Syntactic and semantic level of "perceived eventualities" in expressions of inference, evidntiality, and knowledge

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K16827
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Hokusei Gakuen University
• Principal Investigator: Tamura Sanae 北星学園大学, 文学部, 講師 (90728346)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 意味論 / 統語論 / 推論 / 判断主体 / 視点

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, I have investigated several expressions of inference, knowledge, and recognition in Japanese. The main goal of this study was to show that there is a syntactic-semantic level which corresponds to "perceived eventualities", which is between extensional object such as eventuality or fact and intensional object such as proposition or thought. I have especially focused on the following two topics: (1) the syntactic-semantic analysis of the "to iu koto"-clause in the construction "A to iu koto wa B to iu koto da", and (2) the difference between the causal connectives tameni/kara with topic particle wa or focus particles (mo, sae, and so on), and the connectives without them.

Free Research Field

言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

言語の分析において一般的に区別される概念として「命題proposition」と「モダリティmodality」がある。命題は事態や事実そのものを述べたもので、モダリティは「話し手」の事態や事実に対する捉え方・態度を表すとされる。本研究は、日本語の文法現象において2つの概念の中間にあたる存在物が重要な役割を果たすことを示した。この点について、日本語は英語などの理論的分析が進んでいる言語と異なる。この違いは、推論や知識の表現に関する諸言語の特徴を決める重要なパラメータとなっている可能性がある。