Cognitive-Functional Approaches to the Study of Japanese as a Second Language 9781614515029, 9781614517061

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Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani (Eds.) Cognitive-Functional Approaches to the Study of Japanese as a Second Language

Studies on Language Acquisition

Edited by Peter Jordens

Volume 46

Cognitive-Functional Approaches to the Study of Japanese as a Second Language Edited by Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani

ISBN 978-1-61451-706-1 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-1-61451-502-9 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-1-5015-0068-8 ISSN 1861-4248 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2016 Walter de Gruyter Inc., Boston/Berlin Typesetting: PTP-Berlin, Protago-TEX-Production GmbH, Berlin Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com

Table of contents Preface | vii List of contributors | ix Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani 1 Application of cognitive-functional linguistics to the study of Japanese as a second and foreign language: An introduction | 1

Part I: Usage-based approaches Yasuhiro Shirai 2 The acquisition of linguistic categories in second language acquisition: A functionalist approach | 13 Osamu Ishiyama 3 Friendly and respectful politeness: A functional analysis of L2 utterances | 33 Yumiko Nishi 4 What learners know about lexical aspect in L2: Motion verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ and the acquisition of imperfective -teiru in Japanese | 57 Kaori Kabata 5 A usage-based account of learner acquisition of Japanese particles ni and de | 89 Sanako Mitsugi 6 A usage-based approach to relativization: An investigation of advancedlearners’ written production of relative clauses in Japanese | 113

Part II: Conceptual approaches Kimi Akita 7 A multimedia encyclopedia of Japanese mimetics: A frame-semantic approach to L2 sound-symbolic words | 139

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Zoe Pei-sui Luk 8 A cognitive approach to the comprehension of intransitive constructions in L1 and L2 Japanese | 169 Sayaka Abe 9 An L2 corpus study of the Japanese grammatical marker -te-simau: An application of force dynamics | 203 Kiyoko Toratani 10 The L2 acquisition of Japanese Motion event descriptions by L1 English speakers: An exploratory study | 237 Yuko Yoshinari 11 Influence of L1 English on the descriptions of motion events in L2 Japanese with focus on deictic expressions | 275 Yoshihiko Ikegami 12 Subject-object contrast (shukaku-tairitsu) and subject-object merger (shukaku-gouitsu) in “thinking for speaking”: A typology of the speaker’s preferred stances of construal across languages and its implications for language teaching | 301

Part III: Current state and future directions of cognitivefunctional-linguistics-informed L2 studies Shingo Imai 13 A survey of work published in Japan at the dawn of the new millennium | 321 Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani 14 Towards better integration of linguistics research, SLA, and pedagogy | 361 Subject index | 369

Preface This volume is a collection of papers that show how insights from cognitive-functional linguistics can be applied to studies of acquisition and teaching of Japanese as a second or foreign language. With topics ranging from grammatical units to pragmatic aspects of the language, it will serve both as a reference for researchers and as a textbook for second language acquisition courses, either at the senior undergraduate or graduate level. The book stems from a symposium entitled “Cognitive-Functional Approaches to the Study of J apanese as Second Language,” held on June 21, 2013, in the midst of the once-in-a-century flooding in Calgary, Alberta. The symposium featured Dr. Yasuhiro Shirai as the plenary speaker, Dr. Kimi Akita as one of the invited lecturers, and several other presenters. The volume consists of articles contributed by the symposium participants as well a few solicited contributions. We would like to express our gratitude to the anonymous reviewers of the papers for their valuable insights and to all the contributors for their responsiveness to our numerous editorial inquiries and requests. We are also grateful to SOLA series editors for their support and advice. Needless to say, the timely assistance of the members of Mouton de Gruyter ensured the process went smoothly. Last but by no means least, the project was partially funded by Japan Foundation Toronto Local Grant, and we are extremely appreciative of this support. Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani

List of contributors Sayaka Abe Middlebury College, USA

Zoe Pei-sui Luk Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong

Kimi Akita Nagoya University, Japan

Sanako Mitsugi University of Kansas, USA

Yoshihiko Ikegami University of Tokyo (professor emeritus), Japan

Yumiko Nishi University of Iowa, USA

Shingo Imai University of Tsukuba, Japan

Osamu Ishiyama Soka University of America, USA

Kaori Kabata University of Alberta, Canada

Yasuhiro Shirai Case Western Reserve University, USA

Kiyoko Toratani York University, Canada

Yuko Yoshinari Gifu University, Japan

Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani

1 Application of cognitive-functional linguistics to the study of Japanese as a second and foreign language: An introduction There is little doubt that the recent work of Lakoff, Langacker, Talmy and many others does represent a major break with the transformational-generative paradigm which has dominated mainstream academic linguistics during the past 30 years or so. (Taylor 1993: 201)

1 The goal of this volume In the last two decades, we have witnessed active interactions between cognitive-functional linguistic research and second or foreign language (L2) acquisition research, two disparate fields when cognitive and functional linguists such as Lakoff, Langacker, Talmy, Bybee and many others first rose to prominence. A growing body of literature (e.g., Achard and Niemeier 2004; Ellis 2012; Pütz, Niemeier, and Dirven 2001a, 2001b; Robinson and Ellis 2008; Spring and Horie 2013; Tyler 2012) shows how cognitive-functional theories can be applied or consulted to account for issues in L2 acquisition and pedagogy. To date, such work has concentrated on the acquisition of L2 English or other Indo-European languages, leaving L2 Asian languages understudied. In fact, to the best of our knowledge, no comprehensive study has applied cognitive-functional linguistics to L2 acquisition of Japanese.¹ This book begins to fill the gap by offering a collection of papers addressing issues in L2 acquisition of Japanese from the perspectives of cognitive linguistics and/or functional linguistics. Cognitive linguistics is primarily interested in the organizational principles of cognitive systems, whereas functional linguistics “centers on linguistic explanation based on language’s function in a 1 It is worth noting that Japanese is not ‘minor’ as a topic of L2 acquisition research. In fact, the number of learners is quite large. Japanese was found to be the fifth most commonly taught language in North America in a 1998 survey by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages (www.adfl.org), even though Japanese is considered among the hardest languages for English speakers to learn (cf. Chiswick and Miller 2005: 4). The number of learners and teachers is on the rise as well. According to a 2012 fiscal survey by the Japan Foundation (www.jpf.go.jp/j/japanese/survey/result/survey12.html#report05), the numbers of learners, institutions, and teachers increased between 2009 and 2012.

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larger context” (Croft 1995: 490). Nevertheless, the two frameworks share a basic assumption, namely that language and linguistic organization reflect general cognitive principles. Thus, the central claim of cognitive-functional linguistics is that our ability to acquire and use language is integral to our knowledge of language, and language structure emerges through the entrenchment of language use. Such a usage-based view of language contrasts sharply with the rule-based view maintained by generative grammar, whose main tenets center on the modularity of language systems and innateness of linguistic knowledge. The book shows how cognitive-functional linguistics can illuminate aspects of L2 acquisition of Japanese, not easily demonstrated by the application of other theoretical linguistic frameworks, such as a UG-based approach (e.g., White 1989). To this end, the volume gathers a variety of topics drawing on different theoretical notions from cognitive-functional linguistics, including the usage-based model (e.g., Langacker 1987; Tomasello 2003), frame semantics (Fillmore 1982), force dynamics (Talmy 1988), lexicalization patterns (Talmy 1985, 2000), subjectivity (Ikegami 2005), “Thinking for Speaking” (Slobin 1987) and the billiard-ball model (Croft 1990). The target item or concept of acquisition under investigation also varies from a grammatical particle (ni/de), to a grammatical form (teiru ‘progressive/resultative’, te-simau ‘completion/regret’) and a grammatical construction (relative clause, __noda), to how a particular Japanese word group of mimetics (e.g., nikoniko ‘smilingly’, dokidoki ‘pit-a-pat’) and a pragmatic concept (politeness) are acquired, how a given semantic component is mapped onto a surface form in Motion event descriptions, and how the conceptualization of an agent is implied by the use of intransitive verbs (e.g., tukamaru ‘be caught’). The volume includes a chapter surveying the literature published in Japan between 1999 and 2013 to offer a comprehensive view of how scholars use insights from cognitive linguistics in L2 Japanese acquisition and pedagogy.

2 The chapters in this volume This volume is organized into three sections. Part I, “Usage-based approaches”, and Part II, “Conceptual approaches”, comprise the major part. The demarcation between the two sections models after Croft and Cruse (2004), but we intend to be more inclusive to cover functional approaches considering the use of language in context to be critical. Neither section represents an autonomous module or constitutes a disjunctive model. Rather, each suggests a way to analyze or treat linguistic phenomena, shedding light on different aspects of the same issue. Taken together, the two parts show how the data-driven and empirical nature of

Introduction   

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cognitive-functional linguistics acts as a catalyst, creating new perspectives for the analysis of second language speech data. Part III is a concluding section. It evaluates the current state of cognitive-functional-linguistics-informed L2 acquisition studies of Japanese and touches on future directions. The papers in Part I conform to the basic tenets of usage-based approaches, whereby “knowledge of language emerges from language use” (Croft and Cruise 2004: 1). To elaborate, they assume (i) “grammar is the cognitive organization of one’s experience with language” (Bybee 2006: 711); (ii) language structure emerges from language use through entrenchment; (iii) a culturally- and/or socially-specific context of communication affects language usage, and, naturally, “the usage-based perspective provides a theoretical underpinning for what we all know in practical terms, namely the essential role of context and culture in language understanding and language learning” (Langacker 2001: 5). In light of these points, the papers in Part I examine such notions as token vs. type frequency (Bybee 1994), categorization and prototypicality (Taylor 1991) and generally consider the understanding of particular communication contexts is relevant to the analyses of their L2 data. In Chapter 2, the first contribution to Part I, Yasuhiro Shirai reinterprets the idea of “projection” (Zobl 1985) from the functional-linguistics perspective and discusses the role played by type and token frequencies in input in the acquisition of linguistic categories in L2 Japanese, in reference to Goldberg and Casenheiser (2008). Shirai discusses how the general characteristics of the formation of linguistic categories in L2 differ from those in L1, where the creation of the prototype is largely influenced by input, with embodiment and frequency typically coinciding. Based on findings from previous studies dealing with tense-aspect marking, relative clauses and lexical and grammatical morphemes, Shirai argues for a multiple-factor model, where input frequency, including both type frequency and token frequencies, interacts with linguistics categories in L1 transfer. Chapter 3 is a functional study by Osamu Ishiyama of L2 acquisition of politeness-related expressions. Based on the notions of what he calls “friendly” and “respectful” politeness, Ishiyama qualitatively analyzes an L2 corpus, focusing on the uses of the expressions that seem difficult for learners to acquire (i.e., verbs of giving used as auxiliaries, terms of address, expressions of internal feelings and desire, and conventional expressions). He reports that even highly proficient speakers have not quite mastered the intricate usage of giving verbs, for instance, a fairly simple item in terms of grammatical composition (i.e., verb stem + te + ageru ‘give’). Ishiyama notes the importance of investigating the target item in context, as they reveal a number of functional characteristics that are not apparent in isolated examples.

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In Chapter 4, Yumiko Nishi discusses acquisition of lexical aspect in L2, with emphasis on two motion verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ in their imperfective -teiru constructions. Using judgment tasks to examine how the learning of verb semantics interacts with the acquisition of aspect expressed by a pair of basic motion verbs in Japanese, kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’, she demonstrates a usage-based theory of language acquisition can best account for the L2 learners’ acquisition of the semantics of verbs and aspectual morphology. Nishi finds learners perform significantly better in correctly accepting aspectual structures that are possible in L2 (i.e., accept-type items) than in correctly rejecting aspectual structures that are not possible in L2 (i.e., reject-type items), indicating their L2 knowledge was strongly affected by the lack of negative input. She also finds the L2 learners’ interpretations of aspectual meaning of a sentence depends on the verb, indicating an item-based learning. Kaori Kabata, in Chapter 5, investigates whether and how learners of Japanese use collocations when using particles, based on data from a corpus of spontaneous speech acquired in interviews. She focuses on two particles, ni and de, both associated with a wide range of meanings and interacting with each other in various semantic domains. The results indicate different patterns of acquisition for the particles and for different senses of each particle, thus supporting the concept of item-based language development and, by extension, the usage-based model of language acquisition. In Chapter 6, Sanako Mitsugi analyzes a corpus of L1 and L2 data to examine the use of subject and object relatives by advanced L2 learners of Japanese (L1 Korean and L1 Chinese) and native Japanese speakers. She finds both native speakers and learners produce object relatives predominately with inanimate heads. In addition, although native speakers produce subject relatives with animate and inanimate heads in equal proportion, learners show a strong preference for animate agents, regardless of verb transitivity. Mitsugi concludes the distribution of relative clauses cannot be accounted for purely by formal characterization, such as gap positions in subject or object relatives, but requires cognitive-functional considerations including discourse functions, following Fox and Thompson (1990). While the chapters in Part I feature a usage-based approach and a bottomup acquisition process, the chapters in Part II take a conceptual approach and explore how a cognitive linguistic framework or a notion centering on conceptualization can shed light on the characteristics of L2 Japanese acquisition and learning. All papers accept the view that “grammar is conceptualization” (Croft and Cruise 2004: 1). Kimi Akita, in Chapter 7, discusses the development of an on-line multimedia encyclopedia of mimetics, or sound-symbolic forms of Japanese, working within

Introduction   

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the framework of frame semantics (Fillmore 1982). To explore his hypothesis that effective sets of illustrative media differ from mimetic (type) to mimetic (type), Akita conducted an experiment in which Japanese speakers guessed the mimetics intended by dictionary descriptions and visual stimuli. The findings confirm the effectiveness of the selective and combined uses of multiple media. Akita’s attempt to incorporate a cognitive linguistics framework into the development of an on-line dictionary is novel, offering a fresh look at how a dictionary can help learners acquire an exceptionally semantically rich and complex word group of mimetics, often considered difficult to acquire. In Chapter 8, Zoe Pei-sui Luk draws on the Idealized Cognitive Model (Lakoff 1987) and the billiard-model (Croft 1990) in her study of how native Japanese speakers and native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese conceptualize an agent in “ordinary” intransitive verbs and “agent-implying intransitive verbs”. Luk conducted an eye-tracking experiment using the visual-world paradigm, which assumes subjects attend to relevant objects or persons during language processing. Luk reports native speakers tend to fixate on the person picture longer in the transitive and agent-implying transitive conditions than in the intransitive and agent-implying intransitive conditions respectively, but L2 learners show the opposite trend. Luk recommends systematically incorporating the instruction of the verb morphology, especially for those whose L1 (e.g., Chinese) is not as morphologically rich as Japanese. Following this, in Chapter 9, Sayaka Abe applies the concept of force dynamics to study the Japanese grammatical marker -te-simau using an L2 corpus. According to Abe, the marker -te-simau, commonly taught as having two primary senses in L2 instructional materials, i.e., “completion” and “negative feeling”, should be associated with the more diversified meaning, “lack of intention”. Abe further argues that causality, as characterized in terms of force conflict, is a core concept for understanding and using the marker -te-simau effectively in communication. Abe thus reclassifies the meaning of marker -te-simau into (a) completion, (b) spontaneity, (c) regret, and (d) modesty, and compares L2 learners’ use of the marker with that of L1 speakers. The results indicate learners do not use the four senses in the same fashion as L1 speakers, suggesting they should be exposed to a variety of usages that go beyond those traditionally taught. Chapters 10 and 11 deal with Motion events. Although this has been a key topic in cognitive linguistics since its introduction by Leonard Talmy (1985, 2000), it remains relatively new in L2 acquisition research. Toratani’s (Chapter 10) and Yoshinari’s (Chapter 11) studies are among the first to consider the case of acquisition of L2 Japanese. In Chapter 10, Kiyoko Toratani outlines how L1 English speakers describe Motion events in L2 Japanese, drawing on Leonard Talmy’s two-way typology and Dan Slobin’s hypothesis of “Thinking for Speak-

