Cover not available
Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 40:4 (2016) ► pp.815–871

Verbal inflectional morphology and modality in compound clause-linkage markers in Japanese

| Rissho University

Japanese has many compound clause-linkage markers (hereafter “CLMs”). Some of them consist of a verbal inflectional suffix and (up to three) particles. They include eleven compound CLMs that have the Concessive conditional meaning (‘even if’) and/or the Concessive meaning (‘even though, although’). In these eleven compound CLMs, different inflectional categories of verbs (i.e. conjugational categories) combined with different particles indicate different degrees of the speaker’s belief or confidence regarding the likelihood of the existence or occurrence of a situation. That is, verbal inflectional morphology plays a crucial role in expressing modal meanings. Such a phenomenon does not seem to have been recognized for Japanese or any other language.

Keywords: clause-linkage markers, belief/confidence, modality, concessives, concessive conditionals, verbal inflectional morphology
Published online: 2 February 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.40.4.03tsu
References
Akatsuka, Noriko
1985 Conditionals and the epistemic scale. Language 61(3): 625–639. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bolinger, Dwight
1967 The imperative in English. In To honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, Vol. 11, 335–362. The Hague/Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar
Crevels, Mily
2000 Concessives on different semantic levels: A typological perspective. In Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Bernd Kortmann (eds.), Cause, condition, concession, contrast: Cognitive and discourse perspectives (Topics in English Linguistics 33), 313–339. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dobrushina, Nina
2008 Imperatives in conditional and concessive subordinate clauses. In Edward J. Vajda (ed.), Subordination and coordination strategies in North Asian Languages (Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 300), 123–141. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, Talmy
1982 Evidentiality and epistemic space. Studies in Language 6(1): 23–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Guruupu, Jamashii
1998 Nihongo bunkei ziten [A dictionary of Japanese sentence patterns]. Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin & Ekkehard König
1998 Concessive conditionals in the languages of Europe. In Johan Van der Auwera & Dónall P. Ó Baoill (eds.), Adverbial constructions in the languages of Europe (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology, EUROTYP 20-3), 563–640. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin
2003 The geometry of grammatical meaning: Semantic maps and cross-linguistic comparison. In Michael Tomasello (ed.), The new psychology of language, Vol. 21, 211–243. New Jersey: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Izuhara, Shouji
2007 Nihongo ruigihyoogen tukaiwake jiten [A dictionary of synonymous expressions in Japanese]. Tokyo: Kenkyusha.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto
1924 Philosophy of grammar. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Kindaichi, Haruhiko, Ooki Hayashi & Takesi Sibata
(eds.) 1988 Nihongo hyakka ziten [An encyclopaedia of the Japanese language]. Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten.Google Scholar
Kortmann, Bernd
1992 Reanalysis completed and in progress: Participle as source of prepositions and conjunctions. In Günter Kellermann & Michael D. Morrissey (eds.), Diachrony within synchrony: Language history and cognition: Papers from the international symposium at the University of Duisburg, 26–28 March 1990, 429–453. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Kortmann, Bernd & Ekkehard König
1992 Categorial reanalysis: The case of deverbal prepositions. Linguistics 30(4). 671–697. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
König, Ekkehard
1986 Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives: Areas of contrast, overlap and neutralization. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Alice ter Meulen, Judy Snitzer Reilly & Charles A. Ferguson (eds.), On conditionals, 229–246. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
König, Ekkehard & Peter Siemund
2000 Causal and concessive clauses: Formal and semantic relations. In Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen & Bernd Kortmann (eds.), Cause, condition, concession, contrast: Cognitive and discourse perspectives (Topics in English Linguistics 33), 341–360. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Longacre, Robert E
