Deictic and anaphoric uses of the Japanese demonstratives ko-so-a

要旨

Abstract This paper analyzes the ko-so-a demonstratives in Japanese as they occur in experimentally-obtained soliloquy data. In soliloquy, the Japanese deixis system consists of a two-way opposition, viz. ko- vs. a-. So- appears only as an anaphor; its antecedent can be either familiar or unfamiliar to the speaker, contrary to Kuno’s (1973) analysis. It is also argued that ko- and a- are always deictic in soliloquy. Adopting Chafe’s (1994) theory of consciousness, it is hypothesized that (i) a- is used when the referent is in the speaker’s peripheral consciousness, and (ii) ko- is used to refer to an entity if it is already focused at the moment of speech. Finally, it is demonstrated that so- and a- exhibit the attributive-referential distinction, which is proposed by Donnellan (1966).

主題