and -demo
which is a development of -nitemo, carries the ideational function.

.. Demo as a discourse marker

The expression seems to have first appeared as demo in the sentence-initial


position in the 18th century kobanashi-bon texts. In the examples of demo of
those days we see textual and expressive functions. Therefore, demo is con-
sidered to be not only a conjunction but also a discourse marker. We will see
that its expressive function is accomplished by a particular contrastive action,
‘refutation’.
Two cases of demo are found in the Edo humorous short stories (kobanashi-
bon). Niwaka dooshin (1772), a story, contains a case of demo in the descrip-
tive rather than the conversational part of the text. Another story Kake-suzuri
(1775) contains a case of demo in a conversational segment. I will illustrate the
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

latter case in (5). (5) demonstrates that demo in Edo kobanashi-bon text shows
the contrastive action, to mark ‘refutation’.
(5) Kake-suzuri (1775)
A: a. Shikashi, aitsu o
But that DO
b. motte itte mo, nan
bring-GER go-GER but, any
c. no yaku ni tatsu mai.
be of use NEG
<‘But, if (the thief) robs it (kake-suzuri), it will be of no use.’>
B: d. Demo omee, kane ga
But you, money SB
e. haitte iru jaa nee kai.
is TAG
<‘But, there’s money in it, isn’t there? Man.’>

In this story, the main character, A, was robbed of his inkstone case (kake-
suzuri). Kake-suzuri is a case in which to keep money or an account book, as
well as an inkstone and brushes. Right before (5), A said, ‘Oh, no, my inkstone
case is stolen!’ Then he continues (a–c), putting on a show of not caring. B
then refutes A’s idea in (d–e) with demo, because he knows that there is money
in the case, a fact that would lead B to infer that A should care. Following
(d–e), in fact, A provides the reason for his indifference to the theft, which
gives the punch line at the end of the story: ‘I don’t mind. Because although
there’s money in it, the key to the inkstone case is on my waist.’
In (5), demo in (d) marks the pragmatically inferable contrast: “The ink-
stone case will be of no use (a–c)” vs. “It will be of use (d–e).” By marking such
a contrast, demo serves ideational function. Simultaneously, the positions of
A and B (“I don’t care” vs. “I care”) are in functional contrast; which is also
marked by demo in (d). Here, it is seen that demo in (d) connects A’s utterance
(a–c) and B’s utterance (d–e). This connecting function serves intersententially.
It is regarded as textual function of language. Thus, demo in (d), at the begin-
ning of a sentence (utterance), seems to work as a conjunction. Finally, demo
marks B’s contrastive action of showing his refutation to A’s idea. Marking
the speaker’s contrastive action contributes to the expressive function. Demo
here is regarded not only as a conjunction but also as a discourse marker with
explicit textual and expressive functions.
As to the functional-semantic components of language, the sentence-initial
demo, which we first encountered in the Edo Japanese texts (the 18th cen-
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 Chapter 4

tury), is suggested to bear all three functions, ideational, textual and expressive
functions.
Another example of the initial demo is seen in another genre of Edo liter-
ature, share-bon. (6), an excerpt from Futsukayoi oosakazuki, shows a case of
demo, which functions similarly to (5).
(6) Futsukayoi oosakazuki (1784)
((Stage directions write) . . . The woman (Nyooboo) offers a comforter to
Chuubei)
Chuubei a. Futon wa irumei.
Comforter TP necessary not
<‘Comforter won’t be needed.’>
Nyooboo b. Demo konya wa samuu gozariyasu kara,
But tonight TP cold COP because
<‘But, it’s cold tonight, so . . . ’>
((Directions) Nyooboo, the woman, puts the futon on Chuubei’s shoulder,
and lighting a lantern, leads him to a boat . . . )

In (6), demo serves as a conjunction connecting the utterances, a and b. This


function contributes to textual function. Demo also marks a pragmatically in-
ferable contrast between a and b: “Comforter won’t be needed. vs. Comforter
will be needed.” Marking this contrast seems manipulated by ideational func-
tion. Lastly, demo indicates the speaker’s contrastive action, again, ‘refutation’.
Marking this kind of speaker’s action seems part of expressive function. Demo
in (b) carries ideational, textual and expressive functions.
In another genre of Edo literature, noo kyoogen, we encounter the frequent
use of the sentence-initial demo.
In kyoogen (Torahiro-hon, completed in 1792), the examples of demo typi-
cally show a particular function, to mark the speaker’s refutation of the other’s
preceding idea. As stated earlier, Japanese conversation often requires some
pragmatic inference to determine what is in contrast when a contrastive marker
is used. There seems degrees of inferencing required: while referential contrast
lies between propositions stated, i.e. no inferencing is required, and the con-
trast is directly conveyed by the lexical items, pragmatically inferable contrast
requires a certain amount of inferencing. The amount of inferencing necessary
depends on the particular example. Examples of both referential and pragmat-
ically inferable contrasts are seen in kyoogen scripts around the 18th century.
I first demonstrate a case with somewhat transparent referential contrast (7),
and go on to another case with more pragmatically inferable contrast (8).
(7) illustrates a use of demo in Suehirogari (1792).
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

(7) Noo kyoogen: Suehirogari (1792)


Lord: a. Sore wa daidokoro ni
That TP kitchen in
b. nan bon mo aru kasa ja.
several umbrella COP
c. Sore o motomete kuru
It DO get come
d. to iu koto ga aru mono ka.
QT NOM SB thing
<‘That is an umbrella, several of which are in our kitchen.
You shouldn’t have brought it back.’>
Retainer: e. Demo miyako no mono ga,
But capital LK people SB
f. ‘suehirogari’ ja to mooshita
fan COP QT say-PST
g. ni yotte motomete maitta.
because get-GER come-PST
<‘But, because people in the capital told me that it was
suehirogari (a fan), I brought it back.’>

In kyoogen, a story is typically simple and the same storyline appears in differ-
ent stories with slight modifications, e.g. with diverse stage props. (7) shows
one of such patterned stories in which the lord needs something (in (7), a fan)
and requests the retainer to go to the capital (Kyoto) and get it. The retainer
went all the way to Kyoto and thought that he got a fan (suehirogari). (Be-
cause of its shape which widens toward the end, a folding fan is metaphorically
called suehirogari (‘increasing prosperity as time goes by’).) However, what he
got was, in fact, an umbrella though it was also made of ribs and paper.
In (7), the lord says ‘It is an umbrella. You shouldn’t have brought it back.’
in (a–d). Then the retainer utters demo in (e) and tries to refute his lord’s idea
by giving his reason for getting that article, ‘Because the people told me it was
a fan, I got it.’ in (e–g). Here we see a more or less transparent referential con-
trast marked by demo, i.e. “it is an umbrella (a–d)” vs. “it is a fan (e–g).” The
two nouns, ‘umbrella (kasa)’ and ‘fan (suehirogari)’, are clearly stated, so the
ideational contrast is lexically explicitly recognized. Note, also, that demo in
(e) marks the functional contrast between the two positions taken by the lord
(a–d) and the retainer (e–g). In addition, a contrastive action is marked here:
the retainer’s refutation of his lord’s idea.
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 Chapter 4

Demo in (e) takes part in constructing ideational meaning: it brings about


and expresses the adversative meaning between (a–d) and (e–g). It also plays a
role in constructing textual meaning by linking the two utterances (a–d) and
(e–g): the textual function operates intersententially. Demo in (e) also con-
tributes to the expressive function by marking a ‘refutation’. In Torahiro-hon ky-
oogen, demo is likely to be somewhat specialized for the use of ‘refutation’. Demo
in (7) is involved in all three components in Traugott’s functional-semantic
model of language – ideational, textual and expressive components.
There are other cases of demo similar to (7) in this kyoogen script.
I will examine another example of demo from this time period (the end
of 18th century) for which the determination of the contrast requires more
inference.
As written in Dictionary for Interpreting Classical Literature (Shiraishi et
al. (Eds.) 1953: 109), “a kyoogen story basically consists of a simple storyline”
and there are several patterned kyoogen storylines on which each story is based.
The stories, in fact, can be classified into groups according to the characters in
the story (cf. Ibid.). This is why we see many cases of demo in patterned stories
and with patterned expressions. One typical group of characters consists of
a husband and wife and the wife’s family, the husband having been “adopted
into” the wife’s family. The last example of demo from around the 18th century,
(8) is taken from a story of this type. In many cases in this story-group, a good-
natured husband gets beaten by his wife during an argument.
(8) Noo kyoogen: Okadayuu (18th century)
Husband: a. Otto ni mukoote
Husband address-GER
b. kuroota ka to iu
ate Q QT say
c. koto ga aru mono ka.
thing SB
<‘You shouldn’t address your husband and ask “Did you
eat (kuroota)?”’>
Wife: d. Demo konata no yoo ni
But you LK like
e. kuuta mono o wasururu
ate thing DO forget
f. to iu koto ga aru mono
QT thing SB
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

g. de gozaru ka.
COP
<‘But, you shouldn’t forget what you have eaten!’>

Prior to (8), the husband told his wife that he had been entertained very well
with delicacies by her father. The husband especially liked one of them, but
could not remember its name. The wife suggested several foods by asking “Did
you eat X?” She used the verb mairu four times in her questions. Mairu is an
‘honorific’ word (to eat or wear) for regular kurau (to eat). However, getting
impatient at her husband’s poor memory, right before (8), the wife finally asked
“Did you eat Y?” using kurau which is non-honorific. (8) took place when
the husband then objected. The husband’s objection (a–c) sounds considerably
strong. Now in (d), the wife shows her opinion ‘It is you that should not forget
what you ate!’ following demo.
The contrast which demo marks here lies in our inferred notions: “what
wife does is wrong” from (a–c) vs. “what husband does is wrong” from (d–g).
If (a–c) and (d–g) are thought to be functionally differentiated as the husband
and the wife’s respective points, demo also marks a functional contrast. At the
same time demo is used when the wife begins to refute her husband. Two simi-
lar uses of demo in very much the same expressions, with a slight modification,
are seen in the same story-group.
The analysis of the sentence-initial demo in the18th century Edo literature
(kobanashi-bon, share-bon and kyoogen) has revealed the following: First, demo
in this time period, when it seems to have first emerged, marks all the con-
trasts it can mark, i.e. referential contrast, pragmatically inferable contrast,
functional contrast and contrastive actions. Second, demo is used to realize
ideational, textual and expressive functions. Since it bears textual and expres-
sive functions, demo is considered to be a discourse marker. Third, the only
contrastive action marked by demo in the Edo period texts is the speaker’s
refutation.
I will go on to the analysis of Japanese of the Meiji period which follows
the Edo. In the novels written in the Meiji era (1868–1912), I found a fairly
widespread use of demo. Hakai (1906) and Sanshiro (1908) contain each seven
cases of demo in the conversational portion and none in the descriptive por-
tion. However, I have found that demo of Meiji is still used to mark the speaker’s
refutation in most of the examples. (9) is one such example drawn from Hakai
(1906). In this scene, the main character Segawa had brought a ‘notebook’ to
school, especially to please a boy, Shoogo. Segawa offered Shogo the notebook,
but Shogo refused this unexpected favor. Segawa objected.
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 Chapter 4

(9) Hakai (1906)


Segawa: ......
a. Sekkaku ageyoo to omotte
Especially give QT think-GER
b. kooshite motte kita mono o.
this.way bring-GER thing DO
< . . . . . . ‘I brought this especially for you.’>
Shoogo: c. Demo kaasan ni shikarare yasu.
But mother sold-PASS
<‘But, my mother would scold me.’>
Segawa: d. Kaasan ni?
Mother
e. Sonna bakana koto ga aru mono ka.
Such unreasonable thing SB exist NOM FP
......
<‘Would she? It doesn’t make sense, at all (!).’> . . . . . .

Following (9e), Segawa continues his reasons why it is reasonable to give a


present to Shoogo (i.e. Segawa knows Shoogo’s father and Shoogo’s sister helps
Segawa, and so on.) Demo (c) marks the functional contrast between the two
characters’ positions, and it also marks the pragmatically inferable contrast: “It
is reasonable to give a present (notebook)” (a–b) vs. “It is unreasonable to give
a present” (c). Here, at the beginning of Shoogo’s turn, demo (c) denotes the
speaker’s intention to ‘refute’ his interlocutor.
Demo (c) can be also analyzed to mark another type of contrastive action
‘claim the floor’. As stated in (3.4.2), when the speaker makes an effort to claim
the floor at non-TRPs (i.e. locations where the previous speaker may still con-
tinue his/her turn), there is a contrast between actions; Speaker A’s holding the
floor vs. Speaker B’s holding the floor. (9) occurred in rather a heated argu-
ment, and it seems that Segawa was in a hurry to hand a present to a boy while
nobody else sees their exchange. It is reasonable for Shoogo to show his ef-
fort to claim a floor in such a speedy conversation. Of course, this is a possible
analysis of speaker-hearer interactional dynamics, since the data is a written
conversational segment. In (9), demo (c) clearly shows its marking ‘refutation’
and possibly its secondary contrastive action, ‘claim the floor’. In Hakai, there
are other examples in which demo marks ‘refutation’.
Finally, although it is not included here, another example of demo shows
the simultaneous marking of ‘refutation’ and another contrastive action, ‘sub-
topic change’. However, in this case also, demo’s function of refutation still
predominates.
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

When I analyzed demo in the 18th century Edo literature and in the Meiji
(1868–1912) texts, I found that demo continued to be used mostly for a par-
ticular function, speaker’s refutation. In the Meiji novels, demo may also have
other functions, i.e. claiming the floor and sub-topic change. However, they are
seen only as secondary contrastive actions of demo.
In what precedes, I have traced the process in which the final element V-te
+ mo seems to have developed into the initial element demo. The key find-
ing in this analysis is the following. While the item was in unit-final positions,
it had only an ideational function with a connecting function within a single
sentence. When the item appeared as an utterance-initial word, it had more ex-
panded functions as a discourse marker – not only a textual function but also
an expressive function (while still keeping its ideational function). Therefore,
the initial marker demo has all three functions noted by Traugott and said to be
the basis for a diachronic path, which, in the case of demo, involves the period
from its first appearance in the 18th century until today.
Another finding is that demo seems to continue to be used for a particular
pragmatic effect of marking the speaker’s refutation. However, it is true that
in the early 20th century demo may also have had other contrastive actions
(claiming the floor and sub-topic change) that were not clearly observable in
my data. Considering that in Present Day Japanese demo has a greater variety of
contrastive actions – occurring independently of the ‘refutation’ action – (see
Chapter 3), the expressive function of demo must have expanded in the course
of its historical path.

. Pragmaticalization of dakedo

I assumed that the use of the unit-final element V + kedo is related to the
use of the sentence-initial dakedo, mainly from the viewpoint of discourse
analysis/analysis of spoken language.
Kedo is a conjunctive particle which is strictly required to be attached
to a verb (or an adjective) at clause-final positions; thus it is a bound mor-
pheme. At clause-final positions, kedo can in fact be appended to any verb other
than a copula.
The sentence-initial dakedo is now used in Tokyo Japanese or the stan-
dard Present Day Japanese. However, while trying to find the cases of V +
kedo in literature, I unexpectedly found examples of V + kedo in Kamigata
Japanese (Language spoken in Osaka-Kyoto area in the West part of Japan) texts
rather than in Tokyo Japanese. More interestingly, an Edo kokkei-bon text Ukiy-
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 Chapter 4

oburo (1809) illustrates an exchange between a Kamigata person and an Edo


merchant in which they use different clause-final expressions (see (12)).
I will show some analysis of the use of final V + kedo. However, I should
regrettably say that it is indeed impossible to demonstrate exactly how the use
and distribution of final V + kedo has influenced the formation of sentence-
initial discourse marker dakedo. The ‘formation’ here can be also rephrased by
the contemporary speakers’ first use of the item or its distribution. The entire
figure of such formation cannot be captured nor evidenced audibly or visually
in any way.
The sentence-initiating dakedo and demo (demo type conjunctions; con-
junctions prefaced by d) seem to have occurred surely based on the establish-
ment of “da” style as a common discourse style in Japanese. Tanaka (2001: 753)
writes that it was in the Edo Japanese of the late Edo era that “da” discourse style
was established.

.. Clause-final V + kedo

As far as I know, the oldest example of the final connecting device V + kedo is
in a jooruri (ballad drama) book, Chuushin kana tanzaku (1732) (cf. Table 4.1),
which is written in Kamigata-Japanese (Japanese used in Osaka-Kyoto area, the
West part of Japan). This occurrence of V + kedo is also reported in Yuzawa
(1970b) and Uchio and Okamura (1973).
(10) illustrates one of earliest examples of V + kedo.
(10) Chuushin kana tanzaku (1732)
A: a. Inakamono ja to iwa nsu kedo,
Countrywoman COP QT say HON but,
b. kyoo hazukashii umai sakari,
capital fine delicious at (its) best
c. hitokuchi kuwazu ni okarenu me nsu.
a.mouthful eat NEG cannot help
<‘Although (you) call (me) a countrywoman, since it is at its best,
I can’t help eating a mouthful of it.’>

In the sources only the utterance in (10) is cited, and the preceding and fol-
lowing discourse is not available. In (10), A says, ‘Although (you) call a person
who eats such a thing a countrywoman, I can’t help trying a mouthful of it.’
In this example V + kedo (iwa-nsu + kedo) marks a pragmatically inferable
contrast, i.e. “You think a countrywoman is shameful (a)” vs. “I don’t think a
countrywoman is shameful (b–c).” V + kedo in (a) could mark a contrastive
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

action: if prior to (a) another speaker in fact called A a countrywoman, and in


(a) A attempts to refute/challenge what another speaker said. However, since
the surrounding textual content is not available (even the subject, who calls A
a countrywoman, in (a) is ambiguous), any possible contrastive action cannot
be discussed further. V + kedo does not seem to mark a functional contrast.
The pragmatically inferable contrast makes a contribution to the ideational
function. Thus, in the final connecting element V + kedo in (11), we see an
ideational function and clause connecting function.
Another example where V + kedo shows an ideational function is drawn
from a kabuki script created a few decades later than the earliest use of V +
kedo from (10). (11) is such an example. The author of Sanjikkoku yofune no
hajimari, Shozo Namiki, is from Osaka city. The language in (11) seems again
Kamigata Japanese.
(11) Sanjikkoku yofune no hajimari (1758)
a. Chitto ome ni wa irimasu mai kedo,
a.little eyes in enter would not but
b. suwa to iwaba donata demo,
when the time comes anyone (HON)
c. doitsu demo kiri kanenu
anyone cut would
d. wazamono degozarimasu.
fine.sword COP
<‘Although it doesn’t usually draw (people’s) attention, it is a fine
sword which would cut just anybody when the time comes.’>

In (11), irimasu + mai (a polite form of iru (to enter) + a modal auxiliary
expressing the impossibility or unlikelihood of an affair in the near future)
constitute a VP in a subordinate clause (a). Irimasu-mai + kedo is the clause-
final connecting element in (11). Its function is, like (10), to link a subordinate
clause (a) and a main clause (b–d): this clause-connecting device operates only
within a sentence. V + kedo expresses the adversative relationship between the
two clauses and is involved in the transmission of propositional information.
There seems weak expressive meaning in irimasu-mai + kedo, however this
meaning is less explicit than that indicated by initial discourse markers. Thus,
V + kedo maintains an ideational function and the grammatical function of
clause-linking.
The conjunctive particle kedo apparently belongs to a group of which kere-
domo, keredo and kedomo are members (Uchio & Okamura 1973: 256; Yuzawa
1954: 573, 1970b: 505). They are all adversative conjunctive particles and are
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 Chapter 4

considered to have the same grammatical function. In exploring the language


in the Tokugawa period (1603–1867), Yuzawa (1970b: 505) states that “kedo
appears occasionally as an irregular form of keredo.” Looking at the language
in the same period, Yuzawa (1954: 574) writes that “there are cases of say-
ing kedo and kedomo instead of keredo (mo).” In addition, Shoogaku Tosho
(Ed.) (1981) (Shoogakkan Japanese Dictionary) accounts for kedo as “an infor-
mal form of keredo”. Shoogaku Tosho (Ibid.) further explains the transitional
process regarding the use of these particles:
In written language, keredomo is predominant in the Meiji era; then keredo
comes to predominate after the Taishoo era. In spoken language, keredo is
mainly used in the Meiji era; then kedo becomes the predominant form after
the Taishoo era.

This Shoogaku Tosho (Ibid.) explanation accords with our knowledge that
language change generally occurs earlier in spoken language than in written
language. This transitional process seems to involve a phonological reduction.
Hence, the order of the change is assumed to be the following: keredomo >
keredo > kedo.
The most full-fledged form keredomo (among keredomo, keredo and kedo)
seems to have appeared first sometime after the Kamakura period (1180–1333)
(Hayashi & Ikegami (Eds.) 1979). The phonologically reduced forms keredo
and kedo have been found above to have appeared later than keredomo. Since
its first appearance, keredomo seems to have continued to be used in coexistence
with other variants (keredo and kedo). Kedo first emerged in the 18th century.
Even after the 18th century, kedo has been found to be in co-use with other
variants. This means that more phonologically reduced form (kedo) did not
totally replace the fuller forms (keredo and keredomo) which still continue to
be used today.
In a collection of the Edo humorous short stories (kobanashi-bon shuu,
written between 1764–1766), the adversative conjunctive particles other than
the keredomo group, ga, domo and do which had all first emerged earlier than
keredomo, still predominate. In this collection, keredomo appears but keredo is
not found. Ukiyoburo, a kokkei bon (a humorous novel of Edo days), was written
by 1808 and published in 1809. It is an interesting and valuable source in which
to explore the Edo language since its text mostly consists of townspeople’s vivid
conversation in a public bath. Ukiyoburo is often considered a good reflection
of the Edo spoken language. However, my observation shows the frequency
of keredomo variants in Ukiyoburo as follows: kedomo occurred 1 time, keredo
17 times, and kedo 1 time. Despite the fact that the first appearance of kedo
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

is around the mid 18th century (see (10)), in Ukiyoburo (1809) we still see a
widespread use of keredo.
In Ukiyoburo, however, although it is written in Edo Japanese, a scene in
which a Kamigata customer and an Edo merchant converse demonstrates a very
interesting and separate language use: i.e. the Kamigata (West) speaker uses the
Kamigata copula ja + kedo, while the Edo (East) speaker uses the copula da +
keredo. (12) illustrates it.
(12) Ukiyoburo (1809)
Merchant a. Cho omee ni wa ura nee.
(Edo) Hem you to EMP sell NEG
b. Hito o tyooseeboo ni suru yoo da.
Others DO live long make seem COP
...............
<‘Hem I won’t sell this to you. You make me wait long.’
...............>
Customer c. . . . . . . omee ni hikararete chito hamari ja kedo.
(Kamigata) you scold-PASS a.little tricked although
........................
<‘You scolded me, and I was tricked.’
........................>
Merchant d. Kore minee. Koira ga ochi da keredo. . . . . . .
(Edo) This look This SB working-out COP although
e. Anmari urusee kara maketa kedo.
So noisy because reduce although
<‘Look at this. This is the working-out, here. Since you
make such a fuss, I reduced the price, but..’>

In the conversation of this scene (the excerpt is partly omitted), the Edo
merchant’s use of da discourse style is seen. As mentioned above, Tanaka
(2001: 753) states that this style was established in Edo Japanese in the late Edo
era, when Ukiyoburo was written. He also says that
Da style was formed, needless to say, based on the East Japan’s copula -da
which corresponds to West Japan’s copula, -ya/-ja. . . . Before [the establish-
ment of da style in the late Edo era], West Japan’s ja style was conducted. Da
style was originally formed out of Edo common people’s spoken conversa-
tional style. Therefore there is some impression of vulgarity in it. . . . History
[,however,] has chosen and developed da style because of its efficiency of
space, then made this into a dignified style, wiping off its original impression
of vulgar dialect. (Tanaka Ibid.: 753–754)
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 Chapter 4

Tanaka’s statement implies that the establishment of da style was influenced


by West Japan’s precedent use of ja style. In the late Edo period, the exchanges
between Edo and Kamigata people in Edo city like (12) might influence the Edo
peoples’ language use: i.e. more specifically, West Japan’s use of ‘ja + kedo’ may
urge East Japan’s first use and distribution of ‘da + kedo’.
We do not necessarily see the pervasive use of the item in the texts written
after the first documented appearance of the item.8 Rather, we encounter the
more or less broad use of an item at a substantial period of time after its docu-
mented first appearance: after the reported first appearance of keredo in 1704,9
its extensive use is seen in literature written in 1809 (Ukiyoburo) – a century
after its first appearance. Likewise, kedo’s widespread use is seen 190 years after
its first appearance in 1732 (Chuushin kana tanzaku): Yuujoo (1920) is a novel
showing such common use of kedo.
In the Taishoo era (1912–1926), V + kedo is in more common use, and
its unit-initial correspondent dakedo arises for the first time in history. In this
Taishoo era, the final V + keredo and its corresponding initial dakeredo co-occur
in a piece of literature (e.g. Udekurabe 1917): This means that the emergence
of a new initial element is closely related to the already wide-spread use of its
corresponding final element. When V + kedo comes to be used more frequently
in the Taishoo period, we first see the initial element dakedo.
I have shown some analysis of kedo as well as its closely related particles,
keredomo and keredo. At least in Present Day standard Japanese, the use of
clause-final V + kedo and that of sentence-initial dakedo look inter-related. As
analyzed above, in the language the final expression V + kedo seems to have
emerged far earlier than the first appearance of dakedo. In the diachronic anal-
ysis, we have no way to see or hear the very process of formation of an item. It
can only be suggested that the use of final V + kedo (da + kedo) through the use
of ja + kedo may have been influential on the emergence of initial dakedo.

.. Dakedo as a discourse marker

As stated, when the conjunctive particle kedo began to be used more commonly
in the Taishoo period, we encounter the first emergence of the initial marker
dakedo. Today dakedo is widely recognized as a conjunction. Hence, it is now
a content word, consisting of two morphemes da and kedo, while the final ele-
ment V + kedo contains two separate words. In this section, I will analyze the
use of dakedo in the Taishoo era (1912–1926) when this item seems to have
appeared first (cf. Aoki 1973).10
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

As for dakedo in the Taishoo era, it is recognized that some have ideational
and textual functions and others have ideational, textual and expressive func-
tions: Expressive function is optional for dakedo of this time stage. I first il-
lustrate dakedo with ideational and textual functions (4.2.2.1), then dakedo
with all three functions (4.2.2.2). This division is, however, only for analytical
convenience.

... Dakedo as a marker with textual function


Dakedo which has ideational and textual functions is considered a discourse
marker, since it has the textual function of linking portions of discourse inter-
sententially. (13) is an example. This excerpt is cited from Anya kooro (1922),
a novel. When this excerpt took place, the main character (Kensaku) whose
baby had been sick, had hired a nurse (Nurse H) to care for the baby. Kensaku
and his wife had been very satisfied with Nurse H. However, considering H’s
health, another nurse was hired to support H. H did not like the way the other
nurse cared for the baby. One day the other nurse got sick and went home early.
Nurse H then says:
(13) Anya kooro (1922)
Nurse H: a. Moshi watashi no tame
If me LK
b. deshitara, dooka moo
COP-if please no.more
c. otanomi ni naranai de
ask-HON NEG
d. itadakimasu.
receive
e. Dakedo, watashi hitori de
But, me alone COP-GER
f. gofujiyuu da to oboshimesu
inconvenient COP QT think HON
g. n deshitara betsu desu kedo.
NOM COP-if other COP but
<‘If it is for me, please do not hire another one (nurse)
again. But, if you think that only myself is not enough, do
it for yourselves, though.’>

In (13), dakedo in (e) marks a referential contrast, “Don’t hire another nurse
for me (a–d)” vs. “Do it for yourselves (e–g).” Dakedo also marks a functional
contrast. In (13) H sounds like she is considering the pros and cons of hiring
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 Chapter 4

another nurse. The pros (Hire another nurse for yourselves) in (e–g) and the
cons (Don’t hire for me) in (a–d) are contrasting alternating opinions in an
argument, and they are marked as one kind of functional contrast.
As suggested before, when dakedo marks a referential contrast, it serves
an ideational function. Dakedo also has a textual function: It seems that the
function of the element d in dakedo in (e) contributes to the textual function.
As will be discussed fully in (4.4.1), d replaces a predicate in the preceding
utterance (Okutsu 1978). In (13), d in dakedo in (e) replaces the predicate in
the sentence (a–d), itadakimasu (to receive). Itadaku is one of the Japanese
donatory (giving and receiving) verbs, literally meaning ‘to receive’. The main
sentence (b–d) is translated into ‘Do me the favor of not hiring another nurse.’
D in dakedo in (e) indeed replaces the meaning of ‘do me the favor of not hiring
. . . ’. As a consequence of d’s replacement function, dakedo suggests that (e–g)
is coherent with the preceding utterance (a–d), and in fact links the prior and
the upcoming utterances.
Let us compare the connecting system of the final V + kedo to that of the
initial dakedo. The primary difference is that while the utterance-initial dakedo
has a textual function (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 27–28 and elsewhere; Traugott
1982: 248), the unit-final V + kedo does not. This difference comes from the
difference in the scope of connecting system. The initial dakedo links the pre-
ceding sentence and the sentence it prefaces. This is an intersentential linkage.
By contrast, the final element kedo links a subordinate clause (terminated with
kedo) and a main clause. Notice this linkage is only within a sentence, i.e. in-
trasentential. Hence, along the diachronic development from a unit-final into
initial element, there is also a change in the scope of the connecting function,
i.e. sentence → discourse.
We have already seen an important indicator of the difference in the scope
of connecting devices in (13): in a single sentence (e–g), both dakedo (e) and V
+ kedo (g) are used. There are two adversative connecting devices used in one
sentence. This happens because the scope of the two devices is different: V +
kedo (desu + kedo) in (g) only adds the meaning ‘. . . , though’ being used like
a sentence-final particle in this case; this device operates within the sentence.
On the other hand, dakedo in (e) links the preceding sentence (a–d) and the
following (e–g). Its scope is here beyond the sentence level, and it operates at a
higher level, i.e. discourse level. The use of dakedo and V + kedo together in a
single sentence is possible because of the difference in scope of the two items,
i.e. the level of discourse organization at which they work.
In addition to scope, another difference between V + kedo and dakedo is
their contribution to discourse coherence. As a consequence of gaining the
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

intersentential linking function (i.e. textual function), dakedo contributes to


coherence in on-going discourse, whereas V + kedo does not. According to
Traugott (1982: 248), “creating a cohesive discourse” is a textual function. This
function is also “linked to the unfolding of the speech event” (Ibid.). A point
which has been focused on here is mentioned in Traugott (1982: 269): only the
“scheme” which “codes intersentential cohesion” has the textual function, not
the schemes coding intrasentential cohesion.
Dakedo in (e) (13) may also have an expressive function. However, the
“contrast” denoted here is rather a logical contrast between what precedes and
what follows, which is on the ideational level. This contrast is marked by dakedo
which has been regarded as an adversative conjunction. Thus, the contrastive
meaning here may be ‘residue’ of semantic meaning of dakedo as an adversative
conjunction, rather than explicit speaker’s contrastive actions seen in (4.2.2.2).
The classification between (4.2.2.1) and (4.2.2.2), i.e. dakedo that do not
carry explicit expressive function and dakedo that carry such functions, de-
pends on whether or not dakedo marks explicit conversationalists’ actions.
At the time of its first emergence in initial position, some instances of
dakedo are involved in both the ideational and textual components of language.

... Dakedo as a marker with textual and expressive functions


While some instances of dakedo in the Taishoo era have only ideational and
textual functions (4.2.2.1), others also have explicit expressive function. In this
section, I look at dakedo with ideational and textual functions, and also with
expressive function which is optional.
The first example is a case in which dakedo marks a contrastive action,
‘point-making’. As seen in the analysis of Present Day Japanese (Chapter 3),
with the use of demo/dakedo, the speaker sometimes returns to his/her position
to make his/her point in conversation. In (14), we see this use of dakedo. (14)
is an excerpt drawn from an argument between Kensaku and his wife, Naoko,
in the Taishoo novel ‘Anya kooro’ (1922). Kensaku and Naoko’s baby had been
seriously ill. Prior to (14), Kensaku attempted to persuade Naoko to try to be
carefree, being concerned for the bad effect on her own health. Naoko rebutted
by saying that Kensaku’s request was an impossibility. Kensaku, then, excitedly
told her again that her optimistic attitude was indispensable for their baby.
Naoko then says that she knows how she should be, but she also knows a case
in which a baby died of the same disease that their baby has. She continues:
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 Chapter 4

(14) Anya kooro (1922)


Naoko: a. Sore o shitte iru node,
That DO know because,
b. nandaka shinpai de shikata
somehow worry COP-GER cannot
c. ga nai no.
help FP
d. Dakedo, hontooni watashi,
But, really I
e. dekirudake byooki no koto,
as.much.as.possible disease LK NOM
f. wasureru yoo ni kokorogake masu wa.
forget NOM try FP
<‘Because I know it (the more serious case of another baby),
somehow I can’t help worrying. But, I will really try to forget
about (the baby’s) sickness as much as possible.’>

Naoko’s general position in this exchange is that she will try to be carefree about
the baby’s sickness. Right before (14), Naoko provided the reason for her worry,
i.e. she knew about a more serious case involving another baby. After giving
this reason, she says dakedo in (d), and tries to return to her position and says
‘I will try to forget the baby’s sickness’ in (d–f). Dakedo in (d), thus, marks the
speaker’s contrastive action, point-making and return to her position. We also
recognize the pragmatically inferable contrast between ‘I can’t help worrying’
stated in (a–c) vs. ‘I will try not to worry’ inferred from (d–f).
In contrast to dakedo (4.2.2.1) in (13), dakedo in (14d) marks the speaker’s
action of ‘point-making’. Since dakedo here marks the speaker’s contrastive
action, this dakedo has an expressive function in addition to ideational and
textual functions.
As noted, there is no way other than looking at written text to explore
the language of the past. As a consequence, it is somewhat limited to ob-
serve speaker’s and hearer’s actions in written conversational texts, since the
actual dynamics of the speaker/hearer interactive negotiation are more opaque
in written data than in spoken data. Accordingly, in the next example (15), I
suggest a possible contrastive action.
(15) is another example in which dakedo first appeared as a marker with
expressive function. This use of dakedo shows another type of contrastive ac-
tion ‘claiming the floor’. This is an excerpt from a conversational segment in
Yuujoo (1920), a novel. Prior to (15), another participant N had said to H that
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

if H did not believe in God, he is the same as a maggot. H rebutted by uttering


that N was talking rubbish. In (15), K tries to arbitrate between N and H by
addressing H:
(15) Yuujoo (1920)
K: a. Maa, sonna koto o
Well, like.that NOM DO
b. iu mono ja nai yo.
say had better NEG FP
<‘Well, you shouldn’t say something like that.’>
H: c. Dakedo, boku wa ujimushi
But, I TP maggot
d. atsukai sarete damatte wa
treat PASS keep.silent EMP
e. irare nai yo.
can NEG FP
<‘But, I cannot keep silent, being treated like a maggot.’>

Considering the preceding discourse and the immediate excerpt, the argument
between H and N seems heated. Dakedo in (c) is used at the beginning of H’s
turn. A possible function of dakedo here could be to take the floor. In a con-
flicting interactive situation like this argument, who will take the next turn is
less predictable to the participants than in other types of discourse. In an argu-
ment, participants seem required to make more effort to take a turn. Dakedo in
(c) may well mark such effort to get the floor. If so, dakedo here is considered
to denote a contrastive action, ‘claiming the floor’.
We can also see that dakedo in (c) marks referential and functional con-
trasts. The referential contrast is seen between the statements of K’s and H’s
positions, “H shouldn’t say something like that” (a–b) vs. “I(H) can’t keep
silent” (c–e). The functional contrast is between K’s and H’s positions about
H’s deeds in the conversation. Dakedo in (c) seems used for claiming the floor:
it expresses the speaker’s intention to perform an action in the conversation,
that action being, taking the next floor. Since dakedo conveys the speaker’s in-
tention to the other participants, it has an expressive function, and since dakedo
in (c) connects two utterances ((a–b) and (c–e)), it has textual function. (15)
is thus another example of dakedo as a discourse marker carrying all three,
ideational, textual and expressive, functions.
I will examine one more example in which dakedo serves an expressive
function. (16) shows a clearer case of contrastive action than (15) does. In
(16), dakedo marks the speaker’s contrastive action of ‘changing the sub-topic’.
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 Chapter 4

This example is an excerpt from the novel Anya kooro (1922). When (16) took
place, Kensaku was meeting his two younger sisters after a long time. The sis-
ters asked about Kensaku’s wedding which would be held soon. Preceding (16),
the youngest sister Taeko said, ‘I would like to go to Kyoto, then (to attend
Kensaku’s wedding).’
(16) Anya kooro (1922)
Kensaku: a. Oniisan ni tsurete kite
Brother take-GER come-GER
b. morau sa.
receive FP
<‘You can ask your brother to take you.’>
Taeko: c. Ee, sono tsumori.
Yes, that intention
d. Dakedo, itsu na no?
But, when COP FP
e. Gakkoo ga oyasumi de
School SB off COP
f. nai to dame na no yo.
NEG impossible COP FP FP
<‘Yes, I’m planning to do that. But, when will it be? It’s
impossible unless I have a holiday from school.’>

Kensaku suggests in (a–b) that Taeko ask the elder brother to take her to the
wedding. In (c), Taeko shows her agreement with this suggestion, which is
maintaining the same sub-topic in (a–b). However, after this, Taeko says dakedo
and provides a request for information concerning the time when the wed-
ding will be. Dakedo here marks Taeko’s action of changing the sub-topic.
Since sub-topics (and topics) are referentially different information chunks,
dakedo also marks a referential contrast. Therefore, in (16), dakedo is involved
in the expressive and ideational components of language as well as in the textual
component.
In this section, I have illustrated dakedo with all three functions of lan-
guage. We have seen that expressive function is realized by contrastive actions,
‘point-making’ (14), ‘claiming the floor’ (15) and ‘changing the sub-topic’ (16).
These speaker’s actions denote important points in the on-going discourse
in terms of conversational management. This denoting function (addressed to
the other participants) seems essential as “markers”.
Above, I have shown that the clause-final V + kedo seems to have come
to be used as the utterance-initial dakedo. The primary finding in this di-
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

achronic analysis is: As a final connecting element, V + kedo carries only an


ideational function and an intrasentential connecting function. When this ele-
ment emerged in utterance-initial positions as dakedo, it began to be used as a
discourse marker with ideational and textual functions and optionally expres-
sive function.11 The connecting function of the final V + kedo and the initial
dakedo differ in the scope within which their function is realized: V + kedo is
only a clause-connecting device, but dakedo serves an intersentential linking
function. Thus, the scope of the connecting function is enlarged (sentence →
discourse). This increase in scope allows the textual function of dakedo, but not
V + kedo.
Another point is noted. Dakedo’s contrastive actions have been found to be
the same as those in Present Day Japanese (Chapter 3). However, in Present Day
Japanese we recognize another variety of the contrastive action of dakedo. This
implies that the variety of contrastive actions and hence expressive function of
dakedo has increased.

