The Japanese Copula: Forms and Functions

224 Pages·2002·0.583 MB·English

by  Tomiko Narahara (auth.)

The Japanese Copula
Forms and Functions
Tomiko Narahara
The Japanese Copula
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The Japanese Copula
Forms and Functions
Tomiko Narahara
© Tomiko Narahara 2002
All rights reserved.No reproduction,copy or transmission of this
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
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The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this
work in accordance with the Copyright,Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2002 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN
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175 Fifth Avenue,New York,N.Y.10010
Companies and representatives throughout the world
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave
Macmillan division of St.Martin’s Press,LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States,United Kingdom
and other countries.Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European
Union and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-42899-1 ISBN 978-0-230-50453-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230504530
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and
made from fully managed and sustained forest sources.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
List of Abbreviations ix
Part I The Concept of the Copula
1 Introduction to the Japanese Copula 3
1 Basic forms and functions 3
2 Categorial status 6
3 Non-inflective categories in Japanese 8
4 Some puzzling phenomena of the Japanese copula 10
5 Recent linguistic research on the copula 12
6 Organization of the book 13
2 The Copula as a Universal Notion 15
1 Overview 15
2 Definitions of ‘copula’ 16
3 Copula, the all mighty: the philosophical view 20
3.1 Linking function 20
3.2 Chinjutsu as linking in Japanese grammar 25
4 Copula or not copula? 28
4.1 Existential function 28
4.2 Identity reading 31
5 Copula, the dummy: the modern linguistic view 35
6 The copula as a feature carrier 38
Part II Forms and Functions: The View from
Feature Morphology
3 Grammatical Feature Representation 43
1 Labelling inflectional forms 43
2 Morphological segmentation 46
3 Traditional approaches to inflectional analysis 47
3.1 Irrealis category and the negative form 48
3.2 Adverbial category and the past tense form 53
v
vi The Japanese Copula
4 Against Non-past Tense Morphology 57
1 Outline of present tense marking 57
2 Conceptual problems in binary tense marking analysis 60
2.1 Redundancy 61
2.2 Morphological asymmetry 62
3 Empirical problems with binary tense marking analysis 64
3.1 Time-less events and states 64
3.2 Forms without a tense morpheme 67
5 Categorial Marking Analysis 71
1 A solution for the temporal interpretations 71
2 Treatment of (r)u-form, i-form and da in the
traditional grammar 73
2.1 Overview 73
2.2 The end form 74
2.3 The pre-nominal form 74
2.4 The end and the pre-nominal copula 76
3 A proposal: categorial marking analysis 78
Part III Evolution of Inflectional Morphology
6 Verb Forms 85
1 Evolution of verb categorial forms 86
2 Existential verb ari/aru 90
7 Adjective Forms 95
1 Categorial forms 95
2 Copula and adjective formation 98
8 Copula Forms 106
1 Zo 106
2 N-type copulas: nari/naru 115
3 Na and no as categorial forms 127
Part IV Forms and Functions of the
Modern Copula
9 De aru Copula 133
1 Overview of the d-type copula 133
2 De ar- forms in modern Japanese 136
3 Contracted d-type copula forms 141
4 Polite forms of the d-type copula 143
Contents vii
10 Da 147
1 Overview 147
2 Past research on da 148
3 Copula alternation: da and the zero-copula 151
3.1 The speaker’s gender-stylistic copula
alternation 151
3.2 Representation of the speaker’s knowledge or
ignorance 156
3.2.1 Yes/no questions and the receipt of
new information 157
3.2.2 Embedded interrogative sentences 167
3.2.3 Sentence final particles 171
3.2.4 Epistemic modal predicates 175
4 Feature analysis of da 177
5 Da as a linking verb 179
11 Discourse Functions of da and zyanai 181
1 Discourse governed copula alternation 181
1.1 Zero-copula as a tone down 181
1.2 Information status and applicability of
tone down 191
2 The negative copula as an ignorative marker 195
3 Concluding remarks 202
Notes 203
References 206
Index 214
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank sincerely those who offered constructive
comments on earlier drafts of this book: Professor Pegatha Thomas,
Professor Wako Tawa, Professor Akio Kamio, Professor Wallace Chafe,
and three anonymous reviewers. I am deeply indebted to Professor
Kenichi Takami, who read the original manuscript and provided con-
structive and encouraging comments.
My sincere thanks also go to my mentor, Professor Susumu Kuno,
for his expressions of encouragement and confidence, giving me the
inspiration to take up this project. He taught me everything I know
about how to approach language phenomena and how to treat data.
I hope this book will in some small way serve as a symbol of my
gratitude.
I would also like to note that the constant moral support from my
colleagues at the University of California, Santa Barbara, during the
writing of this book helped preserve my energy and determination
to complete it. I express my deepest gratitude to Kate Saltzman-Li,
Haruko Iwasaki, Sabine Fruhstuck, John Nathan, Allan Grapard,
Sharon Yu, Hiroko Sugawara, Chikako Shinagawa, June Darby and
Eliane Lebeck.
Last, but not least, I thank my husband Paul Ryack from the
bottom of my heart for helping maintain a perfect environment in
which to write this book. I lovingly dedicate this book to him.
Postscript
As this book went to press, I was deeply saddened by the untimely
death of Professor Akio Kamio. I will miss his guidance and encour-
agement. I wish I could have shown this book to him.
viii
List of Abbreviations
A adjectival categorial marker
ACC accusative
AFF affirmative
AST assertive
CNTR contrastive
COND conditional
CONJ conjunctive
CONJEC conjectural
CONS concessive
CONT continuitive
COP copula
DES desiderative
DIST distributive
EMPH emphatic
EXC exclamative
EXST existential
GEN genitive
GER gerund
Infl inflection
IP inflectional phrase
IRL irrealis
LOC locative
NEG negative
NOM nominative
NP noun phrase
NPS non-past
OBL obligatory
PN pre-nominal form
POL polite
POT potential
PS past
Q question
RLS realis
S sentence
ix