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’
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.
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
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