. Pragmaticalization: Evolution of demo and dakedo as discourse


markers

In this section, I review the results of the diachronic analyses of demo (4.1) and
dakedo (4.2), and inspect the direction of their functional change, focusing on
Traugott’s proposal.
Adopting Traugott’s proposed functional-semantic model of language, the
pragmaticalization which demo underwent is schematized as (A). In (A), + su-
perscribed on “expressive” in PDJ (Present Day Japanese) designates that the
expressive function has expanded, when compared to the previous time stages.
V-te + mo here is a possibility of the earlier form of demo, or it has influenced
the appearance of demo.
(A) Pragmaticalization of demo
V-te + mo (14th–19th C) Demo (18th–early 20th C) Demo (PDJ)12
ideational ideational
ideational > textual > textual
expressive expressive+
The ideational function seems maintained throughout the course of demo’s
history. The item keeps this function both in the unit-final and initial positions.
The textual function arises when the item first emerges in the initial po-
sitions in the 18th century. Although V-te + mo had a connecting function, it
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 Chapter 4

worked only within a sentence. The connecting function of demo, on the other
hand, works beyond the level of the sentence, and hence it creates cohesion.
This is how I judged that the textual function arises at the first appearance of
demo. (See the definition of textual function in 1.2.1.3.)
The expressive function also emerges clearly at the first appearance of
demo. The examples of demo from its first appearance in the 18th century
through the early 20th century show its expressive function, i.e. mostly express-
ing the speaker’s action of refuting the other’s idea. The expressive function,
however, expands at some point, because demo in Present Day Japanese was
observed to have at least four other expressive functions (Chapter 3).
I suggest that the functional change of demo follows two general ten-
dencies in meaning/functional changes that have been attested in several
languages (Traugott 1982, 1986a, 1988a, 1988b, 1989 and elsewhere). One
is what was first proposed in Traugott (1982: 253): a meaning shift from
“less personal to more personal”.13 The other is a more comprehensive ten-
dency: a semantic-pragmatic direction of functional change, “propositional
(ideational)14 > ((textual) > expressive)” (Traugott 1989: 31).15 To understand
the first tendency, the following must be noted as Traugott (1982: 253) herself
mentions:
It should be understood that “more personal” means ‘more anchored in the
context of the speech act, particularly the speaker’s orientation to situation,
text, and interpersonal relations’; it does not mean “more individualized”.

Thus, as a matter of fact, “more personal” in Traugott’s sense includes ‘inter-


personal’. For Traugott, ‘more personal’ does not denote a meaning shift to
more individualized nor ego-oriented, but to more interaction-based, i.e. the
speaker’s communicative intention in the speaker/hearer negotiation or the
speaker’s strategic point of view towards propositions becomes more essen-
tial (cf. Traugott 1988a, 1988b, 1989 and elsewhere). She elsewhere identifies
the shift ‘from less to more personal’ with the shift from propositional to
interpersonal meaning (Traugott 1982).
Whereas V-te + mo contributes only to the objective world of describing
what a sentence is about, demo is brought about by the speaker’s own eval-
uation of the situation (shown as the action of refutation). In Halliday and
Hasan’s (1976: 26) sense, V-te + mo is concerned only with “the expression of
content” (=ideational), but demo is concerned with “expressing the speaker’s
‘angle”’ (26–27).
As mentioned earlier (2.2), meaning shifts to more ‘speaker-based’ and to
more ‘discourse-oriented’ are linked to the tendency “less to more personal”.
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

In the possible process in which the item developed from V-te + mo into
demo, we see a meaning shift from ideational (expression of ‘content’) to more
“speaker-based” and “discourse-oriented”. This is because when an item starts
to function as a discourse marker, thus functioning in the speaker’s use of dis-
course strategy, the speaker’s evaluation of the immediate discourse is more
obvious. The item thus injects the speaker’s point of view into the proposition.
Speaker-based (and therefore discourse-based) meanings shift from “referenc-
ing the situation outside the discourse to referencing the situation inside the
discourse” (cf. Traugott 1986a: 542).
I propose the direction of pragmaticalization of demo as (A), and further
suggest that it pursues the second tendency in functional change: ideational >
((textual) > expressive). As shown in (A), the change in demo does not occur
in an abrupt linear fashion, but is rather gradual, i.e. the change in demo is
multi-functional. Traugott (1982: 256) also seems to agree that this is a gradual
process. I suggest that in general the multi-functional change in demo follows
the direction, ideational > ((textual) > expressive).
It is noted, however, that there are a few factors which could also influ-
ence the interpretation of functional change in the data, i.e. different modes
(spoken/written), characteristically patterned expressions in a set of sources
(kyoogen), and similar to this, the varying individual styles of the authors who
wrote in the literature investigated. These factors could also affect the frequency
of some particular use of a lexical item. Therefore, after due consideration
of the possible effects caused by these factors, I determined the direction of
pragmaticalization to be stated as in (A).
The functional change which dakedo seems to have undergone is schema-
tized as (B).
(B) Pragmaticalization of dakedo
V + kedo (18th–early 20th C) Dakedo (early 20th C–PDJ)
ideational > ideational
textual (> expressive)
The ideational function is sustained in the whole process of functional change
of dakedo. When the possible original element V + kedo evolved to emerge as
dakedo in initial positions, we saw that dakedo had ideational and textual func-
tions, and optionally expressive function. Since dakedo’s expressive function is
optional, I tentatively suggest the direction ‘textual (> expressive)’ in the course
of pragmatic change in dakedo, as in (B). In PDJ (Present Day Japanese), dakedo
shows at least one more speaker’s contrastive action different from three kinds
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 Chapter 4

of actions found in the earlier Japanese. Dakedo’s expressive function appears


to have increased a little towards these days.
Thus the pragmaticalization of dakedo also conforms to the two tendencies
in meaning change in general which demo follows.
In conclusion, the pragmaticalization of both demo and dakedo seems to
follow Traugott’s suggested directions:
ideational > ((textual) > expressive)
less personal to more personal

Before closing this section, I will mention briefly the motive for the possi-
ble positional shift, the process in which the final V-te + mo / V + kedo seem to
have moved into sentence-initial position. That is, first, the subordinate clauses
such as V-te + mo and V + kedo are detached from the rest of the sentence by
‘postposing’ which occurs often in Japanese conversation. Then, those subordi-
nate clauses that have become movable shift into sentence-initial position.16 (In
7.3.1 (Relevance to typological characteristics), I will discuss fully this motive
for the positional shift from the perspective of typology in languages.)

. Motivation for the pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo

In this section, I address the question of what brings about the pragmatical-
ization of demo and dakedo. This kind of question, addressing what provokes
the semantic/pragmatic change of a lexical item, appears to be the most essen-
tial moot point in the exploration of meaning change; it also remains unsolved
in many cases (cf. Traugott 1980: 29). I hope that my attempt will contribute
to the answering of a more specific question: “Why were these forms or these
structures adopted rather than others?” (Ibid.: 30). An attempt to solve this sort
of question will allow us to look not only at “the onomasiological question –
what forms move into one given domain, and why?” but also at “the semasio-
logical question – what paths does any one form move along in the course of
semantic change?” (Traugott 1985: 298).
Why the structures de + mo and da + kedo, rather than others, were adopted
as independent words and came to be used as markers in initial position, I
think, is greatly due to the fact that the structures contain a morpheme da
(more strictly its stem d). Below, I will claim that da, which has been mostly
recognized as a copula, does not always function as a copula but has another
important role in discourse.
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

There are two processes that I can think of as the reasons for adoption
of demo and dakedo as markers: one process is grammatical and the other is
discourse-based. The function of da has to do mainly with a grammatical pro-
cess. I will start with an inspection of this function which seems to rely upon
grammar for the emergence of demo and dakedo as initial grammatical mark-
ers (4.4.1). Next, I will turn to discuss a discourse process which, along with
the grammatical process, seems to have accelerated the use of these items as
markers (4.4.2).

.. The grammatical process leading to the adoption of demo and dakedo
as initial markers

Two grammatical analyses of the function of da (Kuno 1978b and Okutsu 1978)
were reviewed in (2.4.1). They argue for similar functions of da, based on ‘el-
lipsis’ (Kuno) and ‘replacement’ (Okutsu). Here, I will explain da according to
Okutsu (1978).
Okutsu’s point was: Da, widely analyzed as a copula, does not always func-
tion as a copula (linking two nouns A and B as in “A is B”); rather its fundamen-
tal function is to replace a predicate in a prior discourse. Hence, this function
of da can be called a pro-predicate. If da replaces a predicate of a prior utter-
ance, the predicate need not be repeated. Therefore, the predicate replaced by
da is an economical and rational strategy in Japanese conversation. (For details
of Okutsu 1978, see (2.4.1).)
There are conditions for manipulating the da pro- predicate (replacement)
strategy: (I) “a certain verbal or non-verbal context is necessary” (Okutsu
1978: 28), and more specifically, (II) “the predicate which da is going to re-
place must be presupposed” (Ibid.: 32). Consider, for instance, the interchange
(1) between two male speakers, A and B, who play baseball.
(1) A: a. Kinoo ame ga futta.
Yesterday rain SB fell
<‘Yesterday it rained.’>
B: b. Dakedo boku wa renshuu ni itta.
But I TP training went
<‘But I went to the (baseball) training.’> (cf. Okutsu 1978: 33–34)

Once A makes the utterance (a), ‘Yesterday it rained’, the fact that ‘yesterday
it rained’ becomes part of textual context. This satisfies condition (I) for the
use of da in (1b). Further, the information ‘yesterday it rained’ becomes part of
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 Chapter 4

shared knowledge between A and B, in other words, it is presupposed by them.


This fulfills condition (II).
When B makes his statement in (b), ‘But (Although it was raining yes-
terday), I went to the training’, B uses a da replacement strategy to make an
adversative subordinate clause dakedo. The predicate futta (‘fell’)17 in (a) is al-
ready presupposed by A and B. Therefore, da in (b) replaces it. When A hears
dakedo in (b), A immediately interprets it as <futta kedo (although it rained)>
which is replaced by dakedo.
B, however, might just repeat the predicate (futta) to make the same state-
ment. (2) shows such a case.
(2) B: x. Futta kedo,
Fell (it rained) but
y. boku wa renshuu ni itta.
I TP training went
<‘Although it rained (yesterday), I went to the training.’>

In this case, futta + kedo (x) forms a (adversative) subordinate clause to the
main clause (y). This utterance (sentence x–y) is fully grammatical, just as (1b)
was fully grammatical. However, if we compare (2) to (1b) in which dakedo is
used, we see the effect of the da strategy.
(1) B: b. Dakedo, boku wa renshuu ni itta.
But I TP training went
<‘(Although it rained yesterday,) I went to the training.’>

(2) and (1b) convey exactly the same information. The difference is: In (1b),
because da in dakedo replaces the predicate futta just given prior to (1b) by
another speaker, it avoids the repetition of the same predicate. Therefore, (1b)
is not redundant. Here I suggest that not only the meaning of the predicate
‘fall-past’ (futta) is conveyed but the meaning of the whole A’s original utter-
ance ‘Yesterday rain SB fell’ (kinoo ame ga futta) is calculable and conveyed
by dakedo in (1b). This is because another part of the sentence, other than
the predicate, is also recovered from the textual context. As a consequence, in
addition to the replacement of a predicate by da, the whole meaning of a pre-
ceding utterance can be recovered by the hearer owing to context. Thus da’s
replacement function is used as an economical and effective speaker strategy
for cohesion in Japanese conversation.
Okutsu (1978) provides examples where da replaces predicates (not only
verbs but adjectives and even adverbs. See (2.4.1)). Below, it is shown that da
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

in (3) can replace the underlined predicate in (4), (5) and (6) if the condition
is observed.
(3) Boku wa unagi da.
I TP eel
(4) Boku wa unagi o tsuru. <‘I will catch an eel.’>
I TP an eel DO (will) catch
(5) Boku wa unagi o chuumon suru. <‘I will order eel.’>
I TP eel DO (will) order
(6) Boku wa unagi o taberu. <‘I will eat eel.’>
I TP eel DO (will) eat
When the predicate is presupposed by the speaker and hearer, i.e. the predicate
is calculable from their background knowledge, (3) would mean (4), (5), (6)
or something else depending upon the presupposition.
We are now ready to discuss the emergence of dakedo and demo18 in ini-
tial positions as conjunctions. Morioka (1973: 41) points out that a function
of a certain group of conjunctions including demo and dakedo (which I call as
demo type connectives) is to “bring in the content of a preceding sentence as a
subordinate clause to the following sentence”. He (Ibid.: 20) further states that
“these conjunctions are, in fact, the abridged forms of the subordinate clauses,
or the replacement of the subordinate clauses”. Morioka’s finding points to vir-
tually the same behavior of da or de as discussed in Okutsu (1978). Morioka’s
point is that conjunctions such as demo and dakedo play the role of the sub-
ordinate clause to the following sentence. And this allows us to discover why
the particular group of conjunctions prefaced by ‘d’ tend to become initial
textual markers.
Demo and dakedo work as subordinate clauses in discourse because of the
replacement function of d. While the original elements (V-te + mo and V +
kedo) are in the final position they cannot have the replacement function. Demo
and dakedo needed to move into the initial positions to serve the replacement
function. The following observation accounts for this. (7) and (8) exemplify
the typical use of the original elements, V-te + mo and V + kedo, respectively.
(7) John wa gakusei de mo, mainichi hataraki ni iku.
TP student COP everyday work go
<‘Although John is a student, he goes to work everyday.’>
(8) John wa gakusei da kedo, mainichi hataraki ni iku.
TP student COP everyday work go
<‘Although John is a student, he goes to work everyday.’>
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 Chapter 4

Originally, da, a copula, is an imperfect predicate in the sense of requiring a


complement. In (7) and (8) gakusei (‘student’) is the complement of de/da,
and gakusei + de/da forms a predicate of a subordinate clause. In this structure
a copula must be accompanied by a complement to be a full predicate, hence
the containing clause can be a full (subordinate) clause. In this case the mean-
ing which the subordinate clauses in (7) and (8) convey is ‘Although John is a
student’: There can be no other interpretation. In other words in cases such as
(7) and (8), i.e. in final position, d cannot replace anything.
For d to replace a predicate in a prior discourse, it must be in sentence (ut-
terance) initial position. Recall that the d(/da) replacement strategy must meet
two felicity conditions: (I) a certain verbal/non-verbal context is necessary, and
(II) the predicate which d is going to replace must be presupposed. The follow-
ing four examples (from Okutsu 1978) show that when d in initial positions
meets the two conditions, it serves replacement.
(9) (Kinoo ame ga futta. (‘Yesterday it rained.’))
Dakara renshuu ni ikare nakatta.
So training to can go NEG PST
<‘So (I) couldn’t go to the training.’>
(10) (Kinoo ame ga futta. (‘Yesterday it rained.’))
Dakedo renshuu ni itta.
But training to went
<‘But (I) went to the training.’>
(11) (Kinoo ame ga futta. (‘Yesterday it rained.’))
Danoni michi wa sorehodo waruku nai.
However road TP that bad NEG
<‘However, the road is not that bad.’>
(12) (Ashita tenki ni naru yo. (‘It will be fine, tomorrow.’))
Dato ii desu ga ne.
good COP FP
<‘I hope it will be.’> (Okutsu 1978: 33–34)

(9), (10), (11) and (12) exemplify that d in the initial positions replaces a pred-
icate in prior discourse. The preceding utterance in the brackets in each case
provides the necessary verbal context which supplies the background knowl-
edge to the participants (meeting the condition (I)). The predicate to be re-
placed by d is presupposed in the background knowledge in each case (meeting
the condition (II)). The four examples are all grammatical and natural utter-
ances. They show that it is only in sentence-initial position that d does not
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

need to take a complement and can thus replace a predicate in prior discourse.
Okutsu (1978: 33–34) explains this as follows:
D(a) [in (9), (10), (11) and (12)] does not require a complement. However,
it cannot be used without a precedent sentence. Replacing a predicate in a
precedent sentence, d is then followed by kara, kedo and so forth, and forms a
subordinate clause.

As shown, the only location where d can serve the replacement function is the
sentence (utterance) initial position. In such a position without accompanying
the immediately preceding complement, d freely replaces a predicate in prior
discourse. Due to this replacement function, the elements dakedo and demo
come to have the strong textual function of linking the previous and the current
utterances.
In fact, there is an entire group of items which seems to have undergone the
same kind of pragmatic change and positional shift from the final to initial po-
sition. At least daga, dakara, datte and denakereba, all prefaced by d, belong to
this group “demo type connectives” (Onodera 2000), and they are recognized
as conjunctions (Aoki 1973).19 It is possible that the possession of d made it
easier for this particular group (demo type connectives) rather than others to
move into initial position and work as textual markers.
Traugott (1985), in her discussion of conditional markers, has found that
expressions associated with the protasis (such as the use of interrogative in En-
glish (294–295) and Swahili imperfect (295–296)) are effective at establishing
the presupposed condition for the main clause since such strategies supply “the
frame”, “the given” or “topic” of the apodosis (cf. 295). Although demo and
dakedo are not conditional markers, sentences prefaced by demo/dakedo may
be considered to have a structure which is parallel to that of conditionals in
that demo/dakedo behave like a subordinate clause and are followed by a main
clause. Like a conditional protasis, demo or dakedo also supplies the frame for
the following main clause (apodosis), owing to the replacement function of d.
In this section, the question of why demo and dakedo in particular were
adopted as conjunctions (i.e. initial textual markers) has been examined, and
a grammatical process which seems to have led to this adoption has been
discussed. The grammatical process is as follows. The possible original final
elements de + mo and da + kedo contain d which has the potential of replac-
ing a predicate. They shifted into the initial position and began to serve the
replacement function. In the initial position, demo and dakedo indeed work as
strong textual markers due to the replacement function of d.
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 Chapter 4

.. The discourse process leading to the adoption of demo


and dakedo as markers

In (4.4.1), we have seen a strong motivation for the pragmaticalization of demo


and dakedo, i.e. the items contain d with a replacement (pro-predicate) func-
tion which greatly contributes to discourse cohesion. There seems one more
process which promotes the same pragmatic change, although with less influ-
ence than the first factor. That is, expressive strengthening in initial positions.
This means: Demo and dakedo eventually appear in utterance-initial positions,
and it seems plausible that the appearance in this site accelerates the strength-
ening of expressive function as markers.
Let us consider two requirements for an item to be considered a discourse
marker (cf. 7.1 and 1.2.1.4): (1) appearance in the initial position and (2) pos-
session of either textual or expressive function. In (4.4.1) it has already been
recognized that demo and dakedo have emerged in the initial position and
gained the textual function. In this section, the operation of the expressive
function of demo and dakedo is particularly focused on. By definition, an item
in initial position carrying the textual function already qualifies as a marker.
However, the expressive function is also a very important feature of discourse
markers because it involves expressing the speaker’s attitude, stance, angle, or
evaluation towards the proposition as well as expressing his/her actions.
Recall again that discourse markers function as brackets of talk (Schiffrin
1987: 36). Brackets may initiate or terminate a unit of discourse; however, as
Goffman has suggested (1974: 255) initiating brackets may carry more signif-
icance because they establish a slot for signals and provide frames of under-
standing through which the talk is defined. Thus the initial position seems a
suitable and advantageous place for a marker to serve this function. In addi-
tion, a “marker”(such as a discourse marker, a traffic signal or a stone marker,
etc.) has to stand in a conspicuous locus to function as a marker. In sen-
tences (or utterances), such locus is the initiating position. Therefore, I sug-
gest that the emergence in such advantageous positions actually strengthened
demo and dakedo’s expressive function: i.e. they frame the entire utterance
with the speaker’s stance, evaluation of the situation or orientation toward
speaker/hearer negotiatory relations. As well as textual function, demo and
dakedo serve the expressive function effectively as initial brackets.
Above, I have attempted to answer the question “what brings about the
pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo?” and more specifically, the onomasio-
logical question “why were these particular items adopted rather than others?”
Two processes have been discussed in this attempt. The first is the grammat-
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Pragmaticalization of demo and dakedo (diachronic analysis) 

ical process (4.4.1) in which demo and dakedo became initial textual markers
because of their equipment of the element d. The second is the discourse pro-
cess (4.4.2) in which demo and dakedo came to be used as pragmatic markers,
rather than mere conjunctions, because their emergence in the utterance-initial
position accelerated their serving the expressive function. To conclude the mo-
tivating factors for the pragmatic change of demo and dakedo, I propose that,
on the whole, the fact that they contain the element d is the vital impellent of
their pragmaticalization.
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Chapter 5

Functions of the interjections ne and na in


Present Day Japanese (synchronic analysis)

We saw in Chapter 3 that two conjunctions demo and dakedo function as mark-
ers in Japanese conversational discourse. In this chapter, I now address two
interjections ne and na, and examine what discourse functions they have in
present day Japanese conversation.
Exploring English conjunctions (‘and’, ‘but’ and ‘or’) and interjections (‘oh’
and ‘well’) as discourse markers, Schiffrin (1987) mentions that among other
word classes whose members are recognized as markers, conjunctions and in-
terjections are two extremes with respect to referential meaning: Conjunctions
inherently have semantic meaning but interjections carry no semantic mean-
ing within themselves (Schiffrin 1987: 319 and elsewhere). Schiffrin (1987: 128)
also refers to the difference in the grammatical role of these word classes, i.e.
while conjunctions “have a role in the grammatical systems of English”, the
“linguistic contribution [of interjections] to their discourse function as mark-
ers is minimal”.
Since interjections are elements which have no referential meaning and
make no contribution to a grammatical system, I will not take the discourse
synthetic (syntactic – semantic – pragmatic) approach that I applied to the
analysis of conjunctions (Chapter 3). Interjections, rather, contribute to hu-
man interactional communication by their abundant expressive meanings.
Therefore, in this chapter, I examine the expressive meanings of ne and na
and attempt to show mainly how they work pragmatically in each different
speaker strategy.
There seems to be general agreement in previous studies of Japanese that
interjections are classified into two types: one type expresses the speaker’s
exclamation (admiration, surprise, fear etc.) and the other type expresses
the speaker’s communicative intention of drawing somebody’s attention or
responding to somebody. This classification reflects the general features
of Japanese interjections. The first type of interjection simply conveys the
speaker’s inner emotions without the intention of communicating those emo-
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 Chapter 5

tions to others. By contrast, the second type fundamentally articulates the


speaker’s intention to communicate with others (Morita 1973). The follow-
ing Kokugogaku (National Language Studies) scholars also agree with this di-
chotomy: by the early Shoowa era, e.g. Hoshina (1911), Yamada (1908) and
Yasuda (1928); and in our time, e.g. Ide (1965b) and Suzuki (1973).
I will show that ne and na belong to the second type (expressing the
speaker’s communicative intention). This dichotomy of interjections accord-
ing to their meanings will be an important issue in the diachronic analysis of
ne and na (Chapter 6).
This chapter comprises the following: First in (5.1), I introduce a notion,
harmony, which is essential not only in examining the usage of interjections ne
and na, but also in practicing the conduct of Japanese conversation per se. Fol-
lowing, I demonstrate the six specific functions of ne and na. Among them,
I first illustrate two basic functions: agreement (affirmative response) (5.2)
and call attention. ‘Call attention’ has three varieties depending on what the
speaker is calling attention to: call attention (cataphoric) (5.3), call attention
(anaphoric) (5.4) and call attention (both cataphoric and anaphoric) (5.5). In
(5.6), I show that ne and na mark achieved rapport in discourse from the view-
point of the exchange structure and the participation framework of discourse.
I then illustrate two secondary functions, i.e. fillers (5.7) and atmosphere sus-
tainer (5.8). Lastly in (5.9), I show that, overall, ne and na are markers of
involvement.

. Harmony: The ultimate goal in Japanese conversation

There are three reasons for introducing the concept, harmony, before provid-
ing the analysis of ne and na. First, ‘to reach harmony’ is the ultimate goal for
participants in Japanese conversation (cf. Barnlund 1974; Haga 1979; Hayashi
1988). Ne and na are the elements that reflect the achievement of harmony in
Japanese conversation. Second, harmony may be a language/culture-specific
feature; in other words, it may be a characteristic inherent in the Japanese
language, patterns of interactional behavior, and even the social organizations
in general. This feature may not reside in Western languages such as English.
Third, the concept of harmony also provides the base from which to compre-
hend that ne and na are markers of involvement (5.9).
‘Harmony’, as I shall employ the term, is the “feeling of ‘one-ness’/unity”
(Nakane 1970) among conversants in non-conflicting or non-argumentative
conversational communication.1 In such a situation not only is the meta-
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

knowledge2 status maintained (i.e. both the speaker and hearer know that they
share the same information), but also the interpretation/evaluation of the in-
formation is shared by the speaker and hearer. In my analysis of ne and na in
Present Day Japanese, it is recognized that they display ‘harmony’ in some way
in conversation: They reflect a harmonious atmosphere, display harmonious
personal relations, or even help to develop harmony.
I suggest that to reach harmony is the underlying ultimate goal for partic-
ipants in Japanese conversation. Motivated by this goal, there is a continuous
process in Japanese conversation management, in which participants strive for
conformity, not only through the sharing of information but also through
the evaluation of information. Thus harmony means not mere conformity
of the external informative frame (possessing the same piece of information)
but of each participant’s inner world. A conclusion of Hayashi’s (1988: 286)
contrastive study of English and Japanese floor management also implies that
“to attain a communicative goal such as enjoying conversation in harmonious
atmosphere” is the highest goal in Japanese conversation.
Previous works in sociology, psychology and communication have also
noted that harmony is a fundamental factor in understanding communica-
tive patterns in Japanese society. In his conclusion of Japanese and American
communicative styles, Barnlund (1974: 94–95) writes:
The Japanese appear to place the highest value on preserving the harmony
of the social group . . . [while Americans place it] on the preservation of
individual integrity.

Haga (1979: 104–105) also mentions that while Japan is a world where har-
mony (wa) is sovereign, Western countries comprise a world where logic
(ri) assumes sovereignty. Haga (Ibid.: 107) further suggests that in such
a harmony-oriented society, Ego is continuously sensitive to Alters’ eval-
uation of him/her in the group he/she belongs to. I think this group-
belongingness/orientedness is another characteristic feature in Japanese society
which actually promotes harmony.
Nakane (1970) accounts for Japanese group-orientation (in her term,
group-consciousness) by her two criteria of group formation: frame and at-
tribute. She assumes these contrasting concepts “to be most effective in the
analysis of Japanese society in comparison with other societies” (Ibid.: 1).
Nakane (1970: 1–2) defines the two concepts as follows:
Frame may be a locality, an institution or a particular relationship which binds
a set of individuals into one group. . .
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 Chapter 5

Attribute may mean, for instance, being a member of a definite descent group
or caste.

Nakane (Ibid.: 2) then stresses the ready tendency of the Japanese to lay empha-
sis on the frame rather than the attribute. An example showing such tendency
in a social context of self-introduction is given:
Rather than saying, ‘I am a type-setter’ or ‘I am a filing clerk’, he [a Japanese]
is likely to say, ‘I am from B Publishing Group’ or ‘I belong to S Company’.
(Ibid.: 3)

Nakane (Ibid.) concludes that indeed such group-consciousness


fosters the strength of an institution, and the institutional unit (such as a
school or company) is in fact the basis of Japanese social organization. . .

In Japanese society, where belonging to a group is of primary importance, to


maintain harmony within such a group without distinct conflict with other
members seems fundamental (cf. also Brown 1974).
An extensive linguistic study of Japanese conversation (Maynard 1989b:
219) has pointed out a general inclination in Japanese conversation manage-
ment that contrasts with that of American English:
The Japanese people are more preoccupied with using words in ways that con-
tribute to empathy building in conversation than they are with what proposi-
tional meaning the words themselves provide.

To “contribute to empathy building” implies the contribution to the creation


of harmony, and I suggest that ne and na make such a contribution. Maynard’s
point is also consistent with Haga’s (1979) view of Japan and the Western
nations mentioned above. Maynard further suggests that the essential socio-
cultural difference between Japanese and American speech cultures is “the
difference in degree of sensitivity to self-contextualization” (218), i.e. the “on-
going process of continually defining oneself in relation to one’s interactional
environment” (4). This on-going process/duty may be related to “facework”
(Scollon & Scollon 1995: 80) which was also pointed as an East-Asian behav-
ioral pattern. Maynard’s conclusion is that the Japanese are more sensitive to
self-contextualization. An underlying goal of self-contextualization is implied
to place ego appropriately in a given conversational context. Such appropriate-
ness in contextualizing ego in the Japanese speech community lies, I propose,
in the sustenance of harmony. In the sections that follow, I will show that the
interjections ne and na are linguistic elements that display harmony in Japanese
conversation. I suggest that the general function of ne and na is to display har-
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

mony: speaker/hearer interactional alignment. The specific speaker’s strategies


of ne/na derived from this general function in a given discourse are strongly de-
pendent upon both interactional (social) and conversational (linguistic) con-
text. Therefore when ne/na is decoded into English (as seen in the gloss in my
transcript) several different English expressions are used to convey its origi-
nal meaning. The use of several expressions to convert a single word (ne/na)
comes from ne/na’s dependence on interactional context and thus reflects the
differences between the language systems of Japanese and English.3

. Agreement (affirmative response)

.. Agreement

The first specific function of ne(e) is agreement. As a member of a group of


interjections expressing the speaker’s intention to communicate, responding to
somebody is its typical function. (See the beginning of this chapter.) Ne (or
nee) is used when the speaker intends to make an affirmative response. There
are also other interjections that make an affirmative response such as hai, un,
ee, etc. While these express mainly affirmativeness of the response (translated
into yes or yeh), ne(e) (usually translated into a tag question) rather expresses
the respondent’s consent to share what is said by the speaker. In other words,
this function is to show agreement.
(1) illustrates a basic case of agreement. (1) is an exchange which took place
in a cooking class where Mrs. K was teaching several students how to make a
Chinese sweet.
(1) Student A: a. Kooshiki tenisu no booru mitai.
Tennis LK ball looks.like
<‘It looks like a tennis ball.’>
Mrs. K: b. Ne::e honto.
TAG really
<‘Doesn’t it, really.’>

In (a), Student A describes a rice cake which grows bigger as it fries so that
it looks like a tennis ball. The description in (a) expresses A’s surprise at the
growing cake. Then in (b) Mrs. K, the instructor, shows her agreement with A’s
description, with ne::e and an adverb, really. As well as the use of an intensive,
really, the lengthened vowel in ne::e indicates the high degree of Mrs. K’s agree-
ment. Mrs. K’s ne::e also seems to be an exclamation. The fact that ne is related
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 Chapter 5

to exclamation, the feature characterizing the first group of interjections (see


the beginning of this chapter), will be a relevant issue in the diachronic analysis
(Chapter 6).
(2) is another example in which ne is exclamatory. This is an excerpt from
a conversation which took place at Mrs. K’s when her daughter’s university
professor visited them. Professor W talks about a female graduate student who
has recently had a baby and is still making more efforts to proceed with her
graduate work.
(2) Prof. W: a. “Shigoto o herasanaide kudasai.
Work DO reduce-NEG-GER give
b. Don don yarasete kudasai.” tte.
Steadily let me do give QT
c. “Hakase ronbun mo kaku tsumori
Dissertation also write intend
d. da.” tte,
COP QT
<‘(The female graduate says) “Do not reduce the work for
me. Please let me work more.” “I will also write my disserta-
tion.”’>
Mrs. K: e. Hoo:.
Oh.
<‘Oh.’>
Prof. W: f. Kodomo sodate nagara.
Child raise while
<‘Raising her child.’>
Mrs. K: g. Nee:.
Yeah
<‘Yeah (Really!).’>

In (2), listening to Prof. W’s talk about the admirable student, Mrs. K makes
two exclamatory remarks with interjections hoo and nee. The use of two inter-
jections indicates that Mrs. K is very impressed by the tenacity of the student.
By uttering nee: in (g), Mrs. K expresses her agreement with Prof. W’s de-
scription of the student. There seems also Mrs. K’s feelings of being impressed
and surprised. This emotional response is conveyed by the lengthened vowel of
nee:.4
Note that hoo (as in (2)) is an interjection which belongs to the first group
of interjections (expressing the speaker’s exclamation): This is a word which is
uttered when one is impressed by something. Nee in (2) is also involved with
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

feelings of exclamation, more specifically admiration. Hoo and nee both con-
vey the speaker’s exclamation. However, the difference in them is that while hoo
expresses the speaker’s emotion directly, nee conveys the speaker’s exclamation
by showing agreement with the interlocutor’s inner evaluation. In other words,
nee, in fact, reflects not only the speaker’s, but also the interlocutor’s emotional
reaction. This is one way to account for the fact that nee expresses exclamation
in spite of being part of the second group of interjections (communication-
based). However, it does not seem the whole story: There also seems a close
relationship between a communication-based interjection nee and exclama-
tion. This relationship will be considered further in the diachronic analysis of
ne and na (Chapter 6).
In (1) and (2), I proposed that phonetic variation, lengthened vowels, des-
ignate the emphatic use of ne, and hence they are contextualization cues. In (3),
another phonetic variation marking emphatic ne, a glottal stop, [‘] is found. (3)
is an exchange from a conversation which took place when my in-laws visited
our home in Tokyo.
(3)

Ne ‘

In (a–b), I evaluate that the cake my in-laws brought would appeal to the
young generation. Agreeing with my evaluation, my mother-in-law says Ne ‘
in (c), latched onto (b). This phonetic variation, glottal stop, added to ne, also
designates a more emphatic use than the one-mora ne.

.. Back channels

In Japanese conversation, it is important and necessary to show our ‘listener-


ship’ in order to maintain smooth communication with others. For example,
in a dialogue, while one is holding the floor, the other (namely the listener) has
to express his/her cooperative attitude of paying attention to what the speaker
is saying or his/her interest in the topic by some means. One such way is by
‘back channel behavior’. Yngve (1970: 568) defines back channels as follows:
short messages such as “yes” and “uh-huh” that the person who has the turn re-
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 Chapter 5

ceives without relinquishing the turn. While ‘agreement’ (5.2.1) is a full-fledged


function which shows the speaker’s assent, a back channel is a reduced form of
‘agreement’ with a weaker sense of agreeing.
Some researchers observing English conversation suggest that back chan-
nels function merely to inform the speaker that he/she should continue, i.e.
function as a continuer (Schegloff 1982: 81; Brown & Yule 1983: 92). How-
ever, there is a contrasting view which suggests that hearer’s back channels
make a significant contribution to the turn system in English conversation and
that both the speaker and hearer are at the same time strongly engaged in the
on-going conversation management process (Yngve 1970; Duncan 1973).
In Japanese conversation, Maynard (1989b: 171) has found additional va-
riety in the function of back channel behavior. Six features are specified as
functions of back channels in Japanese conversation:
(1) continuer, (2) display of understanding of content, (3) support toward the
speaker’s judgement, (4) agreement, (5) strong emotional response, (6) minor
addition, correction, or request for information.

