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Grammar and Cognition: Dualistic models of language structure and language processing
Edited by Alexander Haselow and Gunther Kaltenböck
[Human Cognitive Processing 70] 2020
► pp. 159–190

Chapter 5
Dichotomous or continuous?

Final particles and a dualistic conception of grammar

 | Hokkaido University of Education
 | Fuji Women’s University
This article demonstrates that final particles (more broadly markers) in four East Asian languages (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Mongolian) and three West European languages (English, Spanish, and German) follow a similar semantic/discourse-functional ordering principle when they occur in sequence: more intersubjective particles follow more subjective or less intersubjective particles. These particles can be largely classified into two types: sentence-final and utterance-final types. A detailed description of both types in languages like Japanese reveals that the sentence-final type has some properties of both domains postulated in a dualistic conception of grammar (thetical grammar and sentence grammar, inter alia, in Kaltenböck et al. (2011) and Heine et al. (2013); macrogrammar and microgrammar in Haselow (2016a) among others). Japanese sentence-final particles, par excellence, are microgrammartical and sentence-grammatical elements on formal grounds but macrogrammatical and thetical-grammatical elements in functional terms. This fact requires us to recognize that the two domains do not comprise a dichotomy but form a continuum to a greater degree than assumed thus far.
Keywords: sentence-final, utterance-final, macrogrammar, microgrammar, thetical grammar, sentence grammar
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sequences of sentence-final particles in East Asian languages
    • 2.1Japanese sentence-final particles and their ordering principle
    • 2.2Sentence-final particle sequences in Korean, Chinese, and Mongolian
    • 2.3“Grammatical” aspects of sentence-final particles
  • 3.Final particle sequences in West European languages
    • 3.1English final particles (pragmatic markers) and their sequences
    • 3.2Sequence of final pragmatic markers in Spanish
    • 3.3Final-particle sequences in German
    • 3.4Syntactic rather than morphological regulation of final particles
  • 4.Further testimony to continuity in dualistic conceptions of grammar
    • 4.1Syntactic regulation and morphological integration
    • 4.2Utterance-final particles and “final field” in Japanese
    • 4.3Ordering principle and degree of morphosyntactic integration
  • 5.Final particles in dualistic conceptions of grammar
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.70.05izu
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