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Article published In:
Degrees and Grammar: An East Asian Perspective
Edited by Qiongpeng Luo, Zhiguo Xie and Xiao Li
[Language and Linguistics 24:1] 2023
► pp. 36–73

The role of comparison in discourse

The meaning and use of the Japanese utterance comparative expressions sore-yori-(mo) ‘than that’ and nani-yori-(mo) ‘than anything’

| Kobe University

This study investigates the meaning and use of the Japanese utterance comparative expressions sore-yori-(mo) ‘than that’ and nani-yori-(mo) ‘than anything’ and considers the role of comparison in discourse. I argue that sore-yori and nani-yori can compare individuals at the semantic (at-issue) level, but they can also compare utterances (speech acts) at the non-at-issue level (= conventional implicature (CI)) (e.g., Grice 1975; Potts 2005; McCready 2010; Sawada 2010; Gutzmann 2011). The utterance comparative sore-yori conventionally implicates that U in sore-yori(U) is more important than the previous utterance, and the utterance comparative nani-yori conventionally implicates that U in nani-yori(U) is more important than any alternative utterance.

An interesting feature of the utterance comparatives sore-yori-(mo) and nani-yori-(mo) is that their pragmatic functions are quite flexible. As for sore-yori, in some contexts, it can function as a topic-changing expression, but in other contexts it does not. As for nani-yori, when it occurs discourse-initially, it functions like the expression first of all, but when it occurs discourse-finally, it functions as an additive reinforcing expression. I argue that the pragmatic effects of utterance comparative expressions arise based on the interaction between their scalar meanings and the general pragmatic principles of relevance/Question Under Discussion and manner (e.g., Grice 1975; Roberts 1996).

This study demonstrates that in addition to regular comparison and metalinguistic comparison, there is a third type of comparison: utterance comparison, and that the notion of comparison plays an important role in advancing the conversation economically/effectively. Finally, cross-linguistic variations in utterance comparison will also be discussed using English and Korean data.

Keywords: utterance comparison, discourse structure, speech act modifier, scale, conventional implicature (CI), pragmatic functions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The meaning and use of the utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo)
    • 2.1 Sore-yori-(mo) as an individual comparison
    • 2.2The meaning of the utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo)
      • 2.2.1The utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo) operates on a speech act and has a property of a CI
      • 2.2.2The difference with metalinguistic comparison
      • 2.2.3The formal analysis of the utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo)
    • 2.3Deriving the function of topic-shifting
    • 2.4Comparison with typical topic-shifting markers
  • 3.The meaning and use of the utterance comparative nani-yori-mo
    • 3.1The individual comparative nani-yori-mo
    • 3.2The meaning of the utterance comparative nani-yori(-mo)
    • 3.3The formal analysis of the utterance comparative nani-yori-(mo)
    • 3.4Deriving the pragmatic functions of the utterance comparative nani-yori-(mo)
  • 4.The relationship between the utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo) and the utterance comparative nani-yori-(mo)
  • 5.Cross-linguistic variations of utterance comparative expressions
    • 5.1Korean utterance comparative expressions
    • 5.2English discourse-pragmatic comparative expressions
    • 5.3Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at [email protected].

Published online: 12 December 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00125.saw
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