I will show that ne and na are used as back channels whose basic function
is agreement (4), with accompanying functions (2) and (5). Maynard’s con-
trastive study of Japanese and American English conversations has also revealed
the higher frequency of back channels in Japanese conversation (Ibid.: 207). Ac-
cording to Maynard, the number of back channels in three-minute segments of
conversation among twenty Japanese and twenty American pairs are: Japanese
871, American 428. Back channels occur more than twice as frequently in
Japanese casual conversation. This result accords with my own impression
from participating in conversations in both languages.
What causes the difference in frequency of back channels in the two lan-
guages? Maynard (1989b: 177) states that a continuous flow of back chan-
nels in casual conversation is the norm within the Japanese speech com-
munity. She also writes that back channels offer integral information for
self-contextualization (Ibid.). The difference in frequency of back channels
in Japanese and English is, in fact, accountable in her framework of self-
contextualization: it is caused by the difference in degree of sensitivity to
self-contextualization (Ibid.: 218). Recall that, when contextualizing self, the
ultimate goal in Japanese conversation, to seek harmony, supplies the criterion
for appropriate contextualization (5.1): That is, to maintain harmony is the
appropriate way to contextualize self in Japanese society. Therefore, my study
suggests that the high frequency of back channels in Japanese conversation
is controlled by its culturally specific goal, ‘to seek harmony’. Back channels
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

in Japanese also show that harmony has been achieved or at least that the
participants are working toward it.
Ne and na as back channel expressions occur at transition relevance places
(TRP), and they indicate the listener’s agreement. (A TRP consists of the end
of a turn-unit where the transition of speakers may occur, Sacks, Schegloff, &
Jefferson 1978.)
(4) shows a case of ne as a back channel. (4) is taken from a conversation
among Mr. and Mrs. K and Prof. W. When (4) arose, Mr. K was talking about
his hobby of fishing. Mr. and Mrs. K had already explained that whenever Mr.
K set off for fishing, he left home about 3:30 am. In response, Prof. W says:
(4) Prof. W: a. Soide omodori ni naru
Then return
b. no wa yuugata nan deshoo?
NOM TP evening NOM TAG
<‘Then when you come back home, it’s in the evening, isn’t
it?’>
Mr. K: c. Ee, soo desu ne, hai,
Yeh, well, yes,
d. nanji goro ka naa,
what-time about Q FP
e. kuji goro ni narimasu
nine-o’clock around is
f. ka nee.
FP
<‘Yeh, well, yes, (I wonder) what time it would be, It would
be around nine o’clock.’>
Prof. W: g. Nee.
TAG
<‘Would it?’>
Mrs. K: h. Sorekara moo ichi jikan
Then well one hour
i. ni jikan kakatte,
two hours take-GER
<‘Then he spends one or two hours. . . ’>

Prof. W mentions ‘evening’ in (a–b). Mr. K then tries to recall the time of his re-
turn in (c–d) and builds on ‘evening’ mentioned by Prof. W by specifying ‘9:00’
in (e–f). This shows that Prof. W and Mr. K are indeed jointly building infor-
mation in a way to exhibit they “share information” and have harmony. In (g),
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 Chapter 5

Prof. W says nee. It does not express her agreement with or show that she is im-
pressed by the proposition in (e–f), “Mr. K returns home around nine o’clock.”
Nee in this case, rather signifies Prof. W’s contribution to keep the harmonious
relationship with Mr. K in the conversation, by contributing a listener reaction.
Nee (g) shows the listener’s involvement in this talk, too. Following this back
channel, in (h) Mrs. K develops the story by describing what Mr. K does after
his return (He spends one or two hours cooking the fish, . . . etc.).

. Call attention (cataphoric)

Another important role of ne(e) and na(a) in discourse is to call the atten-
tion of the hearer. The ‘calling attention’ function can be divided into three
types according to the direction of discourse to which ne(e) and na(a) point. I
demonstrate the cases in which they point forward (5.3), backward (5.4) and
lastly both directions (5.5).

.. Before new information

When ne(e) is used cataphorically to call attention, it focuses on the up-


coming information. Ne(e) calls the hearer’s attention to what the speaker is
about to say.
The cataphoric use of ne(e) here, more specifically, calls the hearer’s at-
tention ‘before new information’. This strategy is used right before the speaker
provides new information in discourse. “New information” is used as referred
to in Prince (1981) in her ‘scale of the speaker’s assumed familiarity’. Prince
proposes that the speaker makes an assumption about how familiar the hearer
is with the information which the speaker will provide (i.e. the speaker judges
whether the information is brand-new, unused, inferable or can be evoked for
the hearer). The use of ne(e) right before the speaker’s provision of informa-
tion means the speaker assumes that the information will be new to the hearer.
Therefore, this strategy is based on the speaker’s assessment of the current
meta-knowledge situation between the speaker and hearer.
The communicative effect in the use of ne before new information is as fol-
lows. When the speaker employs this strategy, the upcoming new information
is important, and ne can help prepare the hearer for the forthcoming informa-
tion. Hence, the speaker can avoid abruptness and startling the hearer by new
information. For the hearer, ne may provide a clue to figuring out the sense
of the speaker’s information (the sense includes why the speaker says this to
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

us now in this way) because ne marks the coming report of a relatively notable
piece of information in the immediate flow of discourse. As a discourse marker,
ne suggests contextual coordinates (Schiffrin 1987: 326): it focuses on the up-
coming information (textual coordinates) and it indexes the utterance to the
hearer (participation coordinates).5
Let us turn to see in what situation this strategy is used. The first exam-
ple is (5). It is an excerpt from a conversation which came about during Mrs.
K’s cooking class. Prior to (5), even though it was in the middle of the class,
Mrs. K needed to explain the reason for leaving the tape-recorder on (record-
ing conversation) since the students were curious. To answer her students’
questions, Mrs. K told them the purpose of an earlier study for which some
conversations were recorded. Mrs. K then needed to return to the task at hand
and give a cooking instruction. In (c), she makes an effort to give new infor-
mation on cooking even though the students are still showing interest in the
linguistic study.
(5) Student B: a. Sensei no kotoba ga
Teacher GN words SB
b. omo ne.
main TAG
<‘Your (Mrs. K’s) words are mainly (recorded), aren’t
they?’>
Mrs. K: c. Nee, chotto tsumeta:ku wa
Well umm cold EMP
d. narimasen wa. Gomennasai.
get NEG FP sorry
<‘Well, it doesn’t get really cold. Sorry.’>

In (c), nee is used to call the attention of the hearers (students) before the
new information in (c–d). In this case, in addition to nee, an adverb chotto
which also plays the role of calling somebody’s attention is used. Thus the ap-
pearance of both nee and chotto conveys that Mrs. K is drawing the hearers’
attention to something other than the ongoing subtopic. Nee in (c) focuses
on the upcoming information. Following (d), the conversation on today’s dish
continues. Mrs. K succeeded in going back to her cooking instruction from a
digressive topic.
A similar case of Mrs. K’s use of nee was also found: In this case, the stu-
dents’ attention had been scattered in many directions; thus before giving the
next instruction, she called their attention using nee. By contrast, when the stu-
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 Chapter 5

dents are paying enough attention, she uses another interjection saa. (6) shows
Mrs. K’s use of saa instead of nee.
(6) Student B: a. Dakara ‘Edo Zushi’ no tokoro
So LK place
b. kara shika ike nai n desu.
from only go NEG NOM COP
<‘So (the cars) can go in only at Edo Zushi restaurant.’>
Mrs. K: c. Fu:n.
Hmmm
<‘Hmmm.’>
Student C: d. Fu:n.
Hmmm
<‘Hmmm.’>
Mrs. K: e. Saa, jaa zelii dashi-
Now then jello get out
f. mashoo ka?
Q
<‘Now, then let’s get out ‘jello’.’>

In (a–b), Student B has just ended her story about the one-way traffic in the
neighborhood. Mrs. K and Student C back channel ‘Hmmm’ in (c) and (d):
this seems a transition relevance place (Sacks et al. 1978). Everybody is at the
table and appears to be silent for a moment following (d). Mrs. K then says saa
and gives her next instruction ‘let’s get out jello’ in (e–f). In this situation, it is
not necessary for Mrs. K to direct the students’ attention to her suggestion.
Saa is an interjection which expresses the speaker’s ‘invitation’ (to listen to
what he/she will say) (cf. Yamaguchi 1984). In a situation like (6) where it was
not necessary to get the hearer’s attention before new information, the speaker
can use an interjection other than nee.
Another example of calling attention ‘before new information’ is (7). It is
an excerpt from a telephone conversation between Mrs. K and Mrs. M, the
mother of Saki’s friend in piano class. When this excerpt took place, the two
mothers were discussing giving a present to the piano instructor at the pupils’
recital. Following Mrs. M’s information, in (7), Mrs. K makes an effort to give
another piece of information which might explain why some mothers objected
to giving a present.
(7) Mrs. K: a. Ee sore to,
Yeh it and
<‘Yeh and,’>
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

Mrs. M: b. Ee.
Yeh
<‘Yeh.’>
Mrs. K: c. ne, maa sore wa yodan kamo
well, um it TP digression
d. shiremasen keredomo,
might.be though
<‘well, um this may be off the subject, but,’>
Mrs. M: e. Ee,
Yeh
<‘Yeh,’>
Mrs. K: f. ano, ginkoo no kata ga
um bank clerk SB
g. osshatterashita ni wa, . . .
told (HON) EMP
<‘um, the bank clerk told me that. . . ’>

In (7), Mrs. K’s effort to give new information is marked not only by ne in
(c) but also by other linguistic features: a formulaic expression to begin a new
subtopic, sore to in (a) (and then) and a meta-linguistic clause which is an exter-
nal evaluation6 ‘this may be off the subject’ in (c–d). Ne and all these linguistic
devices indicate that there will be new information upcoming. Following (g),
Mrs. K supplies new information, which she heard from a bank clerk, about
the financial hardships the people in her town are suffering, caused by the
home loan.
In this section, I have examined the use of ne(e) to call attention ‘before
new information’. Ne(e) focuses on upcoming information, hence it is cat-
aphoric. At the beginning of this section, I mentioned the communicative effect
of this function: (1) For the speaker, this function allows him/her to prepare
the hearer for the forthcoming information. (2) The hearer can know that a
piece of important information is to come. The use of ne contributes to the
interactional level of discourse; in other words, involvement.

. Call attention (anaphoric)

Let us now turn to examples in which ne(e) works anaphorically to call the
hearer’s attention. One specific use of ne(e) is to reinforce information (5.4.1).
The sequence here is the reverse of the cataphoric use of ne(e). Once the speaker
supplies the information, he/she can well assume that it has become shared by
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 Chapter 5

the hearer. Following this shared information, ne(e) functions in a specific way
in discourse: it asks about and suggests the validity of the given information to
the hearer (5.4.1).

.. Reinforcement

A speaker can use ne(e) to suggest the validity of information just presented.
The effect of this function is that the speaker reinforces his/her information to
try to get the hearer to receive it. This shows the speaker’s effort to reach the
goal of sharing the information with the hearer. The goal is, in other words, to
attain harmony in conversation. Hence this function also reflects the feature of
ne(e) as a marker of involvement.
(8) illustrates. It took place when one of Mrs. K’s cooking classes was over
and the students were getting ready to leave. Student S asked Student T if she
wanted a ride. But T did not want to inconvenience S, and rejected the offer
three times. Mrs. K then reinforces S’s offer in (a–b).
(8) Mrs. K: a. Jaa eki made nosete
Then station to ride
b. itadakeba? Nee.
receive-if How’s.that?
<‘Then how about getting a ride to the station? How’s
that?’>
Student S: c. Soo yo.
Right
<‘Right.’>
Student T: d. Itsumo suimasen.
Always thank.you
e. Nanka itsumo nanka,
Anyhow always anyhow
<‘It’s always. Thank you. Anyhow always . . . ’

In (a–b), Mrs. K suggests a compromise in which S would take T only as far


as the train station. Following, Mrs. K adds nee which strengthens the sense
that the suggestion is a good one. Nee marks Mrs. K’s confirming the value
of her suggestion with the audience (Students S, T and others). After Mrs. K’s
suggestion, the offerer of the ride (S) agrees to the suggestion, thus supporting
her offer in (c). And in (d), T finally agrees to accept the ride.
In (8), the speaker confirms the value of his/her just provided information
with nee. However, nee also has an interactional effect. ‘Then how about getting
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

a ride to the station?’ in (a–b) was Mrs. K’s own suggestion. But the added nee
sounds as if the suggestion were everybody’s idea. This is the effect of nee as a
marker of involvement which ‘involves’ participants in what is said. With nee,
Mrs. K’s suggestion is openly attested as having been shared by all the hearers
present. In sum, with nee the speaker reinforces his/her preceding information.
(9) is similar. This is an exchange from a conversation between Mr.
and Mrs. K after Mr. K returned home from work. They talk of today’s
muggy weather.
(9) Mr. K: a. Mushiburo tte kanji ni
Steam-bath QT feel
b. naru yo. Nettaiya
become EMP sultry-night
c. mitai da ne. Ne.
seem COP FP
<‘It’s like taking a steam bath. It will be a sultry night.7 Won’t
it?’>
Mrs. K: d. Kyoo wa nettaiya
Today TP sultry-night
e. desu tte.
COP QT
<‘Today it’ll be a sultry night, (they say.)’>
Mr. K: f. Soo da ro?
So TAG
<‘I told you.’>

In (b–c), Mr. K suggests ‘It will be a sultry night’ and says ne. He could make
the same prediction without ne, however, he adds it to reinforce his idea. With
ne the speaker affirms the validity of his information. This act seems directed
to the underlying goal of conversation, to reach harmony, because affirming
the validity of the speaker’s information and reinforcing it all show his efforts
to attain conformity with the hearer. After ne, the hearer (Mrs. K) makes the
same prediction as the speaker in (d–e): This shows that the speaker succeeded
in sharing his information with the hearer and that they reached harmony,
which fulfills an eventual goal of Japanese conversation. Thus, (9) also shows
that ne is an involvement marker, involving the other participant in what is
being said.
In cases where the hearer shows agreement with the speaker’s opinion
after the speaker’s ne, I have suggested that the speaker was successful in ful-
filling his/her goal. In the data examined, the hearer’s consent often follows
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 Chapter 5

the speaker’s ne. This is not surprising because upon the provision of ne, in
many cases, speaker-hearer alignment (harmony) is somehow or other already
achieved. After this point, there is a tendency for the hearer to show his/her
acknowledgement of the accomplished harmonious situation. To express dis-
tinctly this kind of listener agreement seems important in Japanese conversa-
tion and it in fact recurs. However, it is noted that all the functions of ne are
in effect regardless of what follows ne, i.e. with/without listener’s acknowledge-
ment. (For instance, in our prior example (2), nee: said by Mrs. K is followed
by Prof. W’s utterance which just continues the story, ‘Her (the student’s) hus-
band is a professor of mathematics.’ Nothing shows Prof. W’s agreement with
the speaker of nee:; nevertheless, nee: functions fully.)
In sum, (8) and (9) illustrate that ne(e) reinforces information just pro-
duced by a speaker.

. Call attention (anaphoric and cataphoric)

In addition to the cataphoric (5.3) and anaphoric (5.4) uses, ne/na can be
used both cataphorically and anaphorically (5.5). Here, ne/na points to both
directions, backward and forward, simultaneously.

.. Summons

When one calls somebody in English conversation, first names and kinship
terms (Dad, Grandma etc.) are frequently used. In Japanese conversation,
the interjection nee is used to replace such address terms. Following Sche-
gloff (1972, 1979), I call this function ‘summons’. Schegloff (1972: 357–358)
identifies as summonses (attention-getting devices) of summons-answer se-
quences the following devices: (1) terms of address; (2) courtesy phrases such
as “Pardon me”; (3) physical devices such as a tap on the shoulder; and (4) me-
chanical devices like telephone rings. Within the class of terms of address, he
includes ““John?,” “Dr.,” “Mr. Jones?,” “waiter,” etc.” (357). Ne(e) can at times
replace such address terms. A summons calls attention to something coming
up. Therefore, the use of ne(e) as a summons is basically cataphoric.
Although a summons is cataphoric, (10) shows that nee can also be used
anaphorically, i.e. in this example, nee is both cataphoric and anaphoric. (10)
is an exchange from a conversation between Mrs. K and her younger daughter,
Saki, which takes place before Saki leaves home for high school.
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

(10) Mrs. K: a. Anata genryoo suru nante


You lose-weight QT
b. itte, asa kara kabocha nanka
say morning from pumpkin something.like
c. tabetetara.
eat-if
<‘You say you try to lose weight, however if you’re eating
pumpkin in the morning . . . ’>
Saki: d. Futoru no? Kabocha tte, nee.
Fattening NOM Pumpkin QT hey
<‘Fattening? Pumpkin is? Hey.’>
Mrs. K: e. E ?
What?
<‘What?’>
Saki: f. Futoru no? Kabocha tte.
Fattening NOM Pumpkin QT
<‘Fattening? Pumpkin is?’>

(10) takes place while Saki is at breakfast. Before the two daughters leave for
school Mrs. K seems busy preparing their meal and their lunch. In (d), Saki
asks her mother a question, but Mrs. K does not respond immediately, so Saki
says nee following her question to get her mother’s attention. In (e), Mrs. K
says ‘What?’, which shows that she did not hear Saki’s request for information.
Then in (f), by repeating the same question, Saki at last supplies the request for
information in this exchange. Nee directs the hearer’s attention to this question.
However, since the question (f) is in fact a repetition of the question in (d), nee
(d) also looks at the original question. Thus, (10) indeed shows a case in which
nee looks both forward and backward.
Instead of using nee to address her mother, there are other address terms
available for Saki, e.g. Okaasan (Mother). It is less polite to address somebody
by nee than by proper kinship terms or names. However, (10) illustrates a case
where nee can replace an address term in a conversation where the speaker-
hearer relationship is intimate/solidary (cf. Brown & Gilman 1960).
In (10), as a summons, nee looks forward, i.e. it is used cataphorically.
However, in this example, nee also looks backward and points at the original
information.
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 Chapter 5

.. Linking prior and upcoming information

In this function, nee/naa is used between the prior information and upcom-
ing information provided by the speaker, and nee/naa looks at both chunks of
information.
This function is realized by na as well as ne. Although the use of na is less
frequent than that of ne in my data of Present Day Japanese, I include it within
the scope of analysis because it is closely related to ne historically and both
interjections will be examined in the diachronic study (Chapter 6).
In this function, the speaker first supplies Information A, says nee/(naa),
and gives Information B. Nee/(naa) confirms the hearer’s reception of Informa-
tion A. This confirmation indicates that Information A becomes part of shared
knowledge (Schiffrin 1987: 268, mutual knowledge in Levinson 1983: 16), i.e.
S knows that H knows that S knows that H knows (Levinson Ibid.). Based on
this shared Information A, the speaker continues with Information B. There
is no particular relationship required between the two pieces of information
(i.e. A and B can be anything) as long as they are somehow coherent within
the discourse. As a consequence of this function, we will see that the prior and
upcoming information are linked.
I first examine an example of nee in (11). It is from a telephone conversa-
tion between Mrs. K and another mother (H) whose daughter goes to the same
high school as Mrs. K’s daughter. As a PTA official, Mrs. K has purchased the
tickets for a Kabuki play for the pupils and their parents. In (11), she explains
the reserved seating arrangement to H.
(11) Mrs. K: a. Ano ne, renzoku bangoo
Well um successive numbers
b. to iu yori mo, anoo
QT say rather well
c. tashikani ano bangoo wa
actually um numbers TP
d. tsuzuite wa orimasu n
succeed EMP NOM
e. desu ne.
COP FP
f. De ano, ikkai no hatsuka wa
And um orchestra LK the.20th TP
g. ee, hidarigawa no hoo no
well left-side LK direction LK
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

h. anoo, mannaka kara ushiro no


um center from back LK
i. hoo ga anoo itadaite aru
direction SB um receive exist
j. n desu.
NOM COP
k. Nee sanbyaku seki, ee.
That’s 300 seats yes
<‘Well um, (our seats are) not successive numbers, but well,
right, the numbers in fact succeed. And um, for the orches-
tra of the twentieth (date), we have (seats) on the left side,
in the back rows from the center. (That’s) three hundred
seats, yes.’>

From (a) through (j), Mrs. K describes the location of the seats for their high
school so that Mother H will know how their seats are distributed. In (k), Mrs.
K says nee and confirms Mrs. H’s reception of Information A (a–j) (concerning
their seats for the 20th). In this case, Mrs. K seems to assume Mrs. H’s reception
of Information A. Based on the shared Information A, Mrs. K then develops In-
formation B (k) concerning the number of seats (‘300 seats’). Nee (k) indicates
that Information A and B are closely related (i.e. they concern the same general
topic). Consequently, ‘Three hundred seats’ (Information B (k)) is understood
accurately as pertaining to ‘our seats for the twentieth’ (Information A (a–j)).
Overall nee informs the hearer that the forthcoming information is linked
with the prior in the unfolding discourse.
Let us see the same function in naa. (12) is from a conversation between
Mr. and Mrs. K after Mr. K’s return home. Before coming back home, he visited
an amusement quarter, Roppongi.
(12) Mr. K: a. Hachi ji sugi dakedo maa
Eight o’clock after but well
b. yoosuruni koo hantai kara mo
briefly like opposite.direction from also
c. kuru wake da yo.
come case COP EMP
<‘Although it’s after eight o’clock, (a crowd) comes along
from the opposite direction.’>
Mrs. K: d. Ee.
Yes
<‘Yes.’>
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 Chapter 5

Mr. K: e. Naa sabishii hoo kara


Right deserted direction from
f. kuru wake da yo.
come case COP EMP
g. Asobi ni iku hoo
Play go direction
h. daro, hora.
TAG right
<‘Right, (the crowd) comes along from the direction of the
deserted area. To the area of amusement, right?’>

Mr. K gives Information A ‘even though it was after 8p.m., a lot of people came
from the opposite direction (where a subway station is)’ in (a–c). In this exam-
ple, the hearer (Mrs. K) says ‘yes’ (d) showing her reception of Information A.
Mr. K then utters naa (e) to acknowledge Mrs. K’s reception. At this moment,
that Information A is shared by the speaker and hearer is openly attested. Now,
Mr. K can use the shared Information A as a base to develop Information B.
Because Information A is shared by the speaker and hearer, Information B is
understood clearly (e.g. the deserted area = the area where the station is, the
area of amusement = the area where Mr. K had been).
Naa in this function designates the close link between prior and upcoming
information in the unfolding discourse as did nee in (11).
On the whole, nee and naa in this function link the prior and upcoming
information.
In sum, the examination of the above examples (1)–(12) has revealed sev-
eral different roles of ne(e)/na(a): agreement, back channel, before new informa-
tion, reinforcement, summons and linking prior and upcoming information. Con-
sidering the last four functions together, it can be noted that ne and na some-
times work cataphorically (5.3), sometimes anaphorically (5.4) and sometimes
in both directions (5.5). Thus they act to index the relationship (connection)
between two portions of discourse. By means of this indexing function, ne and
na mark the coherent relationship between prior and upcoming discourse, and
have a textual function (text-building function). In the building of text, ne
and na in fact provide contextual coordinates (Schiffrin 1987: 326) of specific
information (utterance): they index an utterance to the context including par-
ticipants and text. Ne and na suggest where the utterance is located on the two
axes – participation and textual coordinates. That is, the markers index the con-
taining utterance to either speaker or hearer (participants) and to either prior
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

Figure 5.1 Continuum of attention getting capacity of ne(e)/na(a)’s functions

discourse or upcoming discourse (text). We then understand the relationship


of a specific utterance to both participants and text.
Is there a common core to the six basic functions found above ((5.2)–
(5.5))? One common point seems to be that they all serve attention getting
functions which focus on specific information to be shared by the partici-
pants in the conversation. From the standpoint of the interactional level of
discourse, these functions all contribute to reaching harmony, the ultimate goal
in Japanese conversation.
In the six basic functions of ne(e)/na(a), it is also observed that they dif-
fer in the amount of ‘attention getting’ work they perform. In other words,
though the functions all work to get the hearer’s attention, it appears that they
occur along a continuum from strong to weak ‘attention getting capacity’. Thus
‘summons’ and ‘before new information’ have the strongest ‘attention getting
capacity’, while ‘agreement’ and ‘back channel’ appear to have the weakest.
Figure 5.1 shows this continuum.
This difference in the attention getting capacity of each function is due
to differences in interactional contexts. In other words, the amount of hearer
attention required varies depending upon the interactional context, and the
functions of ne(e)/na(a) in the various contexts have developed accordingly.

. Marker of rapport

Before looking into the secondary functions of ne(e) and na(a), I show that
ne(e) and na(a) are markers of rapport. ‘Rapport’ refers to a congenial situation
in which the speaker and hearer achieve the acknowledged meta-knowledge
status in which they both know that they share the same information. In this
study, ‘rapport’ differs from harmony because it concerns only cases associated
with a particular exchange structure. Out of ninety-four examples of ne and
na, twenty-eight have the particular ‘rapport marker’ structure in my data. Al-
though it is not the majority, it still occupies 30% of all the examples of ne
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 Chapter 5

and na. I suggest that they are more or less the typical cases demonstrating the
characteristics of involvement markers.
The exchange structure of discourse in which ne(e)/na(a) is a rapport
marker is:
a. the speaker: Information X
b. the hearer: Consent to Information X (realized by soo, hai, ee, or repetition
of Information X, etc.)
c. the speaker: Acknowledgement of Consent (Ne(e)/Na(a))

Ne(e) or na(a) in this particular structure is a marker of rapport. However, each


ne(e)/na(a) in this structure also plays a specific role such as ‘agreement’, ‘link-
ing prior and upcoming information’, or ‘filler’ (to be discussed in (5.7)). These
specific functions have already been found and discussed. Therefore, the rap-
port marking I focus on here is a result of examination with special attention
to local exchange structures.
In the above exchange structure, in (a) the speaker provides Information
X. What is important is the hearer’s agreement in (b) which shows an affirma-
tive reaction such as soo, hai, ee or the repetition of Information X. It is at this
point (b) that the speaker knows clearly that his/her provided information (X)
has been ‘shared with the hearer’. By the hearer’s reaction of agreement in (b),
the meta-knowledge situation that both the speaker and hearer know that they
share Information X is openly attested. The marker of rapport (ne(e)/na(a))
comes right after this process. Ne(e) or na(a) said by the speaker marks ‘rap-
port’ (the agreeable situation based on the concordant meta-knowledge status)
which has just been recognized to be achieved at the point of (b).
Rapport is obviously one type of harmony (5.1). In fact, harmony can be
achieved with ne/na in other ways. Among others, rapport is created with a par-
ticular sequence of discourse portions, i.e. Speaker’s Information X – Hearer’s
Consent to X – Speaker’s Acknowledgement of Consent (by ne(e)/na(a)). I
call this particular use of ne/na ‘rapport marker’ to differentiate it from other
harmonious situations.
We have already seen an example having the structure of rapport marker
in (12). (13) illustrates a case of rapport marker nee whose specific function
is agreement. (13) is a telephone exchange between Mrs. K and Mrs. M. They
basically agree upon giving a present to the piano instructor of their daughters.
However, there are other mothers who object to doing so. Mrs. K and Mrs.
M discuss this problem. In (13), Mrs. K claims her position (“we should give
something”) relating it to common sense.
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

(13) Mrs. K: a. Yappari nee ichioo no


After.all um at.least LK
b. jooshiki to iu koto wa
common.sense QT say NOM TP
c. arimasu desho?
exist TAG
<‘Anyway there is at least common sense, isn’t there?’>
Mrs. M: d. Arimasu yo nee.
exist FP FP
<‘There (surely) is!’>
Mrs. K: e. Nee.
TAG
<‘(Right) Isn’t there?’>

From (a) through (c), Mrs. K makes her claim (“there is common sense” =
Information X). In (d), Mrs. M agrees with Mrs. K’s claim by repeating its pred-
icate (‘exist’ (arimasu)). At this point of M’s agreement, the meta-knowledge
situation (the speaker and hearer know that both of them know Information
X) is openly attested. Then this process led Mrs. K to use the marker acknowl-
edging Mrs. M’s agreement. It is at the point when the speaker is convinced
that her information is truly shared by her interlocutor that the speaker uses
nee, which in fact marks the achieved rapport.
(14) shows the same strategy realized by na. (14) is an exchange between
Mr. K and his elder daughter, Rika, in a conversation which occurred at the K’s
on Sunday morning. Mr. K and Rika were trying to figure out where the tennis
court was. In (14), Mr. K suggests the location of a river as a clue.
(14) Mr. K: a. De koo zutto hirake
And like.this far open
b. hirakeru n da yo ne.
open NOM COP FP FP
c. De sono saki ni kawa ga
And that beyond river SB
d. aru n da yo na?
exist NOM COP FP FP
<‘And (the land) opens out at that point. And beyond it (the
open space), there’s a river.’>
Rika: e. Soo.
Yes
<‘Yes.’>
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 Chapter 5

Mr. K: f. Na.
Right?
<‘Right?’>

From (a) through (d), the speaker provides Information X ‘And the land
opens out at that point. Beyond it, there’s a river.’ Rika’s agreement marker
soo (Yes) follows in (e). Then Mr. K says na which shows his acknowledge-
ment of Rika’s agreement and thus marks the situation where he and Rika share
Information X.
In (14), the specific function of na in (f) is only a back channel response
which does not do much in the meaning-construction of discourse. Despite
this fact, Mr. K’s na in (f) still makes an important contribution on the in-
teractional level of discourse, creating harmony in a family conversation. The
importance of uttering na here is not what the word propositionally transmits
but rather the act of saying itself. The act of saying or acknowledging his daugh-
ter’s agreement shows Mr. K’s active participation in conversation and makes
public the achieved harmonious situation between him and his daughter.
(15) and (16) show that nee marks ‘rapport’, functioning specifically ‘to
link prior and upcoming information’. (15) is an excerpt from a telephone con-
versation between Mrs. K and Mrs. H. This is from the same segment out of
which (11) is extracted. Mrs. K is explaining the distribution of their seats for
the Kabuki play to Mrs. H.
(15) Mrs. K: a. Desukara goku ichibu
So quite a-part
b. na n desu.
COP NOM COP
<‘So (our) seats are only part of it.’>
Mrs. H: c. Haa.
Hmmm
<‘Hmmm.’>
Mrs. K: d. Nee zentai no.
Okay whole LK
<‘Okay, of the entire theater.’>

In (a–b), Mrs. K clarifies that the reserved seats for their high school group
would only be part of the theater (against Mrs. H’s anticipation that the whole
theater would be reserved for them). Mrs. H shows her acknowledgement of
the above information by a back channel response Haa in (c). Following, Mrs.
K says Nee to confirm Mrs. H’s understanding of the information in (a–b), then
develops another bit of information, “of the entire theater” in (d). The proposi-
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

tion “of the entire theater” only makes sense dependent upon the information
provided in (a–b). Recall that nee used in ‘linking prior and upcoming infor-
mation’ points both anaphorically and cataphorically. Nee in (d) focuses on
earlier information (a–b) “Our seats are only part of it.” Then Nee shows that
later information in (d) “of the entire theater” coheres with earlier information.
In (15), in the second piece of information, the speaker in fact expands the first
chunk of information. To expand it, the speaker’s use of nee suggests its co-
herent relationship with the upcoming information; then the whole discourse
makes sense.
(16) demonstrates an interesting variation of a rapport marker structure:
i.e. the structure involves three participants. (16) is taken out of a conversation
between Mrs. K and her students after a cooking class. Prior to (16), they have
talked about who can drink alcohol.
(16) Mrs. K: a.Hirota san otabako wa?
Mrs. Hirota cigarettes TP?
<‘Mrs. Hirota, how about cigarettes?’>
Student H: b. Dame desu.
Impossible COP
<‘No (I don’t smoke cigarettes).’>
Mrs. K: c. A so:o.
Oh TAG
<‘Oh, don’t you?’>
Student T: d. Nee otabako mo ike
Right cigarettes also can
e. soo ne.
seem FP
<‘Right. She does look able to smoke.’>

(16) has an exchange structure modified from the basic ‘rapport marker’ struc-
ture I demonstrated at the beginning of (5.6). In (16), at first Mrs. K asks H
about smoking (since H has been revealed to be the only one in the class who
can drink). H offers the requested information by a negative answer in (b).
Mrs. K then sends a back channel response to this information in (c). Now
it is interesting that the third participant T says nee to acknowledge Mrs. K’s
back channel.
The exchange structure of (16) is as follows:
(16’) a. S Request for Information X
b. H Information X
c. S Consent to Information X
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 Chapter 5

d. P Acknowledgement of Consent (Nee)


(S, H and P signify Speaker, Hearer and the third Participant respec-
tively.)

In this structure, the question/answer pair ((a) and (b)) corresponds to the
speaker’s Information X in the original rapport marker structure, discussed
above. S’s back channel ‘Oh, don’t you?’ (c) shows her consent. At the point of
(c), S and H come to share Information X (H doesn’t smoke). Now in (d), it is
not H, but the third person P who utters nee. Nee shows P’s acknowledgement
of S’s consent to Information X (H does not smoke). Nee expresses the estab-
lished meta-knowledge situation, i.e. P and S share Information X, which was
affirmed to be shared by S and H in (c). Hence (16) is an example in which a
rapport-marker involves three participants.
Through the examination of (13)–(16), we have seen two uses of nee (na).
In (15) and (16) the speaker continues a sentence following nee. By contrast
in (13) and (14), the speaker only says nee/na, and following it, another par-
ticipant takes a turn. In the latter case, we see that nee/na is being treated
like a whole utterance, because after nee/na there seems a turn transition rel-
evance place where another participant in fact takes a turn. This shows the
independent nature of interjections that do not rely on other elements to form
a sentence. This is a linguistic feature of interjections which differ in this re-
spect from dependent words such as sentence-final particles and conjunctive
particles.

. Fillers

Finally, I address two functions of ne(e) and na(a), which I define as their sec-
ondary functions. The two functions ‘filler’ (5.7) and ‘atmosphere sustainer’
(5.8) derive from the basic functions discussed in each section above. What
leads to this use, I think, is speaker subjectivity. (Subjectivity will be a more
relevant issue in the diachronic analysis of ne and na (Chapter 6). In Chap-
ter 6, subjectification accompanying the historical change in ne and na will be
explored.)
First I examine the function of filler. Filler may be a category which con-
tains words least loaded with semantic meaning. However, fillers might carry
discourse/pragmatic meaning which makes an important contribution to the
social/interactional aspect of discourse.
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

(17) shows a use of ne as a filler. The conversation, out of which (17) is


extracted, took place when the professor of Mr. and Mrs. K’s elder daughter
visited the K’s. In (17), Mrs. K explains the difference in cooking in the places
where Mr. and Mrs. K had been raised.
(17) Mrs. K: a. Ano iro no koi no wa
Well color LK dark NOM TP
b. hin no nai oryoori
undignified cooking
c. da to
COP QT
<‘Well, since dark colored (dishes) has been said to be undig-
nified,’>
Prof. W: d. Ee, ee.
Yes, yes
<‘Yes, yes.’>
Mrs. K: e. iwaremashita node,
say-PASS since
f. nimono demo nan demo
boiled.dishes or anything
g. ano: ne iro o tsuke-
we:ll um color DO add-
h. mashite, de shujin wa
GER and husband TP
i. ano Tokyo degozaimashite,
well Tokyo COP-GER
<‘for boiled dishes or anything, I we:ll um added color (to
them), and my husband is from well Tokyo,’>

Mrs. K explains her efforts to make up for the difference in cooking in the
birthplaces of Mr. K and herself. After mentioning “for boiled dishes or any-
thing” in (f), she says ano: ne (we:ll um). By doing so, she is in fact seeking the
right words to express what she did for these dishes. Following “we:ll um”, she
continues “added color to them”.
Because the expression “adding color” is not in regular use for cooking,
Mrs. K’s use of such an expression, as well as the two fillers (ano: ne), demon-
strate her effort to search for the right words.
Ne in (g) fills a potential ideational gap: Not necessarily, but potentially,
there would be a pause in (g), which informs the hearer of some conversa-
tional awkwardness. According to Maynard (1989b: 30), ne in (g) belongs to
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 Chapter 5

the “socially motivated fillers” that “fill a potential silence”. The effect of their
employment is:
to create the impression that verbal interaction is carried on without cessation,
thereby avoiding potential embarrassment. (Ibid.)

Maynard’s statement (30–31) that with the employment of fillers “the speaker
shows some hesitancy and less certainty about” what he/she says also explains
ne in (g): Mrs. K hesitates to use the expression “added color”. In sum, ne fills
in the potential silence.
From the referential viewpoint ne conveys nothing; however, from the in-
teractional viewpoint the fundamental function of ne in (17) is to fill in the
awkwardness of potential silence. The use of fillers also displays the speaker’s
attempt to do repair work (look for the right words and continue the conver-
sation). Thus, the filler ne (g) in (17) fills not only the ideational gap but the
potential social/communicative gap.

. Atmosphere sustainer

The second type of secondary function of ne(e) is ‘atmosphere sustainer’. I have


found frequent use of ne(e) especially in the cooking class conversations. In
these examples, I have noticed a use of ne(e) which does not fall into any other
functions discussed above. In this case the contribution of ne(e) to the pro-
duction and comprehension of discourse is minimal. This function is only
interactionally noticeable in order to sustain an already settled harmonious
atmosphere.
(18) is an excerpt from a conversation between Mrs. K and her students af-
ter a cooking class. Towards the end of this day’s gathering, Mrs. K commented
on the attractiveness of Student S’s sweater prior to (18).
(18) Student S: a. Soo suruto sugoku
So do-if well
b. niau no.
match NOM
< ‘If (I wear that jacket with the sweater,) they match
well.’>
Mrs. K: c. Ja ja, sore poshetto?
Then then it pochette
<‘Then, is it a pochette (small bag)?’>
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

Student S: d. Dare mo,


Anybody
<‘Anybody,’>
Mrs. K: e. Nee
TAG
<‘Right.’>
Student S: f. Soo suru to ne,
So do-if FP
<‘If doing so,’>

When this segment took place, the students had already started getting ready
to leave. Some might have stood up and started putting on their coats. Reading
the transcript of the segment containing (18) leads to an impression that in
this situation the participants in conversation are not paying careful attention
to topic management.
In (a–b), S continues to finish her statement about her sweater. In (c), Mrs.
K comments on S’s small bag (pochette). Nonetheless, S’s interest appears to
remain focused on the previous topic when she says ‘anybody’ in (d). At this
point, what ‘anybody’ means would not be clear to any participant. However,
Mrs. K utters nee in (e) as if she were agreeing with what S says. In (f), in-
stead of completing a sentence started with ‘anybody’, S begins another clause
‘if doing so,’. Mrs. K’s nee in (e) cannot mark agreement. It could be called a
filler. However, compared to (17) in which ne filled the potential gap created
by the speaker’s own search for words, nee in (18) seems even more socially
motivated. In (18), nee fills a potential interactional gap in a gathering where
the speaker holds more or less social responsibility.
I suggest that nee in (e) is provided only because of Mrs. K’s intention to
help keep and promote the settled cozy atmosphere at the end of this day’s
lesson. Thus (18) is a case where nee functions as an ‘atmosphere sustainer’.
In Mrs. K’s utterances in the cooking class conversations there are more
cases of ne(e) as the same speaker’s strategy. This can be understood as follows:
The cooking class situation is a social context in which Mrs. K as the instructor
holds the communicative leadership and is in the position of controlling class-
room management, including the class atmosphere. Mrs. K’s frequent use of
ne(e) to sustain the class atmosphere indicates her attempt to be responsible as
the communicative leader in her cooking classes.
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 Chapter 5

. Ne(e) and na(a): Markers of involvement

.. Involvement

In the sections above, I have described specific functions of ne(e) and na(a).
In this section, I propose that ne(e) and na(a) in all the examples above are
markers of involvement. It was suggested in (5.1) that participants in Japanese
conversation have an ultimate goal, of reaching harmony. It has been observed
above that the participants make efforts to reach harmony by trying somehow
or other to share information and its associated evaluation: Thus their efforts
are all attempts to approach ‘alter’ (as opposed to ‘ego’) and involve him/her in
what is being said in the conversation.
Involvement has been discussed by many researchers as a result of increased
interest in the interactive nature of conversations (Bateson 1972; Chafe 1982;
Goffman 1967; Gumperz 1982; Tannen 1987, 1989; also cf. Brown & Levinson
1978[1987]). According to Tannen (1987), Goffman’s classification of presenta-
tional rituals and avoidance rituals, based on Durkheim’s (1915) dichotomy of
positive and negative rites, provides the basic notion of ‘involvement’. Tannen
(1987: 584) identifies involvement with presentational rituals.
According to Goffman (1967: 73), “through (presentational rituals), the ac-
tor concretely depicts his appreciation of the recipient.” Another framework
dependent on Goffman and on Durkheim’s negative and positive rites is that
of Brown and Levinson (1987) who distinguish between negative and posi-
tive politeness (43). Involvement in the sense I am using it is closest to Brown
and Levinson’s positive politeness, which shares its conceptual base (Durkheim
1915) with Goffman’s (1967) presentational rituals.
Negative politeness is clearly redressive action addressed to the hearer’s
specific negative face in each interactional context, his/her want to have free-
dom of action unhindered (Brown & Levinson 1987: 129). On the other hand,
positive politeness is not only limited to redressive means, but it functions as a
general strategy in communication. Brown and Levinson (1987: 101) state:
in positive politeness the sphere of redress is widened to the appreciation of
alter’s wants in general or to the expression of similarity between ego’s and alter’s
wants. (Italicizing is my addition)

The italicized part in this quote in fact provides the core of the notion of
‘involvement’ in my study. In short, positive politeness (involvement) can be
paraphrased as a communicative strategy ‘to approach others’, while negative
politeness is a strategy with the reverse direction ‘to keep distance from others’.
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

In the next section, adopting Brown and Levinson’s notion, positive po-
liteness, which I identify with involvement, I will show that the interjections ne
and na are markers of involvement.

.. Ne(e)/na(a) as markers of involvement

Brown and Levinson (1987: 102) suggest fifteen specific strategies, derived from
a few assumed situations of speaker/hearer wants, that all fulfill positive polite-
ness. In this section, I attempt to classify the basic functions of ne(e) and na(a)
according to Brown and Levinson’s classification of positive politeness strate-
gies to show why ne(e) and na(a) are identified as markers of involvement (=
positive politeness).8
Based on the strategy in which the speaker “claims ‘common ground’ with
the hearer (H)”, a means of making such a claim is to “claim in-group member-
ship with H” (Ibid.: 102). Brown and Levinson suggest that the output strategy
which realizes this claim is “use in-group identity markers”. In this strategy, they
include affectionate or diminutive terms of address such as ‘Mom, mate, dear,
luv’ and so on (107–108). In my analysis, I have shown that nee can be used as
a summons which replaces address terms such as ‘Mom, Grandma, etc.’ within
an intimate relationship (5.5.1). I suggest that nee as a summons belongs to this
positive politeness strategy, hence involvement strategy.
Another mechanism which is the base for sub-strategies is “convey that S
(the speaker) and H are cooperators” (102). Two sub-strategies derived from
this are “claim reflexivity, if S wants <S has X> then H wants <S has X>” and
“indicate S knows H’s wants and is taking them into account” (Ibid.). From
the former sub-strategy, an output strategy, “be optimistic” is obtained. In this
output-strategy, making a request to H by adding a tag question such as (a)
is included.
(a) You’ll lend me your lawnmower for the weekend, won’t you.
(Brown & Levinson 1987: 126)

(a) is similar to the examples analyzed as ‘reinforcement’ (5.4.1). In ‘reinforce-


ment’ also, S appears to be optimistic enough to seemingly predict H’s affirma-
tive answer. Therefore, I suggest that ‘reinforcement’ falls under the category,
“be optimistic”.
The output-strategy which is the outcome of “indicate S knows H’s wants
and is taking them into account” is “assert or presuppose S’s knowledge of and
concerns for H’s wants”. This output-strategy in fact covers the four basic func-
tions of ne(e) and na(a), i.e. ‘agreement’, ‘back channel’, ‘before new infor-
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 Chapter 5

mation’ and ‘linking prior and upcoming information’. Brown and Levinson’s
strategy, “assert or presuppose S’s knowledge of and concerns for H’s wants” re-
lates to S/H meta-knowledge situation. In my analysis of ne(e) and na(a), I
have shown that many examples involve marking a meta-knowledge situation.
Therefore, it may be that this strategy concerning S and H knowledge/meta-
knowledge situation covers four of the ne(e)/na(a) functions.
First, in the ‘agreement’ and ‘back channel’ functions, S asserts that he/she
knows what H wanted to convey by responding affirmatively. This would satisfy
H’s positive face. Second, in the ‘before new information’ function, S presup-
poses S’s knowledge that the upcoming information would be new to H. The
use of ne(e)/na(a) in this function also shows S’s presupposition of his/her
knowledge that uttering ne(e)/na(a), which marks the upcoming information,
would aid H’s basic wants of comprehend the discourse. Third, the function,
‘linking prior and upcoming information’ arises from S’s presupposition of
S’s knowledge that the use of ne(e)/na(a) to show the coherent relationship
between two pieces of information would help H’s wants to understand the
second piece of information. In fact, in the functions ‘before new information’
and ‘linking prior and upcoming information’, S expresses his/her concern for
H’s basic wants in Japanese conversation, i.e. to reach harmony (by trying to
share the same information).
As shown above, all the basic functions of ne(e) and na(a) can be viewed
as realizations of the output strategies of Brown and Levinson’s positive polite-
ness. Therefore, ne(e) and na(a) are markers of positive politeness, i.e. markers
of involvement.
Generally speaking, in Japanese conversation the operation of negative
politeness dominates over that of positive politeness, e.g. a large number of
linguistic strategies in Japanese such as honorifics express negative politeness.
In this sense, it is interesting to find ne(e) and na(a) serving functions that ful-
fill positive politeness (involvement), which also seems to play an important
role in Japanese conversation.

.. Metamessage level of interaction

‘Involvement’ is paraphrased as interpersonal involvement in Tannen (1987,


1989). Tannen (1987) focuses on the functions of repetition in discourse.
Tannen states that interpersonal involvement is “the highest-level function of
repetition” (Ibid.: 584) and “the metamessage level of interaction: the level at
which messages about relationships are communicated” (Ibid.). Involvement
is at the metamessage level of interaction; thus the involvement (positive po-
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Functions of the interjections ne and na 

liteness) markers ne(e) and na(a) work at this level of interaction. The clearest
case in which ne(e) and na(a) send metamessages is when they function as
‘rapport markers’ (5.6). As rapport markers, ne(e) and na(a) send messages
about the amicable speaker-hearer relationship based on the concordant meta-
knowledge status.
As shown above, all the basic functions of ne(e) and na(a) fulfill positive
politeness, hence involvement. To conclude this chapter, I propose that inter-
jections ne(e) and na(a) in Japanese conversational discourse are ‘markers of
involvement’.
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Chapter 6

Pragmaticalization of ne and na
(diachronic analysis)

In this chapter, I examine the historical process which the interjections ne and
na (and their variants) seem to have undergone. By looking at the historical
process of ne and na, I will explore their pragmaticalization as well as demon-
strate their positional shifts over time: ne and na first emerged in sentence-final
and sentence-internal positions, then later began to occur in initial positions
as interjections and discourse markers. Concerning the shift of na group of
interjections, a prior study, Morita (1973: 197) states that
As for this group of interjections (such as na, naa, noo, noo noo and nayo),
the equivalent sentence-final particles were detached [from the rest of the
sentence] and occurred sentence-initially as independent elements.

He further writes that


Na, naa, noo, noo noo and nayo were used in noo songs and kyoogen plays
of the Medieval Period [Kamakura period (1190–1332) and Muromachi pe-
riod (1336–1573)]. . . . Most of them continued to be used in the modern
times (kinsei), . . . then, phonologically shifted ne and nee were used in the
Edo Japanese. (Ibid.: 197)

In Chapter 4, I mentioned my intention to capture demo and dakedo in the flow


of [Edo Japanese → Tokyo Japanese], since this flow seems to be the source of
today’s standard Tokyo Japanese, in which demo and dakedo are used. Ne (as a
sentence-final particle, a sentence-internal particle, and an interjection) is also
used in Present Day Tokyo Japanese, so it might be correct to see the Japanese
data only within this flow (i.e. only after the 17th century) to accomplish the
exactness of diachrony of ne. This seems one way to capture the development of
ne. However, several previous works have reported the following, on the other
hand. In addition to Morita’s (1973: 197) report mentioned above, “na [first]
appeared in the Nara period [710–782]” (Uchio 1973: 104; Uchio & Okamura
1973: 268; Yoshida 1987: 175), “and continued to be used in the Heian [782–
1190] Kamakura [1190–1332] periods” (Uchio 1973: 104), which is far earlier
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 Chapter 6

than the Edo period. From the survey of the previous studies, the interrela-
tionship among the na elements and the similarity in their functions is indeed
recognized.
This study originally set off as a discourse analysis in which I had been
engaged. In this area, analyzing dynamic social interactions in the ongoing hu-
man discourse (e.g. conversation) is the main theme. Such analysis at times
cannot be reported within the traditional categories such as word classes. For
this chapter, to see the functions of the interrelated na elements altogether
and to try to grasp the development of such elements, I will take the ap-
proach, not focusing on only one element (ne), but looking at na varieties as
a group. Konoshima (1960: 419) has reported that “while ne appears only in
Edo Japanese, no is used both in Kansai and Edo Japanese”. Considering this
kind of behavior, too, it would be worth analyzing na elements endowed with
similar functions together as a group. Such an approach would capture the en-
tire figure of development and change in na elements more dynamically. This
approach might differ from that of the traditional national linguistics.
I should note two points about treatment of data (see also 1.1.4 Prob-
lems in Diachronic Analysis). First, it is generally approved that the flow of
Japanese since the Muromachi period (1136–1573) has developed into the
modern (kindai) Japanese which leads to today’s Japanese.1 Therefore, the
continuity between today’s na elements and those used before Muromachi is
uncertain. I should mention that Japanese data before Muromachi in this chap-
ter was looked at as helpful information. So, in the tables (Tables 6.1, 6.2, 6.3),
a dotted line is drawn to mark the separation between Muromachi and the
precedent periods.
The second point refers to the diverse developments of Edo and Kamigata
(Osaka-Kyoto) Japanese,2 which is often taken as an issue in historical Japanese
linguistics (see also1.1.4 and 4.1). That is the claim that the two Japanese va-
rieties have traveled the completely different evolutional paths and these two
should be treated separatedly.
Formation of Edo Japanese is summarized here, since it at times becomes a
point of controversy in this kind of diachronic study. In his Japanese Language
of the Edo Era: Edo Japanese, Komatsu (1985: 3–6) states: Edo became a castle
town when Oota Dookan (1432–1486) built the Edo Castle in 1457. However,
at that time, Edo was only one of the villages in Kanto area with some hundreds
of houses. Kanto dialect seems to have been spoken. Since Tokugawa Ieyasu (the
shogun) entered Edo in 1590, the town Edo grew rapidly. Edo Japanese, then,
gradually came into shape along with the town’s development. Many people
from various parts of Japan were assembled to run this castle town. Various
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

regional dialects seem to have been spoken by those people. In 1603, the Toku-
gawa government was opened. Then towards its end [1867], Edo has always
suffered from the inflow of population. From this description of Komatsu’s
(1985), it is recognized that at the early stage of Edo period, various regional
varieties of Japanese in addition to Kanto Japanese were used in Edo, and peo-
ple seem to have communicated in such language. It cannot be said that there
is no relation between the new Edo Japanese and other varieties that continued
from the past.
Admitting that “the history of the Japanese language does not mean
the enumerated facts nor fanciful speculation apart from facts”, Yanagida
(1985: 246), the author of Japanese Language of the Muromachi Period, states
that “[he] wrote this book, groping for [such] history”. Without visual or au-
dible proofs, diachrony of language cannot be evidenced. Maybe this is the
biggest problem for all who grope for such diachrony.
I apply the functional-semantic model of language focusing on the three
functions of language (ideational, textual and expressive functions) that I also
used for the analysis of conjunctions. While the conjunctions demo and dakedo
were found to follow Traugott’s once hypothesized direction of pragmatical-
ization, ideational > textual > expressive (1982, 1989), the change of ne and na
will be shown to be a somewhat different type of pragmaticalization.
As mentioned, to investigate the diachronic evolution of ne and na, it was
necessary to enlarge the number of items to be inspected because there are a
number of historically closely related variants. The variants are nee and naa
with lengthened vowels, and no and its long vowel variant, noo.3 In what fol-
lows, when I refer to ne, na and their variants in general, regardless of their
position (i.e. final, internal or initial), I call them ‘na elements’. When specifi-
cation of their location is necessary, either their positions will be noted, or the
terms ‘sentence-final particles (SFPs)’, ‘sentence-internal particles (SIPs)’ and
‘interjections’ (this means sentence-initial elements only) will be used.
Expansion of the range of texts was also necessary for the investigation.
That is, since the na elements appear largely in songs and ballads throughout
their history, those data were also analyzed.
This chapter does the following: The first three sections demonstrate the
results of the diachronic investigation of the na elements in sentence-final po-
sition (6.1), in sentence-internal position (6.2) and in initial position (6.3). In
(6.4) I relate the pragmaticalization of the na elements to Traugott’s hypothe-
sis. Lastly in (6.5) I discuss possible motivations for the pragmaticalization of
the na elements.
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 Chapter 6

. Na elements in sentence-final position

A large number of sentence-final particles have occurred in the history of


Japanese. The sentence-final particles are classified into two types: [1] those
which mainly express the speaker’s attitude toward or judgment about his/her
statement, and [2] those whose prime function is grammatical (cf. Kuno
1978a: 79–80; Maynard 1989b: 27). The na group of sentence-final particles be-
long to the first type. The question marker ka, for example, belongs to the
second type (Kuno Ibid.). While ka plays a role in the grammatical system as
in (1), ne(na) has no grammatical function as seen in (2).
(1) Kimi wa ano eiga o mita ka.
You TP that movie DO saw Q
<‘Did you see that movie?’>
(2) Kimi wa ano eiga o mita ne.
You TP that movie DO saw FP
<‘You saw that movie.’>

In (1), the proposition the speaker intends to convey includes the interrogative
meaning, ‘Did you see that movie?’ Without ka this interrogative proposition
cannot be formed. Ka thus contributes to the ideational component of lan-
guage (Traugott 1982), simply because (1) without ka does not convey the same
referential meaning.
By contrast in (2), the proposition the speaker intends to provide contains
the affirmative meaning, ‘You saw that movie.’ What is added by ne can be
glossed either as a tag question (didn’t you?) or as the speaker’s conviction of
the statement (I believe) depending upon its context. In this case the propo-
sition ‘You saw that movie’ remains the same regardless of the addition of
ne. I assume that the na elements in final positions (6.1) as well as in inter-
nal positions (6.2) have neither ideational nor grammatical functions but only
expressive function.
Among the na elements in the sentence-final position, the earliest item to
be used seems na. Some early examples are seen in Kojiki (712), Nihonshoki
(720) and Manyooshuu (759) believed to be written in the Nara period (710–
784). Although the examples in Manyooshuu (759) are widely used to show the
early use of na in prior studies (Yoshida 1987; Uchio & Okamura 1973; Uchio
1973: 104), I found a case in the ballad section of Kojiki (712) written earlier
than Manyooshuu. (3) illustrates.
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

(3) Kojiki (712)


......
a. Akara otome o
Red.faced girl DO
b. izasaba yorashi na.
invite-if good FP
<‘. . . . . . If you invite that beautiful girl, it will be good.’>

The writer, the Emperor Oojin, had been asked by his son to give him a girl in
prison. At a banquet the Emperor created and read (3) to answer his son. The
general meaning of this stanza is that the father allows his son to get the girl.
The function of na is to emphasize the writer’s exclamatory remark ‘it will be
good.’ The proposition of (3), ‘If you invite that girl, it will be good’ persists
with or without na. Na does not add ideational or textual meaning, but it adds
expressive meaning by conveying the speaker’s exclamation.
Table 6.1 presents a chronological view of the history of the na group of
sentence-final particles. In the table, each element marks ‘exclamation’ except
where the sign ‘tag’ is added. ‘Tag’ designates the first emergence of this use in
each na group of sentence-final particles.
Clearly na appears earlier than the other na variants (see Table 6.1). One
reason for the early appearance of na seems the phonology of the sentence-
final particles.4 Many sentence-final particles are phonologically simple: Many
of them consist of only one mora; sa, zo, na, yo and so forth. (There is also
a view that interjections (and sentence-final particles) are “the most primi-
tive” (Yasuda 1928) among words since “they represent (human) expressive
sounds in the verbal context” (Sakuma 1952).) The phonological features of
the phonemes constituting na suggest that na is the most fundamental among
the na elements: The nasal [n] is let out when one is impressed or admires
something. Also the vowel [a] is recognized as the most elementary: e.g. a and
aa belong to the oldest interjections (Morita 1973: 184).
We meet the first variant of na, noo, in the Muromachi period (1336–1573).
This is the period when so-called Muromachi balladry (Noo-plays, Kyoogen
plays, Kagura (Shintoo music and dancing) etc.) developed in association with
music. Muromachi noo and kyoogen plays were succeeded by balladry of the
following Edo period. In some texts, noo is orthographically presented as nau
and in others as noo. Both nau and noo are pronounced as [no:]; therefore, they
are considered to be the same sentence-final particle. In the annotation in Sum-
idagawa (1432), a Noo script, it is stated that “noo (nau) is a lengthened particle
of na which is used for emphasis.”5 (4) shows one of the earliest uses of noo.
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 Chapter 6

Table 6.1 Chronological view of appearance of SFPs (na, noo, no, ne, nee and naa)

**

* ‘b’ stands for ‘before’. The years prefaced with ‘b’ are those of the death of the playwrights,
because of the unavailability of the exact years of publication.
** The dotted line separating the Japanese language from the Muromachi period onward
and in the precedent time periods indicates the secondary treatment of the Japanese data
preceding the Muromachi in the diachronic analysis of na elements (see 1.1.4).
(4) Sumidagawa (before 1432)
a. Mashite haha totemo
Let.alone mother even
b. tazunenu yo noo.
visit-NEG EMP FP
<‘Even his mother hasn’t visited (him), has she?’>
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

Prior to (4), the main character found that her kidnapped son had died and
been buried near where she was. She laments over her son’s doom by stat-
ing ‘Neither his parents nor relatives have visited, have they?’ (prior to (4)),
‘Even his mother hasn’t visited, has she?’ (in (4)). The performer adds noo
when she mentions her own non-visit. Noo in (b) thus emphasizes the per-
former’s lamentation. It expresses the performer’s inner emotional world. This
contributes to the expressive component of language. However the ideational
content in (4), ‘Even his mother hasn’t visited him’ stays the same regardless of
the use of noo.
In Kanginshuu (1518), a collection of ballads, we see the next sentence-final
particle no. In Kanginshuu the incessant use of sentence-final particles which
adds the writer’s attitude to the content of a ballad stands out. Zo, yo, ya, kana,
noo and no are such final particles. A reason for this may be that this collection
is dominated by the populace’s love songs.
Among sentence-final particles, the use of noo is extremely frequent.6 Na is
used next most frequently. The annotation of Kanginshuu (1989: 33. Iwanami)
mentions that the shortened form no is later than noo. In my analysis, the use
of no dominates that of noo after Muromachi period. No does in fact appear
later than noo (see Table 6.1). (5) illustrates that the use of noo and no is in
transition at this time of history. Noo and no co-occur in (5).
(5) Kanginshuu (1518)
a. Kesa no arashi wa
This.morning LK storm TP
b. arashi de wa nageni su yo no.
storm COP TP NEG FP FP
c. Ooigawa no kawa no se no
Ooi River LK river LK shallows LK
d. oto ja ge ni su yo noo.
sound COP indication FP FP
<‘The storm in this morning doesn’t seem to be a storm. It may be
just the sound of the shallows of the Ooi River.’>

It is said that this song was written by a man who had spent a night with a pros-
titute, repeating the words she had uttered the following morning. What no in
(b) and noo in (d) do is to add the speaker, the prostitute’s, commitment/belief
in her statement. The propositions in (a–b) and (c–d) do not change if no and
noo are eliminated.
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 Chapter 6

Among the large number of examples of noo in Kanginshuu, (6) shows an


interesting case which hints of the transition of this sentence-final particle to
an interjection.
(6) Kanginshuu 299 (1518)
a. Koko wa doko.
Here TP where
b. Ishiwara tooge no saka no shita.
Ishiwara Pass LK slope LK foot
c. Ashi ita ya noo.
Legs hurt FP FP
d. Dachin uma ni norita ya noo,
Fare horse ride FP FP
e. Tono noo.
Darling FP (,hey)
<“‘Where are we?”’>
<“‘At the foot of the slope of Ishiwara Pass.”’>
<“‘My legs hurt. I want to ride a pay horse,7 darling.”’>

This song is structured as a dialogue between husband and wife. In (c) and (d),
the wife is grieving over her fatigue. Noo in (c) and (d) express the speaker’s
strong commitment to her statements which are recognized as complaints by
her husband. By contrast, noo in (e) seems no longer to express the speaker’s
exclamation, but it is used with a vocative. In (6.3), we will see that early ex-
amples of the interjection noo which alternates as a ‘summons’ also appear in
the Muromachi period (when (6) was written). Accordingly, the sentence-final
particle noo in (6e) used to call somebody could well signify a transition in
its evolution into an initial marker with the function of summons (as seen in
Present Day Japanese (5.5.1)).
In the Edo era (1603–1867), the exclamation markers, na group of
sentence-final particles, develop further and start serving a tag-question-like
function, which is a new expressive function. Tag-like function no longer repre-
sents the speaker’s inner world but rather the speaker’s other-directed attitude.
Tag-like uses here such as seeking affirmation or confirmation (cf. Nakano
1996), or giving the other a choice to be polite all show the speaker’s other-
directed demeanor. In other words, such tag-like uses are all communication-
based functions. The Edo period is when the popular performing arts such
as the kabuki plays and jooruri (ballad drama) and popular literature such as
share-bon (gay-quarter novelettes) and kokkei-bon (comic novels) grow. Dur-
ing this period, we meet two more na group of sentence-final particles, ne and
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

nee, that continue to be used today. It is also noticed that all the na group of
sentence-final particles that have emerged so far are in more active use than
before in Ukiyoburo (1809), a comic novel in the final stage of Edo.
(7) represents a case where a final particle no marks a tag-like function.
Yuushihoogen (1768–1769), a gay-quarter novelette (share-bon), contains one
of the earliest examples of the tag-like use of no.
(7) Yuushihoogen (1768–1769)
Hei a. . . . taisoona kami ja.
unusual hair COP
b. Iwayuru honda huu ja no.
so-called Honda’s style COP FP
<‘. . . (He has) unusual hair. It’s so-called Honda’s style,
isn’t it?’>
Nyooboo c. Ai sa, sayoo de gozarimasu.
yes FP so COP
<‘Yes, it is.’>

Looking at a customer’s attire, Hei utters (b) adrressing the woman (nyooboo).
No in (7b) expresses the speaker’s intention of confirming his idea. This inten-
tion is well evidenced by the next nyooboo’s reaction (a response to (b)). No
works like a tag-question.
Later than the Edo period, we in fact see frequent use of no as a tag marker.
At first, no only has the function of expressing exclamation which is internal
to the speaker’s world. However, the later tag-like function involves a dis-
tinct intention of communication with others. This function is external to the
speaker’s world.
Later in the Edo period, we see more examples of the tag-like function
of na. Some examples have the sequence, V (imperative form) + na. (8) from
Yuushihoogen illustrates one such case.
(8) Yuushihoogen (1768)
a. Soko o chotto akete
There DO a.little open
b. mite kure na.
See give FP
<‘Open (the window) and look outside, can you?’>

In (8), a man asks a prostitute to open the window. With na in (b), the speaker
seeks affirmation or gives the hearer a choice. The sentence (a–b) ‘Open the
window and look outside’ is grammatically imperative owing to the imperative
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 Chapter 6

form of the verb (kure). Na’s function here is to soften the decisive finish of the
sentence. The interpersonal meaning of an order in (8) is therefore softened
with na. This use is again other-oriented, while na’s original function, marking
exclamation, is self-oriented.
As mentioned above, in the Edo period, we meet two new na elements, ne
and nee. They appear in this age, and throughout the following Meiji, Taishoo
and Shoowa eras and even today they are in frequent use (see Table 6.1). Ne
emerges in Yuushihoogen as in (9).
(9) Yuushihoogen (1768)
Shinzoo: a. Nushi ya daibu,
You a.lot
b. ki ga naorinshita ne.
feelings SB got.well FP
<‘You have pulled yourself together, haven’t you?’>

Shinzoo, a prostitute, remarks on her customer’s behavior in (a–b). Ne in (b)


again works like a tag, expressing Shinzoo’s seeking of affirmation.
Yuushihoogen provides the earliest examples of ne, and many of these al-
ready have a tag-like function.
Nee appears first in Tatsumi no sono (1770). In addition to no, nee appears
recurrently in this text. (10) illustrates an early case of nee.
(10) Tatsumi no sono (1770)
Prostitute: Mada osamuu gozariyasu nee.
Still cold COP FP
<‘It is still cold, isn’t it?’>

A prostitute comments upon the weather, addressing her customer. Nee con-
veys the speaker’s seeking of confirmation; thus it is a tag-like marker.
We see examples of the sixth na group of sentence-final particle, naa, in
kyoogen plays (Torahiro-hon). These scripts seem to have been written by 1792.
Kyoogen itself expanded in the Muromachi period, in association with the de-
velopment of Noo plays. Obviously naa is a vowel-lengthened form of na. We
have already seen that noo (nau) was derived from na by adding another vowel.
One of the earliest examples of naa is given in (11).
(11) Kyoogen: Awataguchi (18th C)
a. Sate sate tsuyoi ha o
Well strong teeth DO
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

b. motta yatsu ja naa.


have fellow COP FP
<‘Well, how strong teeth he has!’>

Prior to (11) a man named Awataguchi professed his ability to crush a stone
with his teeth. Naa in (b) expresses the speaker’s exclamation (a surprise here)
like all the final na elements that have already emerged.
As shown, in the Edo period, no, na, ne and nee all exhibit a tag-like func-
tion. This is an other-directed function, and it differs from the self-directed
‘exclamation’ which had been the only function of the na sentence-final parti-
cles in the preceding time periods. In my data analysis, tag-like functions of na
sentence-final particles seem to have appeared in the Edo era.
During the Edo period, the new elements ne and nee appeared. They will in
fact predominate in the subsequent time periods (cf. Table 6.1). The final stage
of Edo (around the time of Ukiyoburo 1809) seems actually a transition with
respect to the use of sentence-final particles; it precedes a completely new epoch
starting with the Meiji period when Japan was modernized and westernized.
Throughout six texts ranging over fifty years of the three modern eras,
Meiji, Taishoo and Shoowa, i.e. Ukigumo (Meiji 1887: 20); Hakai (Meiji 1906:
39); Udekurabe (Taishoo1917: 6); Yuujoo (Taishoo 1920: 9); Tade Kuu Mushi
(Shoowa 1929: 4) and Yukiguni (Shoowa 1938: 13), there is no salient differ-
ence in the use of the na group of sentence-final particles (SFPs) (See Table
6.1). Therefore, instead of regarding the three eras as different time periods
it is more reasonable to view this half century as one temporal stage. This
perspective conforms to the history of Japan, i.e. the time of its modernization.
The na group of sentence-final particles seems to fundamentally fill the
role of conveying the speaker’s subjective attitude towards his/her statement.
The main findings of the diachronic analysis of the na group of sentence-
final particles are summarized as follows. First, the na group of sentence-final
particles bear only the expressive function and no textual, ideational or gram-
matical function. With their expressive function, in most of the above exam-
ples, they express the speaker’s exclamation (e.g. conveying grief, admiration,
complaint) or just speaker’s belief/involvement in the statement. Exclamation
is a meaning internal to the speaker’s expressive world (self-focus). Although
exclamation is the predominant role of the na group of sentence-final parti-
cles throughout history, in the Edo era, ‘other-focused’ functions based on the
speaker’s attention to interactions appeared, i.e. tag-like functions. A few ex-
amples also demonstrate interesting transitional cases: For example, noo (6)
implies a transition in which the sentence-final particle noo marking exclama-
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 Chapter 6

tion develops into an interjection marking summons. These changes all follow
the direction: from internal to external to the speaker’s world, i.e. to more
interactional meanings.
Second, among the na group of sentence-final particles, na appears first
followed by its variants. Na is phonologically the simplest, and it seems the
most fundamental.