1985 Sentences as combinations of clauses. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, Vol. II: Complex constructions, 235–286. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Malchukov, Andrej L
2004 Towards a semantic typology of adversative and contrast marking. Journal of Semantics 21(2): 177–198. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martin, Samuel E
2004 A reference grammar of Japanese. (First published in 1975, the revised edition published in 1988). Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.Google Scholar
Minami, Fujio
1974 Gendai Nihongo no koozoo [The structure of Modern Japanese]. Tokyo: Taishukan.Google Scholar
Miyaoka, Osahito
2015 “Go” to wa nani ka saikoo[:] Nihongobunpoo to ‘mozi no otosiana’ [Reconsidering what is the ‘Word’?[:] Japanese morphology and pitfall of writing]. Tokyo: Sanseido.Google Scholar
Narrog, Heiko
2009 Modality in Japanese[:] The layered structure of the clause and hierarchies of functional categories (Studies in Language Companion Series 109). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sweetser, Eve E
1990 From etymology to pragmatics[:] Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 54). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tanaka, Hiroshi
2010 Hukugoozi kara mita nihongobunpoo no kenkyuu [A study of Japanese from the perspective of compound expressions]. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo.Google Scholar
Tsunoda, Mie
2003 Nihongo no setu-bun no rensetu to modariti [Clause-linkage and modality in Japanese]. Tokyo: Ochanomizu University dissertation.Google Scholar
2004 Nihongo no setu-bun no rensetu to modariti [Clause-linkage and modality in Japanese]. Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers.Google Scholar
2006a Zyooho-setu to ‘Setu-rensetu to modariti no kaisoo’ (sono 1) [Concessive clauses in relation to ‘the hierarchy of clause-linkage and modality’ (Part 1)]. The Seijo Bungei (The Seijo University arts and literature quarterly) 1961: 185–202.Google Scholar
2006b Zyooho-setu to ‘Setu-rensetu to modariti no kaisoo’ (sono 2) [Concessive clauses in relation to ‘the hierarchy of clause-linkage and modality’ (Part 2)]. The Seijo Bungei (The Seijo University arts and literature quarterly) 1971: 136–120.Google Scholar
2007a Nihongo no doosi no katuyoohyoo [A paradigm of Japanese verbs]. Rissho Daigaku Kokugo Kokubun 451: 1–7. Tokyo: Rissho University.Google Scholar
2007b Setu no rensetu to kontorooru (Clause-linkage and control). In Mie Tsunoda, Kan Sasaki & Tooru Shionoya (eds.), Tadoosee no tuugengoteki kenkyuu [Crosslinguistic studies in transitivity], 331–343. Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers.Google Scholar
2011  Monono to naimademo: Seturensetu no itutu no reberu ni okeru gyakusetu to zyooho-zyooken [= Monono and -nai=mademo: Adversatives and concessive conditionals in the five-level classification of clause linkage]. NINJAL Research Papers 21: 107–134. Tachikawa, Japan: National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics.Google Scholar
2012a Five-level classification of clause-linkage in Japanese. Studies in Language 36(2): 382–429. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2012b Setu-rensetu maakaa ni okeru doosi no katuyookee to modariti [Verbal inflectional morphology and modality in clause-linkage markers]. NINJAL Research Papers 41: 109–137. Tachikawa, Japan: National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics.Google Scholar
2013 Zyooho, zyooho-zyooken o arawasu tokorode [Tokorode expressing the concessive and concessive-conditional meanings]. Rissho Daigaku Kokugo Kokubun 511: 8–17. Tokyo: Rissho University.Google Scholar
2016 Nihongo no seturensetuhyoogen — nariyuki-tenkai to wasya no taido [Clause-linkage markers in Japanese — the speaker’s stance towards the development of the situation]. Rissho Daigaku Kokugo Kokubun 541: 1–13. Tokyo: Rissho University.Google Scholar
Forthcoming. Japanese. To appear in Tasaku Tsunoda (ed.) Levels in clause linkage: A crosslinguistic survey Comparative Handbook of Linguistics 2 Berlin & Boston Walter de Gruyter DOI logo
Tsunoda, Tasaku
1981 The Djaru language of Kimberley, Western Australia. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics.Google Scholar
Xrakovskij, Victor S
2012 Concessive constructions: Meaning, syntax, and typology. In Victor S. Xrakovskij (ed.), Typoloty of concessive constructions (LINCOM Studies in Theoretical Linguistics 50), 3–79. Muenchen: LINCOM.Google Scholar
Zaefferer, Dietmar
1991 Conditionals and unconditionals: Cross-linguistic and logical aspects. In D. Zaefferer (ed.), Semantic universals and universal semantics (Groningen-Amsterdam Studies in Semantics 12), 210–236. Berlin & New York: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar