A Semantic and Pragmatic Study of the Correlation Between Marked and Unmarked Linguistic Phenomena in English and Japanese

2018 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K16857
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Dokkyo University (2018); Toho University (2016-2017)
• Principal Investigator: OSAWA Mai 獨協大学, 外国語学部, 准教授 (70610830)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2019-03-31
• Keywords: 周辺的現象 / 語用論 / 重複可能表現

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study investigated how marked phenomena and unmarked phenomena correlate to each other. First, this study described a duplicative potential in Japanese like "toberu koto ga dekiru" where two kinds of potential forms, the potential form of the verb and a periphrastic potential form, co-occur in a sentence. This is a marked phenomenon since in Japanese one or the other is usually used to express the potential. Second, based on the descriptive generalizations for duplicative potentials and other marked constructions in both English and Japanese, this study suggested that there are two types of marked phenomena: one type includes constructions which are marked but use contextual information to become licensed like corresponding unmarked constructions. The other type includes constructions which remain apart from corresponding unmarked constructions and can be identified as is.

Free Research Field

英語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究は，規範的な言語現象を中核としたとき，中核に近付くことで認可される周辺的現象と，中核から離れて独自の機能や性質を保つことで認可される周辺的現象があるという仮説を提案した。この仮説に基づいて中核的現象と周辺的現象の相関を明らかにすることで，既存の視座から分析されてきた中核的現象を改めて，周辺的現象を通して再考察することが可能になる。よって，本研究は，従来の先行研究における各構文の分析方法に新たな視座を提供するという方法論的意義を持つ。