. Na elements in sentence-internal position

While na elements emerge in sentence-final positions (6.1), they also appear in


sentence-internal (clause-final) positions occasionally. For example, nee occurs
at phrase-final positions (i.e. sentence-internally) as in (12).
(12) Speaker: a. Ano ko wa nee,
That girl TP IP
b. Shichi-san to iro o shite nee,
Mr. Shichi with affair DO made IP
c. kabutte, inasariyasu.
fired stay
<‘She had an affair with Mr. Shichi, and has been fired.’>

These intrasentential particles are particularly called ‘insertion particles’ (kan-


toojoshi)(Hashimoto 1969; Konoshima 1960; Uchio & Okamura 1973; Maynard
1989b and others). While sentence-final particles and sentence-internal par-
ticles can be distinguished positionally, their functions seem quite similar.
Kantoo as in kantoojoshi (insertion particles) literally means ‘throw in (insert)’;
however it is etymologically considered to be identical with kandoo which de-
notes ‘emotion’ as in kandooshi (interjections). Insertion particles can thus be
recognized as emotion markers. Some scholars even include both sentence-
final and internal particles within kantoojoshi (e.g. Shoogaku Tosho (Ed.) 1981)
since sentence-final particles also mark human emotion (6.1). Thus the emo-
tion marking functions are recognized in both sentence-final and internal
particles.
I will call na, noo, no, nee and ne that occur sentence-internally the
na group of sentence-internal particles, corresponding to the same group of
sentence-final particles, and I will trace their historical process to show when
the different sentence-internal particles first appeared. Table 6.2 presents the
overview of the occurrence of the na group of sentence-internal particles. All
the internal particles in the table mark the speaker’s exclamation, and indeed
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

Table 6.2 Chronological view of appearance of SIPs (na, no, noo, nee and ne)

**

* As discussed in the text, the validity of the first appearance of no as a SIP in the 9th–10th
century depends upon the lexical analysis. If the 9th–10th century example is invalid as the
first appearance of no, the next appearance I found is in Ukiyoburo (1809).
** The dotted line separating the Japanese language from the Muromachi period onward
and in the precedent time periods indicates the secondary treatment of the Japanese data
preceding the Muromachi in the diachronic analysis of na elements (see 1.1.4).

the function of na group of sentence-internal particles is only exclamation. In


the table, the dotted line denotes the separation between the Muromachi period
and the precedent time periods. Language before Muromachi was analyzed only
as secondary information.
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 Chapter 6

What sentence-internal particles do in each utterance, in general, is add the


speaker’s exclamation to the content of the phrase to which they are appended;
this is also the basic function of na group of sentence-final particles. Whereas
injecting the speaker’s attitude into his/her statement is the key function of the
na group of final particles, the contribution of the same group of sentence-
internal particles is (1) tuning the tone of the utterance as well as (2) express-
ing the speaker attitude. For the internal particles the degree of expression of
speaker attitude appears to be lower than that of the sentence-final particles.
Therefore, overall, the contribution of sentence-internal particles to the
meaning construction of an utterance is even less than that of sentence-final
particles.
Among the na group of internal particles, na appeared the earliest. (13)
illustrates an early instance. It is from Kojiki (712) in which we also saw the
first appearance of the sentence-final particle na (6.1).
(13) Kojiki (712)
......
a. Ube na ube na,
Reasonable IP reasonable IP
b. kimi machi gata ni
you wait can’t
c. waga keseru osui no
my worn (HON) robe LK
d. suso ni tsuki tatanamu yo.
hem in moon stand FP
<‘. . . . . . It’s quite reasonable-na that a new month has come while it
has been hard to wait for you.’>

The writer creates this song to reply to the song from her love, the emperor.
She retorts in (13) by saying ‘It’s reasonable that another month has arrived
(since you haven’t visited me for a long time).’ The uses of na in (a) add
rhythm at the beginning of this song. Simultaneously, since na’s in (a) are the
sentence-internal particles expressing the writer’s exclamation (annotation in
kojiki kayoo 1957: 55), they emphasize the writer’s feeling ‘It’s reasonable.’ Na
does not convey semantic content; therefore, the internal na, as well as the final
na, has only the expressive function.
Recall that na emerged the earliest among the na group of sentence-final
particles, too. The fact that na is the first item among the na group of both
sentence-final and internal particles reinforces my claim that na is the funda-
mental nasal sound expressing exclamation (cf. Yoshida 1987).
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

We encounter a possible first appearance of the second na group of


sentence-internal particle, no, during the 9th and 10th century. Fuuzoku-uta
(well-known local ballads especially sung by the aristocracy) contain such ex-
amples. (14) illustrates a possible appearance of no. I say possible because there
are two ways to interpret no in this example. In either case, however, no’s main
function is to express the speaker’s inner exclamation.
(14) Nari takashi (9th–10th C)
a. Nari takashi ya nari takashi
Sound high IP sound high
b. Oomiya chikakute nari takashi
Shrine close sound high
c. Aware-no nari takashi.
Oh (IP) sound high
<‘It’s tumultuous. Since the shrine is close, it’s tumultuous. Oh, it’s so
tumultuous.’>

The first possible interpretation is the following: According to the Shoogakkan


Japanese Dictionary (Shoogaku Tosho (Ed.) 1981), this example is indeed an
early case of the sentence-internal particle no. The second interpretation is that,
as alluded to in the annotation (Fuuzoku uta 1957), awareno is one word which
is an interpolation, a word inserted to maintain or complete the rhythm of a
song as well as to add exclamation. On the first interpretation, aware is a noun
expressing a strong exclamation, to which an internal particle no is appended.
On the second, awareno is regarded as one word.
If the first interpretation is taken, (14) indeed presents one of the first
examples of internal no. (Regarding the function of no in (14), its basic func-
tion of conveying the speaker’s inner exclamatory remarks remains the same
whichever interpretation is taken.)
Following na and no, the third sentence-internal particle noo is found in
the Muromachi period (1336–1573). In this time period, a number of Noo
scripts were written. However, the specific dates of many of the scripts are un-
available. The dates of these scripts are figured out by considering the dates of
playwrights’ birth and death. This fact hinders our knowing the exact chrono-
logical status of scripts containing the earliest examples of the sentence-internal
particles. Like na and no, noo carries expressive function but neither ideational
nor textual function. The prime function of internal noo is to express the
speaker’s exclamation. (15) shows an example which is an utterance of the main
character in Hachinoki, a Noo script.
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 Chapter 6

(15) Hachinoki (Muromachi p.)


a. Noonoo8 tabibito oyado
Hey traveler accommodation
b. mairashoo noo,
provide IP
c. amarino oo yuki ni
such big snow in
d. moosu koto mo kikoenu ge ni
say NOM hear state
e. sooroo, itawashi no on
COP pitiful LK HON
f. narisama yana,
sight FP
<‘Hey traveler, I will provide you accommodation. He seems not to
hear me in such a heavy snow. He is a pitiful sight.’>

In (15), the main character pitying the traveler who sets off in snow, calls out to
him to halt and suggests accommodation. Noo in (b) expresses the performer’s
involvement in his statement, ‘I will provide you accommodation.’
We have already observed that a sentence-final particle noo also occurred
first in a Noo script of the Muromachi period. However the unavailability of the
precise dates of these scripts prevents us from knowing whether the sentence-
final or sentence-internal particle noo occurred first. It seems more plausible to
suggest that the final noo precedes the internal rather than the reverse.
The fourth and fifth internal elements are nee and ne. In (6.1), we found
that final ne and nee appeared first in the literature of 1768–1769 and 1770.
(16) and (17) will show that the internal ne and nee appeared slightly later
than the sentence-final particles’ first appearance. (16) shows one of the earliest
examples of internal nee in Tatsumi no sono (1770), a gay-quarter novelette. Nee
is used to maintain the rhythm of the utterance. (16) is a dialogue between a
waitress, Onaka, and a customer at a tea house. Since the final nee also turned
up in the same literature, it looks like that the final nee and internal nee have
arisen almost simultaneously.
(16) Tatsumi no sono (1770)
Customer: a. Oise-san wa dooshita nee.
Oise TP how has been FP
<‘How has Oise been?’>
Onaka: b. Ano ko wa nee,
That girl TP IP
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

c. Shichi-san to iro o shite nee,


Mr. Shichi with affair DO made IP
d. kabutte, inasariyasu.
fired stay
<‘She had an affair with Mr. Shichi, and has been fired.’>

In both (b) and (c), nee is used to sustain the rhythm of the utterance. It adds an
accent in the phrase-final positions: each instance would be pronounced with
phonological stress. Nee in this case can well be considered to be a reduced
form of an exclamation marker. It conveys the speaker’s involvement in her
statement and sustains the rhythm. Therefore, the sentence-internal particle
nee has expressive function but no referential or textual function.
(17) illustrates one of the earliest examples in which ne occurs in internal
positions. The use of ne is similar to nee in the same position (as seen in (16)).
(17) is an utterance of a woman who talks with another female customer at a
public bath (from Ukiyoburo (1809)).
(17) Ukiyoburo (1809)
Mi: a. Izure sa, tanin no
Anyhow IP others GN
b. meshi o tabeneba ne,
meal DO eat-NEG-if IP
c. hito no omoiyari ga
others LK consideration SB
d. gozaimasen no sa.
no NOM FP
<‘Anyhow if children didn’t eat the meals made by the others, they
wouldn’t be considerate to the others.’>

Ne in (b) adds an accent and expresses the speaker’s commitment to the pre-
ceding clause ‘if (children) didn’t eat the meals made by the others’ (implying
‘if children were not sent to the others’ homes and work there’) in (a–b). In
fact, by adding an accent with ne, the speaker confirms the hearer’s reception
of the information: in this way the speaker’s involvement is conveyed. (Four
decades before this first appearance of internal ne, in Yuushihoogen (1768), we
saw the earliest examples of the final correspondent.)
Ukiyoburo also contains a case of the internal no. We saw its possible first
appearance back in the 9th to 10th century in a local ballad (fuuzoku uta).
Throughout all the texts in my analysis, the use of no in internal position
is extremely rare. Therefore, it is difficult to identify its first appearance. In
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 Chapter 6

my analysis, if the 9th–10th century example is not the first appearance, this
Ukiyoburo (1809) case is virtually the first occurrence of the internal no.
The diachronic examination of the na group of sentence-internal particles
has revealed the following main findings. First, like the sentence-final parti-
cles, the sentence-internal particles carry only the expressive function. Specifi-
cally, they convey the speaker’s exclamation, however, their contribution to the
meaning construction of an utterance seems even less, when compared to the
same function of the sentence-final particles (6.1). In many cases the sentence-
internal particles’ function is to tune the rhythm of discourse simultaneously
with the expression of exclamation.9 Second, the order of the appearance of
each internal particle (na → no(?) → noo → nee → ne) is very similar to that
of the sentence-final particles (na → noo → no → ne → nee → naa). (Na is the
first sentence-internal particle in history. The late Edo period is the time when
different internal particles co-occur in active use. Then towards the Shoowa pe-
riod, ne becomes predominant (see Table 6.2).) Third, the first appearance of
each sentence-internal particle (in the case of na, noo and nee) is around the
same time as, or slightly later (in the case of ne) than that of the corresponding
final particle (see Table 6.4 in 6.4.1).

. Na elements in initial position (as interjections


and discourse markers)

Let me now turn to the na elements that appear in utterance-initial positions.


Once the na group of items occur in initial positions, they show two significant
characteristics not shared by the final and internal correspondents. One char-
acteristic is one of the defining features of a discourse marker, acting as initial
brackets. As defined in (1.2), for an item to be a marker, it is required to be in
an initial position and should signal the opening of a unit of discourse; in other
words, markers must stand at the beginning of a unit of talk, distinguishably as
“markers” for participants of conversation.
Another characteristic is their newly earned textual function. While the fi-
nal and internal correspondents had only expressive function, the interjections
have acquired a textual function in addition to their expressive function. With
the textual function, interjections make a contribution to “the text-forming
component” (Halliday & Hasan 1976: 27) of language, and hence to discourse
cohesion. The textual function of interjections is recognized in the linking task
when they highlight some information in a certain direction of discourse (in
the preceding or in the following utterance).
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

The first interjection of the na group in history is na, as was the case for
the final and internal positions. Ryoojin Hishoo (1171), a Heian collection of
ballads, contains an example. (18) illustrates. Na here is used as a summons.
While the majority of examples of the final and internal na elements convey the
speaker’s inner exclamation, the function of the initial na in (18) is ‘summons’
which seems based on the speaker’s communicative intention.
(18) Ryoojin Hishoo (1171)
......
a. Na, iza tamae hijiri koso,
Hey come on please come monk
b. ayashi no yoo nari tomo,
poorly LK state COP although
c. warawara ga.10 Shiba no
us GN Wooden
d. iori e,
cottage to
<‘Hey, sir (addressing the monk), please come to our wooden cottage
although it is only a shabby place.’>

In (a), na acts like a vocative. This is the same function we have seen as a ‘sum-
mons’ in ne and na in Present Day Japanese (5.5.1). In (18), na in (a) looks
forward and focuses on the following information ‘please come.’ Na serves the
expressive function by conveying the speaker’s action of summons. Na also
seems to have the textual function by filling the gap between the preceding
monologue and the current utterance addressed to the hearer. However, like
the na group of sentence-final and internal particles, an interjection na is un-
likely to have an ideational function. Table 6.3 shows the chronological view of
the process that na interjections underwent. In this table, the elements func-
tion to ‘summons’ unless particular functions are labeled. The functions other
than ‘summons’, ‘before new information’, ‘exclamation’, ‘linking prior and up-
coming information’ and ‘reinforcement’, are marked where they occur by the
abbreviations, ‘b.n.i.’, ‘e’, ‘l’, and ‘r’.
As for the data, it seems that language of Muromachi and the following
periods developed into modern Japanese. It can be regarded as one develop-
mental course. Language preceding the Muromachi was analyzed as helpful
information, as mentioned at the beginning of this chapter and in 1.1.4.
We meet the second and third initial na elements, noo and noonoo in the
Muromachi period (1336–1573). The examples are taken out of Noo scripts.
The prime function of noo and noonoo is ‘summons’. While the initial na was
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 Chapter 6

Table 6.3 Chronological view of appearance of interjections (na, noo, noonoo, no, naa,
nee and ne)**

* ‘b’ stands for ‘before’. The years prefaced with ‘b’ are those of the death of the playwrights,
because of the unavailability of the exact years of publication.
** In this table, the na group of interjections mark ‘summons’ unless other functions (b.n.i.
= (The interjection appears) ‘before new information’; l = ‘linking prior and upcoming
information’; r = ‘reinforcement’; e = ‘exclamation’) are labeled.
† The dotted line separating the Japanese language from the Muromachi period onward
and in the precedent time periods indicates the secondary treatment of the Japanese data
preceding the Muromachi in the diachronic analysis of na elements (see 1.1.4).
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

used as summons only, noo and noonoo are found to be used also for other
interaction-directed expressive functions: i.e. in noo ‘before information’ and
‘linking prior and upcoming information’, and in noonoo ‘before information’.
What is interesting about the initial noo and noonoo is that they also pre-
serve the function, ‘to mark exclamation’, which we found in the na group of
sentence-final and internal particles. Notice that while the other functions are
interaction-oriented, ‘exclamation’ conveys the speaker’s internal emotional
move. This means that noo and noonoo keep the ‘exclamation’ function as they
move from final through internal to initial positions, although this function
will disappear in later stages.
First, I will show the function of ‘summons’ for both noo and noonoo. (19)
and (20) illustrate. They are excerpts from Jinenkoji (before 1384).
(19) Jinenkoji (before 1384)
Merchant: a. Noo watarisooroo ka,
Hey stay (HON) Q
<‘Hey, are you there? (addressing other merchants)’>
.............................................

In (a), the Merchant calls the other merchants before he talks to them. Noo
watarisooroo ka is a formulaic expression when one calls somebody in Noo
scripts. The same expression with noonoo instead of noo is also used. Noo in (a)
is used as a ‘summons’.
(20) shows an earliest case of noonoo.
(20) Jinenkoji (before 1384)
Merchant: a. Noonoo Jinenkoji isoide
Hey, hurry-GER
b. fune yori on nori . . . . . .
boat from HON step off
<‘Hey, Jinenkoji, hurry up and step off the boat, [please].’>

In (20), the Merchant calls the main character Jinenkoji by saying noonoo in (a).
The function of this interjection is summons. The co-occurrence of noonoo and
Jinenkoji proves the acceptability of co-use of this interjection and an address
term. In (19) and (20), the speaker’s information (the message he wants to
convey) follows the act of addressing the hearer. Both (19) and (20) present the
cataphoric uses of interjections.
Next, I will examine another interaction-oriented function, ‘before new
information’, the same function of ne and na we saw in the analysis of Present
Day Japanese (5.3.1). (21) illustrates a case of noo.
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 Chapter 6

(21) Jinenkoji (before 1384)


Merchant: a. Sareba koso kore ni
As I thought here
b. sooroo, noo isoide
is well hurry-GER
c. tsurete . . . . . .
bring
<‘Here is the child (as I thought). Well hurry up and bring
him here.’>

In (21), the merchant already knows that the hearers are there (ready to listen to
the speaker). This situation differs from (19) and (20) where the interjections
worked as ‘summons’ because the speaker at first needed to draw the hearer’s
attention. Although in (21) the hearers are ready to listen to the speaker, the
speaker still says noo in (b) because this time he is going to urge the hearers
to bring the child by first getting their attention. This use is considered ‘calling
the hearer’s attention before new information’.
Another interaction/other-oriented function of noo seen in Present Day
Japanese (5.5.2) is ‘linking prior and upcoming information’. This use is dis-
covered in Hachinoki, a Muromachi Noo script. (22) is an utterance by the main
character addressed to the traveler.
(22) Hachinoki (Muromachi p.)
......
a. Yume ni mo mukashi o
Dream in EMP past DO
b. miru naraba, nagusamu
see if console.myself
c. koto mo aru beki ni,
NOM have would although
d. noo goranze yo kahodo made.
see look at EMP like this
<‘If I had happy old days, I could console myself by recalling those
days in a dream, but see look at my humble house (I can’t even dream
at night because the cold wind comes in.)’>

Noo in (d) confirms the hearer’s understanding of the preceding information in


(a–c), and also marks the upcoming information in (d). In this way, noo sug-
gests some relationship between the prior and the forthcoming information,
and thus it links the two pieces of information. The first information (a–c) is
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

‘If I had happy old days, I could console myself by recalling those days in a
dream.’ The portion of the second information in (d) in parentheses has been
omitted in the Japanese version. I recovered this in the translation to make the
meaning clear. In the Japanese version the information in (d) would be incom-
prehensible without the information in (a–c) which is suggested to cohere with
the following information in (d) by noo. Now I examine the function of mark-
ing ‘exclamation’ of the initial na elements. This is a function which expresses
the speaker’s inner world, while the other functions seen thus far in this section
are all other-oriented. ‘Exclamation’ was not seen in the initial ne(e) or na(a)
in Present Day Japanese. It has been discovered above as the key function of the
final (6.1) and internal (6.2) na elements. The ‘exclamation’ function, however,
is recognized in the interjection noo in a Noo script in the 15th century, and in
noonoo in a Kyoogen script in the 18th century.
(23) demonstrates an exclamatory use of noo taken out of Sumidagawa
(before 1432), a Noo script.
(23) Sumidagawa (before 1432)
Mother: a. Noo shinrui totemo oya
Alas relatives even parents
b. totemo, tazunenu koso
even visit-NEG TP
c. kotowari nare, sono osanaki
reason COP the young
d. mono koso kono monogurui ga
person TP this lunatic SB
e. tazunuru ko nite wa
look for child COP-GER EMP
f. samurae toyo,
FP
g. noo kore wa yume kaya
alas! this TP dream FP
h. ara asamashi ya zooro.
oh deplorable FP
<‘Alas, that even neither (his) relatives nor parents visited
(the child) stands to reason, (because) the young one is
the child this lunatic is looking for! Alas! I wonder if I’m
dreaming. Oh, how deplorable it is!’>
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 Chapter 6

In the story, the mother who has been looking for her kidnapped son has
been driven insane by anxieties. In (a) and (g), noo is used unit-initially as
an interjection to mark the speaker’s grief.
It is indeed interesting to find that the initial noo of the 15th century marks
exclamation, in this case, grief, considering that the other functions of the ini-
tial na elements of those days signal the speaker’s attitude and action based on
interactive interest. At the beginning of the analysis of ne and na in Present
Day Japanese, I claimed that there are two types of Japanese interjections:
(1) those which express the speaker’s exclamation (admiration, surprise etc.)
without his/her intention of communicating with others, and (2) those which
express the speaker’s belief, attitude and action based on his/her attention to
the communicative negotiation (interaction). I have further suggested that the
interjections ne and na are the second type and revealed that it was indeed the
case since all their functions in Present Day Japanese such as ‘summons’, ‘before
new information’ and ‘reinforcement’ etc. were communication/interaction-
oriented.
Therefore, I propose a developmental process in which the interjection noo
in the Muromachi age marking exclamation (seemingly the first type of inter-
jection) has evolved from the exclamation-marking correspondent sentence-
final particles. However, after the 18th century, the exclamation function no
longer shows up in the na interjections and all uses become interaction/other-
oriented functions (behaving as the second type of interjections; see Table 6.3).
The analysis of the Muromachi age has given a few crucial phenomena in
the course of the pragmatic change of the na interjections. The main find-
ings are as follows: (1) Two new elements, noo and noonoo appeared. (2)
Although the function of the elements in many cases is ‘summons’, more
interaction/other-directed functions are also found, i.e. ‘before new infor-
mation’ and ‘linking prior and upcoming information’. (3) Interestingly, the
function of marking ‘exclamation’ which is ‘self-focused’ is found in inter-
jections in the Muromachi period, a function which has never been seen in
the na interjections in Present Day Japanese (Chapter 5). It is suggested that
the exclamation-marking function seen in the na sentence-final particles has
remained in the developmental process of the final elements into the initial ele-
ments. However, this self-oriented residuary function will eventually disappear
in the entire process of the pragmaticalization of na elements.
In Torahiro-hon kyoogen scripts (written by 1792), the predominance of the
‘summons’ function continues. From the appearance of na in 1171 towards the
end of Edo period, the major function of the na group of interjections is ‘sum-
mons’. Noonoo as a ‘summons’ is widely used in this kyoogen script. Noonoo’s
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

marking of exclamation and calling attention ‘before new information’ are


also found.
I show here an example in which na marks a ‘cue to the partner to start
a joint line’ in kyoogen. This seems to be a sub-function of ‘summons’ and is
a formulaic expression used by the kyoogen performers. (24) from Kobukaki
illustrates.
(24) Kobukaki (18th C)
......
A: a. Nani to ojikijiki
Why directly (to the government)
b. mooshi ageraruru mono de
tell give can NOM COP
c. gozaru zo.
FP
d. Kore wa ikue ni mo, na,
This TP repeatedly EMP well
<‘Why can we tell (our names) directly to the government?
For this trouble, for a thousand times, well,’>
A & B: e. owabigoto o mooshi agemasuru.
apology DO tell give
<‘we apologize.’>

Prior to (24), an officer requested the main character A and another performer
B to report their names directly to the government. However, since A and B
consider it awkward to report their lengthy and funny names, A starts making
up excuses for not reporting in (a–c). In (d) A is going to apologize to the
officer then utters na. Following, B understands that na was a signal to start the
joint line with A, and in (e) A and B together say ‘we apologize’. This particular
use of na in a play thus marks the performer’s cue to his/her partner to utter
the joint line. The same use of na is also seen in other scripts. Although this
strategy seems too technical to be used off the stage, it unquestionably arises
out of the performer’s consideration for communicative regulation.
‘Summons’ remains the major use of the na interjections in the Edo period.
In 1809, Ukiyoburo, which contains all the na group of sentence-final particles
that have appeared in the preceding texts, unsurprisingly, supplies the earliest
examples of initial no, naa and nee. No marks ‘reinforcement’ as seen in the
analysis of Present Day Japanese (5.4.1). Naa and nee work as ‘summons’. (25),
(26) and (27) illustrate such early cases of no, naa and nee.
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 Chapter 6

(25) Ukiyoburo (1809)


Tori: a. Osonae ya nanairo gashi
Offering or seven-kinds confectionery
b. o ageru yori ka, ikiteiru
DO give than living
c. uchi ni hatsu gatsuu de
while first skipjack with
d. ippei nomaseru hoo ga
a.glass drink let SB
e. harukani kudoku da to.
much good.deeds COP QT
f. No, soo daroo. Obasan.
See so TAG Mate
<‘Rather than offerings or confectionery (on our Buddhist al-
tar), you would do better by providing me a glass (of sake) with
the first skipjack. See, don’t you think so, mate.’>

In (25), an old woman, Tori, talks to another old woman about what she usually
says to her son and his wife (a–e). In (f), Tori says no and confirms the validity
of her opinion (a–e) with her hearer. This is the function ‘reinforcement’. No
used in an initial position is rare throughout my examination. The appearance
here may well be influenced by this particular speaker’s recurrent use of no in
final and internal positions.
(26) shows an earliest use of nee in an initial position. (26) takes place at a
public bath for females, while a nurse washes a little girl, ojoosan.
(26) Ukiyoburo (1809)
Nurse: Nee, ojoosan.
(Hey) Miss
<‘Miss.’>

Nee is used as a ‘summons’. Ojoosan is a kinship term which refers to a daughter


of others, especially of an upper-class family.11 Here, nee precedes an address
term ojoosan; which is a typical pattern of a summons. When (26) occurs,
the nurse is arguing with another nurse. In (26) the nurse addresses the lit-
tle girl and after this she continues ‘it’s better to stay away from the idiot (the
other nurse)!’
(27) is one of the earliest uses of the interjection naa. It also marks a
summons.
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

(27) Ukiyoburo (1809)


Customer: Naa, bantoo.
Hey clerk
<‘Hey, clerk.’>

Here again, naa co-occurs with an address term bantoo. Bantoo is another word
indicating a person’s social role (clerk).
As Table 6.3 shows, among the new variants that appeared in the Edo era,
no, naa and nee, nee is the dominant interjection in the following time stages,
virtually in today’s Japanese.
In the Meiji era which followed the Edo, we encounter the last initial ele-
ment ne in Hakai, a novel. Ne here works as ‘reinforcement’.
(28) Hakai (1906)
Segawa: a. Atode gakkoo no kozukai
Later school LK janitor
b. o tori ni yokoshimasu
DO take send
c. kara tte. Ne.
because QT OK
<‘Later (I’ll) send the janitor to fetch it (the dinner). OK?’>

Prior to (28), Segawa asked Oshio to tell the landlady to make his dinner. The
information in (a–c), ‘I’ll send the janitor to fetch it’, is support for his re-
quest to Oshio. Ne in (c) then confirms the validity of Segawa’s request with
his hearer, Oshio. Ne can also seek agreement from or transfer responsibil-
ity to Oshio. Overall this interjection marks Segawa’s reinforcement of his
information.
As Table 6.3 shows, the Meiji, Taishoo and Shoowa eras together are a new
phase in terms of the usage of interjections as well as sentence-final particles
(SFPs) (see also Table 6.1). In this phase, nee predominates, and interjections
with the sound of [no] (noo and no) disappear. Also in this phase, the function
of interjections is almost solely that of summons.
The examination of the historical process of the na group of interjections
has revealed the following. First, while all the sentence-final and sentence-
internal particles carry only expressive function, all the interjections except
those marking exclamation have both expressive and textual functions. Ex-
clamation markers seem to carry only an expressive function. The expressive
(‘interpersonal’ in Halliday & Hasan 1976) functions of ‘summons’ (‘cue to
start the line’), ‘before new information’ and ‘linking prior and upcoming in-
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 Chapter 6

formation’ all mark the speaker’s perspective towards or motivation for what
he/she says. The textual function is recognized in the interjections’ task of
linking utterances.
Second, as for the specific roles of the initial na elements, the most pre-
dominant one is ‘summons’ at any temporal stage in history. This is a ba-
sic other-directed function (Suzuki 1973: 170; Yamada 1908 cited in Suzuki
1973; Hoshina 1911 cited in Suzuki 1973). In addition, as Table 6.3 presents,
more other-directed functions have been found. While the above roles are
all other/interaction-bound, a non-other-directed role, ‘exclamation’, has also
been found. Exclamation is a function internal to the speaker’s world. I have
stated above that there are two types of interjections in Japanese (see Chapter
5): (1) those which express the speaker’s exclamation without attention to the
communicative negotiation, and (2) those which express the speaker’s attitude,
action etc. based on direct attention to the communication.
As for the finding of the exclamation-marking na interjections, I note
the following two points. First, the exclamation marking function which was
originally associated with the final na elements has remained along with the
development of the corresponding na interjections.
Second, the Japanese interjections expressing the ‘other-focused’ meanings
(the second type) seem to have in fact developed from the interjections ex-
pressing the ‘self-focused’ meanings (the first type).12 This was shown in the
diachronic analysis of the na elements: They originally had only the exclama-
tion (self-focused) marking function. Later, they began to mark other-directed
meanings. Then, after the co-occurrence of the interjections expressing excla-
mation and those expressing other-directed meanings, exclamation-marking
interjections disappeared and only other-directed meanings remain in Present
Day Japanese. The development of the other-focused interjections from self-
focused ones is also suggested in Morita (1973). He (1973: 183) writes that the
self-focused interjections are gradually systematized and develop into commu-
nicative (other-focused) markers. According to Morita’s (Ibid.) historical sur-
vey, many Japanese interjections first marked exclamation and later function
to call attention or mark a response.
Third, the interjections emerged in the order very similar to that found for
sentence-final and sentence-internal particles, i.e. the order of interjections (na
→ noo; noonoo → no; naa; nee → ne) is similar to that of final particles (na →
noo → no → ne → nee → naa) and of sentence-internal particles (na → no(?)
→ noo → nee → ne).
Fourth, the first instance of each interjection is later than that of the cor-
responding sentence-internal particles. As for na, the first appearance of the
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

final and internal na are both in the 8th century. That of the initial na is in
the 12th century. In the case of no, the earliest appearance in internal posi-
tion is problematic since it could have been either in the 9–10th century or
in the 19th century. It is clear however that the interjection no (19th century)
occurred after the final no (16th century). The interjection naa (19th century)
has also been shown to have appeared a little later than the sentence-final par-
ticle naa (18th century). (I have found no case of internal naa.) As for nee, the
developmental process is as clear as that of na. The final and internal elements
occurred around the same time (in a 1770 text); the first initial occurrence
was found slightly later (in an 1809 text). Lastly, in this analysis ne appeared
in final position in a 1768 text, in internal position in 1809, and in initial
position in 1906.
As a consequence of this diachronic analysis, it could be said that generally
the na group of elements have traveled a historical path in which the final and
internal elements first appear at about the same time or successively; then later
they begin to occur in initial position.

. Pragmaticalization: Evolution of na elements as discourse markers

.. Functional change relating to Traugott’s hypothesis

Before closing, I will review the results of the diachronic analysis of the na ele-
ments and clarify the direction of their functional change relating to Traugott’s
hypothesis.
Focusing on Traugott’s proposed functional-semantic model of language,
the pragmatic changes of all the na elements are summarized in Table A.
Again, the language development before the Muromachi period (14th–16th
century) should be considered hypothetical. (See the beginning of this chap-
ter and 1.1.4.) Hence, among the na elements here, na’s development is judged
hypothetically (see Table 6.4).
In each case, the elements appear in both final and internal positions at
around the same period or the internal elements appear slightly later; then each
element appears in initial position a while later. For the development of noo,
the analysis could be more specific were the precise dates of texts (Noo scripts)
available: Without them, the finding that noo in each position occurred one
after another between the 14th and 16th century remains approximate. For
the development of no, the first emergence of an internal element either in
the 9th–10th century or 19th century was hard to determine. Thus if we ten-
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 Chapter 6

Table 6.4 Pragmaticalization of all the na elements

Final elements (SFPs) Internal elements (SIPs) Initial elements


(Interjections)
na (8th C) = na (8th) > na (12th C)
noo (14th–16th C) = noo (14th–16th C) = noo (14th C)
no (16th C) > no (19th C?) = no (19th C)
ne (18th C) > ne (19th C) > ne (20th C)
nee (18th C) = nee (18th C) > nee (19th C)
naa (18th C) > naa (19th C)

expressive = expressive > expressive


textual

tatively exclude these uncertain processes (noo and no), a clearer view of the
developmental process of the na elements in general is gained.
Figure 6.1 schematizes such a diachronic process, i.e. the pragmaticaliza-
tion of the na elements.
Tokieda (1950: 51) classified all the word classes in Japanese into two cate-
gories shi and ji. Maynard (1989b: 30) summarizes what shi and ji are:
Shi is . . . ‘an expression representing an objective and conceptualized notion
of referents [/what is said]’, which includes the grammatical categories of [pro-
nouns], nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. Ji, on the other hand, is . . . ‘an
expression representing the speaker’s [attitude] toward the referent [/what
is said]’, and it includes conjunctions, [interjections],13 auxiliary verbs, and
particles.

Ji can thus be paraphrased as the expressive function of language. The sentence-


final and sentence-internal particles typically belong to ji. In the diachronic
change of the na elements, an expressive function is maintained from the be-
ginning (in sentence-final particles) through the end (in interjections). The
expressive function of the na elements is thus part of their earliest meaning. In
Figure 6.1, in (I), the SFPs and SIPs (sentence-final and sentence-internal par-


I. Final II.
na elements > Initial na elements
Internal
(SFPs and SIPs) (Interjections)

expressive > expressive


textual
Figure 6.1 Pragmaticalization of na elements
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

ticles) have only the expressive function. In (II), interjections, the developed
forms, preserve this function.
The elements do not attain the text-forming function until they appear
in utterance-initial positions. Attaining this function is a token to prove their
status as markers in discourse.14 Licensed as markers, at a higher level of dis-
course organization than ever (i.e. intersententially), initial na elements serve
an utterance-linking function as well as the function of signaling the speaker’s
involvement. With the intersentential linking function, the na group of inter-
jections forward the creation of discourse coherence.
In my earlier work (Onodera 1993), I suggested that the pragmaticalization
of the na elements, i.e. from expressive to expressive and textual, falls outside
of Traugott’s (1989: 31) hypothesized direction of meaning change:
ideational > ((textual) > expressive).

Onodera (1993) concluded that the functional change of the na elements was
quite another type of change which does not support nor contradict Traugott’s
hypothesis: because the na elements did not have ideational function in the first
place; thus the change did not start with ideational function. This was analyzed
in contrast of the studies that had dealt with meaning changes which start with
ideational function (e.g. Traugott 1982, 1989; Plank 1979; Hopper 1977) and
had supported Traugott’s suggested direction.
More recently, in Traugott (1995a), in her hypothesized direction “idea-
tional (propositional) > textual > expressive”, the shift to ‘expressive’ was re-
placed by subjectification, the shift to ‘subjective’. As we will see closely in
(6.4.2), the pragmaticalization of the na elements follows the process of sub-
jectification. The pragmaticalization of na elements is a case which supports
“subjectification”.
Before closing this section which reviews the diachronic analysis of the na
elements, I will mention briefly the motive for the positional shift, i.e. the pro-
cess in which the final na elements move into sentence-initial position. This
discussion will be fully developed in 7.3.1 (relevance to typological character-
istics). When we look at a Japanese sentence from the viewpoint of functional
structure, expressive function (‘ji’ in Tokieda 1950) typically operates on both
edges of a sentence, i.e. sentence-initial and sentence-final positions. Originally,
the na group of sentence-final particles serve expressive function in sentence-
final position. Recall that, as mentioned in (1.2.1.4), the sentence-initial posi-
tion is where discourse markers can better demonstrate the ‘marking-function’.
I suggest that the na group of sentence-final particles started appearing in the
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 Chapter 6

sentence-initial position for this reason.15 (For a further discussion of this issue,
see 7.3.1.)

.. Subjectification and intersubjectification: From ideational


to interpersonal meanings

While (6.4.1) discussed a more general conclusion based on the former hy-
pothesis, this section sees more particular tendencies recognized in the prag-
maticalization of the na elements: Subjectification and intersubjectification in
different aspects of this pragmaticalization.
A hypothetical tendency in meaning-shift was “less personal to more per-
sonal (rather) than the reverse” (Traugott 1982: 253).16 In later works (Traugott
1989: 35, 1995a: 31), ‘subjectification’ refers to:
a pragmatic-semantic process whereby ‘meanings become increasingly based
in the speaker’s subjective belief state/attitude toward the proposition’, in other
words, towards what the speaker is talking about.

Traugott (1989) claimed that subjectification accompanies the pragmaticaliza-


tion, ideational > ((textual) > expressive), in the English modal auxiliaries,
assertive speech act verbs and modal adverbs, elaborating on ‘less to more
personal meanings’. Subjectification in fact develops in parallel with other gen-
eral tendencies, a shift towards more ‘discourse-based’ and a shift towards
more ‘speaker-based’ (1986a). Therefore, subjectification is indeed interpreted
as a trend, a shift from ideational to interpersonal meanings, referring less to
objective situations and more to subjective ones (including speaker point of
view/evaluation), less to the described situation and more to the discourse
situation (cf. Ibid.).
Traugott (1989) claims that a study by Guy et al. (1986) is an example
showing subjectification. Guy et al. revealed that Australian Question Into-
nation (rising) has developed from a marker of questions “into a marker of
‘nonpropositional, interactive meaning’, specifically speaker’s ‘checking for lis-
tener comprehension”’ (Traugott 1989: 52). The fact that Traugott includes
Guy et al. (1986) as a case of subjectification manifests that subjectification in
her sense involves interaction-oriented meanings. A discourse marker is used as
a speaker’s strategy in on-going interactional conversation, each instant based
on the speaker’s subjective evaluation of a given situation. Therefore, in this
sense, too, it seems that development of an item as a discourse marker involves
subjectification.
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

In a more recent work (Traugott & Dasher 2002), relation between subjec-
tification and intersubjectification is more distinctly described.
[Subjectification] falls directly out of SP/W-AD/R interactions, and the com-
peting motivations of speakers to be informative and of addressees to construe
invited inferences. . . . It therefore inevitably involves intersubjectivity to some
degree. (Ibid.: 31)

Intersubjectification is “regarded as a special subtype of ” subjectification


(Ibid.).
“Intersubjectification can be said to take place” “in instances where mean-
ings come explicitly to index and acknowledge SP/W’s attitude toward AD/R
in the here and now of the speech event” (Ibid.). Then, as an example of inter-
subjectification, the case “when non-honorifics are recruited to serve honorific
uses” (Ibid.) is given. Also as a case of “the operation of intersubjectivity”, the
selection of vous vs. tu in Fr. and sie vs. du in Gm. is mentioned (Ibid.: 91).
When an expression, for example, mitigates the SP’s imperative intention as
a hedge use, typically the intersubjective meaning (“attention to AD’s image
needs”) seems to arise (Ibid.: 177). Intersubjectivity here seems in other words
‘meta’subjectivity.
Subjectification and intersubjectification are recognized at different aspects
of pragmaticalization of the na elements. Figure 6.2 shows that subjectification
is seen at least at two levels; at the more extensive level and the more local level.
First, subjectification is seen at the more extensive level of development of
the na elements: sentence-final → internal → initial elements (in Figure 6.2
in horizontal direction). In the sentence-final positions, the primary and orig-
inal function was to mark the speaker’s ‘exclamation’. When elements occur
initially, the primary function switches to ‘summons’. While marking exclama-
tion is internal to the speaker’s world (self-focus), summons is other-directed
function (other-focus). There is a shift from self-focus to other-focus meaning,
to more interactive meaning based on the speaker’s subjective judgment: This
comprises subjectification.
The second realization of subjectification is seen at a more local level and
occurs in another direction (vertical direction in Figure 6.2). This is the func-
tional change of the na elements in each position: in sentence-final, in internal,
and in initial positions. Although the functional change of sentence-internal
particles is not so clear, the changes of the sentence-final particles and inter-
jections suggest distinct cases of subjectification. In the case of sentence-final
particles, the primary function was exclamation as mentioned above. Later,
tag-like functions appear. Among them, ‘seeking affirmation’ (such as (8) and
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 Chapter 6

m
o
r
e
l
o
c
a
l
l
e
v
e
l

Figure 6.2 Subjectification and intersubjectification in development of na elements

(9)) and ‘seeking confirmation’ (such as (10)) show intersubjective sense, and
development from exclamation to these intersubjective functions seem a case
of intersubjectification. For example, in (8), the sentence-final particle na mit-
igates the imperative force of the speaker’s utterance, hence to save the hearer’s
“image needs” (Traugott & Dasher 2002: 229). Likewise, in other examples ((9),
(10)), the speaker pays intersubjective attention to the hearer’s acceptance or
comprehension of what the speaker says (in these involvement strategies).
In the initial position, summons was the function most widely associated
with the na group of interjections in all the time stages. Later in their history,
functions such as ‘before new information’, ‘linking prior and upcoming infor-
mation’ and ‘reinforcement’ emerged. Compared with ‘summons’, the original
and fundamental function (Suzuki 1973: 170; Yamada 1908 cited in Suzuki
1973; Hoshina 1911 cited in Suzuki 1973), the later functions express the
speaker’s more subjective judgment upon the use of communicative strategies.
Among the later subjective functions, ‘before new information’ and ‘reinforce-
ment’ seem to show intersubjective concern for the hearer’s attention before the
upcoming information or acceptance of information. The development from
‘summons’ to these functions shows increased intersubjectivity.
In addition, in the history of the interjections, the least personal meaning,
‘exclamation’, which appeared occasionally in co-occurrence with the dom-
inating other-directed meanings, ceases to appear in the late 18th century.
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

In the end, the initial elements lost the residual meaning which was appar-
ently the primary function in the final position and which is also the least
subjective function.
As shown, subjectification is reflected on two different levels of the di-
achronic evolution of the na elements. And intersubjectification takes place
specifically in the developments of sentence-final particles and interjections.
The pragmaticalization of na elements which set off with the original ‘excla-
mation’ function also involves the change, ‘non-subjective → subjective →
intersubjective’ meanings.