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ing”. To explore how L2 learners express Motion events, Toratani elicited frog story narratives from L1 English learners of L2 Japanese and native speakers of Japanese. Her learner data contained a variety of descriptions which could not have been predicted simply from the typological differences between English and Japanese. For instance, the learners in her study frequently used path verbs to express a Motion, a characteristic way of expressing a boundary-crossing event in a V-language, or they attempted to use mimetics and compound verbs, which are absent in their L1 as a word group. Toratani concludes the learners’ various production patterns suggest a need for a careful and fine-grained comparison of the similarities and differences of the source and target languages, in light of Talmy’s two-way typology and beyond. Yuko Yoshinari, in Chapter 11, considers the nature of the influence of L1 English on the descriptions of motion events in L2 Japanese, with a focus on deictic expressions. Whereas Toratani uses a generally accepted definition of Path (i.e., the deictic component is part of Path), Yoshinari takes a more radical position, arguing the deictic component should be treated separately from Path in a language like Japanese where the syntactic head of the complex predicate can be the deictic component following a path verb as in hait-te-kuru ‘come entering’. Specifically, Yoshinari adopts a reinterpreted typological distinction: “head path coding” languages for V-languages and “head-external path coding” languages for S-languages to better capture Japanese characteristics, especially the way Japanese encode the notion of path and deixis. To examine how L2 learners treat language-specific deictic information in describing Motion events in Japanese, Yoshinari conducted an experiment using video clips as the stimuli and elicited utterances from three groups: Japanese native speakers (JL1), English native speakers (EL1), and intermediate level L1 English L2 Japanese leaners (JL2). She found JL2’s patterns have similarities with and differences from both JL1 and EL1, leading her to conclude typological and grammatical differences between source and target languages affect the expression of motion in L2 acquisition. Finally, in Chapter 12 Yoshihiko Ikegami reinterprets the notion of “subjective construal” and “objective construal” as “subject-object merger” and “subjectobject contrast” respectively, to offer a more refined characterization of the fact that a speaker can construe the same situation in an alternative way, or a speaker of a different language may have a preferred style of speaking about the same scene. In discussing a variety of examples, including a translation of a haiku and a passage from a novel, Ikegami shows Japanese speakers prefer a subjective construal to an objective one, or in his reinterpreted terms, a “subject-object merger” type of construal to a “subject-object contrast” type of construal. In addition, they prefer a shifting perspective over the fixed perspective more common to other languages. Ikegami considers these contribute to nihongo-rashisa or what makes an

Introduction   

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utterance more Japanese-like. As a suggestion to teachers, Ikegami emphasizes the importance of paying attention to the cognitive processes engaged in when native speakers use a linguistic form. He also points to pedagogical implications, discussing the use of items often reported as difficult to master for learners, such as the sentence-final phrase -noda. Part III is a concluding section, comprising two chapters. Chapter 13 by Shingo Imai surveys Japanese cognitive linguistics research published in Japan between 1999 and 2013. Although those discussing polysemy predominate, some adopt a usage-based approach while others draw on the notion of subjective construal, joint attention, and metaphor. Imai also reviews the development of dictionaries and textbooks drawing on theories of cognitive linguistics. Application of the findings in L2 Japanese acquisition research to pedagogy remains limited, he states, suggesting a need for more empirical studies of the appropriateness and effectiveness of applying cognitive linguistics to L2 Japanese acquisition and teaching. In Chapter 14, Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani highlight the contributions of the chapters in the volume as a whole, evaluate the current state of research and suggest the future direction of cognitive-functional linguistics-informed studies of Japanese as a second/foreign language acquisition and pedagogy. To conclude this introductory chapter, we refer to Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and Peña Cervel (2005) and their insightful summary of the interdisciplinary nature of cognitive linguistics (CL): In spite of its many ramifications, CL keeps its ears to the ground of language use and realizes that, by ever more consistently doing so, it can continue to tolerate the rich ramifications in its own dynamic evolution and its co-evolution with neighboring disciplines. (Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez and Peña Cervel 2005: 11)

As the following chapters make clear, the various theoretical tenets of cognitive linguistics can and should be applied L2 Japanese acquisition research. The volume indicates that in the decade since this comment was made, cognitive linguistics criticism has become both lively and pervasive. Ibáñez and Cervel’s early insight that “CL keeps its ears to the ground of language use” is manifest here; all chapters in Part I and Part II deal with a corpus (Kabata, Mitsugi, Ishiyama, and Abe), data directly obtained from experiments (Akita, Luk, Shirai, Toratani, and Yoshinari), or primary source data (Ikegami). It is our hope that the works contained herein will independently or collectively inspire continued, even increased, dynamic interactions between cognitive-functional linguistics and L2 Japanese acquisition research and teaching – and beyond.

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References Achard, Michel, & Susanne Niemeier (eds.). 2004. Cognitive linguistics, second language acquisition, and foreign language teaching. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Bybee, Joan. 1994. The evolution of grammar: tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bybee, Joan. 2006. From usage to grammar: the mind’s response to repetition. Language 82(4). 711–733. Chiswick, Barry R. & Miller, Paul, W. 2005. Linguistic distance: A quantitative measure of the distance between English and other languages. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 26(1). 1–11. Croft, William. 1990. Possible verbs and the structure of events. In Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), Meanings and prototypes: studies in linguistic categorization, 48–73. New York: Routledge Croft, William. 1995. Autonomy and functionalist linguistics, Language 71(3). 490–532. Croft, William. & D. Allan Cruse. 2004. Cognitive linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ellis, Nick. 2012. Frequency-based accounts of second language acquisition. In Susan M. Gass & Alison Mackey (eds.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition, 193–210. New York: Routledge. Fillmore, Charles. 1982. Frame semantics. In Linguistic Society of Korea (ed.), Linguistics in the morning calm, 111–137. Seoul: Hanshin. Fox, Barbara & Sandra Thompson. 1990. A discourse explanation of the grammar of relative clauses in English conversation. Language 66(2). 297–316. Goldberg, Adele. E. & Devin Casenhiser. 2008. Construction learning and second language acquisition. In Peter Robinson & Nick C. Ellis (eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition, 197–215. New York & London: Routledge. Hart-Gonzalez, Lucinda and Lindemann, Stephanie. 1993. Expected achievement in speaking proficiency, 1993. School of Language Studies, Foreign Services Institute, Department of State, Mimeographed. Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 2005. Indices of a ‘subjectivity-prominent’ language: between cognitive linguistics and linguistic typology. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 3. 132–164. Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire and dangerous things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical prerequisite. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 2001. Cognitive linguistics, language pedagogy, and the English present tense. In Püts, Niemeier and Dirven (eds.), Applied cognitive linguistics I: Theory and language acquisition, 3–39. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Püts, Martine, Susanne Niemeier, & René Dirven (eds.). 2001a. Applied cognitive linguistics I: Theory and language acquisition. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Püts, Martine, Susanne Niemeier, & René Dirven (eds.). 2001b. Applied cognitive linguistics II: Language pedagogy. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Robinson, Peter, and Nick C. Ellis. 2008. Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition. New York: Routledge. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José, & Peña Cervel, Sandra M. 2005. Introduction. In Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José, & Peña Cervel, Sandra M. (eds.) Cognitive linguistics: Internal dynamics and interdisciplinary interaction, 1–15. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Slobin, Dan Isaac. 1987. Thinking for speaking. Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS) 13. 435–444. Spring, Ryan & Kaoru Horie. 2013. How cognitive typology affects second language acquisition: A study of Japanese and Chinese learners of English, Cognitive Linguistics 24(4). 687–710. Talmy, Leonard. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and lexical description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon, 36–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, Leonard. 1988. Force dynamics in language and cognition, Cognitive Science 12. 49–100. Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics Volume II: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA & London, England: MIT Press. Tayler, John. 1991. Linguistic categorization: Prototypes in linguistic theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taylor, John. 1993. Some pedagogical implications of cognitive linguistics. In Richard A. Geiger & Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn (eds.), Conceptualizations and mental processing in language, 201–223. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Tomasello, Michael. 2003. Constructing a language: A usage-based theory of language acquisition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tyler, Andrea. 2012. Cognitive linguistics and second language learning: Theoretical basics and experimental evidence. New York: Routledge. White, Lydia. 1989. Universal Grammar and second language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Zobl, Helmut. 1985. Grammars in search of input and intake. In Susan. M. Gass & Carolyn G. Madden (eds.), Input in second language acquisition, 329–344. MA: Newbury House.

Part I: Usage-based approaches

Yasuhiro Shirai

2 The acquisition of linguistic categories in second language acquisition: A functionalist approach Abstract: Although the nature of linguistic categories has been one of the most important domains of inquiry in cognitive-functional linguistics, research on how they are acquired has lagged behind. In this paper, I review second language acquisition research which took a linguistic categorization approach, focusing on tense-aspect marking, relative clauses, and polysemous lexical or grammatical categories (e.g., polysemous verbs, adpositions), taking examples from Japanese and other languages. I will discuss a model in which input frequency, form-function mapping of the target structure, and learning principles (such as prototype formation, and in the case of L2 acquisition, L1 transfer) interact. In particular, I reinterpret the notion of projection (Zobl 1985) from a usage-based perspective. I will argue that in the acquisition of linguistic categories, token frequency is important in establishing a linguistic category at the early stages of acquisition, while type frequency is essential in expanding the category. The reason why the projection effect is often observed in SLA studies is that learners already have the category established in their L1, which can serve as the axis (i.e. prototype) for acquiring the L2 category. Keywords: prototype, linguistic categorization, projection model, type and token frequency, polysemy

1 Introduction Although the nature of linguistic categories has been one of the most important domains of inquiry in cognitive-functional linguistics since its early days (e.g., Lakoff 1987), research on how they are acquired has lagged behind. In this chapter, I review available evidence concerning how various linguistic categories are acquired in second language acquisition, focusing on tense-aspect marking, the relative clause construction, and polysemous lexical categories (e.g., polysemous verbs, spatial adpositions), taking examples from Japanese and other languages. I will argue for a model, in which input frequency (type and token, Goldberg and Casenhiser 2008; Bybee 2008) and learning principles (such as embodiment, prototype formation, and in the case of L2 acquisition, L1 transfer) interact.

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In particular, I reinterpret the notion of projection (Zobl 1985) from a categorization perspective. In the projection model, it is suggested that if a learner is exposed to input that contains more complex exemplars of a linguistic category, the acquisition of less complex exemplars is facilitated, but not vice versa. In other words, leaning of complex exemplars projects to that of simple exemplars (i.e. projection effect), but not the other way round. For example, it has been shown that teaching of subject relatives (which are supposedly simpler) does not help the acquisition of object relatives, while the teaching of object relatives facilitates the acquisition of subject relatives (e.g., Eckman et al. 1988; Yabuki-So 2007). I will argue for the two-stage model of category acquisition (Bybee 2008), in which token frequency is important in establishing a linguistic category at the early stages, while type frequency is essential in expanding the category and in learning category boundaries. The reason why the projection effect is often observed in SLA studies is that learners already have the category established either through earlier exposures, or in their L1 which happens to serve as the prototype of the category in L2, and thus can serve as the axis for acquiring the L2 category. Then type frequency of diverse exemplars will help generalization of the category, but not the high token frequencies of the already-established prototype.

2 Language acquisition as category acquisition Although much research has been conducted on the acquisition of first language (L1) and second language (L2), not many studies treat language acquisition as category acquisition. This in a sense is curious, because thanks to research in cognitive psychology and cognitive linguistics, it has been clearly shown that acquisition of language is essentially learning of linguistic categories, be they phonological, morphological, syntactic or lexical (Rosch 1973, Lakoff 1987, Taylor 1989). In particular, the notion of prototype category has been important in this research. As opposed to classical category, which assumes all-or-nothing, and equal category membership, it assumes internal structure (some are better members – i.e., prototypical – than others) and fuzzy boundaries (Labov 1973). However, research that takes such views are not totally absent. In first language acquisition, some studies took such an approach (e.g., Johnson (1999) in the acquisition of polysemous see, and Shirai and Andersen (1995) in the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology). What is common with these studies is that they assume a prototype structure of the linguistic category in question, and investigate how its internal structure is acquired  – which member is acquired first, and what factors (e.g., input frequency) determine what is acquired earlier than

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others. In what follows, I will review L2 acquisition of linguistic categories that takes such an approach.

3 Lexical semantics Kellerman (1978) was probably the first to take a categorization approach in SLA. Although his interest was on constraints on L1 transfer (i.e., influence of previously known languages on the acquisition of later-acquired languages), he tackled the problem of linguistic categorization in the area of polysemy acquisition by investigating Dutch learners’ judgment of the English verb break. He showed English sentences involving different meanings of break to learners, who judged some meanings, such as physical destruction (e.g., break a cup) to be more acceptable than others, such as metaphorical destruction (e.g., break a contract). He argued that the learners’ judgment of transferability is solely based on their intuition about the L1 polysemous structure, i.e., how they felt about the markedness of some meanings. He argued that learners’ perception of prototypicality (which he called ‘coreness’) of the different meanings will determine transferability, which he defined using similarity ratings of different meanings and multidimensional scaling. Kellerman (1986) conducted a similar study involving idiomatic expressions involving eye. The Dutch learners of English again found more prototypical meanings of a polysemous term (i.e., human eye) more transferable than less prototypical ones (e.g., eye of a needle). The transferability rating correlated with its perceived frequency rating. Tanaka and Abe (1985) builds on Kellerman’s work to further understand conditions on lexico-semantic transfer. In addition to Kellerman’s native-language-based constraints on transferability, which rely on the prototypicality of different meanings (e.g., physical destruction vs. metaphorical destruction of ‘break’), which they called the prototype condition, they proposed the Specific Exemplar Condition as an additional constraint. They report, for example, that Japanese learners of English indicate different acceptability ratings for the same prototypical meanings of the verb make, in the order of doll > cake > bookcase. This cannot be explained by the (L1-based) prototypicality of the different use of make alone, and they proposed an additional factor: frequency with which learners are exposed to specific exemplars in the target language. Thus they proposed an L2 input factor that was mentioned but not fully considered in Kellerman’s (1978, 1979) work.

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4 Tense-aspect marking Gass and Ard (1984) extended the prototype approach to grammatical development. One might wonder how grammatical categories involve prototype structure. However, it has been shown that grammatical categories, which are often considered to have classical, all-or-none categories, do have prototype structure with good members and bad members (e.g., Ross 1973, Lakoff 1987). Moreover, some grammatical items are not purely grammatical, but denote semantic meanings, which involve prototype structures just as in the case of polysemous lexical items (such as break or eye). Thus, although many studies try to present grammatical development as if it does not involve prototype categories, in fact they do involve prototype-based category formation. Gass and Ard (1984), although not necessarily highlighting a prototype approach, investigated the acquisition of progressive marking in English in a way similar to Kellerman’s studies. Based on an acceptability judgment test, they found that Japanese and Spanish L1 learners of English as a second language (ESL) found prototypical meaning (which they called ‘core-like’) of the progressive marking (i.e., action in progress, as in He is dancing) easier than the less prototypical meanings such as planned future, as in He is leaving tomorrow. Andersen and Shirai (1994, 1996; see also Shirai 1991, 2002, 2009 Shirai and Andersen 1995) took an explicitly prototype approach to the acquisition of tenseaspect marking. They observed that crosslinguistically both L1 and L2 learners tend to attach tense-aspect markers to the prototypical members of the target forms: telic verbs (achievements and accomplishments) for the simple/perfective past tense markers, atelic verbs (states and activities) for general imperfective aspect markers, and activity verbs for progressive markers (i.e., dynamic imperfective aspect markers), which they called the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen and Shirai 1994; Shirai and Andersen 1995). They argued that learners are initially restricted to the prototype of the linguistic category, and then only later can they freely use those markers to more peripheral members. For example, at the beginning stage learners generally restrict simple/perfective past markers to telic verbs to denote a unitary event involving change of state in the past (prototype) such as he fell, he died, and only later can they freely use it to less prototypical ones (states that held in the past as in John loved Mary, or habitual past as in John walked three hours every day), as native speakers and near-native L2 learners do, which Andersen (1994) called the insider’s advantage. This observation of the close relation between learners’ use of tense-aspect marking and temporal verb semantics has been called the Aspect Hypothesis as noted above, which has been a fertile ground of research in the area of first (e.g., Johnson and Fey 2006; Green and Roeper 2007) and especially second language acquisition (Bardovi-Harlig 1999).

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It is also known with some slight difference in emphasis, as the Aspect before Tense Hypothesis (Bloom et al. 1980), the Defective Tense Hypothesis (Weist et al. 1984), the Aspect First Hypothesis (Wagner 2001), the Lexical Aspect Hypothesis (Salaberry 1999), and the Primacy of Aspect Hypothesis (Robison 1990).

5 Where do the prototypes come from? Assuming that there are prototype structures for linguistic categories to be acquired by L2 learners, and that prototypes of the categories exist, where do they come from? This issue has not been fully addressed in the literature. One could postulate two major sources of prototypes, embodiment and frequency. When one assumes that ‘break a cup’ is more prototypical than, say, ‘break the tradition’ where does that intuition come from? One obvious answer is that breaking a cup is more concrete, imageable, and embedded in our perceptual experience, i.e., embodied, and thus more basic than extended, metaphorical meanings.¹ Another possibility, frequency, is that prototypical meanings are more frequent in discourse and thus are acquired earlier. How these two factors play roles in language acquisition has not been fully addressed. However, some relevant studies have been conducted. Shirai (1990) elicited native speaker intuitions of the prototype of the polysemous verb put through free elicitation, and found physical transfer of a concrete object to a horizontal surface to be the prototypical meaning of put for native English speakers. He further found, based on frequency data from the UCLA Oral Corpus (CelceMurcia 1987) and the Brown Corpus (written) (Francis and Kučera 1982), that the physical transfer meaning of put is less frequent than metaphorical extensions (e.g., put a blame on someone, put something to use). Thus, there seems to be a gap between what native speakers perceive to be prototypical meaning and what is frequent in discourse, and the results suggest that frequency in discourse may not be the source of the native speakers’ intuition about what is prototypical of the basic verb put. Shirai (1990) speculated on various possibilities to make sense of this discrepancy between the prototype and frequency, one of which was that once the prototype is acquired in childhood, it would stay the same in adulthood. Since children’s acquisition environments primarily concern the here and now, it was assumed that more concrete uses of polysemous lexical items would be much more frequent in child-adult discourse than in the adult-adult discourse that Shirai (1990) analyzed. 1 See, for example, Rohrer (2007) and Gibbs (2006) for a fuller discussion of embodiment.

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Suzuki (1998) looked at the use of spatial prepositions (at, in, on, and by) in English by Eve (Brown 1973) in the CHILDES database (MacWhinney 2000), and found that it is the spatial meaning that is acquired first. She also analyzed Eve’s mother’s speech and found that what is acquired first is largely dependent on input frequency – i.e., children acquire meanings used frequently in the input. However, she also noted that frequency is not the only factor by pointing out that although in had comparatively higher frequency of temporal use than other prepositions, it still lags behind in temporal use like other prepositions. This study supports the speculation by Shirai (1990) that frequency in the children’s environment is the source of prototype formation, although that may not be the whole story. In a more detailed study, Rice (1999) looked at the acquisition of spatial prepositions to and for by 32 children in the CHILDES database, and found that it is not always the case that experientially based embodied meanings are acquired first, but that acquisition order is largely determined by input frequency, although input frequency cannot explain everything. These studies appear to suggest that prototypes of polysemous lexical or grammatical items are determined by both frequency and embodied experience. However, it is clear that more concerted effort should be made to understand how prototypes of linguistic categories are acquired.

6 Prototype formation in second language acquisition The L2 research discussed above did not clearly address the issue of where the prototypes come from except that they concluded from the research that L1 intuitions about transferability as a source of prototypes. Kellerman (1978, 1983) argued that Dutch learners judge the prototypical meaning of L1 lexical items such as breken to be more transferable because they feel they are more basic and thus can be used in the L2 as well. He largely ignored the effect of prototypicality in the target language (Shirai 1995). Andersen and Shirai (1994), however, considered the role of L2 input frequency as a major source of prototype formation in both L1 and L2 acquisition. Offering what they called the Distributional Bias Hypothesis, they argued that learners create the prototype of a linguistic category (in this case tense-aspect markers), based on the skewed frequency in the input. They observed that in the L1 acquisition of English, a distributional bias in the input of approximately 60 % (e.g., about 60 % of past tense forms used by mothers were with achieve-

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ment verbs) will turn into almost absolute association (95–100 %), which they argued was because learners create a prototype of a linguistic category based on the skewed input. In the case of L1 acquisition of tense-aspect of English, the prototype formation can be accounted for by input. However, one cannot rule out the possibility that other factors are also at play, such as the cognitive saliency of some temporal notions (e.g., Bickerton 1981, Slobin 1985), which may constitute a parallel to ‘embodied’ experience in that such notions usually denote observable results and/or ongoing process. Further, in the case of second language acquisition, L1 transfer may also be at work. How these factors interact has been a rich area of research in tense-aspect acquisition (see Shirai 2009 for review). In sum, research in SLA that has taken a categorization perspective started with a transferability study (Kellerman 1978), and proceeded to include the effect of input (Tanaka and Abe 1985; Andersen and Shirai 1994). It has also become clear, in conjunction with some L1 acquisition studies, that two sources of prototype formation (embodiment and input frequency) need to be considered. Thus, in the case of SLA, we need to at least consider three factors: (1) input (2) embodiment/experience (3) L1 influence. How these interact, or whether (2) is possibly unnecessary, is something that we do not know at this point. Recently, more concerted effort has been made from a cognitive linguistics perspective to address (1) – the input condition – on which I will focus in the rest of the chapter.

7 What are the input conditions that best facilitate category formation? The issue of what kind of input learners should be exposed to is an important one both theoretically and pedagogically. The issue, however, has been framed in ways that are not related to linguistic categorization. Rather, research has most intensively investigated the question of linguistic input; for example, how input should be modified (Long 1980), what types of negative feedback facilitate acquisition (Lyster and Ranta 1997). Most of these studies are not particularly interested in what type of input should be given for what type of linguistic items. Rather, they address the issue in a very general way, e.g., whether negative evidence is best utilized in implicit as opposed to explicit feedback. Not that these issues addressed in SLA are unrelated to linguistic categorization. For example, one of the issues that SLA researchers were traditionally interested in was ‘simplified input’ which makes the input comprehensible and thus triggers acquisition, assuming Krashen’s (1985) tenet that input must be

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comprehensible to trigger acquisition. Hatch (1983) claimed that native speakers addressing non-natives tend to avoid non-prototypical meanings of polysemous items so that L2 learners understand the message addressed to them. In this sense, the issue of simplified input is closely related to linguistic categorization and prototype structures of the target language, but this line of research was not pursued further in SLA. An important line of research that investigated the input condition in early days is the projection model. Zobl (1985) investigated how learning of English possessive determiners is influenced by exposing learners to different types of input. He found that teaching learners with ‘marked’ members of a category facilitates learning of ‘unmarked’ ones, but that the reverse is not true. He showed this in two domains. First, he showed that having French-speaking learners practice her helps learning of his, but when his was taught, there was no improvement in her. Second, he showed that in teaching ESL learners possessive determiner his/her, it is more beneficial to practice with human nouns (e.g., his father) than with inanimate nouns (e.g., his book), and practicing with human nouns helps with inanimate nouns, but not vice versa. Zobl reasoned that the feminine determiner is more marked than the masculine in that there is generic use of masculine pronouns, and that inanimate nouns are more unmarked in the possession construction based on Gruber’s (1976) hierarchy of human > animate > concrete, i.e., humanness entails animacy and concreteness but not the other way around, and thus human is the most specific and thus more marked than concrete nouns, which are more general and unmarked. He further noted Greenberg’s (1963) typological generalization that marked contexts are less favorable for grammatical marking (e.g., the human domain receives more detailed grammatical marking, such as gender distinction being made only in the human domain in English). Note here that although Zobl (1985, see also 1983) took a generative perspective in grammar acquisition and referred to the projection problem (how can learners acquire more than what is present in the input), his discussion of the acquisition data of possessive determiners was very general and can be interpreted easily in a functional-cognitive linguistic perspective. The notion of exposing learners to marked exemplars is more robustly supported in the domain of relative clause acquisition. Gass (1979), Hyltenstam (1984) and others have shown that difficulty of different types of relative clauses can be largely predicted by the typological generalization called the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy (NPAH) proposed by Keenan and Comrie (1977). That is, the types of relative clauses (such as subject relatives, e.g., the man who danced) that are possible in more languages are more easily acquired by L2 learners. What is more relevant to the issue of the input-condition is the teaching experiments on relative clauses conducted in many languages, such as English (Gass 1982;

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Eckman et al. 1988; Doughty 1990), Italian (Croteau 1995), Japanese (Yabuki-Soh 2007), and French (Mitchell 2001). Although there are some variations, most of these studies show that teaching marked items in the hierarchy of the NPAH will have a beneficial effect on acquisition of unmarked items, but the positive effect of instruction on unmarked items is not clear. Particularly noteworthy is Mitchell (2001), who tried to more fully specify the input conditions conducive to category acquisition, such as: In what order should exemplars of various difficulty levels be presented? In what proportion? Mitchell addressed these questions by manipulating three levels of difficulty in relative clauses: easy (subject relative), intermediate (object relative), and difficult (oblique relative). In an experiment involving the teaching of French relative clauses to L1 English speakers, he found that the most effective order of teaching was from difficult items to easy items, and the most effective proportion of the items was the equal mix of all three levels; i.e., 33 % from each as opposed to other ratios (i.e., 100 % oblique or 66 % oblique). Thus, based on this study and other currently available teaching experiments on relative clauses, we may conclude that teaching of relative clauses should start with marked items, and a mix of various relative clause types should be used as exemplars. Finally, Akiha, Horie and Shirai (2010) directly tested the projection hypothesis, targeting the polysemous postposition de in Japanese. In a small-scale teaching experiment with 15 learners of Japanese as a second language, of whom 10 were Chinese learners and the rest were speakers of various L1s, the learners who were taught marked meanings showed marginally statistically significant improvement, while those who were taught unmarked meanings did not. In a follow-up study, Akiha and Shirai (forthcoming) tested the hypothesis with larger groups of learners (62 Mandarin speakers in Taiwan and 51 Korean speakers in Korea) and found essentially the same results. From the categorization point of view, these projection experiments suggest that exposing learners to exemplars of non-prototypical members of a linguistic category is more beneficial than exposing them to prototypical members. This has important implications for understanding the input condition for linguistic categorization. We will come back to the issue of why the projection effects are observed later in the chapter.

8 The role of type and token frequency Goldberg and Casenheiser (2008) in the area of construction learning conducted a series of experiments (Casenhiser and Goldberg 2005; Casenheiser 2005), and

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found that it is more effective to expose learners to basic items more frequently (i.e., high token frequency) to assist them to form a prototypical representation of a construction rather than to expose them to more diverse exemplars (i.e., high type frequency) right from the beginning. More specifically, they conducted experiments where English-speaking children and adults learn a construction that does not exist in English (the appearance construction, such as The spot the king moopoed to describe a scene where a spot appeared on the king’s nose). They first found that both children and adults can learn this novel construction quickly. They also manipulated the type/token frequency, by giving them skewed vs. balanced frequency training, where the five different novel verbs were distributed in a ratio of 1–1–2–2–2 (balanced training) or 4–1–1–1–1 (skewed training), and found that the skewed training condition was significantly more effective, although the balanced condition was better than the control conditions, suggesting that skewed frequency facilitates, but is not necessary, for construction learning. Their results suggest that exposure to similar types of exemplars would be more effective, both in child language acquisition and in adult second language acquisition.² Bybee (2008), commenting on Goldberg and Casenheiser’s research, further suggests that initially exposing learners to high token frequency of similar exemplars may be effective in establishing a linguistic category, which has to be followed by diverse input with higher type frequency to expand its meaning potential. She states: In terms of learning of productive morphology, the most effective method would have two stages: first, focus on a single lexical paradigm that exemplifies the productive pattern, and only after this is quite familiar, advance to a second stage in which a pattern is exemplified with other lexical types. The repeated type provides familiarity with the relations in the pattern, while the range of different types aids paring and provides practice of the analogical extension of the pattern (Bybee 2008: 225).

2 It is not immediately clear whether this principle applies to adult second language acquisition because the adult participants already have mastered their L1 (English), and are just adding a new construction to it. However, for L2 leaners who have basic knowledge of English, the same principle would apply since they can rely on the knowledge of their already acquired L2. What is not necessarily clear is how beginning adult learners of L2 respond to such input conditions. This is an important area for future research.

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9 What facilitates the formation of linguistic categories: A synthesis In the review above, some important characteristics of the acquisition of linguistic categories have been identified. They are: 1. Input frequency is important 2. Prototype formation is influenced by embodiment 3. L1 transfer plays a major role 4. Token frequency is important in establishing a category 5. Type frequency is important in learning category extension 6. Non-prototypical exemplars help category acquisition (the projection effect) Although not all of them should be taken as definitive principles, at least these should be considered in understanding linguistic categorization in L1 and L2 acquisition, although some are only relevant in L2 acquisition, such as (3). I discuss category formation in L1 acquisition first. Children are exposed to linguistic input which is constituted of various phonological, lexical and grammatical categories, although I focus on lexical and grammatical categories here.³ In creating linguistic categories, children first create a prototypical representation based on the type of linguistic input they are exposed to. This may be constrained by the perceptual saliency of some notions (i.e., embodiment); that is, even if some exemplars are frequent, they may not be readily acquired (Suzuki 1998) because of conceptual difficulty (e.g., stemming from lack of embodied experience). In many cases, however, frequency and embodiment coincide, and therefore future research needs to tease them apart by looking more closely at cases where they diverge in child language acquisition. In terms of the input condition, high token frequency of basic, prototypical items may contribute to the initial establishment of a particular linguistic category (Goldberg and Casenheiser 2008). In the area of past tense acquisition in English, for example, children initially create a prototypical representation (+telic) and this is later expanded to include atelic exemplars. Inclusion of less prototypical meanings in the semantic representation may or may not be facilitated by an actual increase in type frequency; this is an empirical issue that needs to be investigated by looking at how input children receive changes over time.

3 Not that phonological acquisition has a completely different acquisition pattern. For example, Singh (2008) found that exposing children to phonologically diverse exemplars facilitated the development of spoken word recognition, suggesting that diverse input may help phonological development, as proposed in (5) and (6).

