A contrastive study of English and Japanese from a syntax/pragmatics interface perspective

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24720223
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: English linguistics
• Research Institution: Nara Women's University (2013-2014); Wako University (2012)
• Principal Investigator: KONNO Hiroaki 奈良女子大学, 人文科学系, 准教授 (80433639)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 類像性 / 機能範疇 / 伝達意図

Outline of Final Research Achievements

With special reference to the pragmatic notion of the speaker’s communicative intention, I investigated various types of linguistic expressions in English and Japanese to reveal how pragmatics and syntax are related. In particular, I showed how the speaker’s communicative intention is related to the syntactic make-up of linguistic expressions. English and Japanese have grammatical constructions that are defective in both communicative intention and functional categories, and those that are not. An iconic relation obtains in these two languages between the presence/absence of the speaker’s communicative intention and the presence/absence of functional categories.

Free Research Field

英語学