Paper short abstract:

In this research we study benefactive constructions of modern Japanese in Internet and spoken language using National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) corpora. We take a look at the way they deviate from standard Japanese using semantic and syntactic criteria.

Paper long abstract:

Natural languages are constantly evolving, and first of all we can observe these changes in spoken language and the language of the Internet communication. Language rules functioning there are sometimes very different from what is being prescribed in grammar books, they flexibly reflect changes in society and people's minds. In Japanese these changes affect, among other issues, the politeness system, since many young people find honorific language troublesome and only necessary for use at work.

Japanese benefactive constructions, being a rather complicated system including 7 different auxiliary verbs, undergo some changes in informal speech, and we try to grasp this process in our research.

The research have been conducted using Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ) and Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ) by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL). We take a look at both semantical and syntactical criteria of the verb and particles choice, such as benefactive or malefactive meaning of the whole construction, syntactic roles of the actants, transitivity of the main verb.

It turns out that especially constructions with auxiliaries 'yaru' and 'ageru' tend to deviate from standard grammar rules. Though now some might criticize this usage as corrupted language, in few decades it might become a standard.*

*supported by RFFR (Russian Foundation for Fundamental Research, grant #16-06-00226)

Paper short abstract:

This research examines the "greeting expressions" in Japanese, such as "Arigatou". this research discusses the syntactic structure of "Arigatou" sentence based on findings from written corpus and compare to other similar greeting expressions.

Paper long abstract:

Japanese is a language that indicates the relations between predicates and noun phrases with postpositional particles. However, it has been pointed out that zero-particle/particle drop (also called as ellipsis or deletion) often occurs in informal conversations in Japanese. This so-called "no particle phenomenon" has been researched in many previous studies. Many important observations have been made, and a common suggestion in the previous research is that the "no particle phenomenon" is characteristic to spoken language, but what if in the cases the expressions which have colloquial characteristics are used in written language?

Japanese gratitude expression "arigatou (grateful)" shows colloquial characteristics even when you use it in written words. As you can see (1), Japanese gratitude expression "Arigatou" has a sound alternation from "arigataku" to "arigato", which is called "euphonic change 'u'."

(1) a. arigat-aku zonji-masu

'gtateful' 'think'-POLITE

(I feel grateful.)

b. arigatou zonji-masu

'grateful' 'think'-POLITE

I feel grateful.)

When "arigatou" is used in written language, you can see "arigatou" with/without particle "wo", as shown in (2).

(2) a. henshin-φ arigatou-gozaimasu.

'reply' 'grateful'-POLITE

(Thank you for the reply.)

b. henshin-wo arigatou-gozaimasu.

'reply'-ACC 'grateful'-POLITE

(Thank you for the reply.)

The purposes of this paper are to investigate the tendency of the occurrence and non-occurrence of a particle "wo" with noun phrases proceeding to these "greeting expressions" such as "Arigatou (thank you)", and to compare the tendency with other similarly constructed expressions.

The paper claims that "NP-wo Arigatou" construction is very peculiar, compared to other expressions.

Paper short abstract:

This study explores evidentiality in Sakhalin Ainu (SA). Here I focus on evidentiality that expresses information source based on inference. Using a semantic-based approach, I propose a tentative analysis of SA inferential constructions, highlighting their interaction with the category of tense.

Paper long abstract:

This study investigates inferential evidentiality in Sakhalin Ainu (SA). Adopting a semantic-based approach, I propose a tentative organisation of SA’s inferentials according to their degree of source reliability. Furthermore, following approaches to event de-composition and telicity (Demonte and McNally, 2012), and referring to Reichenbach’s (1947) theory of tense, I argue that SA’s inferentials do not only concern information source, but also function as indicators of predicate tense reference.

Inferentiality is coded in SA via four sentence-final constructions: ruwehe ne/an, sirihi an, humihi an and hawehe an. Although preliminary analysis on these forms is present in previous literature (Murasaki, 1976), there has been no in-depth study on their use as evidentials.

(1) Cise Ø-or-o-wano pa Ø-numa ea ruwehe an.

house 3SG-place-POSS-from smoke 3SG.SUBJ-raise PRG EV.INF.INT

‘Smoke is raising up from the house.’ (Pilsudski, 1912:99)

(2) Nean tuhso Ø-or-o-wa Ø-asin sirihi an

that cave 3SG-place-from 3SG.SUBJ-come.out EV.INF.VS

manu.

EV.DIR.KNW

‘[A monster] seemed to come out of that cave.’ (Murasaki, 1976:96)

(3) Kanne Ø-san kotonno humihi an manu.

more 3SG.SUBJ-come.down.PC like EV.INF.FL EV.DIR.KNW

‘It sounded as if [the demon] came closer.’ (Pilsudski, 1912:203)

(4) Ta ohacisuye seta Ø-Ø-hum-pa hawehe an.

that empty.house.devil dog 3SG.SUBJ-3PL.OBJ-chop-PL EV.INF.HR

‘It sounded like that empty-house-devil crushed those dogs.’ (Pilsudski, 1912:79)

Separate forms to encode a same type of evidentiality, depending on different sensory stimuli, are typologically accounted for (Aikhenvald, 2004). However, the sensory stimuli on which SA’s inferential forms are based also subsume distinct degrees of source reliability. These degrees are determined by a hierarchy of senses, whose assumption seems to be confirmed by the co-occurrences of expressions of doubt or certainty with specific inferentials. Through discourse-context parsing, I show how the selection of inferential forms is ruled by the characteristics of the reported event and by the changing reliability of the available stimulus, through which the speaker can access it.

Evidentiality may interact with the category of tense (Aikhenvald, 2004). However, in SA evidentiality is not subjected to tense – rather, evidentiality defines tense. Specifically, the original semantics of the nouns that originated SA’s inferentials highlights the time reference of the predicate. The existential status of these nouns relates the moment when the event happens, and the moment of coding of said event through evidentiality, putting them into a simultaneous or antecedent temporal relation – this results in a past or present time reference (Reichenbach, 1947). Predicate telicity (Demonte and McNally, 2012) and perfectivity (Borik, 2004) also prove to influence this temporal relation, and are equally addressed.

This study represents a contribute to the ongoing debate on Ainu’s tense, but especially to the cross-linguistic speculation on evidentiality, aiming to improve our typological understanding of this category.