This paper investigates the correlation between semantic-pragmatic change of (inter)subjectification and its syntactic effects. It points out that the diachronic change of subjectification > intersubjectification (Traugott 2003) finds its synchronic counterpart in the rigid predicate order of Japanese. Furthermore, paying closer attention to a layered model in Japanese traditional linguistics, it claims that Japanese episodes of (inter)subjectification display core to peripheral positional shifts of grammaticalized items. In contrast, the opposite directionality is exhibited with the case of possible desubjectification (imperative > conditional). Putting these issues all together, the paper questions syntactic scope decrease as a parameter of grammaticalization, and supports instead structural scope increase, as in “C-command scope increase” (Tabor and Traugott 1998), “raising/upwards movement” (Roberts and Roussou 2003) and “syntactic impoverishment” (Company forthcoming a, b).
Aside from this specific focus, this paper is also an attempt to synthesize the rich tradition of Japanese linguistic studies on subjectivity with their Western counterparts.
2014. (Inter)subjectification in a functional theory of grammaticalization. Acta Linguistica Hafniensia 46:1 ► pp. 7 ff.
Chen, Jiajun
2017. Dialogicity in dialogue: Deriving Chinese discourse marker bieshuo from the negative imperative. Journal of Pragmatics 110 ► pp. 34 ff.
Dai, Xin‐Yue
2021. Silky entanglements in Chinese color‐naming and its diachronic change: A new materialism perspective. Color Research & Application 46:5 ► pp. 978 ff.
Heim, Johannes M.
2019. Turn-peripheral management of Common Ground: A study of Swabian gell. Journal of Pragmatics 141 ► pp. 130 ff.
2012. Historical development from subjective to objective meaning: Evidence from the Japanese question particle ka. Journal of Pragmatics 44:6-7 ► pp. 798 ff.
Mycock, Louise & Chi Lun Pang
2021. Funny that isn't it ProTags in combination at the right periphery. Journal of Pragmatics 182 ► pp. 92 ff.
Narrog, Heiko
2010. The order of meaningful elements in the Japanese verbal complex. Morphology 20:1 ► pp. 205 ff.
Onodera, Noriko O. & Elizabeth Closs Traugott
2016. Periphery. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 17:2 ► pp. 163 ff.
2009. Morphophonological variability and form-function regularity: a usage-based approach to the Japanese modal adverb yahari/yappari/yappa. Language Sciences 31:6 ► pp. 813 ff.
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs
2015. Investigating “periphery” from a functionalist perspective. Linguistics Vanguard 1:1 ► pp. 119 ff.
Visconti, Jacqueline
2013. Facets of subjectification. Language Sciences 36 ► pp. 7 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 1 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.