What Is and Is not Language-Specific about the Japanese Modal System? A Comparative and Historical Perspective

要旨

In Japanese linguistics, the definition of modality varies between different schools of scholars, particularly in relation to how key notions such as tinzyutu (‘predication’, but see Narrog in this volume for a discussion of this notion) should be treated (Masuoka 1991, Nitta 1991, Onoe 2001). Some scholars equate modality with subjective meaning (Nitta 2000), while others regard it as describing grammatical expressions outside the propositional content of a sentence (Masuoka 1991, 2000, 2007). It has also been debated how such definitions are compatible with that of modality as defined in general linguistic literature (Narrog 2005, Horie and Narrog, to appear). Although numerous studies on Japanese modality are published every year, it is indeed quite difficult to determine what is and is not language-specific about the Japanese modal system relative to other languages. The purpose of this chapter is to address this research question based on observations of the Japanese modal auxiliary system and through comparisons with English and Korean. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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