Abstract
A particular characteristic of Japanese language is that information structure is explicitly indicated by overt morphological means, i.e., marking expressions with the topic particle WA, which has attracted significant attention in the literature mainly from a pragmatic perspective. This study sheds light on the semantic effects that this particle has on the contents of sentences and proposes a categorial grammar approach to information packaging. The purpose of this study is two-fold: First, by observing minimal pairs of sentences that differ only in the use of the subject-marking particles and the presence/absence of focal accents on the particles, we identify the influences of these particles on the truth conditions of sentences, and explore proper semantic representations for subjects marked with topic and nominative particles. Then, we examine the syntactic function of this topic particle to show a type of concord with sentence-final predicates, as suggested by the term kakari-josi or concord/coherence particle used in Japanese traditional linguistics. On the basis of the results, we argue that the topic particle induces information packaging (Vallduví 1992) as its lexical property, thereby yielding tripartite information structures following Hajičová et al. (1998), which can be automatically obtained through readings of categorial proof nets. In addition, we also focuses on sentences with sentence-internal topics, cleft-constructions and multiple topic sentences from the viewpoint of incremental processing within a categorial grammar framework.
This study has tremendously benefited from the discussions with Kei Yoshimoto, Yoshiki Mori, and Masahiko Kobayashi. I am also indebted to the reviewers for this volume for their helpful comments on the previous versions of this study. Any remaining errors are my sole responsibility.
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Notes
- 1.
The complex question phrase of form dono ‘which’ \(+\) N can be followed by WA, with contrastive connotations, as observed in (i):
$$\begin{aligned}&\begin{array}{lllll} (i)\ \ &{} \mathrm{{a}}.~ &{} \text {Kimi-wa} \qquad &{} {\text {dono}}\, {\text {hon-o/-WA}}\qquad &{} {\text {yonda-no?}}\\ &{} &{} {\text {you-Top}} &{} {\text {which}}\, {\text {book-Acc/-Top}} &{} {\text {yonda-no?}}\\ \end{array}\\&\qquad \quad \,\,\,\,{\text {`Which}} \,{\text {book(s)}}\, {\text {did}}\, {\text {you}}\, {\text {read?'}}\nonumber \\&\qquad \begin{array}{lllll} &{}\mathrm{{b}}. &{} {\text {Chomusukii-wa}}\qquad &{} \mathrm{moo} &{} {\text {yomi-masita}}. \\ &{} &{}{\text {Chomsky-Top}} &{} \mathrm{already} &{} {\text {read-Past}} \\ \end{array}\\&\qquad \quad \,\,\,\,{\text {`I already}} \,{\text {read}}\, {\text {Chomsky's}}\, {\text {book(s).'}}\nonumber \end{aligned}$$The object marked with topic indicates that the set of books from which the answer was chosen is familiar from context among the interlocutors.
- 2.
Endriss represents the interpretations of sentences with quantificational adverbs like tsuneni ‘always’ as in (i):
$${\text {(i)}}\quad \forall s[{In}(s, {Q}) \rightarrow {Follow}(s, {U}, {Q})]$$See Endriss (2009) and references cited therein regarding the motivations and problems for representation (i).
- 3.
Here we do not consider a model in which there are no ‘U’s and (6b) is judged to be true because an empty set is a subset of every set.
- 4.
For instance, following B’s answer in (13), we can add a sentence like Hoka-no hito-no koto-wa sir-anai-kedo “I don’t know the results of the others, though” which sounds quite natural.
- 5.
This requirement on the particle WA provides an partial account to the so-called root phenomena of thematic WA.
- 6.
Here we ignore the effect of focal accents that usually fall on contrastive topics.
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Nakamura, H. (2014). A Categorial Grammar Account of Information Packaging in Japanese. In: McCready, E., Yabushita, K., Yoshimoto, K. (eds) Formal Approaches to Semantics and Pragmatics. Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, vol 95. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8813-7_9
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