. Some thoughts on motivation for the pragmaticalization


of na elements

In this section, I speculate on an essential question in meaning/functional


change, “Exactly what brings about such change?” or more specifically “Why
were these forms or these structures adopted rather than others?” (Traugott
1980: 30) in the case of the pragmaticalization of the na elements. The an-
swer to these questions must be the motivation for such pragmaticalization.
Although the exact motivation remains inexplicit, here some thoughts on this
motivation will be shown.
First, I briefly compare the pragmaticalization of the na elements with that
of demo type connectives and clarify a factor which brought about the for-
mer change. Second, to specify such a factor I review two researchers’ previous
works and elucidate exactly what the motivating factor is.
I suggest that a motivating factor of the pragmaticalization of na elements
is the fact that their early elements (sentence-final particles) already had the
expressive function. This is self-evident if the pragmatic changes of demo type
connectives and of the na elements are compared. The pragmaticalization of
the conjunctions demo and dakedo is summarized as:
(1) Time I Time II
ideational > ideational
textual
expressive
On the other hand, the change in na elements is as follows:
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 Chapter 6

(2) Time I Time II


expressive > expressive
textual
In the change of na elements (2), the expressive function, with which the
speaker marks his/her attitude toward the statement, is originally part of the
meaning (of sentence-final particles), while in the case of demo type connec-
tives (1), this function is only newly acquired at Time II. In the case of the na
elements (2), the early presence of an expressive function seems to motivate the
elements to develop as markers.
However, an expressive function is realized by many Japanese sentence-
final particles. Hence the motivating factor for becoming a marker must be nar-
rowed. The na elements may have the potential to change into communication-
oriented meanings. In the diachronic analysis of the na group of sentence-final
particles (6.1), we saw that the elements originally marked only the speaker’s
internal emotion and gradually began to signal the more communication-
oriented strategies. And indeed in the analysis of the interjections ne and na
in Present Day Japanese, they were found to have the primary function of
marking speaker’s involvement in the discourse. Below, I will suggest a more
specific motivating factor for the pragmatic change of the na elements, i.e.
among Japanese sentence-final particles with expressive function (such as ne,
na, wa, yo, sa and zo), only those whose expressive function is communication-
oriented such as the na sentence-final particles tend to develop into discourse
markers.17
Work carried out by two researchers (Okutsu 1978 and Watanabe 1971)
concerning Japanese sentence-final structure helps to reveal the above moti-
vating factor. First, Okutsu (1978: 62) describes Japanese sentence structure in
general as follows. As presented in Figure 6.3, the central part of a sentence
consists of shi18 (Tokieda 1950) which is identified with the ideational function.
Both ends of a sentence are comprised of ji (Tokieda 1950) which expresses
the speaker’s attitude toward the proposition. Ji is in other words the expressive
function. Among ji, typically, word classes such as interjections occur at the

a sentence

Ji [expressive] Ji
Shi [ideational]
Interjections SFPs

Figure 6.3 Structure of a Japanese sentence (Okutsu 1978: 62)


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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

initial end, and sentence-final particles (SFPs) at the terminating end. Ji located
at either end of a sentence conveys the speaker’s subjectivity.
Okutsu (1978: 52) then states the following, focusing on the sentence-final
expression.
A Japanese sentence-final expression consists of a succession of a stem of a
verb or an adjective at the beginning, various auxiliary verbs, suffixes, and
sentence-final particles at the end.

The suggested sentence-final expression is summarized as (3).


(3) Pred1 . . . Predn Tense Confirmative Final. (Okutsu 1978: 53)

Pred1 is the stem of a verb or an adjective, which can be followed by any number
of predicate elements (Predn ) such as ‘causative verb’ and ‘negative element’.
‘Tense’ indicates ‘tense auxiliary’. ‘Confirmative’ signifies ‘epistemic modal aux-
iliary’ such as hazu-da (should), daroo (can) and kamoshirenai (may). Then ‘Fi-
nal’ designates so-called sentence-final particles. What is important in Okutsu’s
examination is that sentence-final particles conveying the speaker’s attitude
appear at the terminating end of a Japanese sentence and interjections also
conveying the speaker’s attitude appear at the initiating end of a sentence.
Watanabe’s (1971) speculation on Japanese final expression reveals the
nature of the expressive function of the na elements among Japanese sentence-
final particles more clearly. First, his basic model of ‘statement (Chinjutsu)’
opposed to ‘predication (Jojutsu)’ is illustrated in Figure 6.4. Jojutsu which is
shi in Tokieda (1950) is paraphrased by the ideational function, while chinjutsu
which is ji can be called the expressive function.
In Watanabe’s model, expressive function is considered to be a base sup-
porting ideational function dynamically throughout a sentence. While admit-
ting the operation of expressive function inside a sentence by elements such as
sentence-internal particles, Watanabe claims that expressive function is served
typically at either end of a sentence, especially in the sentence-final position.
This view concurs with Okutsu’s (1978: 62). Watanabe also states that the

(Interjections) ideational f. (SFPs)


expressive f.
initial final

a sentence
(from Watanabe 1971: 108)

Figure 6.4 Watanabe’s functional structure of a Japanese sentence


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 Chapter 6

distinct feature of the expressive function which differs from the ideational
function is exposed in the sentence-final position (Watanabe Ibid.: 111).
Watanabe discusses sentence-final particles quite extensively. He proposes
a continuum of communication-boundedness for sentence-final particles that
occur in the sentence final position. This proposal is demonstrated in (4).
(4) i. Sakura ka i ne.
Cherry.blossom Q FP FP
<‘Isn’t (it) cherry blossom?’>
ii. Sakura sa ne.
Cherry.blossom FP FP
<‘(It) is cherry blossom.’>
iii. Saku yo ne.
Bloom FP FP
<‘(It) will bloom, won’t it?’>
iv. Saku zo ne.
Bloom FP FP
<‘(It) will definitely (of course) bloom.’>
(Sentences except (iii) are from Watanabe Ibid.: 149)

In (4), the four sentences all contain more than two sentence-final particles
at the end. The detailed examination of each sentence-final particle is not of
interest here, but my focus is on the location of ne in the alignment of sentence-
final particles. Ne is always at the very end. Watanabe proposes a criterion of
what I translate as ‘emotion markerness’,19 i.e. marking the speaker’s emotion
towards others, to account for this sentence-final particle alignment. Accord-
ing to Watanabe’s criterion, ka in (i), a question marker (Kuno 1978a: 79),
is a non-emotion-marker. Sa in (ii) is a semi-emotion-marker. Yo in (iii) is
a half -emotion-marker. And ne in all the examples is a full-emotion-marker
(Watanabe: 149). Thus ka-sa-yo-ne fit on the ‘emotion markerness’ continuum
(0 → high) in this order, and ne in fact marks the highest degree of emotion
towards other people. Another way of saying this is that ne has the most other-
oriented, i.e. communication-oriented meaning. A sentence-final particle with
higher emotion markerness emerges closer to the terminal end of a sentence.
Watanabe accounts for the fact that ne emerges following all the other
sentence-final particles in a sentence, as follows. Ne is veritably the extreme in
the continuative aspect of marking emotion. Considering ‘calling the hearer’s
attention’ to be the fundamental function of ne (Watanabe Ibid.), ne is thought
to be the most basic means of expressing the speaker’s relationship with
the hearer.
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Pragmaticalization of ne and na (diachronic analysis) 

To answer the question “Why were the na elements adopted as discourse


markers rather than others?”, I would say the reason is that, from the out-
set, the original elements, the na group of sentence-final particles, have had a
highly communication-oriented expressive function. In Japanese, because the
na group of sentence-final particles already had an interaction-oriented ex-
pressive function, they underwent the pragmaticalization to become markers
more easily than the other Japanese sentence-final particles and other Japanese
expressions. The abounding communication/interaction-oriented expressive
function was the potential to convey the most fundamental relation in human
communication, i.e. the speaker-hearer relationship. Thus due to this prag-
maticalization, i.e. the evolution of markers from sentence-final particles, the
speaker-hearer relationship is now marked in utterance-initial position by the
na group of interjections. The fact that na group of interjections mark involve-
ment (5.9) of the speaker and hearer in the discourse also stands to reason.
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Chapter 7

Conclusion

In this final chapter, in (7.1) I summarize the main points of the study, re-
viewing the pragmaticalization of the conjunctions demo and dakedo and of
the interjection ne and its variants. In (7.2), since ‘development of discourse
markers’ seems to draw increased interests in the recent argument about gram-
maticalization, some thoughts on ‘grammaticalization’ is shown.
In (7.3), to conclude this study, I discuss the relevance of my findings to
a few other linguistic issues, inside and outside pragmatics, i.e. relevance to
typological characteristics of language (7.3.1), productivity (7.3.2) and con-
ventionalization of conversational implicatures (7.3.3).

. Summary of this study

This study has inquired into pragmaticalization of two domains in Japanese,


conjunctions (demo and dakedo) and interjections (ne and its variants). First,
I will review the change in the conjunctions. The pragmaticalization of demo
and dakedo are summarized in Figures 7.1 and 7.2. In Figure 7.1, in Present
Day Japanese (PDJ), expressive function holds a superscribed + indicating the
expansion of this function: This means that the expressive function has been
expanded when compared to the preceding time stages.
The functional changes that demo and dakedo seem to have undergone
overall correspond to Traugott’s (1982) proposed direction; ideational > ((tex-
tual) > (expressive)). The changes in demo and dakedo also seem to have
experienced a positional shift: from a clause-final connecting element V (cop-
ula) + a conjunctive particle mo/kedo into an utterance-initial conjunction and
discourse marker. If we take a broad definition of grammaticalization, this po-
sitional and structural change is considered a case of grammaticalization (see
Chapter 7 on grammaticalization).
As for demo, the original form de + mo first emerged in my data around the
11th century, as shown in Figure 7.1. The element seems to have first appeared
in the utterance-initial position as demo in the 18th century. At this point, demo
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 Chapter 7

V-te + mo (14th–19th C) Demo (18th–early 20th C) Demo (PDJ)


ideational ideational
ideational > textual > textual
expressive expressive+
Figure 7.1 Pragmaticalization of demo

V + kedo (18th–early 20th C) Dakedo (early 20th C–PDJ)


ideational > ideational
textual (> expressive)
Figure 7.2 Pragmaticalization of dakedo

gained textual and expressive functions while in the clause-final position it only
carried the ideational function. Between the 18th century and the early 20th
century, demo’s expressive function was to signal the speaker’s contrastive ac-
tion of refutation. Later, in Present Day Japanese, demo’s expressive function is
realized by additional speaker’s actions, such as ‘changing the topic’, ‘opening
conversation’ and ‘claiming the floor’. Thus, the expressive function must have
expanded over time. The change in demo follows a general tendency “less to
more personal” (Traugott 1982): Between the 14th century and the 19th cen-
tury, V-te + mo seems not to have marked personal meaning, but when the
element appears in the initial position in the 18th century, it clearly serves an
expressive function.
As for dakedo, the original form V + kedo seems to have appeared first in
the 18th century in my data (as shown in Figure 7.2). Then it seems to have
turned up in the utterance-initial position as dakedo in the early 20th century
in my data. Dakedo at this stage has expressive function optionally, i.e. some
dakedo carry just ideational and textual functions, but others carry all three
functions. Whereas the element expressed no personal meaning explicitly at
first as an initial marker, it began to convey expressive meaning clearly: The
pragmaticalization of dakedo also complies with the tendency “less to more
personal”.
The functional change in the interjection ne and its variants na, noo, no,
naa and nee which is accompanied by the positional shift from the sentence-
final elements through internal elements into initial markers is summarized in
Figure 7.3. This development of na elements could be discussed as an example
of grammaticalization, as reported in (7.2).
As seen in Figure 7.3, in general, the na group of elements emerge in final
and internal positions around the same time or in succession; then they emerge
in initial positions later. As mentioned before, analysis of Japanese language
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Conclusion 

Final/internal elements Initial elements


expressive > expressive
textual

Final elements SIPs Interjections

na (8th C) = na (8th C) > na (12th C)


noo (14th–16th C) = noo (14th–16th C) = noo (14th C)
no (16th C) > no (19th C?) = no (19th C)
ne (18th C) > ne (19th C) > ne (20th C)
nee (18th C) = nee (18th C) > nee (19th C)
naa (18th C) > naa (19th C)

expressive = expressive > expressive


textual

Figure 7.3 Pragmaticalization of all the na elements

before Muromachi period (14th–16th century) should be treated speculatively.


However, as seen in Figure 7.3, na elements except na show their own diachrony
after Muromachi.
The pragmaticalization of the na group of interjections neither conforms
nor contradicts Traugott’s hypothesis, ideational > textual > expressive. For
the na elements, the expressive function seems fundamental so that it remains
throughout their history, from the beginning to the final stage. The pragmati-
calization of the na elements is a process in which the elements gain a textual
function in a later stage, while maintaining the expressive function.
The pragmaticalization of the na elements clearly follows the direction,
less to more personal. It traces a more specific change of increasing subjecti-
fication (6.4.2). Subjectification is recognized in at least two different aspects
of the historical process of the na elements. First, subjectification accompanies
the shift from final to initial position: whereas the prime function of the item
in sentence-final position was ‘exclamation’, that in initial position is ‘sum-
mons’. Subjectification (Traugott 1986a) is in essence a shift from ideational
to interpersonal meanings, referring less to objective situations and more to
subjective ones. Along with the shift in the primary function from exclamation
to summons, there is a meaning change towards increasingly interpersonal.
Second, subjectification goes along with the diachronic process of the na
elements in the sentence-final position and that in the initial position, respec-
tively. In the final position, although at first the only function was exclamation,
the item later started marking interrogation or suggestion: this is a mean-
ing shift from less to more interpersonal/communication-bound. In the initial
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 Chapter 7

position, the original function was only that of summons; however, later the
item began marking more extended interpersonal meanings such as ‘reinforce-
ment’ and ‘before new information’: this is also a change from less to more
interpersonal meaning.
In Chapter 1 where the definition of discourse markers was introduced
(1.2.1.4), I listed the specific conditions that allow an expression to be a marker,
proposed by Schiffrin (1987: 328):
1. it has to be syntactically detachable from a sentence
2. it has to be commonly used in initial position of an utterance
3. it has to have a range of prosodic contours
4. it has to be able to operate at both local and global levels of discourse, and
on different planes of discourse

At this point, it is relevant to question whether or not demo, dakedo, ne and


its variants fulfill these conditions. The expressions examined in my study do
fulfill the above criteria; thus they are all qualified as markers. It might also
be possible to suggest an additional condition based on the results of this
study. That is:
5. it has to realize either textual or expressive functions

Demo, dakedo, ne and its variants also satisfy this criterion.

. Grammaticalization

This book is about the pragmatics of some Japanese discourse markers (DMs),
which at first did not address the issue of grammaticalization. However, in the
last decade, grammaticalization has grown to be one of the themes that at-
tracts primary attention in linguistics. And in today’s on-going discussions on
grammaticalization, even the issue of development of discourse markers itself
(exactly the topic of this book) has drawn more attention. Book-length works
on grammaticalization appeared one after another in the 1990s (Heine, Claudi,
& Hünnemeyer 1991; Traugott & Heine (Eds.) Vols. 1 and 2, 1991; Hop-
per & Traugott 1993; Pagliuca (Ed.) 1994; Lehmann 1995; Ramat & Hopper
1998; etc.). And still today, discussions to develop and remodel the theory of
grammaticalization are being argued (e.g. Traugott & Dasher 2002; Wischer &
Diewald 2002, etc.). In this climate of the field, the question “if the develop-
mental process of discourse markers is judged as a case of grammaticalization
or not” has been argued from time to time. In this section, I will give some
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Conclusion 

thoughts on “grammaticalization” by showing a view in which the develop-


ment of discourse markers is regarded as an example of grammaticalization
(7.2.1) and examining the cases of demo and na elements from a more up-dated
perspective than ones shown in my earlier works (Onodera 1995, 2000) (7.2.2).

.. Development of discourse markers: A case of grammaticalization

There are at least two scholars who declare that the development of discourse
markers is a case of grammaticalization. This view, the development of dis-
course markers as grammaticalization, will be firstly presented.
First, Traugott (1995b: 1) suggests that a cline be added to the inven-
tory of “staples of grammaticalization theory”, “in addition to nominal clines
(nominal adposition > case) and verbal clines (main verb > tense, aspect,
mood marker)”. The newly suggested cline is: “Clause-internal Adverbial >
Sentence Adverbial > Discourse Particle (of which Discourse Markers are a
subtype)” (Ibid.).
In this paper, Traugott specifically argues that three English discourse
markers, ‘indeed’, ‘in fact’ and ‘besides’, developed following this cline. ‘Indeed’,
for example, undergoes a path from a verbal adverbial through a sentential ad-
verb to a discourse marker. (i) (Ernst 1984: 202; quoted in Traugott 1995b: 6)
illustrates this developmental direction (a → b).
(i) a. Many people hated it indeed.
b. Indeed, many people hated it.

The three discourse markers, ‘indeed’, ‘in fact’ and ‘besides’, also all origi-
nally started from the stage (Stage 0) where lexical nouns (‘deed’, ‘facte’ and
‘siden’ (meaning side)) were included. Then, Traugott considers the devel-
oped forms, namely discourse markers, as “part of the grammar of a language
(Fraser 1988: 32), even though they are pragmatic in function” (Ibid.: 5). She
argues that discourse markers fill a syntactic slot, and have highly constrained
syntactic properties (Ibid.). Thus, according to this view, the development of
discourse markers fulfills the natural tendency of grammaticalization; from
non-grammatical lexical items to grammatical elements. Treating Japanese dis-
course markers such as demo and dakara (often called conjunctions in Japanese
grammar), I also consider that these demo type connectives fill syntactic slots
and have syntactic properties. It seems to depend on each discourse marker to
what extent a marker is part of the grammar of a language and contributes to
the propositional component of a language.
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 Chapter 7

The development of ‘indeed’, ‘in fact’ and ‘besides’ show long-attested


structural characteristics of early grammaticalization, decategorialization, pho-
nological reduction, generalization and more recently found characteristics,
pragmatic strengthening and subjectification. The historical process of these
discourse markers and the suggested cline, “Clause-internal Adverbial > Sen-
tence Adverbial > Discourse Particle”, involve increased syntactic freedom and
scope, which violates the features of bonding and reduced scope frequently
regarded as criterial parameters of grammaticalization (e.g. “parameters of
grammaticalization” (Lehmann 1995: 121)).
At the end of Traugott (1995b: 15), bonding and reduced scope came to be
excluded from the criterial features of grammaticalization as in “[they] should
not be thought of as necessarily entail”ed in grammaticalization. The devel-
opmental process of demo type connectives studied in this book also showed
increased syntactic freedom and scope, which supports this exclusion.
In Tabor and Traugott (1998) which argues the relation of “structural scope
expansion and grammaticalization”, they conclude that the reduced scope
should not be thought as a parameter of grammaticalization (265). In addi-
tion, they propose that “structural unidirectionality (in any formulation) is
not an appropriate presupposition at this stage in the development of the field”
(Ibid.). This proposal seems useful if the theory of grammaticalization indeed
pursues the universalness of language or human communication.
Second, Brinton (1996, 2001) argues even more clearly that the develop-
ment of pragmatic markers1 is considered a case of grammaticalization. In
Brinton (2001), analyzing forms of look ((now) look (here), lookyou, lookee,
lookahere and look it) that she calls pragmatic markers, she reports that their
development exhibits most, if not all, of the characteristic signs of grammati-
calization; “decategorialization”, “coalescence” (“[i.e.] increase in morphologi-
cal bondedness” (193) as seen in lookye/lookyou (cf. Lehmann 1995: 147–157),
“phonological attrition”, “desemanticization”, “increase in pragmatic meaning”,
“pragmatic strengthening” (Hopper & Traugott 1993: 75–77), “subjectifica-
tion”, and “divergence”.
Brinton also mentions that “there are ways in which the development of
look-forms is not characteristic of grammaticalization as it is commonly un-
derstood”. She points out the features that violate the long-discussed charac-
teristics of grammaticalization: (1) scope reduction, (2) “fixation” (Lehmann
1995: 158–160) “[i.e.] coming to occupy a fixed syntactic slot” (2001: 194), (3)
typical cline of grammaticalization of verbs: full verb > quasi-auxiliary > auxil-
iary > clitic > affix (195). Another way in which the development of look-forms
is uncharacteristic of grammaticalization is that “[look-forms] begin[ning] life
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Conclusion 

as syntagms, or full constructions, rather than as individual lexical items”


(Ibid.: 194).
As for scope reduction (1), it has been recognized that the development of
other discourse markers (‘indeed’, ‘in fact’ and ‘besides’ in English (Traugott
1995b), and demo type connectives in Japanese (this study)) violate this “pa-
rameter” and rather these discourse markers expand in structural scope. Tabor
and Traugott (1998) indeed argue against the traditional view of scope reduc-
tion and suggest that grammaticalization of discourse markers involve increase
in scope (see also 1.1.1). In sum, Brinton (2001) considers that the similar-
ities between the development of discourse markers and grammaticalization
prevails against the differences between these two kinds of historical processes.
At the end of Brinton (2001), she suggests another cline of grammatical-
ization that a set of pragmatic markers follow, after pointing out the diver-
sity in pragmatic markers recognized synchronically and diachronically. The
suggested cline is:
matrix clause [subject + verb] > parenthetical adjunct

This cline would explain pragmatic markers such as look-forms, I mean, you
see, I think/guess/suppose and you know (195). Synchronically, pragmatic mark-
ers are divergent in structure: They are “verbs, adverbs, interjections, coordi-
nating and subordinating conjunctions, literal phrases, and idioms” (Fraser
1988: 24 quoted in Brinton 2001: 195). Diachronically, pragmatic markers also
have a variety in sources, including “interjections (hwæt), adverbs (anon),
verbs/auxiliaries (gan), or matrix clauses (þa gelamp þæt) (Brinton 1996)”. I
also agree on such diversity in pragmatic markers. Because of this diversity, it
is plausible that there are plural clines of grammaticalization to be proposed in
addition to the traditional view of its unidirectional tendencies.

.. Demo and na elements: Grammaticalization or not?

In Onodera (2000), I suggested the independence of grammaticalization and


pragmaticalization: these are originally two separate processes that are inde-
pendent of each other. That is, these two historical processes occur indepen-
dently despite the fact that pragmaticalization is too often discussed to accom-
pany grammaticalization like one of its criterial features (see also 1.2.1.2).
In Onodera (2000), I considered that the development of demo type
connectives was a case of both grammaticalization and pragmaticalization
while that of na elements was a case of pragmaticalization without involving
grammaticalization. In this section, my re-examination will show that the di-
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 Chapter 7

achronic process which na underwent could also be counted as a case of gram-


maticalization. In the following, the development of demo type connectives and
na elements will be briefly argued as examples of grammaticalization.
First, demo type connectives undergo grammaticalization, if a broad defi-
nition of such historical process is taken:
the dynamic, unidirectional historical process whereby lexical items in the
course of time acquire a new status as grammatical, morpho-syntactic forms,
and in the process come to code relations that either were not coded before or
were coded differently. (Traugott & König 1991: 189)

As illustrated in this definition, the developed form, demo type connectives,


gained a new morpho-syntactic form, i.e. ‘an intersentential syntactic connec-
tive’, out of the source element, the clause-final connecting device de + mo,
i.e. ‘the gerundive form of a verb (copula) da + an adversative clause-final
particle mo’. The elements later came to code relations that were coded dif-
ferently: de + mo connected two clauses (connection within a sentence), then
the developed forms, sentence-initial demo type connectives, connect two sen-
tences (connection beyond a sentence). In addition to this morpho-syntactic
change, the developmental path of demo also shows several common features
of grammaticalization: (1) semantic and syntactic reclassification, (2) increase
in abstraction, (3) non-referentiality, (4) gradual step-by-step change [cline]
(Tabor & Traugott 1998: 265), and (5) layering (Hopper 1991: 22) (see also
1.1.1). As for pragmaticalization of demo type connectives, as discussed in de-
tail in Chapter 4, this category of words clearly follow the path of pragmatic
strengthening, i.e. pragmaticalization. Demo type connectives went through
both grammaticalization and pragmaticalization in their history.
Second, in Onodera (2000), I concluded that the development of na el-
ements involves pragmaticalization and just positional change – i.e. without
undergoing grammaticalization. While demo type connectives undergo both
pragmaticalization and grammaticalization, another group of Japanese dis-
course markers, na elements, undergo only pragmaticalization. Because of this
asymmetric relationship, I proposed the independent feature of grammatical-
ization and pragmaticalization (Ibid.: 45–46).
This independence (autonomy) holds true. But, a more up-dated view-
point judges that the evolution of na elements may also be a grammaticaliza-
tion. Their positional change; from sentence-final particles to sentence-internal
particles to sentence-initial interjections, indeed shows correlation with change
in syntactic position. It thus involves “scope” change, specifically scope ex-
pansion, just as we saw in the development of the English discourse markers,
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Conclusion 

‘indeed’ and ‘besides’ (7.2.1). The analysis illustrated in (7.2.1) is indeed im-
plicative for the analysis of other discourse markers.
If a process exhibits the arrival at a new morpho-syntactic status or a new
grammatical element, such process is surely counted as a case of grammatical-
ization. For the case of na elements, however, unclear part is the grammaticality
of the developed forms, the interjections na.2 If their development is seen as
one from non-grammatical sentence-final particles to non-grammatical in-
terjections, such process cannot be a grammaticalization. Nonetheless, the
historical evolution of na elements at least partly involves features of gram-
maticalization, if grammaticalization is a process which crucially involves cor-
relations between semantic/pragmatic and morphosyntactic change. The case
of na elements at least show the signs of grammaticalization such as ‘semantic
and syntactic reclassification’, ‘gradual step-by-step change (cline)’, ‘layering’,
‘pragmaticalization’ and ‘subjectification’ and the signs of grammaticalization
of discourse markers such as ‘increase in scope’ and ‘increase in syntactic free-
dom’ (see also 1.1.1). This case would be judged as a grammaticalization in the
broadest viewpoint in the current field.

. Relevance of findings

.. Relevance to typological characteristics

Some typological characteristics of language seem to make possible the prag-


maticalization processes in Japanese seen in the preceding chapters. At least two
typological features of Japanese, i.e. postpositional and agglutinative, reviewed
in (2.3), appear to be involved in the process of discourse marker formation in
the case of the set of Japanese items which changed from unit-final elements
into unit-initial elements. In this section, I will discuss how these typological
features affect the pragmaticalization, a developmental process.
The word formation of demo/dakedo and the interjection ne indeed in-
volves a typological feature, agglutination. That is, dakedo/demo and ne are
derived from the unit-final connecting devices da + kedo/de + mo and the
sentence-final particle ne respectively: The grammatical relationship between
the verb (copula da/de) and the appended conjunctive particles kedo/mo and
between a sentence and the attached final particle ne is agglutination. Kedo/mo
and ne all fulfill the defining feature of “agglutination”, “separable affixes on
verbs” (Mallinson & Blake 1981: 20). Therefore ‘agglutination’ indeed directly
connects kedo/mo and ne to the preceding sentence. The elements constituting
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 Chapter 7

the original forms, kedo, mo and ne, are all postposed and such adpositions
are indeed called postpositions. Postpositions are ascribable to the fact that
Japanese is a postpositional language, which is another typological feature (see
Greenberg’s Language Universal 9 in (2.3)).
How do [clause + kedo/mo] and [ne appended to a sentence] shift into
the unit-initial position? There are two possible ways of accounting for this
shift. The first way to account for the shift in the formation of conjunctions
like demo/dakedo is by postposing. In Japanese there are two types of move-
ment processes, “scrambling” and “postposing”3 (Hinds 1986: 164). Although
scrambling, also referred to as “free word order” (Kuno 1973), is a typical
typological feature of Japanese, it is not clear that ‘postposing’ can be cate-
gorized as a typological feature.4 Free word order and postposing are briefly
illustrated below.
‘Free word order’ is partly attributable to agglutination. This is because
case-marking particles (postpositions) which contribute to agglutination in
Japanese clearly designate the cases, hence the relationships among phrases
(words) in a sentence, and therefore phrases can move around relatively easily.
An example given to show the clear case-relation among words and free word
order which can occur in Japanese (Kuno 1973: 351–352, reviewed in (2.3)) is
repeated below.
(1) a. John ga Mary o Cambridge de mita.
nominative accusative in saw
particle particle
<‘John saw Mary in Cambridge.’>
b. John ga Cambridge de Mary o mita.
c. Mary o John ga Cambridge de mita.
d. Mary o Cambridge de John ga mita.
e. Cambridge de John ga Mary o mita.
f. Cambridge de Mary o John ga mita.

In (1), (a) is realizable as (b) through (f), and the six sentences are all gram-
matical. As seen in this example, in Japanese it is possible for a phrase to be
detached from the rest of the sentence and moved to a different position as long
as the rigid constraint is observed that verbs must appear in the sentence-final
position (Kuno 1973: 3).
‘Postposing’ takes place relatively frequently in conversational interaction,
but it also appears sometimes in written language (Hinds 1986: 166). As will be
illustrated in (2) and (3), subordinate clauses (underlined part) seem able to
be postposed.
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Conclusion 

(2) Nihon ja soo iu koto amari nakatta,


Japan at-TP that say fact very NEG-PST
hikaku shitara.
compare do-if
<‘There were not many cases of such thing in Japan, if [you] compare [the
two countries].’> (Hinds 1986: 166)
(3) Hanasenai desu ne, hanashitai kedo.
speak can NEG COP FP speak want but
<‘I can’t speak [French], although I wish I could.’>

In (2) and (3), the subordinate clauses ‘if you compare the two countries’ and
‘although I wish I could’ are postposed. Postposing is a convenient strategy in
conversation, since the speaker can add something extra (e.g. a supplementary
explanation, excuse, justification etc.) after starting the main sentence. In ad-
dition to the phrases seen in (1), postposed subordinate clauses like (‘although
I want to speak it’: hanashitai kedo) in (3) seem easy to detach and move.
Following the clause (‘although I want to speak it’), the speaker might like
to re-assert his/her information to emphasize it and say:
(4) Dakedo, dooshitemo hanasenai desu.
But anyhow speak can NEG COP
<‘But, I can’t speak [French] no matter what [I do].’>

In (4), instead of saying dakedo, the speaker of course has the option of just
repeating the clause preceding (4) (‘although I want to speak it’: hanashitai
kedo). However, since the element da (more strictly its stem d) has the function
of replacing a prior predicate, the speaker utters dakedo in which d replaces
the predicate hanashitai (‘I want (wish) to speak’): thus the speaker uses an
economical d replacement strategy rather than a redundant or repetitive ex-
pression.5 Thus, in Japanese sentence structure a subordinate clause such as
(V + kedo/mo) seems detachable and somewhat movable. It stands to reason
that the mobility of a subordinate clause and the replacement function of d
would allow the formation of the initial condensed subordinate clause-like
word dakedo/demo. Thus, ‘postposing’ is involved in the formation of initial
markers since it allows a subordinate clause to be detached from the rest of
the sentence. Postposing contributes to the marker formation in the case of
conjunctions such as demo/dakedo.
There may be another way of accounting for the shift of a final element
into an initial marker in the case of ne, a sentence-final particle (SFP) which
later becomes an initial marker. That is, in Japanese, a postpositional language,
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 Chapter 7

(Interjection) predication (SFP)


sentence statement sentence
initial final
a sentence

Figure 7.4 Watanabe’s functional structure of a Japanese sentence (1971: 108)

elements which in the final position of a sentence already express the speaker’s
subjectivity shift into the initial position which (in Japanese) seems the most
efficient site for expressing subjectivity. This account relies upon (1) the func-
tional structure of the Japanese sentence suggested by Watanabe (1971) or
Hayashi (1983) and (2) the bracketing function of initiating markers. Although
the entire sketch of motivation for this pragmatic change remains indefinite,
this account gives us a hint to consider the motivating factor.
Watanabe’s (1971) model (mentioned in (6.5)) is illustrated below as Fig-
ure 7.4: This time our focus is rather on the functions of language which could
be pertinent to the typological feature of postpositionality. ‘Predication’ (jo-
jutsu) is what is expressed by ideational function, i.e. ideational content, or
state of affairs. Opposed to predication, ‘statement’ (chinjutsu) is what is ex-
pressed by expressive function; the content of the state of affairs into which the
speaker’s attitude is added.
‘Statement’ is paraphrased as what is expressed by ‘ji’ in Tokieda’s the-
ory (1950). ‘Ji’ is “an expression representing the speaker’s perspective toward
the referent” as opposed to ‘shi’, “an expression representing an objective and
conceptualized notion of referents” (translation from Maynard 1989b: 30). ‘Ji’
and ‘shi’ are two grammatical categories into which all the word classes in
Japanese are classified: ‘ji’ includes conjunctions, interjections, auxiliary verbs
and particles, whereas ‘shi’ subsumes nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
What is noteworthy in Watanabe’s model (Figure 7.4) is that ‘ji’ adding the
speaker’s attitude to the proposition of an utterance (sentence) serves espe-
cially in sentence-initial and final parts (Watanabe emphasizing the final part).
In the sentence-initial part, typically interjections as ‘ji’ function to express the
speaker’s attitude, and in the sentence-final part, sentence-final particles also
have this function as ‘ji’ (cf. Okutsu 1978: 62). One might wonder why the el-
ements need to move to the initial part, if both initial and final parts are the
locations where the speaker’s attitude may be expressed.
Hayashi’s (1983) model illustrates the idea that expressive function is oper-
ating in the peripheral parts (initial and final ends) of a Japanese sentence more
comprehensibly. According to Hayashi, a Japanese sentence is functionally
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Conclusion 

predication
judgment
sentiments
interaction
sentence sentence
initial final
í

a sentence

Figure 7.5 Hayashi’s functional structure of a Japanese sentence

sentence Sensei, (summons)


initial
anoo, (pre-ex. of upset)
nandaka (pre-ex. of uncertain judgment)
Nakamura-san ga, yoosu ga okashii p j s i

mitai nan desu kedo, (uncertain judgment)


dooshitara ii n deshoo (upset)

sentence ka. (interrogation)


final

(p, j, s, i stand for predication, judgment, sentiments and interaction. pre-ex.


stands for pre-expression.)

Figure 7.6 Hayashi’s layered-structure of utterance

structured with four-layers as shown in Figure 7.5: the central layer is “predi-
cation” (byoojo), the core part of the sentence, where the semantic content of
events is described, and the three layers encircling “predication” outward are
“judgment”, “sentiments” and “interaction”.
“Judgment” expresses the speaker’s judgment regarding the proposition;
“sentiments” convey the speaker’s various sentiments toward the semantic con-
tent; and “interaction” transmits the speaker’s interactive attitude concerning
the other participants in a given situation. To capture a more concrete idea of
this functionally layered-structure of a sentence, an example is given in Fig-
ure 7.6, which Hayashi (1983: 49) calls the “layered-structure of an utterance”.
Figure 7.7 presents the English equivalent for the utterance in Figure 7.6.
In this model (see Figure 7.5), ‘sentiments’ and ‘interaction’ included in
the expressive component are expressed in the outwardmost layers, hence in
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 Chapter 7

‘Teacher,’

well,
looks like

there’s something wrong with Mr. Nakamura


seems

what should we do
question marker

Figure 7.7 English translation for the utterance in Figure 7.6

both sentence-initial and final positions. With the predication, which is the de-
scribed semantic content, as the core of the sentence, ‘judgment’, ‘sentiments’
and ‘interaction’ functions operate, forming layers outward, i.e. in both di-
rections toward the initiating and terminating ends of a sentence (see Figures
7.5 and 7.6).
Furthermore, the following might hint an account of the pragmaticaliza-
tion of na elements. In the outermost layer, ‘interaction’ (see Figure 7.5), the
na group of sentence-final particles move into sentence-initial position and be-
come interjections, since the initial position is where the marking or bracketing
function of a discourse marker stands out and operates the most effectively.6
From the two models of the functional structure of a Japanese sentence
(Watanabe 1971; Hayashi 1983), we now understand that in a Japanese sen-
tence the semantic content is placed in the center and the speaker’s subjective
attitude toward the content is in the peripheral part (in initial and terminal po-
sitions). Among the items that express the speaker attitude (ji), especially those
which transmit the speaker’s interaction-oriented (interpersonal) meanings (e.g.
summons, interrogation, suggestion, etc.) are in the outermost positions.
Items such as the na elements originally located in the sentence-final po-
sition are detached from the sequence of discourse: those items are cut from
the rest of discourse in the position of ‘ji’. As seen in the preceding chapters,
those detached items move into the sentence-initial position. A reason for this
can be as follows. The sentence-initial position is the most appropriate place for
markers to serve their ‘marking’ function because this is where ‘initial brackets’
(Schiffrin 1987: 36–37; Goffman 1974: 255; see (1.2.1.4)) work. As a conse-
quence, the sentence-initial position is the most expressive and subjective site.
It is also noted that the bracketing function of an initial marker can be even a
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Conclusion 

stronger motivating force than the functional structure where the interactional
meaning is expressed in both sentence-initial and final positions.7
Although this is not yet clear, there may already be the “path” for the prag-
maticalization in Japanese (at least, in the case of the na group of interjections),
because in this language, both sentence-final and sentence-initial locations are
expressive and subjective. In the case of na elements, those in sentence-final
location gradually come to be used in sentence-initial location where the “sig-
naling” (marking) function of a discourse marker serves the most efficiently.
In this section, an account for the shift of unit-final elements into initial
markers in Japanese has been attempted in relation to the typological features
of Japanese. Schiffrin (1987) suggests that English conjunctions have come to
be used as markers. However, in English, this pragmatic change is not accom-
panied by a positional shift of items, as is the case for the Japanese markers
examined here. This possibly occurs because English is a typically prepositional
language. In English, conjunctions are located in the unit-initial position in the
first place (McCawley 1988; see (2.3)), and they need not move into the initial
position to become markers. Therefore, the exact process of discourse marker
formation, whereby items obtain the status of markers is very much a matter
of whether the language is typologically pre- or postpositionally structured.
In sum, in Japanese which is a postpositional and agglutinative language, a
certain group of unit-final items become unit-initial discourse markers, involv-
ing at least the above two typological characteristics. The pragmaticalization in
Japanese seen in this study clearly shows the accompanying positional shift of
the items, which can never be seen in English. Therefore, the examination of
Japanese gives us a piece of evidence which shows how some items evolve into
markers. Thus this study adds support for the evolutionary development of
markers, first suggested in Schiffrin’s (1987) analysis of English, by showing
visually explicit evidence, the accompanying positional shift in pragmaticaliza-
tion in Japanese, a language typologically quite unlike English.

