The I-Ochi Construction in Japanese, Event Evidentiality, and Utterance Phrase

要旨

<p>In this paper, we present a new analysis of the i-ochi construction in colloquial/informal Japanese. We demonstrate that our analysis solves several empirical puzzles with Konno's (2012, 2017) root small clause analysis. We also show that this analysis brings about several theoretical implications for other areas of Japanese grammar, including the nature and mode of structural case marking in Standard Japanese. Finally, we present novel data showing that the so-called saa-exclamative construction in Hichiku Dialect exhibits structural and functional similarities with the i-ochi construction and argue that our analysis developed for the latter can be directly transported to the latter. </p>