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Part of
(Non)referentiality in Conversation
Edited by Michael C. Ewing and Ritva Laury
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 344] 2024
► pp. 103–122

Chapter 6
(Non)referentiality of silent reference in Japanese conversation

How and what are inferred

| Stanford University

Japanese speakers carry out successful conversations in which arguments and adjuncts of predicates are not expressed. I call such unmentioned members of an event or state that can be inferred INFERABLES. Inferables present a range of interpretations from specific to more general and indeterminate. This chapter explores principled explanations for this phenomenon in Japanese, which allows a variety of disparate interpretations. The discussions find that frame semantics, a semantic theory that provides an envisionment of a described event with the attendant roles, can offer an explanation. Hearers and speakers TRUST each other that some plausible entities (inferables) instantiate the unmentioned elements. When clarification is needed, they seek to ENSURE the construal by providing more explicit descriptions

Keywords: Japanese, ellipsis, zero-anaphora, inferables, frame semantics, conversational principle, trust-ensure, (non)referentiality, indeterminacy, pragmatics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Background
    • 1.2The proposal
  • 2.Referentiality and inferentiality: A Variety of inferables
    • 2.1Fluid and flexible indeterminate inferables
    • 2.2Indeterminate inferables and non-explicit switch reference
    • 2.3Latent resolution of inferables
    • 2.4Ambiguous inferables
    • 2.5Ensuring specific inferable when needed
  • 3.Conclusion and implications
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Appendix
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