.. Productivity

In addition to typology, another linguistic issue relevant to this study’s findings


is productivity (cf. Huddleston 1984; Riddle 1985; Romaine 1985; Uhlenbeck
1981). Huddleston (1984: 27) states:

A morphological process is fully productive if it can apply to all members of a


large and independently definable set of stems.
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 Chapter 7

denakereba ? ¬ü sore ü de nakere ba


þ that þ COP (subjunctive) conj.
¯ NEG nai particle
omitted

Figure 7.8 Formation (1) of denakereba

In this section, I will discuss the productive feature of the word-formation of


demo and dakedo which can build other similar conjunctions (and markers).
The conjunctions demo and dakedo seem to have been derived from unit-
final connecting elements V (copula de) + mo (a conjunctive particle) and
V (copula da) + kedo (a conjunctive particle). As seen in (2.3) and (7.3.1),
the grammatical relationship between de/da and the conjunctive particle is
agglutination: the word-formation process by which demo and dakedo were
formed involves agglutination. I now propose that the same kind of formation
process involving agglutination also builds other conjunctions or conjunctive
expressions.
The process similar to the formation of dakedo seems to produce the con-
junctions, daga, dakara, danoni, datte and dattara. Indeed, there are strikingly
numerous conjunctive expressions with similar structure in Japanese. Damon-
dakara, dakeredo, dakedomo and dakeredomo (cf. Aoki 1973: 243–244) are such
expressions. The formation process and meaning of the produced conjunctions
are listed in (A).
(A) daga ← da (COP) + ga (conjunctive particle) ‘but’
dakara ← da (COP) + kara (conj. particle) ‘so’
danoni ← da (COP) + noni (conj. particle) ‘despite it’
datte ← da (COP) + tote (conj. particle) ‘’cause’
dattara ← da (COP) + tara (inflected form of
past/perfect tense marking aux. verb ta) ‘if so’
In all the cases in (A), the copula da and the attached conjunctive particles (or
the inflected form of an aux. verb) are related due to agglutination.
A formation process similar to that by which demo is formed can likewise
produce another set of words, today recognized as conjunctions (according to
Shoogaku Tosho (Ed.) 1981), de, denaito, denakereba and dewa. The formation
of these words can be thought of in two ways. Figure 7.8 shows one way of
forming denakereba.
In Figure 7.8, denakereba is considered to be an abbreviated form of an-
other conjunction soredenakereba, from which the demonstrative pronoun sore
(that) is omitted. Following the same process, demo, de, denaito and dewa are
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Conclusion 

denakereba ← de + nakere ba, ‘if not so’


(gerundive) (sub.) conj.
COP NEG nai particle
demo ← de + mo, ‘but’
(ger.) conj.
COP particle
de ← de, ‘and then’
(ger.)
COP
denaito ← de + nai to, ‘if not so’
(ger.) NEG conj.
COP particle
dewa ← de + wa, ‘well then/now’
(ger.) TP
COP
Figure 7.9 Formation (2) of denakereba and similar conjunctions

thought to be abbreviated forms of the conjunctions soredemo, sorede/sokode,


soodenaito and soredewa. That is, omission of demonstratives sore, soko and soo
from soredemo, sorede/sokode and soodenaito form demo, de and denaito.
In contrast, Figure 7.9 presents the other way of forming denakereba and
the other conjunctions: I have taken this position to account for demo in the
previous chapters. In this formation, a conjunction is thought to be derived
from a clause-final connecting device. The meaning of each conjunction is also
listed in Figure 7.9.
Once one recognizes d’s (stem of da) ‘replacement function’ of replacing
a predicate in prior discourse (Okutsu 1978) as the critical syntactic nature
of conjunctions like demo (reviewed in (2.4.1) and discussed elsewhere in my
study), the formation process illustrated in Figure 7.9 is plausible. It is mainly
because d makes a great contribution to the textual function by relating the
prior and upcoming at the point where the conjunction occurs. Regardless of
which formation process ((1) or (2)) one accepts, the fact remains that the
formation process of demo is productive in that other conjunctions such as de,
denakereba, denaito and dewa are also produced by a similar process.
It has been shown in this section that the word-formation process of con-
junctions (and discourse markers) demo and dakedo is not idiosyncratic but
productive. Though this process is not fully productive, it is similar to other
lexical processes such as those involving the English affixes, en-, -age, and even
-able.8 Thus, the conjunction-formation process [the agglutinated sequence of
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 Chapter 7

the copula de/da (including negative form) + a particle or an auxiliary verb]


is productive. Among conjunctions in Japanese, this formation process has in
fact produced a large group, whose members are all prefaced by d, which I call
demo type connectives (Onodera 2000).
A more general productive process which makes discourse markers in
Japanese is also noted. That is, the elements which belong to ‘ji’ and express
the speaker’s subjective attitude tend to develop into discourse markers in
Japanese. The original forms of the conjunctions prefaced with d discussed in
this section are made up of the copula and conjunctive particles or auxiliary
verbs, as mentioned above. The interjection ne and its variants were derived
from sentence-final particles. These original elements (copula, conjunctive par-
ticles, auxiliary verbs, and sentence-final particles) are, according to Tokieda
(1950), all categorized as ‘ji’. ‘Ji’ is the grammatical division which expresses
the speaker’s attitude, opposed to ‘shi’ which expresses the semantic content
of discourse (for the details of ‘ji’, see 7.3.1). Therefore, a general productive
pattern of forming discourse markers in Japanese seems that some set of ‘ji’
elements are inclined to evolve into markers.

.. Conventionalization of conversational implicatures

To date, many works have revealed that structural coordinators in language


have additional discourse functions as well (e.g. Schiffrin 1987; Maynard 1989a,
1993; Mori 1996, 1999; also this study). Schiffrin (1987) has found that English
connectives ‘and’, ‘but’ and ‘or’ are not only coordinators marking relation-
ships between constituent parts of a sentence, but also ‘discourse markers’ (her
coined term) with a pragmatic role and interactional effect. ‘And’ is a coordi-
nator of idea units and is also a pragmatic marker of the speaker’s action of
continuation. ‘But’ is a coordinator of idea structure (like ‘and’) and is also
a marker of the speaker’s contrastive actions. Likewise, ‘or’ is a coordinator as
well as a marker of the speaker’s provision of options to the hearer. In Japanese,
Maynard (1989a) has found that dakara, which has long been recognized as a
logical ‘cause-and-result’ connective, in fact carries additional discourse func-
tions. Such discourse functions are marking where supplementary explanation
starts, marking reluctant repetition and designating the ending of a turn or
claiming a turn. In addition, in this study the hitherto so-called adversative
conjunctions demo and dakedo have been demonstrated to mark the speaker’s
contrastive actions (like ‘but’) as a pragmatic effect.
The last issue I would like to consider in this study is why or how the items
long recognized only as structural coordinators came to be used as discourse
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Conclusion 

markers with additional meanings. Another way of stating this question is to


ask how the extra discourse meanings began to be understood by the hearers.
I suggest ‘conventionalization of conversational implicatures’ somehow facil-
itates the process in which the coordinators gained the discourse meanings
and these later acquired meanings gradually became understood by any hearer.
Traugott (1989: 52) seems to include the discourse function of the speaker’s
checking for listener comprehension of a question marker in Australian En-
glish in this conventionalizing process. Although further study is needed in or-
der to account for “conventionalization of discourse/interactional meanings”,
there may be some process similar to the ‘conventionalization of conversational
implicatures’ which is introduced below.
In what follows, I will refer to the work which suggested the original con-
cept of conventionalization of implicatures (Geis & Zwicky 1971) and another
work which provides another explication of the same process of conventional-
izing (Dahl 1985). Following, I will mention the three documents exemplifying
the semantic changes facilitated by conventionalization of implicatures.
The original concept of conventionalization of implicatures is first catego-
rized and introduced as “invited inferences” by Geis and Zwicky (1971). In ref-
erence to the development of the English conjunction ‘since’ from a temporal
word to a causal marker, they interpret such a process as
a change from a principle of invited inference associated with ‘since’ (by virtue
of its temporal meaning) to a piece of the semantic content of ‘since’.
(Ibid.: 565–566)

Geis and Zwicky contend that an invited inference which has been associated
with a word can become part of its semantic representation (Ibid.). Horn (cf.
1984) also seems to support the idea that the conventionalization of a salient or
stereotypical conversational inference is involved in the development of ‘since’
from a temporal to a causal marker (cf. Traugott 1989).
The process of the conventionalization of implicatures which I focus on
here is explicated quite clearly by Dahl (1985). “Implicature” as used by Dahl
is the term coined by Grice (1975). Dahl writes that conventionalization of
implicatures is a powerful mechanism which creates secondary foci and sec-
ondary interpretations of a word. Although secondary foci and interpretations
will be explained below, Dahl’s (1985: 11) description of the process of the
conventionalization of a conversational implicature is as follows:
if some condition happens to be fulfilled frequently when a certain category is
used, a stronger association may develop between the condition and the cat-
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 Chapter 7

egory in such a way that the condition comes to be understood as an integral


part of the meaning of the category.

As an example of such conventionalization, the development of the English as-


pects, Perfects and Pluperfects, into recent and remote past tenses is given. Dahl
also discusses the notions of ‘basic meaning’ and ‘secondary meanings’. Look-
ing at the meaning of a term extensionally, the extensions of a term are divided
into different regions, one of which is considered ‘basic’ or ‘primary’ among
others. The basic/primary meaning (‘sense’ or ‘use’) is the ‘focal’ or ‘prototypi-
cal’ in contrast to the ‘peripheral’ senses (1985: 9). Given the notion of a focused
category, a ‘secondary meaning’ (‘sense’, ‘use’, ‘reading’, ‘interpretation’ etc.) is
defined as something outside the focus. The secondary meanings are repre-
sented by a subset of the prototype; that is, some of the prototypical properties
would be present and others not (Ibid.: 10–11). It is implied here that in the
secondary interpretations there is a residue of the primary meaning.
Three more works provide examples of the semantic changes fostered by
the conventionalization of implicatures (inferences). In reference to the devel-
opment of volitional ‘will’ in the first person to pure future, Aijmer (1985: 13)
connotes the implicature being involved in such development: “If the speaker
is willing to do something, it follows conversationally that he intends to do it
and that the future action will take place.” Examining the development of the
perfect ‘mIş’ to the evidential in Turkish, Aksu-Koç and Slobin (1986: 165) state
that the change was
probably facilitated by. . . the cognitive fact that nonwitnessed processes can
be inferred from observation of resultant states.

Moreover, in Traugott’s work (1982, 1986a, 1989), several examples can be


found: Among them, for instance, the deontic ‘must’ evolves into the epistemic
‘must’. Traugott (1989: 51) says that “if one says ‘You must go’ in the meaning
‘You ought to go’, one can implicate that one believes/concludes that it is true
that you have to go.” Observing the semantic change of the items ‘very’, ‘just’
and ‘mere’ from the content words like ‘true/absolute’ and ‘exact’ to evaluative
terms (Traugott 1982, 1986a), she suggests that such a shift proceeded “via the
inference that one would not say what one says unless there were some doubt
or surprise factor” (Traugott 1989: 51).
In all the cases of meaning change surveyed thus far, the secondary mean-
ings that were first just implicatures made in association with the basic mean-
ings have eventually become conventionalized and established. The implica-
tures (inferences) made in the given cases argued above are guided at least
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Conclusion 

to some extent by Grice’s (1975) four maxims of conversation. However, for


implicatures to be conventionalized, there seems to be one more independent
principle or maxim underlying the process. That is the “principle of informa-
tiveness” proposed by Levinson (1983: 146).9
This additional principle allows us to obtain the richest interpretation (as
many interpretations as possible) of a statement. The principle is in short “read
as much into an utterance as is consistent with what you know about the world”
(Ibid.: 146–147). Take the utterance (5) into consideration.
(5) He turned on the switch and the motor started. (Ibid.: 146)

Observing the principle of informativeness, (5) can be read as all the following
relations between two conjoined clauses, (i), (ii) and (iii).
(6) Given p and q, try interpreting it as:
(i) ‘p and then q’; if successful try:
(ii) ‘p and therefore q’; if successful try also:
(iii) ‘p, and p is the cause of q’

The inference in (i) can be accounted for by a submaxim of Grice’s maxim of


manner ‘be orderly’: However this does not help us to make the inference in
(iii) in which there is a causal relationship between the two clauses.
The point here is that if we have only Grice’s maxims for making inferences
from a given utterance (say (5)), the inference from (5) to (6-iii) should be pro-
hibited. This is because if the speaker meant (iii), he/she should have said so:
the first submaxim of the maxim of quantity ‘make your contribution as in-
formative as is required’ only allows the additional inference that a stronger
statement could not be made. Thus, in conformity with Grice’s maxims, fewer
interpretations are possible (two out of three possible options in the case of
the utterance (5)). If we are guided by the principle of informativeness, all
the probable interpretations are available and we in fact read an utterance in a
way which is “as ‘strong’ (informationally rich) as the world allows” (Levinson
1983: 146).
In the history of development of connectives such as the English ‘and’ and
the Japanese dakara into discourse markers which I mentioned at the beginning
of this section, I suggest that, in the early stage the hearer tried to read as much
into a given utterance as was consistent with his/her world knowledge. Thus
the discourse meanings were part of the hearer’s interpretation, and these dis-
course meanings eventually became widespread because these connectives were
used so frequently. The reason for the frequent use seems to be communicative
convenience.
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 Chapter 7

The discourse/pragmatic meanings of coordinators like the English ‘and’,


‘but’, ‘or’ and the Japanese dakara, demo and dakedo seem to have been only
implied originally. The discourse/interactional functions of these coordina-
tors (e.g. demo’s claiming the floor) seem to have never become meanings
that deserve the semantic representation of a word. However, for the estab-
lished use of discourse markers, there should also be a similar convention-
alizing/developmental process which strongly links form and function, thus
causing the discourse/pragmatic function to play a large role in the hearer’s
understanding of the meaning.
Finally, the relationship between the conventionalization of implicature
and grammaticalization should be mentioned. Within the last decade, both
theory and empirical diachronic analyses of grammaticalization developed re-
sulting in a multitude of studies. Conventionalization of conversational impli-
cature is in other words pragmatic strengthening (Brinton 2002). And some see
that pragmatic strengthening is a feature of grammaticalization (Ibid.). If this
view is taken, it means that conventionalization of implicature, i.e. this conven-
tionalizing process of meaning, occurs in grammaticalization. It is fascinating
to consider a process like the following: Meaning of a word started just as a
single speaker’s implicature in a given interactional situation. Gradually, this
implicature spread by frequent use and distribution of the given word. Then it
eventually came into the core part of a word’s meaning or even the grammar of
language. Language changes. Grammaticalization is one of such changes. And
the motivation of grammaticalization seems to lie in the human communica-
tive strategies. Many discourse functions of language were found through the
observation of language in use. Likewise, grammaticalization is also seen in
changes in use (cf. Traugott 2002).
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Notes

Chapter 1

* Since my earlier works (Onodera 1993, 1995, 2000), analysis, especially the diachronic
one, has been redone and updated. Part of data and treatment of data have been changed.
As a result, in this book, tables (e.g. Tables 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3) have been revised, and some
dates for the appearance of the items are reported differently from the earlier works.
. As for the source element of demo, a possible original device (clause-final -nitemo (-ni +
te + mo)) will be also analyzed in 4.1.1.
. Brinton (1990, 1996), as historical works, also use this language model and display fertile
findings.
. Recently, however, Heine and Kuteva (2002), a book on grammaticalization with a holis-
tic viewpoint, which covers “data from roughly 500 different languages” (1) appeared.
. Conjunctions and connectives are similar terms. When ‘conjunction’ is used, it refers
to a grammatical category as an established word class long discussed as ‘setsuzoku-shi’ in
Japanese linguistics (Kokugogaku).
. In this book, the citations from the sources written in Japanese are my translation unless
a note is provided.
. Although interjections are referred to in the proceedings, the focus here is the similarity
between the function of “filling” and “stopping gap”.
. The data used for my survey is a ten-hour taped and transcribed corpus of Japanese
spoken discourse (Ide et al. 1984. A Housewife’s One-Week Discourse Corpus). I am deeply
indebted to Sachiko Ide who willingly let me use this corpus.
. In Tables (6.1, 6.2, 6.3) in Chapter 6, a dotted line is drawn between Muromachi pe-
riod and its preceding time periods to mark the secondary treatment of data of the latter
time periods.
. In my earlier works (Onodera 1993, 1995), ‘pragmatic change’, ‘semantic-pragmatic
change’ are employed rather than the term ‘pragmaticalization’. Now that this research
area including the development of discourse markers has expanded and ‘pragmaticalization’
seems the term in the most general use. This terminological convention is followed.
. The broader perspective of grammaticalization is also seen in Mori (1996) and Suzuki
(1998: 130). Restrictive definitions (such as Comrie 1998 and Lehmann 1995) consider that
grammaticalization involves ‘decrease in syntactic freedom’ and ‘increase in boundness’.
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:4/11/2004; 12:33 F: PB132NO.tex / p.2 (220)

 Notes

. The deictic center in unmarked cases is the speaker, the time when the utterance is
presented and the location of the speaker.
. Levinson points out the deictic relationship only between an utterance and what is
“prior”. However, as we have already seen in Schiffrin (1987), I suggest that deictic ex-
pressions mark the relationship between an utterance and both the prior and upcoming
discourse (see ‘textual coordinates’ in Schiffrin 1987: 323).
. This kind of practical points in data collection rarely appear in Tannen’s publica-
tions. However, since they are very useful in the practice of discourse analysis, they are
mentioned here.
. In fact the majority of literature in all the genres inside and outside linguistics use eras
when referring to Japanese history.
. I appreciate Heiko Narrog’s comment on the unfeasibility in written data of this period.
As seen in Tables showing the chronological view of appearance of na group of sentence-
final and sentence-internal particles and interjections; respectively Tables 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3
in Chapter 6, the validity of analysis holds, even if the data analysis of Nara period were
excluded from the study.
. If an English title is used conventionally to refer to a work (as in e.g. Keene 1955a, 1955b,
1956), such title is also provided in the parentheses following the Japanese title.
. This play script seems written in Kamigata Japanese. However, as mentioned in 1.1.4,
Kamigata Japanese was exceptionally examined when relevant or meaningful in exploring
diachrony of language.
. The category of sentence of those days differs from that of the present. However, kedo’s
connecting function is recognized here and thus the form V + kedo is regarded as the
source element.
. In this proposed direction, the shift to ‘expressive’ was later replaced by the shift to ‘sub-
jective’ (Traugott 1995a). In either way, the original direction is still recognized in many
examples of pragmaticalization in different languages. So, it is regarded as an index of the
general direction of pragmaticalization in this study.

Chapter 2

. In McCawley (1988) to and and are both called conjunctions. Strictly speaking, while the
English and is a conjunction which links NPs and VPs, the Japanese to is usually considered
a particle which links only NPs.
. In Kuno (1978a), the connective particles node and noni are exemplified. Kedo belongs to
the same group as these particles since it is attached to a verb and is a clause-final connective
device. This device seems the original element of the conjunction dakedo.
. Östman (1981) who also analyzes interjections admits the ‘referring’ function of inter-
jections, quoting James (1973).
. Now we see a similar historical approach in Brinton (1996).
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Notes 

Chapter 3

. Demo and dakedo fall into this category, adversative conjunctions. In Present Day
Japanese, other conjunctions such as shikashi, keredomo, ga and daga are also members of
this category. Of these, conjunctions which appeared earlier in the history of Japanese and
are still in wide use in today’s written text have tended to draw primary attention from gram-
marians. Shikashi which first appeared in the 12th century and keredomo in the 17th century
are such conjunctions.
. Among the contrasting functions, referential contrast and pragmatically inferable con-
trast do not co-occur in a pair contrasting two pieces of information.
. In addition to Traugott’s claim, Halliday and Hasan (1976: 26), which is the base for Trau-
gott’s functional-semantic model, also state that their ideational component is concerned
not only with logical relations but with something more.
. This Levinson’s category includes both what is said and what is implicated. Based
on Grice (1975), what is implicated is divided into conventional implicature and non-
conventional implicature which is then divided into more specific categories (Levinson
1983: 131–132).
. Referential and pragmatically inferable contrasts are basic; however, it is not obligatory
for functional contrast and contrastive actions to be accompanied by these basic contrasts.
In (3.4), for example, we will see a case of contrastive action not accompanied by a referential
or pragmatically inferable contrast.
. The finding of this nested functional structure is due to Schiffrin’s (1982a: 10) analysis
of nested paraphrase. Although paraphrase is her focus in that paper, in her example of a
nested paraphrase, it is noticed that ‘but’ used in the outer paraphrase seems to subordi-
nate the inner paraphrase which is intervening discourse. This example gave me a hint in
understanding the nested functional structure.
. Associated with cooperative and uncooperative transitions, Schiffrin (1987: 174) dis-
tinguishes two locations where a transition occurs: “transition space entry” and “non-
transition space”.
. In the transcript, “indicate(s) second utterance latched onto first, without perceptible
pause” (Tannen 1984: xix).
. In English conversation, ‘so’ works in a parallel way to demo, which opens the conversa-
tion in (11) and (12) (Schiffrin p.c.).
. Tokorode conveys the equivalent meaning of the English “by the way”, and it is mainly
used in written or planned (Ochs 1979) spoken Japanese today.
. Tokorode seems to occur more frequently in written text. The user of this conjunction in
the corpus is a male middle-class office worker in his 50s.
. I do not mean that the use of demo/dakedo is obligatory to change topics. It is possible
to change a topic without using any conjunction.
. Ne is a sentence-final particle which will be examined in a later chapter. Semantically
this particle does not add anything extra. Therefore, I treat demo + ne as a propositional
equivalent to demo here.
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 Notes

Chapter 4

. As stated in (1.2.1.3), this language model is still useful in examining functions of lan-
guage. Another diachronic study which employs the same model is Brinton (1996).
. Among da-, desu-, and degozaimasu- styles, da- style is called ‘ordinary’ style. Desu style
marks ‘polite’ style, then degozaimasu style the most polite (formal) style.
. Mio (1995: 209) lists the conjunctions formed based on da as follows: Dakara,soredakara,
dakedo, dakedomo, dakeredo, dakeredomo, daga, danoni, soredanoni,dattara, datositara, dato-
suruto, datte, damonde, damondakara. Most of these conjunctions are prefaced by da. In
Onodera (2000), I called them demo type connectives.
. National Language Studies (Kokugogaku) is a branch in the study of Japanese language
with a long history. For instance, the grammar taught in school in Japan is mainly influenced
by Kokugogaku.
. The S in parentheses designates an omitted subject.
. As for the importance of the difference in Japanese of West and East, I owe a great deal to
an anonymous reader and Prof. Akio Tanaka’s comments.
. In this book, I show the updated and corrected data analysis. In my earlier works, part of
description was based on the analysis of Japanese from the 8th century through today. Such
analysis captures the whole history of written Japanese, but it would overlook the separate
evolutions of Japanese language of East and West Japan.
. As to the first appearance of kedo, Shoogaku Tosho (Ed.) (1981) also documents the
excerpt (10) as one such example (cf. also Uchio & Okamura 1973).
. This first appearance is reported in Yuzawa (1970b: 505) and Shoogaku Tosho (Ed.)
(1981).
. Aoki (1973) also reports the first appearance of dakedo in the Taishoo era. Regarding the
‘first appearance’ of an item, Aoki (1973: 210) states that it is not something which provides
strong evidence for “no existence of the item in the preceding time stages”. Her ‘first appear-
ance’ rather means “the emergence of the item is first recognized in that time stage” (Ibid.).
I basically agree with Aoki’s treatment of the term. The reason for this is that it seems al-
most impossible for anybody to obtain exactly the first use of an item both in written and
spoken language.
. The ratios of the instances of dakedo with only the ideational and textual functions and
the instances of dakedo also with the expressive function (2) do not change when comparing
the Taishoo Japanese with Present Day Japanese. In both time periods, 1/5 of instances of
dakedo belong to group (1), and the remaining 4/5 belong to (2). In sum, by the Taishoo era,
already, a larger percentage of the instances of dakedo bears the expressive function.
. Studies of discourse analysis emerged in the 1960s (van Dijk 1990). Thus the discourse
functions of Japanese conjunctions have been unveiled only recently. However, despite the
fact that we came to know the discourse functions of language only within the last four
decades, conjunctions, for example, seem to indeed have been in use as discourse markers
for a long period without having been documented. Demo, for instance, seems to have been
in use as a marker since the 18th century.
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Notes 

. When this tendency was first proposed, it was associated with the process of grammat-
icalization. However, in her later works Traugott enlarged the domain which this tendency
involves: from only grammaticalization to include other types of lexical changes.
. As mentioned before, “propositional” function in Traugott’s work has been argued as
“ideational” function in this study.
. This direction was also first associated only with grammaticalization (Traugott 1982).
However, other kinds of meaning shift are now also considered to pursue this direction.
. I would suggest that this kind of shift first take place in spoken language rather than in
written language.
. In Japanese, the equivalent expression to ‘It rained’ is Ame ga futta (‘Rain SB fell’). In
this structure, futta (fell) is the predicate.
. De in demo is a -te gerundive form of the verb da, as already explained in (4.1). As an
inflected form of da, it is assumed that de also bears the replacement function.
. These conjunctions were also formed relatively recently: Daga and dakara first appeared
in the Edo period (1603–1867), datte in the Meiji period (1868–1912), and denakereba in the
Shoowa period (1926–1988) (Aoki 1973). If the conjunctive expressions not yet considered
to be proper conjunctions are also taken into consideration, there is even a larger number of
items which have undergone the same process.

Chapter 5

. Later I will discuss a similar notion ‘rapport’. In this study while ‘harmony’ refers to a
more general communicative situation, ‘rapport’ is used for a particular situation where
‘rapport marker’ is employed (5.6). Harmony is seen at a more global level; therefore, the
correlation between the two terms is: harmony > rapport.
. Meta-knowledge “concerns what speakers and hearers know about their respective
knowledge” (Schiffrin 1987: 28).
. One such difference is, while English has tag-questions, Japanese does not.
. The following is noted to clarify my judgment of lengthened variants as emphatic. In
the corpus examined (A Housewife’s One-Week Discourse Corpus), the original form ne (1
mora) and a form with another vowel, nee (2 moras), are in common and wide-spread use.
I categorize lengthened forms consisting of more than three moras (nee: (3 moras), ne::e
(4 moras) etc.) as emphatic use, following the phonetic designation of the transcript in the
corpus. Between the lengthened vowels and the emphasized meaning, there seems a “con-
ventionalized co-occurrence expectation” (Gumperz 1982: 131). Therefore, this phonetic
variation is considered to be a “contextualization cue” (Ibid.).
“Mora” mentioned just above is explained as follows. Japanese is a mora-counting
language or what is called a CV-patterned language. On the other hand, English is a syllable-
counting language or a CVC- patterned language. Because of this difference in phonological
structure, syllabification sometimes confuses us. English street has only one syllable, while
Japanese [su to ri : to] (meaning ‘street’) is perceived to have five syllabic bits. This syllabic
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:4/11/2004; 12:33 F: PB132NO.tex / p.6 (224)

 Notes

bit is a mora. [Su to ri : to] consists of five moras because a lengthened vowel [i :] is counted
as two mora units (cf. Ootsuka & Nakajima (Eds.) 1982: 650 and 1216–1217).
. Discourse markers are theoretically defined as contextual coordinates (Schiffrin 1987: 327,
see (1.2.1.4)). Contextual coordinates consist of participation and textual coordinates, i.e.
markers index an utterance to local context, i.e. both participants (speaker/hearer) and text
(prior/upcoming text) (Ibid.: 323).
. External evaluation consists of the points the speaker makes, in a frame outside of the
story (current topic) itself, which show the speaker’s stance/point of view concerning the
“story” (cf. Labov 1972: 371).
. ‘A sultry night’ (nettaiya) is officially (meteorologically) defined to be a muggy night
when the temperature does not drop below 25 ◦ C.
. I realize that the universality of Brown and Levinson’s framework of politeness itself and
hence the classification of specific strategies may remain disputable. However, I myself con-
sider their theory of negative and positive politeness to be valid in investigating politeness
phenomena in many cultures, and here I apply it to argue that the notion, involvement, is
identified with their positive politeness.

Chapter 6

. In the field of Kokugogaku-shi (History of National Language Studies), a dichotomy di-


vides the flow of Japanese language into kodai-go (ancient Japanese) and kindai-go (modern
Japanese). Kinsei as well as kindai are both translated as ‘modern’. It is important to clar-
ify these terms: Kinsei Japanese refers to Japanese of Edo era which is the time of Tokugawa
shogunate. On the other hand, kindai Japanese means Japanese from the late Muromachi
through the present (cf. Yoshida 1974: 3; Tanaka p.c.).
. I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this diversity. Related to this
point, I appreciate Professor Akio Tanaka’s insightful comments and suggestions.
. In the historical development of sentence-final particles, phonological alterations such as
vowel gradation and vowel lengthening are reported to be common (Morita 1973).
. This phonological account has usually been provided for the word formation of the na
group of interjections. However, the same account is applicable to the sentence-final par-
ticles since sentence-final particles in my focus are all realized by the same sounds as the
corresponding interjections.
. This annotation is cited from Sumidagawa included in Yookyoku-shuu (1960. Nihon
Koten Bungaku Taikei 40: 391. Iwanami).
. The annotation of Kanginshuu (1989: 33. Iwanami) states that noo is in especially wide
use in the Muromachi ballads. This accords with the result of my data analysis.
. Dachin uma are pay horses that carried people and luggage in those days (Kanginshuu.
1989: 227. Iwanami).
. Noonoo is an interjection which will be examined in (6.3).
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Notes 

. While expressing exclamation is counted as expressive function, tuning the rhythm is


rather a prosodic function.
. I do not know exactly the semantic reason why a period follows ‘us + GN’ in (c). The
more natural interpretation would be to leave out the period here. Perhaps it is added with
respect to sustaining the rhythm of the song.
. In the situation where first names are used to address somebody in English, in Japanese,
kinship terms such as ojoosan or obasan (in (25)), which designate social relationships, are
in routine use.
. It is apparent that diachronic analyses of other interjections are needed to make this
suggestion a more valid hypothesis.
. Maynard (1989b: 30) includes “exclamatory expressions” in ji. It seems that she includes
‘interjections’ in exclamatory expressions. At any rate, interjections are explicitly classified
as ji in Tokieda’s (1950: 178) original dichotomy.
. For an item to be a discourse marker, the possession of either textual or expressive func-
tion is prerequisite. Among the na group of interjections, all the roles but ‘exclamation’ have
both of these functions and are thus markers. The ‘exclamation’ marker, however, is also
recognized to be a marker because of its expressive function.
. The viewpoint of study of discourse/conversational management would suggest this.
. The shift “less to more personal” should not be interpreted “more individualized”
(Traugott 1982: 253). “It should be understood that “more personal” means ‘more an-
chored in . . . particularly the speaker’s orientation to situation, text and interpersonal
relations’.” (Ibid.)
. In contrast to the sentence-final particles whose expressive function is communication-
oriented, there seem sentence-final particles whose expressive function is self-oriented.
. For the details of shi and ji, see the summary by Maynard (1989b) (6.4.1.).
. Watanabe (1971) uses Kantoojoshika for his criterion. Kantoojoshi are the sentence-
internal particles. As seen in (6.2), kantoo is related to kandoo (emotion). If we call kan-
toojoshi ‘emotion markers’, Watanabe’s original criterion would be called ‘emotion marker-
ization’. Here I employ the term ‘emotion markerness’ for Watanabe’s criterion.

Chapter 7

. The “mystery features” Brinton found in medieval texts and treated in her study (Brinton
1996) “resemble the forms identified as discourse markers in Modern English” (6). Brinton
calls such mystery features (gan, anon, gelamp, bifel, hwæt, I gesse are examined in her 1996
book) pragmatic markers.
. As for grammaticality of ‘conjunctions’, that there are also disparate opinions in linguis-
tics is true.
. The movement ‘postposing’ discussed here is a different category from “postpositions”
(Kuno 1978a: 78) that are clearly considered typological.
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 Notes

. Postposing might be typological in that it is related to free word order.


. It should be noted, however, that it is true that redundancy and repetition are pervasive in
language. I think that an economical strategy like d replacement and redundancy/repetition
coexist in language since they have different functions.
. In terms of diachrony, the na group of interjections came from their corresponding
sentence-final particles. However, the na group of sentence-final particles themselves have
also remained in the vocabulary of Present Day Japanese: In Present Day Japanese, the na
group of interjections and sentence-final particles coexist, which is a case of layering.
. I owe this idea on the motivating force to an anonymous reader.
. In addition to Huddleston’s (1984: 27) definition of “full productivity”, “a morphologi-
cal process is fully productive if it can apply to all members of a large and independently
definable set of (items)”, he asserts that “lexical processes are typically of restricted produc-
tivity.” If the formation of conjunctions in question here were to be fully productive, all
the combinations of [de/da + any particle] need to become conjunctions: this is certainly
not possible.
. A suggestive comment on Grice’s theory by Fasold (1990: 128) is: “It is scarcely an exag-
geration to say that Grice’s theory has become the hub of pragmatics research, with various
scholars either applying, extending, or attempting to refute his ideas.”
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Text references

The texts used as data for this study are listed chronologically according to the Japanese time
period. (If there is an English title conventionally used for a Japanese work (cf. Keene 1955a,
1955b, 1956, etc.), the English title is also given in the parentheses following the Japanese
title.) As mentioned in 1.1.4 and elsewhere, the texts before the Muromachi period and the
texts written in Kamigata (Kyoto-Osaka) Japanese are analyzed as secondary information in
this study.

Time period

Nara (710–784)
712 Kojiki (‘Record of Ancient Matters’), ed. by Oo no Yasumaro. Kodaikayoo Shuu [Nihon
Kotenbungaku Taikei 3]. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1957.
720 Nihonshoki, ed. by Oo no Yasumaro et al. Kodaikayoo Shuu [Nihon Kotenbungaku
Taikei 3]. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1957.
759 Manyooshuu (‘Collection of Ten Thousand Leaves’), ed. by Ootomo no Yakamochi.
Shintei Shinkun Manyooshuu. Vols. 1 & 2, ed. by Sasaki Nobutsuna. Iwanami Bunko.
Tokyo: Iwanami. 1927.

Heian (794–1192)
905 Kokin wakashuu (‘Collection of Ancient and Modern Poems’), ed. by Ki no Tsurayuki
et al. Kokin Wakashuu Hyookai, by Tani Kanae. Tokyo: Yuuseidoo. 1955.
9–10th C Fuuzokuuta. Kodai Kayoo Shuu [Nihon Kotenbungaku Taikei 3]. Tokyo: Iwanami.
1957.
1000 Makura no Sooshi (‘The Pillow Book’), by Sei Shoonagon. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo:
Iwanami. 1962.
1008 Genji Monogatari (‘The Tale of Genji’), by Murasaki Shikibu. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo:
Iwanami. 1965.
1171 Ryoojin Hishoo, ed. by Emperor Goshirakawa. Wakan Rouei Shuu/Ryoojin Hishoo
[Nihon Kotenbungaku Taikei 73]. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1965.

