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Part of
Information-Structural Perspectives on Discourse Particles
Edited by Pierre-Yves Modicom and Olivier Duplâtre
[Studies in Language Companion Series 213] 2020
► pp. 223–250

Chapter 9
Information structure, null case particle and sentence final discourse particle

| Kanda University of International Studies

This paper discusses the nature of sentence final particles (SFPs) in Japanese from the perspective of the Theory of Mind (ToM). After presenting some properties of SFPs in Japanese by making reference to familiar languages like German, I will discuss a syntactic mechanism of creating non-standard questions with SFPs by making use of Abraham’s (2012) idea of moving MPs in German into ForceP to fix illocutionary force. I will next show that SFPs trigger the deletion of Case particles in Japanese to create a new discourse-related semantic effect of eliminating focus. Some implications of my approach are also touched upon, where a new functional head is suggested to explain some interesting behaviors of how come questions involving the semantic interpretation of surprise and curiosity.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1The cartography of syntactic structures
    • 2.2Some properties of SFPs and MPs
    • 2.3Some instance of SFPs
    • 2.4Non-standard questions
  • 3.Null Case particle
  • 4.Implications: how come questions
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 March 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.213.09end
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Endo, Yoshio
2021. Chapter 6. Subject drop in how come questions in English. In Current Issues in Syntactic Cartography [Linguistik Aktuell/Linguistics Today, 267], ► pp. 128 ff. DOI logo
Endo, Yoshio
2022. Non-standard questions in English, German, and Japanese. Linguistics Vanguard 8:s2 ► pp. 251 ff. DOI logo
Endo, Yoshio
2023. Chapter 9. Three ReasonPs. In Micro- and Macro-variation of Causal Clauses [Studies in Language Companion Series, 231], ► pp. 250 ff. DOI logo

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