Overview

This monograph contains the first systematic investigation of the Japanese ‘dative subject’ construction across time and space. It demonstrates that, in order to capture what speakers/writers know about how to put an utterance or a clause together, it is necessary to pay attention to what they do in actual language use and in different discourse types. The work also shows the importance of diachronic perspectives to help us better understand the ways in which a particular grammatical structure is represented synchronically. By utilizing modern Japanese conversation, contemporary Japanese novels, and a pre-modern and modern Japanese literature corpus, the study highlights the role of ‘dative subjects’ at the semantic and discourse-pragmatic levels. Specifically, it demonstrates that what has been considered to be a most ‘grammatical’ aspect of Japanese actually turns out to be rather pragmatically oriented.

Full Product Details

Author:   Misumi Sadler (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Publisher:   John Benjamins Publishing Co
Imprint:   John Benjamins Publishing Co
Volume:   20
Weight:   0.560kg
ISBN:  

9789027226303

ISBN 10:   902722630
Pages:   212
Publication Date:   06 November 2007
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational ,  Further / Higher Education
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock  
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Table of Contents

1. List of tables; 2. List of figures; 3. Acknowledgments; 4. Chapter 1. Introduction; 5. 1.1. Overview; 6. 1.2. Previous approaches; 7. 1.3. Theoretical approach; 8. 1.4. Goals; 9. 1.5. Organization; 10. Chapter 2. Data and methodology; 11. 2.1. Introduction; 12. 2.2. Spoken versus written; 13. 2.3. Modern Japanese discourse data; 14. 2.4. Criteria for selecting the dative subject construction in discourse; 15. 2.5. Examples of coding clauses; 16. 2.6 Summary; 17. Chapter 3. The dative subject construction in naturally occurring conversation; 18. 3.1. Introduction; 19. 3.2. Overall distribution; 20. 3.3. Clauses with or without overt core argument NPs; 21. 3.4. Clauses with no overt core argument NPs; 22. 3.5. Clauses with one overt core argument NP; 23. 3.6. Marking of NPs; 24. 3.7. The characteristics of dative subjects in naturally occurring conversation; 25. 3.8 Summary; 26. Chapter 4. The dative subject construction in contemporary Japanese novels; 27. 4.1. Introduction; 28. 4.2. Overall distribution; 29. 4.3. Clauses with or without overt core argument NPs; 30. 4.4. Clauses with one overt core argument NP; 31. 4.5. Clauses with no overt core argument NPs; 32. 4.6. Marking of NPs; 33. 4.7. The characteristics of dative subjects in contemporary Japanese novels; 34. 4.8 Summary; 35. Chapter 5. Dative subjects across time: An examination of pre-modern and modern Japanese texts; 36. 5.1. Introduction; 37. 5.2. The history of the Japanese language: The divergence and convergence of spoken and written Japanese; 38. 5.3. Data; 39. 5.4. Ni-marked NP1s in pre-modern and modern Japanese texts; 40. 5.5 Summary; 41. Chapter 6. Conclusion; 42. 6.1. Introduction; 43. 6.2. Summary; 44. 6.3. The semantic and pragmatic enrichment of ni-marked NP1s; 45. 6.4. Implications; 46. 6.5. Suggestions for further studies; 47. Appendix A: List of abbreviations; 48. Appendix B: Transcription symbols; 49. References; 50. Author index; 51. Subject index

Reviews

This monograph is the first systematic investigation of the 'dative subject' construction in Japanese across time and space. [...] Misumi Sadler's monograph provides fascinating new perspectives on the Japanese dative subject construction across space and time. This is certainly a significant contribution in the area of historical pragmatics as well as Japanese linguistics. -- Minako Nakayasu, Hamamatsu University School of Medicine, Japan, in the Journal of Historical Pragmatics, Vol. 11:2 (2010)

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