Semantic and Pragmatic Studies of Relative Clauses in English

2021 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00687
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02080:English linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Fukushima Medical University
• Principal Investigator: Nakayama Hitoshi 福島県立医科大学, 看護学部, 教授 (70259810)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: 関係詞節 / 語用論

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The aim of the research is to examine semantic and pragmatic relationships between the English relative clause and the main clause based on a variety of case studies. It focuses mainly on the utterance interpretations of the nonrestrictive relative clause and its relative pronoun "which."
The research has found that three characteristics are involved in the use of the nonrestrictive "Which" clause that appears as an independent clause. First, the "Which" clause is more likely to be used in a conversation because of several features compatible with the environment where real-time, time-limited information processing is required. Second, the independent "Which" clause has similar discourse-functional properties to the topicalized sentence, which is common in spoken English. Third, the relative pronoun "which" has different referential properties from the synonymous pronouns "it" and "that," and they cause "which" to have its own way of expressing the speaker's intentions.

Free Research Field

英語学、言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

関係詞節の研究に語用論的アプローチを導入すること、すなわち、主節、関係詞節、および、関係詞、先行詞それぞれの情報とその他のコンテクストに基づいて、話し手の意図した方向に聞き手の解釈を導くための推論プロセスに注目することは、関係詞節だけでなく、接続詞などの接続要素によってつながれた文や節の発話解釈とも比較検討できることを意味する。文連結の語用論的特徴と整合する関係詞節の解釈プロセスを示すことができれば、関係詞節の解釈に関する一般化にも妥当性を与えることが期待できる。