Muromachi (1336–1573)
before 1384 Jinenkoji (Noo script), by Kan’ami. Yookyoku Shuu Vol. 1. [Nihon
Kotenbungaku Taikei 40]. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1960.
before 1432 Sumidagawa (Noo script), by Motomasa. Yookyoku Shuu Vol. 1. [Nihon
Kotenbungaku Taikei 40]. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1960.
* Hachinoki (Noo script), by *. Yookyoku Shuu Vol. 2. [Nihon Kotenbungaku Taikei 41].
Tokyo: Iwanami. 1963. (* For this work, the date of the publication and the authorship
are unknown.)
before 1520 Arashiyama (Noo script), by Konparu Zenpoo. Yookyoku Shuu Vol. 2. [Nihon
Kotenbungaku Taikei 41). Tokyo: Iwanami. 1963.
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:8/11/2004; 15:03 F: PB132RE.tex / p.13 (239)

References 

1518 Kanginshuu, ed. by *. Shintei Kanginshuu. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1989.
(* The authorship is unknown.)

Edo (1603–1867)
1694 Kooshoku denju, by Kojima Hikojuuro. In Tokugawa jidai Gengo no Kenkyuu, by
Yuzawa Kookichiro. Tokyo: Kazama Shoboo. 1970.
1713? Keisei sando gasa, by Kino Kaion. In Tokugawa jidai Gengo no Kenkyuu, by Yuzawa
Kookichiro. Tokyo: Kazama Shoboo. 1970.
1732 Chuushin kana tanzaku, by Namiki Soosuke et al. In Tokugawa jidai Gengo no Kenkyuu,
by Yuzawa Kookichiro. Tokyo: Kazama Shoboo. 1970.
1758 Sanjikkoku yofune no hajimari, by Namiki Shozo. Kabuki Meisakushuu Vol. 1, by
Kawatake Shigetoshi. [Hyooshaku Edobungaku Soosho Vol. 5]. Tokyo: Koodansha.
1970.
1768–1769 Yuushihoogen, by Inakaroojin Tadanojijii. Kibyooshi/Sharebon Shuu. [Nihon
Kotenbungaku Taikei 59]. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1958.
1770 Tatsumi no sono, by Muchuusanjin Negoto Sensei. Kibyooshi/Sharebon Shuu. [Nihon
Kotenbungaku Taikei 59]. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1958.
1772 Niwaka dooshin. Kanokomochi, by Kimuro Booun. Kobanashibon Shuu. Iwanami
Bunko. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1987.
1775 Kake suzuri. Hanaegao, by Ryuunisai Monshu. Kobanashibon Shuu. Iwanami Bunko.
Tokyo: Iwanami. 1987.
1777 Geisha yobu kodori, by Tanishi Kingyo. Tokugawa Bungei Ruijuu 5: Sharebon. Tokyo:
Kokusho kankoo kai. 1970.
1784 Futsukayoi oosakazuki, by Banshoo Teisaku. Tokugawa Bungei Ruijuu 5: Sharebon.
Tokyo: Kokusho kankoo kai. 1970.
1789 Unubore kagami, by Shinrotei. Tokugawa Bungei Ruijuu 5: Sharebon. Tokyo: Kokusho
kankoo kai. 1970.
1792 Kyoogen scripts. Ookura Torahiro hon: Noo kyoogen. Vols. 1, 2 & 3. Iwanami Bunko.
Tokyo: Iwanami. 1942.
1794 Hokka tsuujoo, by Shunkooen Hanamaru. Tokugawa Bungei Ruijuu 5: Sharebon.
Tokyo: Kokusho kankoo kai. 1970.
1809 Ukiyoburo, by Shikitei Sanba. [Nihon Kotenbungaku Taikei 63]. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1957.
1811–1812 Ukiyodoko, by Shikitei Sanba. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1928.

Meiji (1868–1912)
1887 Ukigumo (‘The Drifting Cloud’), by Futabatei Shimei. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo:
Iwanami. 1941.
1906 Hakai (‘The Broken Commandment’), by Shimazaki Tooson. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo:
Iwanami. 1957.
1908 Sanshiro, by Natsume Sooseki. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1938.

Taishoo (1912–1926)
1917 Ude Kurabe, by Nagai Kafuu. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1987.
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:8/11/2004; 15:03 F: PB132RE.tex / p.14 (240)

 References

1920 Yuujoo, by Mushanokooji Saneatsu. Shinchoo Bunko. Tokyo: Shinchoosha. 1947.


1922 Anya Kooro, by Shiga Naoya. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo: Iwanami. 1938.

Shoowa (1926–1988)
1929 Tade kuu Mushi (‘Some Prefer Nettles’), by Tanizaki Junichiro. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo:
Iwanami. 1948.
1938 Yukiguni (‘Snow Country’), Kawabata Yasunari. Iwanami Bunko. Tokyo: Iwanami.
1952.

Present Day Japanese recorded conversations


1984 Shufu no Isshuukan no Danwa Shiryoo (A Housewife’s One-week Discourse Corpus),
S. Ide, S. Ikuta, A. Kawasaki, M. Hori, & H. Haga (Eds.). The Japanese Ministry of
Education Grant Publication.
1987–1989 tape-recorded and transcribed conversations.
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 11:37 F: PB132NI.tex / p.1 (241)

Name index

A E
Aijmer 13, 216 Ernst 201
Akatsuka 4
Aksu-Koç 216
Aoki 104, 119, 212, 222, 223 F
Auchlin 37 Fasold 11, 226
Fitzmaurice 11, 42
Fraser 201, 203
B Fujii 11, 21
Barnlund 124, 125
Bateson 152
Blake 45, 205 G
Blakemore 32 Gazdar 13
Brinton 4, 42, 202, 203, 218–220, 222, Geis 215
225 Genetti 39
Brown, Gillian 38, 130 Gilman 58, 139
Brown, Penelope 58, 63, 152–154, 224 Givón 41
Brown, Roger 58, 139 Goffman 16, 63, 64, 120, 152, 210
Brown, William 126 Greenberg 8, 43, 206
Brunet 37 Grice 3, 60, 215, 217, 221, 226
Gumperz 152, 223
Guy 39, 188
C
Chafe 36, 152
Claudi 2, 200 H
Comrie 219 Hünnemeyer 2, 200
Cook 16, 37 Haga 124–126
Coulmas 36 Halliday 15, 17, 60, 85, 106, 112, 174,
Croft 8 183, 221
Hansen 13
Hasan 15, 17, 60, 85, 106, 112, 174, 183,
D 221
Dahl 215, 216 Hashimoto 46, 168
Dasher 2, 3, 38, 40, 189, 190, 200 Hayashi, Ooki 21, 45, 102
Diewald 200 Hayashi, Reiko 124, 125
Duncan 130 Hayashi, Shiro 7, 208–210
Durkheim 152 Heine 2, 200, 219
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 11:37 F: PB132NI.tex / p.2 (242)

 Name index

Hinds 54, 88, 206, 207 M


Hisamatsu 21 Mallinson 45, 205
Hopper 2, 187, 200, 202, 204 Martin 27, 54, 58, 67, 88
Horie 4, 11 Matsui 86
Horn 215 Matsumoto 4, 41
Hoshina 53, 124, 184, 190 Matsumura 21, 89
Huddleston 67, 211, 226 Maynard 11, 36, 37, 48, 54, 126, 130,
149, 150, 160, 168, 186, 208, 214, 225
I McCawley 9, 35, 43, 211, 220
Ide, Sachiko 11, 20, 58, 81, 219 Merritt 72, 73
Ide, Itaru 46, 47, 53, 55, 56, 124 Mio 86, 87, 222
Ikegami 21, 45, 102 Mori 4, 42, 214, 219
Inoue 7 Morioka 117
Morita 47, 53, 124, 157, 161, 184, 224
Myhill 39
J
Jacobs 9, 19, 41
Jakobson 85
N
James 53, 54, 220
Nagayama 47, 86
Jefferson 78, 131
Nakajima 224
Jorden 58, 88
Nakane 124–126
Jucker 9, 11, 19, 41, 42
Nakano 164
Narrog 11, 220
K National Language Research Institute
König 14, 204 (NLRI) 5, 21
Keene 220
Kitagawa 7
Kitahara 45, 48, 49 O
Komatsu 10, 158, 159 Ochs 221
Konoshima 88, 158, 168 Ohori 4
Kuno 8, 13, 43–46, 50, 51, 67, 69, 88, Okamura 11, 100, 101, 157, 160, 168,
115, 160, 194, 206, 220, 225 222
Kuteva 219 Okutsu 50–53, 56, 106, 115–119, 192,
Kyogoku 86 193, 208, 213
Onodera 3, 4, 13, 14, 42, 86, 119, 187,
L 201, 203, 204, 214, 219, 222
Labov 224 Ootsuka 224
Lakoff 31–33, 40 Östman 33, 34, 54, 220
Langacker 42
Leech 13
Lehmann 2, 4, 14, 41, 200, 202, 219 P
Levinson 13, 16–18, 40, 58, 60, 61, 63, Pagliuca 2, 200
64, 72, 140, 152–154, 217, 220, 221, Plank 187
224 Polanyi 76
Lyons 85 Prince 132
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 11:37 F: PB132NI.tex / p.3 (243)

Name index 

R Tokieda 36, 48, 49, 53, 88, 186, 187, 192,


Ramat 200 193, 208, 214, 225
Riddle 211 Traugott 1–4, 11–15, 24, 31, 36, 38–40,
Romaine 211 42, 43, 55, 60, 61, 85, 106, 107,
111–114, 119, 159, 160, 185,
187–191, 197–204, 215, 216, 218,
S
220, 221, 223, 225
Sacks 63, 64, 78, 131, 134
Saji 58 Tsukahara 46, 55
Sakuma 161
Schegloff 63, 64, 72, 78, 130, 131, 138 U
Schiffrin 2, 3, 6, 12, 16, 18, 20, 33, 35, Uchio 11, 88, 100, 101, 157, 160, 168,
39, 57, 60, 63, 73, 74, 78, 81, 84, 120, 222
123, 133, 140, 200, 210, 211, 220, Uhlenbeck 211
221, 223, 224
Schleppegrell 33
Schourup 7, 16, 33, 34, 36, 54 V
Schwenter 42, 43 van Dijk 32, 33, 222
Scollon, Ron 126
Scollon, Suzanne Wong 126
Shimizu 8, 45 W
Shindo 89 Warner 33, 36
Shiraishi 96 Watanabe 47, 192–194, 208, 210, 225
Shoogaku Tosho 81, 88, 102, 168, 171, Wilson 42
212, 222 Wischer 200
Shuzui 21
Silverstein 15, 37
Y
Slobin 216
Yamada 50, 53, 124, 184, 190
Sohn 4
Yamaguchi 134
Sperber 42
Stein 37, 38, 55 Yanagida 159
Suzuki, Kazuhiko 53, 124, 184, 190 Yasuda 53, 124, 161
Suzuki, Ryoko 4, 42, 219 Yngve 129, 130
Sweetser 40, 42 Yoshida, Kanehiko 11, 157, 160, 170
Yoshida, Sumio 224
Yule 38, 130
T Yuzawa 88, 100–102, 222
Tabor 4, 202–204
Tanaka 12, 58, 81, 88, 100, 103, 104,
222, 224 Z
Tannen 3, 11, 20, 152, 154, 220, 221 Zwicky 215
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 13:24 F: PB132SI.tex / p.1 (245)

Subject index

A C
address terms 138, 139, 153 call attention 54
adjacency pair(s) 63, 64, 72 in diachronic analysis 184
adversative conjunction(s) 32, 57, in synchronic analysis 124, 132,
83, 85, 107, 214, 221 135, 138
adversative meaning 25, 89, 96 careful style 58
agglutinating 8, 45, 46, 55 casual style 58
agglutination 8, 45, 55, 205, 206, 212 “cause’ 6, 212
agglutinative language 43, 45, 55, change the topic/sub-topic 84
211 see also changing the topic
agreement 28, 34, 37 see also sub-topic change
in diachronic analysis 183 changing the topic 81–83
in synchronic analysis 71, 124, chinjutsu 47–49, 193, 208
127–132, 137, 142–146, 151, claim(ing) the floor 198, 218
153, 154 in diachronic analysis 98, 99,
amelioration 40 108–110
atmosphere sustainer 124, 148, 150, in synchronic analysis 73, 77,
151 78, 83
attention getting 143 clause-connecting function 91, 92
communication/interaction-oriented
194, 195
conjunction(s) 5, 6, 24, 26, 31, 32,
B 40, 45–51, 55, 56, 197, 201,
back channel(s) 129–132, 134, 142, 211–214, 219–223, 226
143, 146–148, 154 dichotomy of Japanese
frequency of 130 conjunctions 47
before new information 200 frequency of 5, 6
in diachronic analysis 175–178, in diachronic analysis 85–87,
180, 181, 183, 190 100, 117, 119, 121, 159, 186,
in synchronic analysis 132–135, 191
142, 143, 154 in synchronic analysis 57–59,
‘besides’ 201–203, 205 83, 84, 123
bracketing 16, 210 context 3, 13, 16, 116, 142, 143, 224
brackets (of talk) 13, 16, 118, 120, context-dependent 51
174, 210 contextual coordinates 16, 17, 35,
‘but’ 6, 9, 32, 33, 35, 40, 57, 78, 84, 133, 142, 224
212–214 contrasting functions 58, 59, 61, 221
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 13:24 F: PB132SI.tex / p.2 (246)

 Subject index

contrastive action(s) 26, 59–62, in synchronic analysis 57–61,


73–75, 77–81, 83–85, 93–95, 63, 64, 66–74, 76–78, 81, 83,
97–99, 101, 107–111, 113, 84
198, 214, 221 decrease in boundness 4
functional contrast(s) 59–61, see also increase in syntactic
63, 64, 66–69, 71, 72, 74, 83, freedom
85, 93, 95, 97, 98, 105, 106, degozaimasu-style(s) 87, 222
109, 221 demo 1, 4–8, 11, 17, 21, 25, 28, 29,
referential contrast(s) 26, 32, 33, 43–47, 50, 53, 55, 56,
59–62, 66, 68, 79, 83, 94, 95, 192, 198, 200–207, 212–214,
97, 105, 106, 109, 110, 221 218, 219, 221, 223
pragmatically inferable in diachronic analysis 85–101,
contrast(s) 59–63, 71, 72, 111–115, 117, 119–121
75, 78, 81–83, 85, 93, 94, 97, in synchronic analysis 57–63,
98, 100, 101, 108, 221 66, 73–84
conventionalization of demo and dakedo 5, 7, 28, 29, 45–47,
(conversational) implicature(s) 50, 53, 55, 56, 63, 197,
12, 39, 55, 197, 214–216 212–214, 218, 221
conversation analysis 35 in diachronic analysis 85–89,
conversational implicature(s) 36, 60, 111, 114, 115, 117, 119–121
197, 214, 215, 218 in synchronic analysis 57–61,
copula 5, 27, 41, 47, 50, 51, 56, 66, 73, 74, 77, 78, 81, 83, 84
86–88, 103, 114, 115, 118, 205, demo type connectives 1, 4, 5, 86,
212 117, 119, 191, 192, 201–204,
correlation between harmony and 214, 222
rapport 223 formation of
formation 1 of denakereba
212
D formation 2 of denakereba
da + kedo 49, 205, 212 and similar
in diachronic analysis 88, 104, conjunctions 213
114, 119 deontic ‘must’ 216
d(a) replacement strategy (da diachronic analysis 4, 9–11, 21–24,
strategy) 50, 51, 116, 118 85, 90, 167, 185, 187, 192
felicity conditions for 115, 116, diachronic pragmatics 41, 42
118 discourse analysis 7, 9, 11, 19, 20,
pro-predicate 87, 115, 120 24, 29, 31, 43
see also replacement (function) discourse coherence 17, 28, 106, 187
da style 100, 103, 104 discourse corpus 58, 81, 219, 223
dakara 5, 6, 37, 41, 52, 86, 87, 119, discourse deictics 17
201, 212, 214, 217, 218, 222, 223 discourse marker(s) 1–6, 8, 9,
dakedo 5–8, 11, 24–26, 28, 29, 33, 11–13, 16–18, 20, 24, 29, 33,
43–47, 49, 50, 53, 55–61, 35, 37, 38, 42, 120, 123, 157,
198, 205–207, 212–214, 218, 174, 187, 200–205, 211, 222,
220–222 224, 225
in diachronic analysis 85–91, definition of 16–18
99, 100, 104–111, 113–121 sequential dependence 16
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 13:24 F: PB132SI.tex / p.3 (247)

Subject index 

marking function of 211 functional-semantic model of


requisites (conditions) to be a language 1, 14, 15, 24, 96, 111,
marker 18, 200 159
discourse particle(s) 13, 33, 34, 36
discourse/pragmatic analysis 18, 23,
G
24, 31
genbun icchi 23
discourse/pragmatic perspective
generalization 40, 202
31–38, 57
grammaticalization 1, 3, 4, 11–14,
discourse-pragmatic functions 1
38, 41–43, 197, 198, 200–205,
218, 219, 223
group-belongingness/orientedness
E 125
Edo 10, 11, 21, 22, 134, 223, 224 group-consciousness 125, 126
in diachronic analysis 89–94, group-orientation 125
97, 99, 100, 102–104,
157–159, 161, 164–167, 174,
180, 181, 183 H
Edo Japanese 10, 89, 90, 93, 100, harmony 7, 34, 124–126, 130, 131,
103, 157–159 136–138, 143, 144, 146, 152, 154,
ellipsis 50, 115 223
emotion markerness 194, 225 Hayashi’s functional structure of a
ethnography of communication 35 Japanese sentence 209
exclamation 49, 53, 199, 225 Hayashi’s layered-structure of
in diachronic analysis 161, utterance 209
164–171, 173–177, 179–181, Heian period 10, 21, 22
183, 184, 189–191 in diachronic analysis 88, 89
in synchronic analysis 123, historical linguistics 9, 39
127–129 historical perspective 2, 31, 38–43
expressive function 7, 15, 18, 25–28, historical pragmatics 9, 19, 40–43
197–199, 208 honorific 14, 27, 97, 189
in diachronic analysis 85,
92–94, 96, 99, 105, 107–114, I
120, 121, 164, 167, 170, ideational function 15, 24–27, 48,
173–175, 186, 187, 192–195 198, 208, 223
in synchronic analysis 59 in diachronic analysis 85,
91–94, 111, 113, 187,
192–194
F ideational > textual > expressive
face 63, 67, 152 24–26, 94, 96, 97, 109, 159
facework 126 implicature(s) 2, 3, 12, 36, 40–41,
filler(s) 5, 6, 33, 148–151 60, 197, 214–218, 221
free word order 8, 45, 55, 69, 206, ‘in fact’ 201–203
226 increase in scope 111, 203, 205
relatively 8, 45, 69 see also scope expansion and
functional structure (of discourse, of scope increase
sentence) 66, 72, 187, 193, increase in syntactic freedom 205
208–211, 221 see also decrease in boundness
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 13:24 F: PB132SI.tex / p.4 (248)

 Subject index

‘indeed’ 201–205 in diachronic analysis 99–107


initiating brackets 16, 120 kedomo 101, 102
integrated model of discourse 35 keredo 101–104
interactional sociolinguistics 3 keredomo 87, 101, 102, 104, 135, 221
interjection(s) 6–8, 22, 24, 28, 31, kinship terms 138, 139, 225
35, 37, 43, 46, 48, 49, 53–56, kobanashi-bon 92, 93, 97, 102
197, 199, 208, 210, 211, 219, kokkei-bon 99, 102, 164
224–226 Kokugogaku 46, 88, 89, 124, 219, 222
dichotomy of Japanese kyoogen 9, 19, 22, 94–96, 157, 161,
interjections 53, 123, 124, 166, 179–181
180, 184
in diachronic analysis 159,
174–178, 180, 184, 186, 187, L
189–193 language style (speech level) (casual
in synchronic analysis 123, 124, or careful style) 57–59, 87
126–129, 140, 148, 153, 155 less to more personal (less personal to
prosodic feature of 54 more personal) 12, 38, 55, 112,
referent of 54 114, 188, 198, 199, 225
sentence equivalent 53 linguistic typology 2, 8, 55
interpersonal involvement 29, 154 linking prior and upcoming
intersentential linkage 106 information
intersubjectification 3, 188–191 in diachronic analysis 175–178,
intersubjective 189–191 180, 190
intersubjectivity 189, 190 in synchronic analysis 140, 142,
intuitively made-up sentences 2 144, 147, 154
Invited Inferencing Theory of listenership 129
Semantic Change (IITSC) 3, logical conjunctions 58
42, 43 ‘look’-forms 202, 203
involvement 29, 124, 132, 135–137,
152–155, 167, 173, 190, 192, 195,
224 M
marker of rapport (rapport marker)
J 143, 144, 147, 148, 223
ja + kedo 103, 104 markers of involvement 7, 124,
ji 36, 48, 49, 141, 186, 187, 192, 193, 152–155
208, 210, 214, 225 Meiji 21, 23, 27, 223
jojutsu 47, 49, 193, 208 in diachronic analysis 97, 99,
jooruri 100, 164 102, 166, 167, 183
meta-knowledge 34, 132, 143–145,
K 148, 154, 223
kabuki 9, 19, 25, 101, 140, 146, 164 meta-linguistic activity 80
Kamakura 10, 89, 102, 157 metamessage level of interaction 29,
Kamigata copula ja 103 154
Kamigata Japanese 10, 11, 89, 91, metaphor 40
99, 101, 220 mora-counting language 223
kedo 25, 49, 55, 63, 64, 66–71, 197, Muromachi 10, 11, 21, 22, 199, 219,
198, 205–207, 212, 220, 222 224
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 13:24 F: PB132SI.tex / p.5 (249)

Subject index 

in diachronic analysis 89–91, nested paraphrase 221


157–159, 161–164, 166, 169, -nitemo 88, 92, 219
171, 172, 175, 176, 178, 180, non-subjective 49, 191
185 non-TRP(s) 78, 98
noo kyoogen 9, 94–96
noo play scripts 90
N novel(s) 9, 22, 23
na 199
in diachronic analysis 157–171,
174–177, 179–181, 183–193, O
195 ‘oh’ 49, 53, 123
in synchronic analysis 123–127, onomasiological question 114, 120
129–132, 138, 140, 142–146, opening the conversation 73, 78–81
148, 152–155 ‘or’ 35, 214, 218
na elements 1, 198, 199, 201, other-directed (meanings) 164, 167,
203–205, 210, 211 180, 184, 189, 190
in diachronic analysis 158–162, other-focused (meanings) 167, 184
166–169, 174–176, 179, 180,
184–193, 195
Nara period 21, 22, 220 P
in diachronic analysis 157, 160 pejoration 40
naturally-occurring language 9 play scripts 9, 19, 90
ne 7, 8, 24, 26–28, 33, 34, 37, 43–46, point-making (device)
55, 197–200, 205–207, 214 in diachronic analysis 107, 108,
in diachronic analysis 157–160, 110
162, 166–169, 173–176, in synchronic analysis 73, 74,
183–186, 192, 194 76, 83
in synchronic analysis 123–133, ‘POP’ marker 76
135–138, 140, 142–145, popular ballads 19
147–155 positive politeness 152–155, 224
ne and na 8, 29 postposing 67, 69, 114, 206, 207,
in diachronic analysis 157, 159, 225, 226
175, 180, 192 postpositional language 8, 35, 43,
in synchronic analysis 123–126, 45, 206, 207
129–131 postpositionality 43, 46, 55, 208
ne (e) postpositions 8, 44, 45, 55, 206, 225
in diachronic analysis 179 pragmaphilology 41
in synchronic analysis 127, 132, pragmatic connectives 32, 33
135, 136, 138, 142–144, 148, pragmatic perspective 2, 31, 57
150–155 pragmatic strengthening 202, 204,
ne (e) and na (a) 218
in synchronic analysis 132, 143, pragmaticalization 1, 3, 4, 7, 11–14,
148, 152–155 16, 24–28, 43, 46, 55, 111–114,
ne/na 29 120, 121, 157, 159, 180, 185–191,
in diachronic analysis 159, 160 195, 197–199, 203–205, 210, 211,
in synchronic analysis 127, 138, 219, 220
144 pragmatics 1–3, 6, 13, 40, 197, 226
negative politeness 152, 154 presupposition 32, 52, 117, 154
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 13:24 F: PB132SI.tex / p.6 (250)

 Subject index

principle of informativeness 40, 217 in diachronic analysis 159,


productive 2, 5, 211–214, 226 168–171, 174, 184, 186, 189,
productivity 12, 197, 211, 226 193
propositional function 15, 24, 223 sequential dependence 16
share-bon 23, 27, 94, 97, 164, 165
Q shared knowledge 75, 116, 140
question-answer sequence(s) 63, 64, shi 48, 49, 76, 186, 193, 208, 214
69, 73, 74 shikashi 93, 221
Shoowa 21, 23, 24, 223
in diachronic analysis 166, 167,
R
174, 183
rapport 36, 124, 143–148, 155, 223
refutation (refute) 198 in synchronic analysis 124
in diachronic analysis 92–99, ‘so’ 6, 17, 212, 221
101, 112 sociolinguistics 3, 9, 10, 20, 42
reinforcement 27, 200 soredemo 87, 88, 213
in diachronic analysis 175, 176, sorenitemo 88
180–183, 190 SOV language 8, 43
in synchronic analysis 136, 142, speaker attitude 13, 18, 19, 170, 210
153 speaker’s return (speaker-return)
replacement (function) 52, 87, 106, 74, 75, 77
115–119, 207, 213, 223, 226 speech acts 32, 35
restricted productivity 226
spoken language 5, 6, 9, 19, 22, 23,
36, 86, 99, 102, 223
S Standard Japanese 10, 89, 90, 104
scope expansion 202, 204 stop-gap interjections 6
scope increase 4 structural unidirectionality 3, 202
self-directed 167 sub-topic change (changing the
self-focus 167, 189 sub-topic) 26, 62, 82, 83, 99,
self-focused (meanings) 180, 184 109, 110
semantic-pragmatic change 2, 3, 12, subjectification 3, 14, 39, 148,
13, 35, 39, 219 187–191, 199, 202, 205
semantics 3, 13, 34
subjective 39, 49, 53, 55, 167,
semasiological question 114
187–191, 199, 210, 211, 214, 220
sentence-final particle(s) (SFP) 1,
subjectivity 47, 49, 148, 189, 193,
36, 44, 204, 205, 207, 208,
208
210, 214, 224–226
dichotomy of Japanese summons 199, 200, 210
sentence-final particles in diachronic analysis 164, 168,
160 175–178, 180–184, 189, 190
in diachronic analysis 157, in synchronic analysis 138, 139,
159–164, 172, 174, 180, 181, 142, 143, 153
183, 186, 187, 191–195 synchronic analysis 4, 12, 23, 24, 57,
sentence-final structure of Japanese 123
52 syntactic and semantic aspects of
sentence-internal particle(s) (SIP) 1, conjunctions and interjections
199, 204, 220 2, 31, 46-54
TSL[v.20020404] Prn:10/12/2004; 13:24 F: PB132SI.tex / p.7 (251)

Subject index 

T typological characteristics (of


tag-like function(s) 161, 164–167, language) 2, 12, 31, 43, 55, 114,
189 187, 197, 205, 211
tag-like marker 166
tag-like uses 164 U
Taishoo 21, 23–25, 222 unidirectional parameters 4
in diachronic analysis 102, 104, universality (universalness) 2, 3, 4,
105, 107, 166, 167, 183 202, 224
-te gerundive 88, 223
tenkai 47
V
textual function 15, 18, 26, 28, 38,
V-te + mo 21, 198
50, 56, 199, 213
in diachronic analysis 86,
in diachronic analysis 85, 93, 88–92, 99, 111–114, 117
99, 105–107, 109, 111, 119, vocative 164, 175
120, 174–175, 184
in synchronic analysis 142
tokorode 81, 221 W
Tokugawa 10, 22, 89, 102, 158, 159, Watanabe’s functional structure of a
224 Japanese sentence 193, 208
‘well’ 6, 54
Tokyo Japanese 10, 11, 89, 91, 99,
‘well then’ 5, 6, 213
157
topic 62, 79, 81, 151, 221, 224
transition relevance place(s) (TRP) Y
78, 131, 134, 148 ‘you know’ 7, 34, 203
In the Pragmatics & Beyond New Series the following titles have been published thus far
or are scheduled for publication:

79 ANDERSEN, Gisle and Thorstein FRETHEIM (eds.): Pragmatic Markers and Propositional Attitude.
2000. viii, 273 pp.
80 UNGERER, Friedrich (ed.): English Media Texts – Past and Present. Language and textual structure.
2000. xiv, 286 pp.
81 DI LUZIO, Aldo, Susanne GÜNTHNER and Franca ORLETTI (eds.): Culture in Communication.
Analyses of intercultural situations. 2001. xvi, 341 pp.
82 KHALIL, Esam N.: Grounding in English and Arabic News Discourse. 2000. x, 274 pp.
83 MÁRQUEZ REITER, Rosina: Linguistic Politeness in Britain and Uruguay. A contrastive study of
requests and apologies. 2000. xviii, 225 pp.
84 ANDERSEN, Gisle: Pragmatic Markers and Sociolinguistic Variation. A relevance-theoretic approach
to the language of adolescents. 2001. ix, 352 pp.
85 COLLINS, Daniel E.: Reanimated Voices. Speech reporting in a historical-pragmatic perspective. 2001.
xx, 384 pp.
86 IFANTIDOU, Elly: Evidentials and Relevance. 2001. xii, 225 pp.
87 MUSHIN, Ilana: Evidentiality and Epistemological Stance. Narrative Retelling. 2001. xviii, 244 pp.
88 BAYRAKTAROĞLU, Arın and Maria SIFIANOU (eds.): Linguistic Politeness Across Boundaries.
The case of Greek and Turkish. 2001. xiv, 439 pp.
89 ITAKURA, Hiroko: Conversational Dominance and Gender. A study of Japanese speakers in first and
second language contexts. 2001. xviii, 231 pp.
90 KENESEI, István and Robert M. HARNISH (eds.): Perspectives on Semantics, Pragmatics, and
Discourse. A Festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer. 2001. xxii, 352 pp.
91 GROSS, Joan: Speaking in Other Voices. An ethnography of Walloon puppet theaters. 2001.
xxviii, 341 pp.
92 GARDNER, Rod: When Listeners Talk. Response tokens and listener stance. 2001. xxii, 281 pp.
93 BARON, Bettina and Helga KOTTHOFF (eds.): Gender in Interaction. Perspectives on femininity
and masculinity in ethnography and discourse. 2002. xxiv, 357 pp.
94 McILVENNY, Paul (ed.): Talking Gender and Sexuality. 2002. x, 332 pp.
95 FITZMAURICE, Susan M.: The Familiar Letter in Early Modern English. A pragmatic approach. 2002.
viii, 263 pp.
96 HAVERKATE, Henk: The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Spanish Mood. 2002. vi, 241 pp.
97 MAYNARD, Senko K.: Linguistic Emotivity. Centrality of place, the topic-comment dynamic, and an
ideology of pathos in Japanese discourse. 2002. xiv, 481 pp.
98 DUSZAK, Anna (ed.): Us and Others. Social identities across languages, discourses and cultures. 2002.
viii, 522 pp.
99 JASZCZOLT, Katarzyna M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume
1. 2003. xii, 388 pp.
100 JASZCZOLT, Katarzyna M. and Ken TURNER (eds.): Meaning Through Language Contrast. Volume
2. 2003. viii, 496 pp.
101 LUKE, Kang Kwong and Theodossia-Soula PAVLIDOU (eds.): Telephone Calls. Unity and diversity
in conversational structure across languages and cultures. 2002. x, 295 pp.
102 LEAFGREN, John: Degrees of Explicitness. Information structure and the packaging of Bulgarian
subjects and objects. 2002. xii, 252 pp.
103 FETZER, Anita and Christiane MEIERKORD (eds.): Rethinking Sequentiality. Linguistics meets
conversational interaction. 2002. vi, 300 pp.
104 BEECHING, Kate: Gender, Politeness and Pragmatic Particles in French. 2002. x, 251 pp.
105 BLACKWELL, Sarah E.: Implicatures in Discourse. The case of Spanish NP anaphora. 2003.
xvi, 303 pp.
106 BUSSE, Ulrich: Linguistic Variation in the Shakespeare Corpus. Morpho-syntactic variability of
second person pronouns. 2002. xiv, 344 pp.
107 TAAVITSAINEN, Irma and Andreas H. JUCKER (eds.): Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term
Systems. 2003. viii, 446 pp.
108 BARRON, Anne: Acquisition in Interlanguage Pragmatics. Learning how to do things with words in a
study abroad context. 2003. xviii, 403 pp.
109 MAYES, Patricia: Language, Social Structure, and Culture. A genre analysis of cooking classes in Japan
and America. 2003. xiv, 228 pp.
110 ANDROUTSOPOULOS, Jannis K. and Alexandra GEORGAKOPOULOU (eds.): Discourse
Constructions of Youth Identities. 2003. viii, 343 pp.
111 ENSINK, Titus and Christoph SAUER (eds.): Framing and Perspectivising in Discourse. 2003.
viii, 227 pp.
112 LENZ, Friedrich (ed.): Deictic Conceptualisation of Space, Time and Person. 2003. xiv, 279 pp.
113 PANTHER, Klaus-Uwe and Linda L. THORNBURG (eds.): Metonymy and Pragmatic Inferencing.
2003. xii, 285 pp.
114 KÜHNLEIN, Peter, Hannes RIESER and Henk ZEEVAT (eds.): Perspectives on Dialogue in the New
Millennium. 2003. xii, 400 pp.
115 KÄRKKÄINEN, Elise: Epistemic Stance in English Conversation. A description of its interactional
functions, with a focus on I think. 2003. xii, 213 pp.
116 GRANT, Colin B. (ed.): Rethinking Communicative Interaction. New interdisciplinary horizons. 2003.
viii, 330 pp.
117 WU, Ruey-Jiuan Regina: Stance in Talk. A conversation analysis of Mandarin final particles. 2004.
xvi, 260 pp.
118 CHENG, Winnie: Intercultural Conversation. 2003. xii, 279 pp.
119 HILTUNEN, Risto and Janne SKAFFARI (eds.): Discourse Perspectives on English. Medieval to
modern. 2003. viii, 243 pp.
120 AIJMER, Karin and Anna-Brita STENSTRÖM (eds.): Discourse Patterns in Spoken and Written
Corpora. 2004. viii, 279 pp.
121 FETZER, Anita: Recontextualizing Context. Grammaticality meets appropriateness. 2004. x, 272 pp.
122 GONZÁLEZ, Montserrat: Pragmatic Markers in Oral Narrative. The case of English and Catalan.
2004. xvi, 410 pp.
123 MÁRQUEZ REITER, Rosina and María Elena PLACENCIA (eds.): Current Trends in the
Pragmatics of Spanish. 2004. xvi, 383 pp.
124 VINE, Bernadette: Getting Things Done at Work. The discourse of power in workplace interaction.
2004. x, 278 pp.
125 LERNER, Gene H. (ed.): Conversation Analysis. Studies from the first generation. 2004. x, 302 pp.
126 WU, Yi’an: Spatial Demonstratives in English and Chinese. Text and Cognition. 2004. xviii, 236 pp.
127 BRISARD, Frank, Michael MEEUWIS and Bart VANDENABEELE (eds.): Seduction, Community,
Speech. A Festschrift for Herman Parret. 2004. vi, 202 pp.
128 CORDELLA, Marisa: The Dynamic Consultation. A discourse analytical study of doctor–patient
communication. 2004. xvi, 254 pp.
129 TABOADA, María Teresa: Building Coherence and Cohesion. Task-oriented dialogue in English and
Spanish. 2004. xvii, 264 pp.
130 HALMARI, Helena and Tuija VIRTANEN (eds.): Persuasion Across Genres. A linguistic approach.
viii, 244 pp. + index. Expected Winter 2004-2005
131 JANOSCHKA, Anja: Web Advertising. New forms of communication on the Internet. 2004.
xiv, 230 pp.
132 ONODERA, Noriko O.: Japanese Discourse Markers. Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis.
2004. xiv, 251 pp.
133 MARNETTE, Sophie: Speech and Thought Presentation in French. Concepts and strategies.
xii, 357 pp. + index. Expected Spring 2005
134 SKAFFARI, Janne, Matti PEIKOLA, Ruth CARROLL, Risto HILTUNEN and Brita WÅRVIK (eds.):
Opening Windows on Texts and Discourses of the Past. xi, 399 pp. + index. Expected Spring 2005
A complete list of titles in this series can be found on the publishers website, www.benjamins.com

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