Semantic Study of the Organization of Multilayered Perspectives and Universal Meaning of "Suru" in Japanese

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25370447
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Doshisha University
• Principal Investigator: Yamamori Yoshie (松井良枝) 同志社大学, グローバル・コミュニケーション学部, 教授 (70252814)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: スル / パースペクテイブ・シフト / 多値論理 / 命題概念 / ガ-デンパス効果 / temporal unboundedness

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study compares the simple present form (known as the ru form) with the inflected form (ta form) in Japanese, based on their semantic characteristics. Japanese activity verbs ending in ru are ambiguous with respect to being read as future or habitual in the matrix clauses and past in the subordinate clauses. We investigate the question of how such an ambiguity/multiple readings can arise for verbs ending in ru. We pursue this question by assuming that ru plays a role to make a sentence in which ru appears denote propositional concept and show that verbs ending in ru express state of affirs temporally unbounded to some specific time in the actual world, that is generic tense’in the sense of Dahl(1975).

Free Research Field

人文学