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Shirai (1991) looked at how use of verbs in terms of their lexical aspect (Vendler 1957) in maternal speech changes over time, and found that it did not change much, but he also found that habitual reference increased over time, which may qualitatively change how children perceive the use of these verbs even if they are of the same lexical aspect (e.g., he walked to the store vs. he walked to the store every day). In the case of second language acquisition, it is very plausible that the learner’s L1 will have a strong influence on the prototype formation. It has been shown through various studies that acquiring the L1 changes the way we process linguistic information. Competition Model studies (Bates and MacWhinney 1982, 1989), for example, have shown that by acquiring a native language, people become more sensitive to the cues that are important in their language (e.g., word order in English, case markers in Japanese, etc.). Thus, prototype formation would be influenced by input frequency, embodiment, and L1 transfer. Here we illustrate how input frequency and L1 transfer may influence prototype formation by L2 learners in the acquisition of the relative clause construction in Japanese. Ozeki and Shirai (2007) treat the relative clause construction as a prototype category, and argue that L2 learners acquire prototypical relative clauses first. In their study 1, examining a corpus of L2 Japanese learners’ ACTFL-Oral Proficiency Interviews at various levels of proficiency (KY corpus, Kamada 1999), they found that L2 learners of Japanese were somewhat insensitive to the NPAH (Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy), a syntactic constraint that has been supported in many studies of relative clause acquisition in European L2s as discussed above, and relied more on the semantic cue of animacy. More specifically, these learners acquired relative clauses first with subject relatives with an animate head (e.g., kita otokonoko ‘the boy who came’) as well as object or oblique relatives whose head NP is an inanimate noun (e.g., boku-ga katta hon ‘the book I bought’ [object relative]; bokuga hanasita hito ‘the person I talked with’ [oblique relative]). In their study 2, which asked Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese to combine simple sentences to form relative clauses, many learners erroneously produced subject relatives if the head NP was animate. Furthermore, less proficient learners were not able to produce subject relatives with an inanimate head NP. They argue that learners create a prototype for relative clauses, and relative clause types that fall outside of the prototypical criteria might be difficult – for example subject relatives with an inanimate head NP (see also Jeon and Kim 2007, who report a similar animacy effect in Korean). This semantic bias in relative clause formation actually comes from a bias in the way native speakers use relative clauses in discourse. In comparable native speech (Uemura 1997), Ozeki and Shirai found strong associations between subject relatives and animate heads, and object and oblique relatives and inani-

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mate heads, which in fact is a universal tendency, also observed in European languages such as German, English and Dutch (Mak et al. 2002; Traxler et al. 2002). Based on such a frequency bias, learners appear to create prototypes of the relative clause construction. One interesting question is whether this animacy bias appearing in the interlanguage is dependent on the learner’s L1. First I should note that the way animacy bias is observed is slightly different between L2 learners and native speakers. For native speakers as well as L2 learners, there was a two-way association between animacy and object and oblique relatives; i.e., when the relatives are object or oblique relatives, then the head NP is mostly inanimate, and when the head NP is inanimate, it is mostly object or oblique relatives. The difference lies in subject relatives. For native Japanese speakers, the association is one-way: Although animate head NPs are mostly modified by subject relatives, subject relatives can be used freely with both animate heads and inanimate heads. In contrast, L2 learners tend to restrict the use of subject relatives to animate heads. Thus, although for native Japanese speakers, the association is one-way, learners create a two-way association based on biased frequency. This two-way association is observed at the intermediate level but not at advanced and superior levels, and thus the animacy bias unique to L2 learners only appears at some point in L2 development. Further, this two-way association is only observed for L1 English and Chinese learners; Korean learners of Japanese only showed a one-way association at any level of proficiency.⁴ This, Ozeki and Shirai reasoned, is due to the fact that Japanese and Korean are typologically very similar and relative clauses possible in Korean are mostly possible in Japanese as well, and thus the learners did not have to create a restricted interlanguage based on animacy.⁵ This animacy bias and L1 effect are essentially replicated by Yabuki-Soh’s (2012) study in her analysis of written compositions in L2 Japanese. Thus, when L2 learners of Japanese acquire the relative clause construction, they appear to create prototypes (subject relatives with animate heads; object and oblique relatives with inanimate heads), based on the frequency bias in the input. But this prototype formation is mediated by the L1–L2 distance (or, psychotypology, Kellerman 1983). L1 Korean learners seem to perceive a high transferability of Korean into L2 Japanese, and thus their L2 prototype does not create a nonnativelike two-way animacy bias, thus suggesting the effect of the L1 in prototype formation – in this case, strong positive transfer. 4 The beginning level learners did not produce many RCs. 5 The major theoretical point in Ozeki and Shirai (2007) is the difference between relative clauses in European languages and Asian languages (Comrie 2002). See Shirai and Ozeki (2007) for further discussion.

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How then can we account for the projection effect observed in L2 acquisition? Although the number of studies is still limited, I argue that the projection effect is explained by the two-stage model of category acquisition and L1 transfer. I will elaborate on this thesis below. Let’s consider the relative clause construction for which projection effect is the most robustly attested. First of all, it is easy to assume that the learners in the projection studies had already had some exposure to relative clauses when they were tested, and that they were familiar with the relative clause construction. If so, given previous research in SLA which showed that subject relatives are easier than others, they must have already established a prototype of the relative clause construction centered around the subject relative. This corresponds to the stage when high token frequency is important in establishing a linguistic category as noted above. Once the category is established, then it is time to expand the category boundary for which type frequency (or diversity of the exemplars in the input) becomes important. In most studies of relative clause acquisition, this is what seems to be happening. How then can we account for a small number of studies where RCs had just been introduced and still the projection effect was found (e.g., Yabuki-Soh 2007)? This is where the L1 effect may come in. Since most of the studies that looked at the projection effect did not address the L1 effect (most are mixed L1 or single L1 studies, including Yabuki-Soh 2007), we cannot be sure about the L1 effect, but assuming that any language with relative clauses has subject relatives but not necessarily other relative clause types (Keenan and Comrie 1977), statistically speaking it is highly likely that learners have a stronger representation of subject relatives (unmarked) in their L1 than other relative clause types (marked). Thus subject relatives can serve as the initial category prototype. Having the L1 equivalent of the L2 category, one can bypass the initial stage of category establishment that requires high token frequency, once learners make the L1–L2 connection. It becomes relatively easy to go to the next stage of category extension. In the case where the L1–L2 correspondences are highly similar (e.g., L2 Japanese for Korean L1 learners), category extension would be easy too, as noted above (Ozeki and Shirai 2007). Thus, for L2 learners, the initial stage where high-token frequency is required may be relatively short-lived when the comparable construction is available in their L1, and the second stage of high type frequency may be more important. At this stage, unmarked input is rather redundant, and more diverse input including marked, non-prototypical exemplars, will be more useful for category extension. This, I argue, is how the projection effect is observed in L2 relative clause acquisition. Acquisition of possessive determiners (Zobl 1985) and spatial adpositions (Akiha et al. 2010) can be explained in a similar way, in which learners already had

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some familiarity with the target category at the time of the experiment. Unmarked structures are usually frequent in the input or taught early in the L2 instruction, and thus the learners must have already established their initial representation, possibly with the help of mapping it to the L1 equivalent. Then all they need is more diverse exemplars of a marked kind, to expand the category boundary.

10 Conclusion In this chapter, I reviewed L2 acquisition studies which took linguistic categorization perspectives to better understand how lexical and grammatical categories are acquired. I tried to specify the mechanism in which linguistic categories are established and then expanded, and the conditions under which different types of input facilitate category acquisition. Relying on the two-stage model of acquisition (Bybee 2008) based on recent construction learning experiments, I offered an explanation of how projection effects in L2 studies are obtained. For further research, we need to address two major issues. First, the twostage model needs to be tested. At this point, it is a hypothesis based on Goldberg and Casenheiser’s (2008) experiments and Bybee’s (2008) interpretation of them, and thus the empirical validity of the two-stage model is still tentative, both in L1 and L2 acquisition. Second, the two stage-model discussed here only concerns category expansion, and does not clearly specify how learners learn category boundaries, i.e., how they come to know the outer limit of the category and come to know that something that falls out of it is ungrammatical. This can be attained just by positive evidence for native speakers but is notoriously difficult for L2 learners (see Robenalt and Goldberg, to appear, for an attempt to explain the L1–L2 difference in this regard). Finally, the mechanistic architecture for the type of learning proposed here needs to be specified. I would argue that connectionist models (Rumelhart, McClleland, and PDP Research Group 1986; Ellis 2003) would be an ideal candidate for the model proposed here. One such attempt has been made in the domain of tense-aspect acquisition. Li and Shirai (2000, Chapter 6) reported a connectionist simulation of the L1 acquisition of English tense-aspect morphology (past, progressive, third person singular present -s), which successfully simulated actual data of children learning English. Li and Farkas (2002) also simulated the difference between simultaneous and sequential bilinguals through connectionist models. In their simulations, the simultaneous bilingual simulation separated two languages (English and Cantonese) clearly, whereas in the sequential bilingual simulation, L2 representation was parasitic on L1 representation, suggesting

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a strong effect of L1 on L2 learning. Connectionist simulation of relative clause acquisition has also been conducted (Fitz et al. 2011). The two-stage model of acquisition proposed here can easily be tested by manipulating type and token frequency of input structures.

Acknowledgments An earlier version of this chapter was presented as keynote address at the Cognitive and Functional Approach to the Study of Japanese as a Second Language Symposium held at the University of Calgary on June 23, 2013, and as an invited talk at the Sophia Linguistic Institute for International Communication, Sophia University on May 30, 2013. I thank Kevin Gregg for his valuable comments on a draft of this chapter. Any remaining errors are my own.

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Osamu Ishiyama

3 Friendly and respectful politeness: A functional analysis of L2 utterances Abstract: Although politeness-related expressions pose significant challenge to learners of Japanese, they do not seem to have received sufficient attention in the L2 context. This study demonstrates that the concept of “friendly” and “respectful” politeness, terms coined by drawing on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) positive and negative politeness, can shed light on the characteristics of their use and restrictions in the actual usage. I argue that restrictions on friendly politeness and the bias toward respectful politeness (e.g., Pizziconi 2000a) can be useful tools for L2 Japanese learners as well as instructors. The objectives of this study are twofold. I first analyze expressions that seem to present difficulty for learners of Japanese (verbs of giving used as auxiliaries, terms of address, expressions of internal feelings and desire, and conventional expressions) using friendly and respectful politeness, in order to show that the two concepts can account for their usage characteristics that standard concepts such as uti/soto ‘inside/outside’ fail to capture. This study then examines actual L2 utterances involving giving verbs used as auxiliaries and expressions of desire taken from a corpus to better understand their functions and further restrictions. Examinations of language in use reveal a number of contextually negotiated meanings and functions that have important pedagogical implications. Keywords: face, pragmatics, politeness, verbs of giving

1 Introduction The Japanese culture is often characterized by its hierarchical nature that places importance on normative interpersonal interactions. The use of the Japanese language is a prime example of that, giving it a reputation as a “polite language”. This usually means that Japanese has honorifics, highly grammaticalized expressions of social information. Although the importance of politeness in Japanese language education is clear, it appears that the actual instruction is largely limited to the grammatical aspect of honorifics. Not enough attention is paid to the fact that there is politeness that goes beyond the normative use of honorifics and that arises as a result of language use in the speech situation. For example, when a student says (1a) to his/her teacher, the use of polite copula is correct, but the utterance as a whole is not appropriate. This is because the speaker violates

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a social norm in Japanese communication even though he/she followed a grammatical rule: i.e., it is not appropriate for a socially lower person to judge/evaluate a socially higher person’s work.¹ (1)

a. Sensee wa kurasu ga zyoozu desu. teacher TOP class NOM good.at COP² ‘You teach the class well, teacher.’ b. Syukudai o atume-tai-desu ka. homework ACC collect-want-COP Q ‘Do you want to collect homework?’ c. Waapuro de kai-te-hosii desu ka. word.processor with write-CONN-want COP Q ‘Do you want me to use a word processing software?’ d. Zyon-san no meeru o kai-te-agemasu. John-Mr. GEN email ACC write-CONN-give ‘I’ll write John’s email address for you.’

The same applies to (1b–d). Although they are grammatically correct, they are inappropriate and pragmatically odd as utterances directed from a student to his/ her teacher.³ In (1b) and (1c), the speaker asks about the desire of the addressee, yielding socially inappropriate utterances. Referring to the internal feelings of non-first person subjects, particularly those of a socially higher addressee, is problematic for epistemological reasons (Kuroda 1973).⁴ The utterance in (1d) is inappropriate when directed from a student to his/her teacher, because the use of -te-ageru ‘give’ as an auxiliary indicates that the speaker (i.e., student) is doing a favor for the addressee (i.e., teacher who is socially higher). The use of humble referent honorific form -te-sasiagemasu does not make the utterance appropriate, as we will see below. The reasons for the unacceptability of these utterances fall

1 Unless otherwise noted, the examples used in this paper are actual utterances I observed in informal interactions with students. 2 The abbreviations used in this study are: ACC (accusative), ASP (aspect), COMP (complementizer), CONN (connective), COP (copula), FP (final particle), GEN (genitive), NMLZ (nominalizer), NOM (nominative), PL (plural), POT (potential), PST (past), Q (question), TOP (topic), and VOL (volitional). 3 All the utterances in (1) can be interpreted as appropriate, given the right context. For example, (1a) is natural if it is uttered in a conversation between a student and his/her friend, expressing his/her opinion about the teacher as in ‘my teacher teaches well’. Similarly, (1c) and (1d) are not necessarily inappropriate if they are uttered between colleagues. 4 See also Kamio (1997) who talks about the information ownership and territory of information.

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outside of the “textbook grammar” because they are technically “grammatical”, and fall under what one might call linguistic etiquette or politeness. The present study has two broad objectives. First, this study aims to show that the notions of “friendly” and “respectful” politeness can successfully account for expressions such as verbs of giving used as auxiliaries that seem to pose difficulty for learners of Japanese. Second, in light of these two concepts, this study examines actual L2 utterances found in a corpus as well as those I observed. Examinations reveal pedagogical implications that are not clear in standard textbook descriptions. This chapter is organized in the following way. Section 2 gives a brief overview of linguistic politeness and introduces “friendly” and “respectful” politeness employed in the present study. Section 3 discusses the target expressions in terms of the two concepts that are to be analyzed against the L2 corpus in Section 4, which reveals the problem areas for L2 learners. Section 5 summarizes the study and discusses implications for the L2 classroom.

2 Friendly and respectful politeness This study utilizes the notions of friendly and respectful politeness which are my own coinage based on Brown and Levinson’s (1987) positive and negative politeness, respectively.⁵ Positive politeness satisfies the addressee’s desirable selfimage by indicating that the speaker wants what the addressee wants (e.g., treating the addressee as an in-group member). Negative politeness appeals to the addressee’s desire to maintain claims of personal territory and to have freedom of action (e.g., “hedges” when making a request to the addressee). Friendly polite5 There are a number of reasons why I do not adopt their model as a whole. First, whether their model can be successfully applied to Japanese politeness phenomena has been debated in the linguistics literature. Some claim that Brown and Levinson’s model is overly Anglo-centric and relies too much on the Western tradition of individualism (e.g., Ide 1989; Matsumoto 1988), whereas others argue that criticisms directed at their model are insufficient and inconclusive (e.g., Fukada and Asato 2004; Ishiyama 2009; Pizziconi 2003). Second, equating Brown and Levinson’s face-saving politeness to politeness phenomena in general is increasingly recognized as problematic (e.g., Watts 2003): their theory is a theory of mitigation of face threat rather than that of politeness per se. For example, Usami (2006: 24) points out that Brown and Levinson’s model primarily accounts for “marked politeness” (a strategic act that is not necessarily expected within the scope of interaction) rather than “unmarked politeness” (an expected act that competent speakers take for granted in communication) or Watts’ (1992) “politic behavior”, in that their model focuses on the speaker’s strategic move to achieve his/her objective in the presence of a face threat.

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ness is similar to positive politeness in that it is oriented toward the addressee’s desire that his/her positive public image is approved and appreciated by others. Respectful politeness is analogous to negative politeness because it concerns the addressee’s claim to and preservation of personal space. The primary purpose of friendly politeness is to foster in-group solidarity, claim common ground, and recognize positive/desirable qualities of others, whereas that of respectful politeness is to pay respect and deference to the addressee’s personal space. In this sense, respectful politeness is close to the layman’s conceptualization of politeness, whereas friendliness and solidarity which typically fall outside of “regular” politeness constitute friendly politeness. Expanding on Brown and Levinson, some scholars have used different terminologies that are used in a similar way to the ones employed in this study. For example, Scollon and Scollon (1981: 169–188) used “solidarity” and “deference” politeness. The central function of the former is Brown and Levinson’s positive politeness, whereas that of the latter is negative politeness. Similarly, Scollon, Scollon, and Jones (2012: 45–68) used “involvement” and “independence” instead of “solidarity” and “deference” based on Tannen’s works (e.g., Tannen 1990). This study will employ “friendly” and “respectful” politeness for the following reason. This paper is part of an ongoing project regarding language instruction in the L2 context, in which students responded to “friendly” and “respectful” more favorably than to “positive/solidarity/involvement” and “negative/deference/independence”. This is probably because “friendly” and “respectful” closely mirror actual perceptual experience of “laymen” (i.e., students in the L2 classroom), whereas other terminologies indicate the analyst’s point of view. This can be seen when Scollon, Scollon, and Jones (2012: 60) say “the principle of politeness we laid out above are not intended as a description of reality but rather a framework for helping us analyze reality”. Though friendly politeness is not the kind of politeness that comes to mind when one thinks about politeness, recognizing the two kinds of politeness at the same conceptual level offers some important implications.

3 Applying friendly and respectful politeness to Japanese expressions This section introduces the grammatical structures that typically instantiates friendly and respectful politeness. I focus on four major types of expressions, namely verbs of giving, linguistic act of addressing, expressions of internal feelings and desire, and conventional and formulaic expressions.

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3.1 Verbs of giving used as auxiliaries The use of two verbs of giving used as auxiliaries, namely -te-ageru and -te-kureru, poses difficulty for L2 Japanese learners (Pizziconi 2000a, 2006). Textbooks often introduce them using the concept of uti ‘inside’ and soto ‘outside’: -te-ageru encodes the flow of benefit from inside to outside, whereas -te-kureru shows the directionality of benefit from outside to inside. With -te-ageru, the giver is an insider and the receiver is an outsider, whereas in the case of -te-kureru, the giver is an outsider and the receiver is an insider. This is illustrated in the following examples (constructed).⁶ (2) a. Eki made okut-te-ageta. station to take-CONN-gave ‘I gave (someone) a ride to the station (and he/she has benefited from that).’ b. Hon o kasi-te-kureta. book ACC lend-CONN-gave ‘(Someone) lent me a book (and I benefited from that).’ Although the benefit interpretation is potentially available in the background whenever the giving verbs are used as auxiliaries, the notion of benefit does not have to be in the spotlight. For example, giving verbs can be used in the situation where the directionality of action rather than benefit is highlighted as well as in the context where the notion of benefit is not particularly relevant (e.g., Pizziconi 2000b; Shibatani 1996). This can be seen in the following examples (constructed). (3) a. Kinoo denwa o si-te-agete/kurete, iroiro wakatta. yesterday telephone ACC do-CONN-give various understood ‘(I) called (someone) and (I) understood a lot of things.’ ‘(Someone) called (me) and (I) understood a lot of things.’ b. Kotosi no gakusee wa yoku benkyoosi-te-kureru. this.year GEN student TOP a.lot study-CONN-give ‘This year, students study hard.’ In (3a), the benefit reading is still available as pointed above, but the main function of -te-ageru and -te-kureru here is to indicate deictic information such as the directionality of the phone call and the nature of the subject and indirect object. 6 The present study does not consider -te-morau ‘receive’ because it is similar to -te-kureru in its directionality of benefit.

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With -te-ageru, the utterance shows that the speaker or someone close to him/her made the phone call. Similarly, -te-kureru makes it clear that the phone call was made to the speaker or someone close to him/her by someone else. This information is particularly helpful for the identification of referents since they are often left unexpressed in Japanese discourse. Indication of deictic information by giving verbs or alternative expressions such as -te-kuru that indicates an action toward the speaker is strongly preferred, if not strictly obligatory. In (3b), a teacher talks about his/her students. It is still possible to “force” the benefit interpretation (i.e., the teacher benefits because he/she has hardworking students), but this is clearly different from the prototypical sense of benefit presented in (2), for example. The teacher could also possibly say ‘the students did their homework’ with -te-kureru, but again the students doing their homework is not really the usual conceptualization of favor and benefit. Regardless of their specific functions (i.e., deictic, typical benefit, “non-benefit”), the fact that the benefit interpretation is always available in the background indicates that their use has more to do with the communicative style of Japanese than strict grammatical rules (Pizziconi 2000b). Of course, one needs to be cautious in making a generalization about the relationship between the use of certain linguistic structures and certain cultural norms/ values (Maynard 1989, Ochs 1992). However, it appears that invoking interpersonal connectedness of the speaker to others by using the giving verbs is the preferred way of conceptualizing events and human relations in Japanese. While the inside/outside distinction correctly describes the basic aspect of verbs of giving, previous studies have revealed that the actual usage, particularly that of -te-ageru, has additional characteristics that cannot be explained by the simple distinction between uti ‘inside’ and soto ‘outside’. Pizziconi (2000a, 2000b, 2006) points out that ageru is used (i) when the speaker is very close to the addressee, (ii) when a gift/benefit-giving is depersonalized (e.g., Okyaku-sama ni purezento o sasiagemasu ‘Customers will receive a free gift’), and (iii) more often in the reportive (i.e., the recipient of benefit is not the addressee) than performative (i.e., the recipient of benefit is the addressee). The last point has also been pointed out by Suzuki (1997). Pizziconi also shows that -te-kureru is preferred to (i.e., more frequent than) -te-morau. Japanese speakers are more likely to say ‘someone did a favor for me’ than ‘I received a favor from someone’. This can possibly be attributed to the Japanese communicative style as well: the former foregrounds the role of the benefit-giver by coding him/her as the grammatical subject, while the latter backgrounds the benefit-giver in the source role. These restrictions show that in addition to the inside/outside distinction, perspectives from linguistic politeness are necessary in order to fully account for the actual usage.

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How then can one characterize -te-ageru and -te-kureru in terms of friendly and respectful politeness?⁷ As pointed out above, -te-kureru indicates, most typically, benefit flowing from others to the speaker, thus showing the speaker’s indebtedness to others. This can be considered respectful politeness because by showing indebtedness to others, the speaker successfully shows that he/she respects the addressee’s personal space. The message here is ‘I know it is an inconvenience for you, so I’m appreciative of what you do for me’. On the other hand, -te-ageru encodes the flow of benefit from the speaker to others, indicating that the speaker knows that others benefit from his/her action. In other words, the speaker assumed that he/she knows what others want, and by doing so, the speaker effectively attends to others’ desire to be understood, evoking the notion of in-group solidarity as a result. The message implied here is ‘I know what you want and I’m going to do that for you’. Conceptualizing -te-ageru as friendly politeness and its message (i.e., ‘I know what you want and I’m going to do that for you’) that surfaces as a result have a clear advantage of explaining the constraints mentioned above. The message appeals to the recipient’s desire to be understood by claiming common ground, but depending on the situation, it could also be interpreted as inappropriate or overly friendly because it may imply ‘you owe me’. This is why -te-ageru is mainly used for someone close to the speaker. It also explains why it is more often used in reportive utterances than in performative utterances, and also in a depersonalized context (Pizziconi 2000a). If the pragmatic message that -te-ageru sends is ‘I know what you want and I’m doing that for you’ or ‘you owe me’, it naturally follows that the utterance is riskier when the addressee is also the recipient of the action or benefit. The same reasoning also applies to the use in a depersonalized context where the giver and receiver are given a non-specific interpretation: the message is less risky with unspecified addressees. Making explicit the pragmatic meaning conveyed by -te-kureru and -te-ageru has another advantage. Although morphological (i.e., conjugation) and semantic (i.e., transfer of benefit) similarities between them tend to be highlighted, friendly and respectful politeness show explicitly that the actual usage in the speech situation carries very different pragmatic messages. The former indicates that the speaker respects the territory of others (close to a layman’s conceptualization of politeness) and the latter attends to commonality between the speaker and others (different from “regular” politeness and emphasizes common ground). As will be discussed later, this explicit presentation of distinct pragmatic messages helps us understand how verbs of giving function in the actual L2 communicative context. 7 See also Ishiyama (2009) who analyzes verbs of giving and receiving based on Brown and Levinson’s positive and negative politeness.

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3.2 The linguistic act of addressing Addressing or linguistically designating someone appropriately, whether it is through the use of a vocative or reference term (i.e., argument of predicates), is challenging for L2 Japanese learners. The act of linguistic designation, especially addressing the second person, is a very complex act that involves a great deal of situational variability and idiosyncrasy. This is also where the concept of friendly and respectful politeness can be useful. The basic choices that seem problematic for L2 Japanese learners are the use of (i) personal pronouns, (ii) kinship terms, and (iii) occupational/positional names. From a politeness perspective, kinship terms can be considered friendly politeness because when the speaker addresses someone with kinship terms such as okaasan ‘mother’ and ozisan ‘uncle’, his/her intention is most likely to evoke a sense of familiarity and solidarity. This use of kinship terms extends to non-family members, as the speaker can use such terms as oniityan ‘older brother’ and obasan ‘aunt’ to address someone who is not related to him/her. On the other hand, occupational/positional names such as sensee ‘teacher’ and syatyoo ‘company president’ can be viewed as respectful politeness because they express and acknowledge the prestigious social status held by the addressee. The use of kinship terms and occupational/positional names constitutes politeness in that generally, only terms denoting a higher status can be used as address terms (Suzuki 1978).⁸ For example, terms such as ‘uncle’ can be used as address terms, but not ‘nephew’. Similarly, one can address his/her medical doctor as sensee, but your doctor will not call you kanzya ‘patient’.⁹ However, the situation is somewhat different for the use of kinship terms. Japanese speakers can use kinship terms to address younger addressees if they take the perspective of the youngest member of the family. For example, a mother can call her older son oniityan ‘older brother’ taking the perspective of her younger child: i.e., he is an older brother from his younger sibling’s perspective. Similarly, a grandmother can address her own daughter as okaasan ‘mother’ because her daughter is a mother from the perspective of her grandchildren. This is what Suzuki (1978) calls “empathetic identification”. This use extends beyond one’s family members, 8 This rule is not without exception and subject to contextual variations, especially the use of occupational/positional names. For example, a customer (who is generally considered higher than a sales person) with little money will probably feel less powerful in an expensive jewelry store than in a fast food restaurant. Also, positional names, especially those indicating one’s rank, are often used to a lower addressee in organizations such as military and police. 9 This is of course possible if the term is used as a term of reference (i.e., third person reference). This also shows the stronger relevance of politeness to the addressee, that is, politeness is more relevant to someone in the speech situation. The term may be used vocatively when the polite suffix -san is added as in kanjya-san ‘Mr./Ms. patient’.

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where older speakers can use such terms as oneetyan ‘older sister’ toward unrelated younger female addressees. Here, the speaker assumes that the addressee is old enough to have a younger sibling and is taking the perspective of the youngest member in this “imagined” family. In other words, it is possible to express friendly politeness via kinship terms to one’s non-family members whether they are younger or older than the speaker. The use or non-use of Japanese personal pronouns frequently poses difficulty for L2 Japanese learners, particularly for those who speak languages like English in which the second person pronoun is neutral and the grammatical subject is obligatory in most contexts (e.g., Anata wa genki desu ka. ‘How are you?’ said by a student to his/her teacher). Politeness perspectives offer a practical explanation here. Addressing someone with a pronoun is considered neither friendly nor respectful politeness, because it does not focus on common ground and it does not acknowledge the addressee’s prestigious social role either: see Matsumoto (1988) for the importance of relation-acknowledging in Japanese communication. In other words, the main function of pronouns is to recognize the addressee mainly as an individual who plays a role of the addressee in the speech situation, ignoring the social relations that hold among conversation participants as a result.¹⁰ This means that their use not only fails to acknowledge the addressee’s social status, but also backgrounds the lower status of the speaker since kinship terms and most occupational/positional names are deictic or relational (i.e., child vs. mother and student vs. teacher). The textbook and the instructor tell students to avoid a personal pronoun, especially for the socially higher addressee, because it is “impolite”, but they do not necessarily explain the reason. The concept of friendly and respectful politeness offers a practical solution to the problem of pronoun avoidance by making pragmatic messages conveyed by the use of kinship terms and occupational/positional names explicit.

3.3 Expressions of internal feelings and desire There are other areas where the concept of friendly and respectful politeness can be useful in order to understand why particular expressions are used in the way they are in Japanese communication. It is well-known that Japanese distinguishes the first person subject from others in areas such as expressions of internal feelings (see for example Kuroda 1973 and Suzuki 1989): e.g., samui ‘I am cold’ vs. 10 The use of some pronouns such as anata ‘you’ as a term of endearment and boku for a small boy is a special case that falls outside of this analysis. They seem to require a separate and independent explanation: the former involves a historical reason, while the latter concerns empathy.

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samugat-te-iru ‘someone other than the speaker looks cold’. There is also a distinction between -hosii and -hosigat-te-iru. The former is used when the speaker wants something as in BMW-ga hosii ‘I want a BMW’, and the latter when someone other than the speaker wants something as in Otooto-wa akyura-o hosigat-te-iru ‘My brother wants an Acura’. Having different expressions to describe the feelings of the speaker and others is a linguistic manifestation of the speaker’s epistemological stance. By using -hosigat-te-iru, the speaker shows linguistically that he/she does not have direct access to what others are feeling. From politeness perspectives, one can say that the distinction between the speaker and others is in accordance with respectful politeness, and at odds with friendly politeness. By using a different expression for others, the speaker shows respect to their personal space. Using -samu-gat-te-iru for the first person subject or -samui for others would result in anomaly (in declarative sentences). One can use friendly and respectful politeness to analyze the following expressions of desire. Sentences in (4) are grammatically correct, but can be pragmatically odd. (4) a. Issyoni ki-tai desu ka. together come-want COP Q ‘Do you want to come with me?’ b. Syukudai wa waapuro de kai-te-hosii desu ka. homework TOP word processor with write-CONN-want COP Q ‘Do you want me to use a word processing software (to do my homework)?’ (4a) talks about the addressee’s desire using the direct form normally reserved for the speaker, but the sentence is grammatical since it is a question (which shows that the speaker does not have access to the addressee’s feeling). However, the utterance requires pragmatic attention, because it is considered appropriate only in a casual context (e.g., said to a close friend) in which case the polite ending desu is most likely dropped. This is because (4a) implies ‘you can come if you want’ or ‘if you want to come, I’ll let you’. This could be interpreted as friendly politeness (if the addressee is someone close to the speaker), but it is clearly at odds with respectful politeness. The same is true for (4b) said from a student to his/her teacher about the homework. The sentence is grammatically correct, but it is an inappropriate utterance from a student to his/her teacher, because it implies ‘I can type my homework if you want me to’. The connection between the speaker’s epistemological stance and politeness in general is not surprising from a linguistic point of view. In fact, some researchers have discussed the relationship between evidentials and politeness in Japanese (e.g., Aoki 1986). However,

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the concept of friendly and respectful politeness can provide L2 Japanese learners with a practical tool for understanding why certain expressions of desire and internal feelings are used in the way they are in Japanese communication.

3.4 Conventional/formulaic expressions Another area where the concept of friendly and respectful politeness can be useful for Japanese learners is formulaic/conventional expressions. Let us reexamine (1a), repeated here as (5), where a student says ‘You teach the class well, Sensee’ to his/her teacher.¹¹ (5) Sensee wa kurasu ga zyoozu desu. teacher TOP class NOM good.at COP ‘You teach the class well, teacher.’ The utterance is odd in Japanese communication because the act of evaluating someone who is socially higher is generally considered inappropriate or awkward. From politeness perspectives, one can say that although the utterance is possibly interpretable as a token of friendly politeness (i.e., recognizing the addressee’s positive characteristic), it is considered an encroachment to the socially higher addressee’s personal space (i.e., the student is not in a position to evaluate the teacher’s work, at least in this way). Thus, the utterance is inappropriate in this context. Conventional expressions often require special attention in that they are the essence of culture that students must learn in order to function appropriately in the target language and culture. A Japanese expression sumimasen and its interpretation are a case in point. This expression can be challenging especially for speakers of English, as it can be interpreted as ‘I’m sorry’, ‘excuse me’, or ‘thank you’, depending on the context. Takeo Doi, an eminent psychiatrist, provides a personal anecdote in his book (Doi 1971: 12) in which he said “I’m sorry” (when in fact the functional equivalent in English was thank you) to his American superior because he would have said sumimasen if he had been speaking in Japanese. His boss, then, replied “What are you sorry for?” The use of this expression is revealing regarding the nature of politeness in English and Japanese communi11 See also Suzuki (1989: 66) who discusses a similar example (Sensee, kyoo no jugyoo wa totemo yokatta desu ‘Teacher, today’s class was very good’) from Mizutani and Mizutani (1987). Suzuki suggests that the utterance is awkward because it is the teacher himself/herself who has the right to make a proper judgment here.

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cation: for example, when a professor writes a letter of recommendation for his/ her student, a Japanese-speaking student will probably say sumimasen, meaning something like ‘I’m sorry that you had to do this for me when I know you are busy’. An English-speaking student, on the other hand, will most likely say thank you, expressing his/her gratitude. From politeness perspectives, it is clear that the Japanese student’s utterance comes from his/her desire to acknowledge and respect personal space of his/her social superior (i.e., respectful politeness). The English-speaking student’s thank you, on the other hand, can be treated as friendly politeness in that the speaker actively acknowledges and appreciates what has been done for him/her. The bias toward respectful politeness explains why the expression sumimasen can be used in situations where English speakers would typically say thank you (e.g., when you receive a gift), I’m sorry (e.g., when you dial a wrong number), and excuse me (e.g., when you try to get someone’s attention). What ties these seemingly unrelated expressions/situations is the sentiment of Japanese speakers that ‘I have caused you trouble’ because ‘you had to get me a gift’, ‘you received a wrong call’, and ‘you had to stop what you were doing to pay attention to me’. All of these signify that the speaker cares about the addressee’s personal space, which is the heart of respectful politeness. Another conventional expression where the concept of friendly and respectful politeness is helpful is doozo yorosiku onegaisimasu ‘I ask you to take care of me’. This expression is generally introduced to L2 learners in the context of selfintroduction. However, it is frequently used in a variety of other situations where the speaker needs some sort of assistance from the addressee. The nature of this phrase has generated discussions among researchers and remains somewhat controversial (see for example Matsumoto 1988 and Pizziconi 2003). However, it appears that the concept of friendly and respectful politeness can be useful for L2 learners because it clarifies different pragmatic messages that can be conveyed by the same expression. For example, you can say doozo yorosiku onegaisimasu when asking a favor from someone who is socially higher than you or distant (e.g., asking a letter of evaluation from your boss). You can also use the shorter and less formal version yorosiku when you ask a favor from someone who is socially lower than or close to you (e.g., asking your roommate to buy something on his/her way back). In the former use, the speaker is utilizing respectful politeness because its use in that context makes it clear that the speaker sees the addressee as someone with “authority” and himself/herself as someone who is powerless and needs assistance. This is essentially the effect you get when you use the expression in self-introduction. In the latter situation, on the other hand, you are using friendly politeness in that you take the addressee’s cooperation for granted, invoking the sense of solidarity and common ground.

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4 L2 politeness utterances in use This section presents a qualitative analysis of L2 data, which comes from two sources: (i) the examples I observed when I interacted with my students in and outside the classroom, and L2 utterances in the KY Corpus.¹² The focus is placed on errors and infelicitous expressions in order to consider the source of inappropriateness in terms of friendly and respectful politeness.

4.1 Utterances containing verbs of giving used as auxiliaries Let us start with verbs of giving used as auxiliaries. (6) is an utterance by a student of mine in conversation with me. (6) Syukudai o sensee no ofisu ni motteit-te-agemasu. homework ACC teacher GEN office to bring-CONN-give ‘I’ll bring my homework to your office (for you).’ As outlined in 3.1., -te-ageru functions as friendly politeness because it indicates others’ indebtedness to the speaker, which shows the speaker knows that he/ she is doing a favor. The use of -te-ageru is inappropriate here because the utterance would imply the teacher benefits from the student’s action when in fact the appropriate social conceptualization of the event should be the opposite. In other words, the use of friendly politeness to a social superior in this context is not appropriate. Similar errors are made by higher-level proficiency speakers, as shown in the following example extracted from the KY Corpus.¹³

12 The KY corpus Version 1.2 (2004) was used. The corpus contains data from Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) which offers the following proficiency levels: Novice, Intermediate, Advanced, and Superior. The search was done, utilizing the Tagutsuki KY Corpus (http://jhlee.sakura.ne.jp/ kyc/). 13 For the ease of presentation, I have removed non-essential elements such as backchanneling and hesitation for the purpose of this paper. Also, I have corrected the interviewee’s obvious mispronunciations.

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(7) … okyakusan no kuzyoo no deeta o honyaku si-tari customer GEN complaint GEN data ACC translate do-and kaiketusi-te-age-tari, sooyuu sigoto o yat-te-orimasu. solve-CONN-give-and such job ACC do-CONN-ASP ‘I translate and solve complaints from our customers. I do that type of work.’ (Chinese, Superior, 03)¹⁴ In (7), the speaker responds to the interviewer’s question about the nature of his/her job. Although this is not a performative utterance as in (6) and it is not ungrammatical, it would be very unlikely for native speakers to say (7) given the pragmatic message that -te-ageru carries. The awkwardness comes from the fact that the utterance implies that the speaker is doing something his/her customer needs out of goodwill when in fact it is what his/her job entails. The utterance is therefore at the risk of being interpreted inappropriate even as a non-performative utterance. The following examples exhibit a similar issue, but in a more subtle way. (8) a. … ima no tikyuu wa hitotu no mura dakara, otagaini now GEN earth TOP one GEN village because each.other kyoozonsi-te, ikiteiku, toyuu isiki wa desu ne, coexist-CONN live such mindset TOP COP FP kihontekina hoosin tosite hitobito ni osie-te-age-yoo basic principle as people DAT teach-CONN-give-VOL to omotteimasu. COMP think ‘… since the world is like one village now, I think that I would like to teach people the mindset of coexisting as a basic principle.’ (Chinese, Advanced-High, 01) b. … tatoeba kuni no tamede-naku temo, oya no for.example country GEN sake-NEG even.if parents GEN tameni moosukosi desu ne, majimeni benkyoosi-te-age-ta sake little.more COP FP serious study-CONN-give PST hoogaii zyanaidesu ka to omoimasu kedo. better COP.NEG Q COMP think but ‘… for example, students should study a little harder for the sake of their parents, if not for the country.’ (Chinese, Superior, 02)

14 This refers to the interviewee’s first language, judged proficiency level, and participant number in the KY Corpus.

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In (8a), the speaker talks about what should be done about environmental pollution in China, whereas the speaker in (8b) shares his/her opinion about Japanese college students. Both utterances are grammatically correct and not necessarily pragmatically awkward or unnatural either. However, the concept of friendly politeness is helpful in discussing possible pragmatic effects. For example, in (8a), the speaker could be genuinely hoping to help Chinese people by passing on his knowledge to them because that is what he thinks they need. Potentially, this may be interpreted to be patronizing by some, which he can avoid by using an alternative form to -te-ageru (e.g., simesu koto ga dekiru ‘be able to show’). However, he has a right to “presuppose” what they want given that he is one of them after all. He is able to show solidarity by claiming common ground because he himself is one of the people who could benefit from his own action eventually. Similarly, in (8b), it is clear that students’ studying is far more beneficial to themselves than to their parents (much less their country). However, the speaker could always conceptualize the event as something that affects both the students and their parents, thus portraying their relationship as a close one. If he/she does not use -te-ageru, the utterance is more about students themselves and interpersonal connectedness is less visible. Another important point that needs to be noted regarding the use of -te-ageru is the fact that the use of its referent honorific version (-te-sasiageru) does not make utterances socially appropriate. This is especially clear with utterances like (6) and (7) in which the speaker is talking to his/her teacher and about his/her customers, someone who is considered socially higher or more powerful. While using -te-sasiagemasu instead of -te-agemasu sounds somewhat better, it does not make the utterances socially appropriate in this context because they still assume that the action is somehow beneficial to the teacher and customers.¹⁵ This shows that friendly politeness requires special caution, especially when the addressee is socially superior or in the situation where the speaker is a potential beneficiary. In such cases, the concept of linguistic politeness that functions at the usage level in the speech situation is more important than the shift of honorific levels in determining social appropriateness. The use of -te-sasiageru is not helpful for (8) either in that the speaker is among the people who could potentially benefit from the action described. The use of -te-kureru, on the other hand, presents a different picture from -teageru. Let us start again with an utterance by a student of mine. 15 Suzuki (1989, 1997) uses the notion of the “addressee’s territory” to discuss similar examples. Suzuki argues that utterances like (6) is unacceptable because it violates the addressee’s right to decide whether to accept a favor/gift. This is related to the approach of this study in that assuming a certain directionality of benefit can infringe on the addressee’s territory.

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(9) Sensee wa watasi ni suisenzyoo o kaitan desu teacher TOP I DAT recommendation.letter ACC wrote COP ga, … but ‘You wrote a letter of recommendation for me, teacher, but…’ Recall that -te-kureru can be considered respectful politeness because it expresses the speaker’s indebtedness to others (thus showing the speaker’s awareness of personal space of others). In this sense, (9) is a case where the use of -te-kureru or its variant is socially obligatory, because the speaker directly benefits from the teacher’s action. The importance of recognizing benefit received from others can also be seen in the following utterance from the corpus. (10) … sensyuu nihon no isya-san ga kankoku no last week Japan GEN doctor-Mr/s. NOM Korea GEN ryuugakusee o syokudoo ni syootaisi-te sonotoki gyuudon foreign.student ACC diner to invite-CONN that.time beef.bowl o tabemasita. ACC ate ‘… last week a Japanese doctor invited students from Korea for a meal and I ate a beef bowl at that time.’ (Korean, Intermediate-Mid, 04) (10) is a response to the interviewer’s question regarding what the speaker thinks about Japanese food. Here, it is appropriate for the speaker to employ respectful politeness by acknowledging that he/she benefited from being invited to a dinner by a socially higher person. However, just like (9), this utterance implies, though perhaps unintentionally, that the speaker did not want to be involved in the described event (i.e., receiving a letter of recommendation for (9) and being invited for a meal for this utterance) or at least that he/she did not like it. Here, the speaker should have used -te-kureru or its variant with the verb ‘invite’ because it is almost certain that he/she benefitted from the invitation, considering he/ she was new in Japan. Without -te-kureru, both (9) and (10) lack the appropriate social conceptualization of the event and interpersonal connectedness, though they may not be technically ungrammatical. These examples highlight the difference between -te-ageru and -te-kureru: when the concept of benefit is involved, one needs to be careful with the use of the former, but with the non-use of the latter. It was mentioned above that the use of the referent honorific -te-sasiageru does not necessarily make the utterance appropriate even if it is the correct honor-

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ific level. However, the referent honorific form of -te-kureru, namely -te-kudasaru, makes the utterance more natural and proper in most instances when it involves one’s social superior, as in the following example. (11) … motiron sensee niyotte tigaimasu ne, soodesu ne, of.course teacher depending.on differ FP um FP aru sensee-tati wa, zyugyoo suru toki, nanka ikiiki some teacher-PL TOP class do when somehow vivid osie-te-kureru-si, … teach-CONN-give-and ‘…well, of course, it depends on the teacher. Some teachers, when they teach, do so in a rather enthusiastic manner, and…’ (Chinese, Advanced, 02) The speaker says (11) when asked about how he/she finds the environment that Japanese universities offer. Here, the speaker correctly indicates the concept of benefit by -te-kureru and the utterance is not inappropriate, but the use of its referent honorific form, -te-kudasaru would have been even more appropriate, considering the action is performed by a socially higher person. These demonstrate that one cannot mention others’ inebtedness to you (i.e., non-use of -teageru/-te-sasiageru) and one must mention one’s indebtedness to others (i.e., use of -te-kureru/-te-kudasaru if the action is performed by a socially higher person). Another relevant point of discussion is the use of respectful and humble referent honorific form of the main verb in place of -te-kureru/-te-kudasaru and -te-ageru/-te-sasiageru. For example, some learners may think that the use of respectful referent honorific form of kaku, namely okakininaru ‘respectfully write’, would make utterances like (9) socially appropriate. While okakininaru is an appropriate honorific level to describe the action of a socially higher person, the utterance is still inappropriate in this context because it fails to acknowledge the benefit the speaker received. The utterance with okakininaru is appropriate if the student is describing an event in which he/she is not directly involved (i.e., he/she does not receive any benefit directly) to a third party. On the other hand, the humble honorific form of kaku ‘write’ in (1d), okakisimasu, and that of motu ‘carry’ in (6), omotisimasu, would make the utterances socially acceptable. This is because the former case (i.e., the use of respectful honorific form in place of -te-kureru/-te-kudasaru) ignores benefit given to a socially lower person (speaker) by a socially higher person, and the latter (i.e., the use of humble referent honorific form instead of -te-ageru/-te-sasiageru) eliminates benefit given by a socially lower person (speaker) to a socially higher person. All of these are linguistic politeness issues that go beyond the purely grammatical scope of honorifics, as

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the socially inappropriate use or non-use of giving verbs as auxiliaries does not necessarily result in an ungrammatical sentence in the strict sense. This is where the concept of friendly and respectful politeness can be useful for both instructors and learners.

4.2 Utterances containing expressions of desire Expressions of desire relate to politeness in that assuming or not assuming access to the feeling of others is a hallmark of friendly and respectful politeness. Consider (1b) said by my student, repeated here as (12). (12) Syukudai o atume-tai-desu ka. homework ACC collect-want-COP Q ‘Do you want to collect homework?’ While the utterance is not ungrammatical, it is socially awkward at best because intentional or not, it refers to the desire of a socially higher person in such a way that undermines his/her decision-making right about colleting homework. I have observed this use of -tai ‘want to’ as well as the use of -te-hosii ‘want (someone) to do (something)’ in utterances like (1c) from a socially lower (i.e., student) to a socially higher person (i.e., instructor) on numerous occasions. However, a brief look at utterances in the corpus shows that things are much more subtle and complex than utterances like (12) suggest. (13) … nani o tabe-tai-desu, nani o tukuri-tai-desu what ACC eat-want-COP what ACC make-want-COP ‘… what do you want to eat, what do you want to make?’ (English, Intermediate-Low, 02)

ka. Q

Although (13) is part of the role-play section of the interview, the interviewer and interviewee play the roles of teacher and student, respectively. In this scene, the interviewee (i.e., student) is supposed to invite the interviewer (i.e., teacher) for a meal, and he/she is suggesting that they cook a meal together. The use of -tai in (13), though said from a student to a teacher about the teacher’s desire, is not awkward or unnatural at least in the sense that -tai in (12) is. That is because unlike collecting homework in (12), the act of cooking and having a meal in (13) is a joint activity (they have already agreed to have a meal together at this point in the conversation), thus there is considerably less risk for the student to infringe

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on the teacher’s personal space by the use of -tai. This shows that the nature of the event also plays a role in how the utterance is interpreted. The following examples show that caution is necessary, even when the speaker is talking about his/her own desire. (14) a. … issyoni iki-tai-n desu ga, doo desu ka. together go-want-NMLZ COP but how COP Q ‘I would like to go (to a concert) together. What do you think?’ (Chinese, Intermediate-Mid, 01) b. … zituwa desu ne, watasi no sugoku naka no ii actually COP FP I GEN very relation GEN good tomodati na-n desu keredomo, nihon ni ryuugaku friend COP-NMLZ COP but Japan to study.aborad ni ki-tai-n desu ga, demo hanasi niyorimasuto, to come-want-NMLZ COP but but story according.to doositemo hosyoonin ga hituyoo-de inai no.matter.what guarantor NOM necessary-CONN not.exist to ko-rare-nai-n desu, desukara sugoku ii-nikui-n if come-POT-NEG-NMLZ COP therefore very say-difficult-NMLZ desu keredomo, T-sensee ni hosyoonin ni COP but T-teacher DAT guarantor DAT nat-te-itadaki-tai-n desu ga, ikagadesyoo ka. become-CONN-receive-want-NMLZ COP but how.about Q ‘… actually, a very good friend of mine would like to come to Japan to study, but from what I hear, you have to have a guarantor and without one, you are not able to come to Japan. So it’s hard to bring this up, teacher, but I want you to become a guarantor for my friend. What do you think?’ (Chinese, Superior, 02) As part of the role-play, the interviewee (who plays the role of student) invites the interviewer (who plays the role of teacher) to a concert in (14a). The use of -tai ‘want to’ is not inappropriate, but reveal an interesting point about its nature. Unlike (12) and (13) which refer to the desire of the addressee, this utterance talks about the desire of the speaker. One may expect that talking about one’s own desire is not as problematic as talking about others’ desire, but (14a) could be interpreted slightly awkward in that he/she expresses his/her desire to go to a concert together before asking the addressee’s preference. This is in contrast with (13) in which -tai was used after the speaker and addressee had agreed to have a meal together, thus the utterance is natural even though it refers to the desire

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of the socially higher addressee. Expressing one’s desire involves risk when the nature of the event affects the addressee. In (14b), a student (i.e., interviewee) is supposed to ask his/her teacher (i.e., interviewer) to become a guarantor for his/ her friend who wants to come to Japan to study. I quoted his/her speech at length in order to show his/her high proficiency. The speaker employs a number of linguistic strategies and devices, knowing that this is a rather personal request that will affect the addressee’s personal space to a considerable degree. For example, the speaker uses hedges such as zituwa ‘actually’ and ii-nikui-n desu ‘it’s hard to bring this up’, and provides a justification for asking this (i.e., without a guarantor, a good friend of his/hers would not be able to come to Japan). His/her use of -tai in nat-te-itadakitai ‘(I) want you to become’ is not inappropriate, but it might be interpreted to be a little presumptuous by some in that the speaker is directly expressing his/her desire. A native speaker might have said instead something like nat-te-itadaku koto wa dekinai desyoo ka ‘I wonder if it would be possible for you to become his/her guarantor’, which takes the edge off the utterance, by avoiding the use of expressions of desire. These examples demonstrate that the appropriate or contextually natural use of -tai is not determined only by the speaker’s (in)accessibility to others’ feelings. It depends on a variety of factors such as the nature of events described and whether the speaker’s own desire will affect others. This is something one can observe only by looking at language in use, as many examples discussed here are grammatically well-formed.

5 Conclusion Through detailed examinations of L2 utterances in use, this paper has shown a number of functional characteristics of various politeness-related expressions that are not usually clear in isolated examples and by standard textbook descriptions. The function of giving verbs used as auxiliaries cannot be characterized only by the notions of uti ‘inside’ and soto ‘outside’. Similarly, the use of -tai ‘want to’ is not just regulated by information accessibility. Ultimately, this boils down to the issue of how one recognizes others’ personal space, which is the essence of friendly and respectful politeness. Although it is hard to generalize cultural principles of communication based on a limited number of expressions examined in this study, the observations confirm that the Japanese communicative style is somewhat biased toward respectful politeness and place some restrictions on friendly politeness (Pizziconi 2000a). From a functional linguistic point of view,

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one can say that friendly and respectful politeness are exerting some influence on the way these expressions are used in Japanese communication. Friendly and respectful politeness, discussed throughout this paper, can be helpful in the context of L2 classroom when focusing on the use of a certain expression. In teaching the use of -te-ageru (i.e., restrictions on friendly politeness), for example, the instructor may explain the difference between friendly and respectful politeness, and then their association with -te-ageru and -te-kureru, respectively. In terms of actual classroom activities regarding performative -te-ageru, there are a number of points that should be kept in mind. First, the addressee has to be someone close to the speaker such as family members and close friends (i.e., typical friendly politeness context). Controlling sociological variables in the context of classroom activities is not difficult, but students need to be aware that those variables are in fact responsible for the use of -te-ageru. Second, one can choose an act whose risk of imposition is low or minimal: e.g., (a) in response to the addressee’s request for help and (b) the speaker offers to do something that is clearly in the addressee’s interest (when the addressee is socially lower than and is close to the speaker). For example, this could be achieved in the following way: (a’) the speaker helps his/her roommate’s homework when asked and (b’) the speaker offers to help with a luggage when his/her friend cannot answer the cell phone because he/she is holding a luggage with both hands. Third, and most importantly, alternative expressions need to be considered and introduced when the addressee is socially higher than the speaker because the friendly politeness message conveyed by -te-ageru is not appropriate. For example, in the (b’) scenario above, if the addressee is socially higher than the speaker, variations of ‘I’ll carry (your luggage) for you’ such as motimasu, motimasyooka, and omotisimasu are more appropriate than the use of the polite version of -te-ageru (i.e., -te-sasiagemasu). Textbook exercises tend to focus on the choice between -te-ageru and -te-kureru for understandable reasons. They look similar formally, but in the actual speech situation, one needs to pay more attention to functional (dis)similarities of -te-ageru to other expressions. This is a perspective lacking in many textbooks. Humble referent honorifics might not have been introduced yet when -te-ageru is typically introduced in class, but masyoo has been in most cases. The lack of attention by most textbooks to this aspect is understandable in that grammar lessons focus on the introduction and practice of the target expression.¹⁶ Although verbs of giving used as auxiliaries have morphological (i.e., formal) and semantic (i.e., transfer of benefit) similarities, I propose that it is 16 Textbooks such as Genki (Banno et al. 2011b), Nakama (Hatasa, Hatasa, and Makino 2011b), and Yookoso (Tohsaku 2006b) do not touch on the functional ‘contrast’ between giving verbs and other alternative expressions.

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important to incorporate the “functional pair” (in addition to morphological pair) into classroom exercises and activities. The nature of events that affects the (in) appropriateness of -tai ‘want to’ (e.g., “joint activity”, the speaker’s desire that affects the addressee) is also not mentioned in many textbooks.¹⁷ The usage-based approach has a clear advantage in the L2 context in that it deals with dynamic and non-static characteristics that become clear only by examining language in use and that fall outside the scope of traditional textbook grammar. This is an aspect that received little attention in many language textbooks. The need for studying “naturally” occurring discourse for language teaching is increasingly recognized because, for example, a speech act may be realized by expressions that are not directly related to that particular speech act.¹⁸ However, it is important to note that friendly and respectful politeness are not intended as “social grammar” that learners/users of Japanese should follow without exception. They do not tell learners what expressions to use automatically. They can show that expressions carry different messages, but it does not mean that one expression is always more appropriate than others, as we have seen in the examples from the corpus. They should be taken as tools that allow learners to be aware of pragmatic and interactional messages typically associated with a given expression and context. Many utterances examined in this study are not ungrammatical in the strict sense, but carry various pragmatic effects that may or may not be interpreted inappropriate in a given situation. By being aware of potential pragmatic messages, L2 learners can make informed decisions about their linguistic act in communication.

Acknowledgments I am grateful to anonymous reviewers and the editors of this volume for their valuable comments. Needless to say, they are not responsible for the use I have made of their assistance.

17 Nakama (Hatasa, Hatasa, and Makino 2011a: 315) states it is “impolite” to use -tai to one’s superior. Similarly, Yookoso (Tohsaku 2006a: 377) mentions that it is often considered “rude” to ask what others are feeling, especially one’s social superiors. Both of them, however, do not talk about why that is the case. Genki (Banno et al. 2011a) does not touch on this issue and simply mentions the distinction between the first person subject and others. 18 See, for example, Usami (2005) who talks about the case where the request is carried out without the explicit request expression.

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References Aoki, Saburo. 1986. Evidentials in Japanese. In Wallace Chafe & Johanna Nicholas (eds.), Evidentiality: The linguistic coding of epistemology, 223–238. Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing. Banno, Eri, Yoko Ikeda, Yutaka Ohno, Chikako Shinagawa, & Kyoko Tokashiki. 2011a. Genki: An integrated course in elementary Japanese I. (2nd ed.) Tokyo: The Japan Times. Banno, Eri, Yoko Ikeda, Yutaka Ohno, Chikako Shinagawa, & Kyoko Tokashiki. 2011b. Genki: An integrated course in elementary Japanese II. (2nd ed.) Tokyo: The Japan Times. Brown, Penelope & Stephen C Levinson. 1987. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Doi, Takeo. 1971. The anatomy of dependence. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Fukada, Atsushi & Noriko Asato. 2004. Universal politeness theory: Application to the use of Japanese honorifics. Journal of Pragmatics 36(11). 1991–2002. Hatasa, Yukiko, Kazumi Hatasa, & Seiichi Makino. 2011a. Nakama 1: Introductory Japanese: Communication, culture, context. (2nd ed.) Boston, MA: Heinle. Hatasa, Yukiko, Kazumi Hatasa, & Seiichi Makino. 2011b. Nakama 2: Intermediate Japanese: Communication, culture, context. (2nd ed.) Boston, MA: Heinle. Ide, Sachiko. 1989. Formal forms of discernment: Two neglected aspects of universals of linguistic politeness. Multilingua 8(2–3). 223–48. Ishiyama, Osamu. 2009. A note on Matsumoto regarding Japanese verbs of giving and receiving. Journal of Pragmatics 41(5). 1061–1065. Kamio, Akio. 1997. Territory of information. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Kuroda, Shige-Yuki. 1973. Where epistemology, style, and grammar meet: A case study from Japanese. In Stephen R. Anderson & Paul Kiparsky (eds.), A Festschrift for Morris Halle, 377–391. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 1988. Reexamination of the universality of face: politeness phenomena in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 12(4). 403–426. Maynard, Senko. 1989. Japanese conversation: Self-contextualization through structure and interactional management. Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing. Mizutani, Osamu & Nobuko Mizutani. 1987. How to be polite in Japanese. Tokyo. The Japan Times. Ochs, Elinor. 1992. Indexing gender. In Alessandro Duranti & Charles Goodwin (eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon, 335–358. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pizziconi, Barbara. 2000a. The acquisition of Japanese communicative style: The yarimorai verbs. BATJ Journal 1. 1–16. Pizziconi, Barbara. 2000b. Some remarks of the notion of ‘benefit’ and the Japanese communicative style. SOAS Working Papers in Linguistics 10. 371–384. Pizziconi, Barbara, 2003. Re-examining politeness, face and the Japanese language. Journal of Pragmatics 35(10–11). 1471–1506. Pizziconi, Barbara. 2006. Learning to reframe: Japanese benefactives, metalinguistic beliefs, and the identities of L2 users. In Asako Yoshitomi, Tae Umino, & Masashi Negishi (eds.), Readings in second language pedagogy and second language acquisition in a Japanese context, 119–153. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Scollon, Ron & Suzanne B. K. Scollon. 1981. Narrative, literacy, and face in interethnic communication. Norwood, NJ: Alex Publishing. Scollon, Ron, Suzanne B. K. Scollon & Rodney H. Jones. 2012. Intercultural communication: A discourse approach. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1996. Applicatives and benefactives: A cognitive account. In Masayoshi Shibatani & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Grammatical constructions: Their form and meaning, 157–194. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Suzuki, Mustuo. 1989. Kikite no shiteki ryouiki to teinei hyougen: Nihongo no teineisa wa ikani naritatsu ka [The listener’s personal territory and polite expressions: where does Japanese politeness come from]. Nihongogaku 8. 58–67. Suzuki, Mutsuo. 1997. Nihongo kyouiku ni okeru teineitai sekai to futsuutai sekai [The polite style and the plain style in Japanese language education]. In Yukinori Takubo (ed.), Shiten to Gengo Koudo [Viewpoint and language behavior], 45–76. Tokyo: Kurosio Shuppan. Suzuki, Takao. 1978. Words in context: A Japanese perspective on language and culture. Tokyo: Kodansha International. Tannen, Deborah. 1990. You just don’t understand. New York: Ballantine Books. Tohsaku, Yasu-Hiko. 2006a. Yookoso!: An invitation to contemporary Japanese. (3rd ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill. Tohsaku, Yasu-Hiko. 2006b. Yookoso!: Continuing with contemporary Japanese. (3rd ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill. Usami, Mayumi. 2005. Why do we need to analyze natural conversation data in developing conversation teaching materials?: Some implications for developing TUFS language modules. In Yuji Kawaguchi, Susumu Zaima, Toshihiro Takagaki, Kohji Shibano, & Mayumi Usami (eds.), Linguistics informatics state of the art and the future, 279–294. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Usami, Mayumi. 2006. Discourse politeness theory and cross-cultural pragmatics. In Asako Yoshitomi, Tae Umino, & Masashi Negishi (eds.), Readings in second language pedagogy and second language acquisition in a Japanese context, 119–153. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Watts, Richard. 1992. Linguistic politeness and politic verbal behaviour: Reconsidering claims for universality. In Richard Watts, Sachiko Ide, & Konrad Ehlich (eds.), Politeness in language: Studies in its history, theory, and practice, 43–69. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Watts, Richard. 2003. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University press.

Yumiko Nishi

4 What learners know about lexical aspect in L2: Motion verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ and the acquisition of imperfective -teiru in Japanese Abstract: This chapter provides an in-depth analysis of how the learning of verb semantics interacts with the acquisition of aspect by focusing on a pair of basic motion verbs in Japanese, kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’, in order to explore L2 learners’ semantic representation of verbs in L2 and whether learners fully acquire the aspectual meaning of verbs in L2. Observations from judgment tasks that examined the acquisition of imperfective -teiru by L1 Chinese and Korean speakers (Study 1) and L1 English speakers (Study 2) indicate that L2 learners’ interpretations of the aspectual meaning of a sentence depend on the sentence type (acceptable or unacceptable aspectual structures in L2) and the verb type (kuru ‘come’ or iku ‘go’). The results suggest that L2 learners acquire the meaning of -teiru on a verb-by-verb basis, supporting the usage-based learning view (e.g., Tomasello 2003). It was also found that the lack of negative input seems to be a significant factor for learners’ difficulty in acquiring native-like knowledge of aspectual structures in L2, and that this difficulty increases when there is L1–L2 cross-linguistic discrepancy in the aspectual values of verbs. Keywords: lexical aspect, motion verbs, cross-linguistic variation, -teiru, L1 semantic transfer

1 Introduction Although it has been well documented that L2 learners’ use of tense-aspect morphology is guided by the intrinsic aspectual meaning of verbs (the Aspect Hypothesis, Andersen and Shirai 1994), it is not clear exactly what learners know about the lexical aspect of a particular verb in L2 at a given point (e.g., Lardiere 2003, Shirai 2007, Giacalone-Ramat and Rastelli 2013, Shirai 2013), and how or whether L2 learners acquire aspectual values of verbs in L2 is still under-investigated. In order to explore learners’ semantic representations of verbs in L2 and the role of semantic representations of L1 counterparts in the acquisition of aspect in L2, the present chapter examines how learners learn verb semantics in L2 and how such

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verb learning interacts with the acquisition of imperfective -teiru by focusing on a pair of basic motion verbs: kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’.

1.1 The acquisition of aspect This chapter uses Smith’s (1997) two-component theory of aspect as a theoretical framework. The two-component theory of aspect, which was proposed as a system that could account for both universality and cross-linguistic difference in the aspectual systems of all languages, claims that the aspectual meaning of a sentence is determined by the interaction between the viewpoint aspect (also known as grammatical aspect) and the situational aspect (also known as lexical aspect). While grammatical aspect (Smith’s viewpoint aspect) refers to the aspectual meaning indicated by grammatical markers such as progressive be + -ing in English, lexical aspect (Smith’s situational aspect) refers to the aspectual meaning intrinsic to verbs. For example, Vendler (1957) classified verbs into four aspectual classes based on their inherent lexical aspect: state, activity, accomplishment, and achievement. State verbs (e.g., love) denote a non-dynamic durative situation that has no inherent endpoint. Activity verbs (e.g., walk) denote a dynamic durative situation with no natural endpoint. That is, the situation can be terminated at any time. Accomplishment verbs (e.g., draw a picture) also denote a dynamic durative situation but they have a natural endpoint after which the situation cannot continue. Achievement verbs (e.g., drop) also denote a dynamic situation with a natural endpoint, but they involve no duration (i.e., they are punctual). Although researchers have proposed different ways of categorizing lexical aspect, the present study uses Vendler’s (1957) four-way classification, as it is the classification most frequently used in acquisition studies. The two notions of grammatical aspect and lexical aspect are important in acquisition research because previous studies have revealed that the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology is strongly associated with inherent lexical aspect. What has been found is that both L1 and L2 learners show specific form-meaning mapping, wherein they attach a particular aspectual morpheme to a particular type of verb (or verb phrase) at the initial stage of learning. This is known as the Aspect Hypothesis (Andersen and Shirai 1994, 1996; Bardovi-Harlig 1999), which predicts the following: 1. Learners first use (perfective) past marking on achievements and accomplishments, eventually extending use to activities and statives. 2. In languages that encode the perfective/imperfective distinction, imperfective past appears later than perfective past, and imperfective past marking

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begins with statives, extending next to activities, then to accomplishments, and finally to achievements. 3. In languages that have progressive aspect, progressive marking begins with activities, then extends to accomplishments and achievements. 4. Progressive markings are not incorrectly overextended to statives. (Bardovi-Harlig 2000: 227, originally proposed in Shirai 1991: 9–10) While most studies testing the Aspect Hypothesis consistently demonstrate the form-meaning relationship illustrated above (see, Bardovi-Harlig 2000; Li and Shirai 2000), there are two major issues that need to be addressed. The first involves the mechanism of form-form mapping in which a particular verb is associated with a particular morphological form, as discussed in Sugaya and Shirai (2007) and Shirai (2004). In order to investigate whether L2 learners use tense-aspect markers in a verb-specific manner or a rule-based manner, Sugaya and Shirai (2009) investigated the productivity of learners’ use of tenseaspect morphology in L2 Japanese using judgment tasks. The results showed that L2 learners of Japanese learn tense-aspect morphology in verb-specific patterns by rote learning at the early stage of learning, gradually attaining productive control at the advanced level. That is, L2 learners’ form-form mapping in the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology begins as item-based learning, which serves as a basis for the productive usage that occurs at a later stage of learning. Sugaya and Shirai (2009) explain this developmental process of the acquisition of tense-aspect morphology by the model proposed by N. Ellis (2002), where learners go through three stages of development, from formula to low-scope pattern to construction. The present study attempts to further investigate the mechanism of form-form mapping by closely examining the way in which L2 learners acquire the meaning of -teiru used with the verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’. The second pertains to L2 learners’ knowledge of lexical aspect of verbs in L2. Lardiere (2003) points out that the Aspect Hypothesis appears to assume that L2 learners’ semantic representation of verbs in L2 is identical to that of native speakers and stresses the possibility that L2 learners are using verbs with aspectual values different from those assigned by researchers using diagnostic tests or from those that exist in native speakers’ semantic representations of verbs. By providing examples of a particular usage of the verb wear by an L1 Chinese learner of English, Lardiere posits that L2 learners’ representation of the verb wear as observed in the use of the verb reflects the aspectual value of its Chinese lexical counterpart chuan ‘to put on/to wear’, which has an ambiguous aspectual value in terms of whether it is telic or atelic. In his reply to Lardiere (2003), Shirai (2007) also addresses the importance of examining the effect of L1 on learners’ use of tense-aspect morphology in L2, especially when lexical equivalents do

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not have the same inherent aspect (see also, Shirai 2013). Shirai (2007) further notes that a systematic analysis of lexical aspect of verbs in English and Japanese identified exactly where the differences are in their lexicalization patterns when lexical counterparts do not have the same inherent aspect (Shirai and Nishi 2002), and that an empirical study has shown that such cross-linguistic discrepancies affect the acquisition of the Japanese aspectual marker -teiru (Nishi and Shirai 2007). Following up on Nishi and Shirai (2007), Nishi (2008) conducted a larger-scale study that examined the effect of L1–L2 cross-linguistic discrepancies in lexical aspect on the acquisition of the Japanese imperfective marker -teiru by L1 English, Chinese, and Korean speakers using written judgment tasks and oral picture description tasks. One of the significant findings was that L2 learners have more difficulty correctly rejecting inappropriate sentences in L2 when those sentences involve L1–L2 discrepancies in lexical aspect. Furthermore, learners found structures that have transparent form-meaning mapping without involving L1–L2 discrepancies in either grammatical or lexical aspect (i.e., progressive) the easiest in both judgment and production tasks. The results suggest that the effect of L1 on the acquisition of aspect is much stronger than previously assumed. It is further argued that L1 at least partially determines the developmental order predicted by the Aspect Hypothesis (Nishi 2008; Shirai 2009, 2013). In fact, Nishi’s (2008) findings are in accordance with results from studies that investigated semantic transfer in L2 vocabulary learning. Jiang (2002, 2004) examined the semantic transfer effect in L2 word learning by Chinese and Korean native speakers learning English as a second language. Using semantic judgment tasks, he compared participants’ responses to same-translation pairs and different-translation pairs. The same-translation pairs consist of semantically related English words that share the same Korean translation, such as chance and opportunity. The translation equivalent of both of these words in Korean is giwhoi. The different-translation pairs are sets of English words whose two members are semantically related but have distinct translation equivalents in Korean, such as decrease and reduce, usually translated as julida and chuksohada respectively (Jiang 2004: 421). The participants’ response was significantly faster for sametranslation pairs than for different-translation pairs, showing evidence for the presence of L1 semantic structures in L2 lexical representations. Jiang (2004: 426) explains that the L1 lexical counterpart of the L2 word is activated due to the strong association of L1 and semantic representations among adults, and consequently, L2 word forms are initially mapped to the preexisting semantic structures (Blum and Levenston 1978, N. Ellis 1997; Giacobbe 1992; Ringbom 1983; Singleton 1999; Strick 1980). Achard and Niemeier (2004: 6) further note that “[i]n a developing L2 system, the target units are in direct competition with the native ones because they both represent alternative ways of construing the same reality. L2

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learning can therefore be viewed as a gradual process by which the target system gains more and more differentiation and autonomy from the native one.” It has also been suggested that L1 transfer is stronger in the area of semantics (lexicon) than in other linguistic domains (Tanaka and Abe 1985; see also, Shirai 1992). While there are researchers who assume more specific values in L2 learners’ interlanguage representations of verbs, presumably biased by learners’ representations of translation equivalents in their L1 as described above, some argue differently. Giacalone-Ramat and Rastelli (2013) and Rastelli (2008, 2009) propose that at least at the initial stage of learning actional content (i.e., aspectual values) of predicates in learners’ interlanguage is underspecified and aspectual values of predicates are to be learned by L2 learners. Given these opposing views, close examination of how L2 learners learn the aspectual values of verbs in L2 has important theoretical implications for the understanding of the L2 learning of semantics.

1.2 The imperfective -teiru in Japanese Applying the aforementioned two-component theory of aspect, Shirai (2000) demonstrates how the imperfective -teiru interacts with lexical aspect and denotes different meanings, as shown below. When -teiru is attached to activity (e.g., utau ‘sing’) or accomplishment verbs (e.g., [isu o] tukuru ‘make [a chair]’), it denotes an action in progress, as in (1) and (2). (1)

Ken-ga utat-te i-ru. Ken-NOM sing-ASP-NPST ‘Ken is singing.’

(2) Ken-wa isu-o tukut-te i-ru. Ken-TOP chair-ACC make-ASP-NPST ‘Ken is making a chair.’

(Shirai 2000: 332)

(Shirai 2000: 332)

When -teiru is combined with achievement verbs (e.g., otiru ‘fall’), it denotes a resultative state, as shown in (3). (3) Asoko-ni booru-ga oti-te i-ru. there-LOC ball-NOM fall-ASP-NPST: ‘The ball is there as a result of having fallen.’

(Shirai 2000: 332)

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In other words, when -teiru is attached to verbs that have duration, it expresses action-in-progress; when it is attached to verbs that do not have duration, it expresses a resultative meaning. State verbs (i.e., mieru ‘be visible’), on the other hand, do not normally take imperfective -teiru, except when it expresses vividness or temporariness, as shown in (4). (4) Huzisan-ga mie-te i-ru. Mt. Fuji-NOM be:visible-ASP-NPST ‘We can see Mt. Fuji (at this moment).’

(Shirai 2000: 332)

To correctly use -teiru, L2 learners need to know which category a verb in L2 belongs to (activity, accomplishment, achievement, or state), as well as different meanings of -teiru that are determined by the combination patterns described above. Regarding the mechanism of form-form mapping, where learners associate a particular verb with a particular morphological form, two scenarios can be postulated. If we assume that the acquisition of -teiru is induced strictly by rules, that is, by the combinatorial patterns of grammatical and lexical aspect, the difficulty levels of sentences that involve -teiru should be consistent across the board, as long as verbs belong to the same aspectual category and learners already know (or have learned) the lexical aspect of verbs in L2. However, if it is the case that learners find particular items more difficult than others, even when verbs have the same lexical aspect, it seems more likely that the meaning of -teiru is learned at least initially on a verb-by-verb basis, as predicted by Sugaya and Shirai (2009). If learners’ semantic representations of verbs in L2 are strongly associated with those of their counterparts in L1 (e.g., Jiang 2004), the latter scenario seems more plausible, as learners need to learn not only the rules but the internal aspectual meanings of verbs in L2 as well.

1.3 The semantics of ‘come’ and ‘go’ In this section, I will discuss why it is important to investigate the acquisition of -teiru, focusing on a set of basic motion verbs: ‘come’ and ‘go’. It has generally been assumed that the verbs ‘come’ and ‘go’ are basic motion verbs or universal primitives that are discerned by the deictic opposition (i.e., ‘motion towards the speaker’ and ‘motion not towards the speaker’); crosslinguistic variation observed in the use of these two verbs has been accounted for at the pragmatic level (e.g., Annamalai 1975; Gathercole 1977; Sinha 1972). However, as Nishi (2012) notes, more recent cross-linguistic research focusing on

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the spatial meaning of these verbs has shown that languages vary at the lexicalsemantic level as to what is entailed by these expressions (e.g., DeLancey 1981, 1985; Wilkins and Hills 1995). Furthermore, Nishi argues that what is entailed by these two verbs goes beyond spatial deictic constraints, and that languages differ in how aspectual meaning is encoded in the verb forms. Although these verbs are typically categorized as achievements, languages seem to differ in the degree to which these achievement verbs accommodate expressions that enforce durational interpretation of the events denoted by these verbs. Below are examples from English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean, discussed in Nishi (2012). Let us first examine the lexical aspect of English come and go and Japanese kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’. In order to systematically analyze the lexical aspect of verbs, diagnostic tests from Shirai and Andersen (1995: 749) were used for English and from Shirai (1998a: 307–309) for Japanese. The test results consistently show that English come and go and Japanese kuru and iku are punctual (i.e., achievement), as shown in Tabs. 1 and 2 respectively. ¹ Tab. 1: Punctuality tests for come and go in English (Nishi 2012: 402) Accomplishment or achievement? (punctual or non-punctual)

come

go

(a) If ‘X V-ed in Y time (e.g. 10 minutes)’, then ‘X was V-ing during that time.’ If yes → Accomplishment (ACC) If no → Achievement (ACH)

No → ACH

No →ACH

(b) Is there ambiguity with ‘almost’? If yes → Accomplishment (ACC) If no → Achievement (ACH)

No →ACH

No →ACH

(c) ‘X will VP in Y time (e.g. 10 minutes)’ = ‘X will VP after Y time’ If no → Accomplishment (ACC) If yes → Achievement (ACH)

Yes → ACH

Yes → ACH

1 The original diagnostic tests for English and Japanese consist of tests for stativity, telicity, and punctuality, which should be applied in a step-by-step manner in the order presented. Although only the tests for punctuality are presented in Tabs. 1 and 2, all the verbs discussed in this paper were checked for stativity and telicity, prior to applying the tests for punctuality. The test results confirmed that come and go in English and kuru and iku in Japanese are non-state and telic, which are also distinctive semantic features of achievement verbs.

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Tab. 2: Punctuality tests for kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ in Japanese (Nishi 2012: 404) Accomplishment or achievement? (punctual or non-punctual)

kuru ‘come’

iku ‘go’

(a) If “X wa Y time (e.g. 10 minutes) de V-ta”, does that entail X was involved in V-ing (i.e., V-teita) during that time? If yes → Accomplishment (ACC) If no → Achievement (ACH)

No → ACH

No → ACH

(b) Can ‘V-teiru’ have the sense of “action-in-progress”? If yes → Accomplishment (ACC) If no → Achievement (ACH)

No → ACH

No → ACH

(c) “X wa Y de V-daroo” (Y=time; e.g. 10 minutes) = “X wa Y-go-ni V-daroo” If no → Accomplishment (ACC) If yes → Achievement (ACH)

Yes → ACH

Yes → ACH

Now, let us look at the verbs ‘come’ and ‘go’ in Chinese and Korean. For Chinese and Korean, diagnostic tests from Nishi (2008, 2012) were used for analysis. The results are summarized in Tabs. 3 and 4 respectively. The results of diagnostic tests are not as consistent for Chinese lai ‘come’ and qu ‘go’ and Korean o-ta ‘come’ and ka-ta ‘go’ as they are for English and Japanese.² Tab. 3: Punctuality tests for lai ‘come’ and qu ‘go’ in Chinese (Nishi 2012: 405) Achievement or non-achievement? (punctual or non-punctual)

lai ‘come’

qu ‘go’

(a) Can you say “X will VP at Y o’clock sharp”? If you can → Achievement If you cannot → Non-achievement

Yes → ACH

Yes → ACH

(b) Can you say “X kaishi VP” (= “X begin to VP”) without an iterative interpretation? If you cannot → Achievement If you can → Non-achievement

No → ACH

No → ACH

For Chinese, as shown in Tab. 3, the test results seem to indicate that lai ‘come’ and qu ‘go’ are punctual. However, they also show compatibility with a durative

2 Diagnostic tests are language specific by nature due to cross-linguistic differences in tenseaspect systems. Therefore, the actual tests, the number of tests, and the order of application are slightly different among languages. However, the four diagnostic tests used in this study are all designed using the same principles, in order to classify verbs (or verb phrases) into four aspectual categories (state, activity, accomplishment, and achievement).

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expression kaishi ‘begin to’ when the preposition xiang (or wang) ‘toward’ is inserted, as shown in (5) and (6), which indicates that the verbs are not purely punctual. The verb kaishi ‘begin to’ tends to appear with verbs that have duration. (5) Ta kaishi xiang zher lai. he begin toward here come ‘He begins to come towards here.’

(Nishi 2012: 405)

(6) Ta kaishi wang niuyue qu. he begin toward New York go ‘He begins to go towards New York.’

(Nishi 2012: 405)

In contrast, as Nishi (2012: 405–406) discusses, Japanese kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ are at odds with hazimeru ‘begin to’, even with the insertion of mukatte ‘toward’, as shown in (7) and (8). (7) a. *Tanaka-san-ga uti-ni ki-hazime-ru. Mr. Tanaka-NOM home-to come-begin-NONPAST b. *Tanaka-san-ga uti-ni mukatte ki-hazime-ru. Mr. Tanaka-NOM home-to toward come-begin-NONPAST (8) a. *Tanaka-san-ga Mr. Tanaka-NOM b. *Tanaka-san-ga Mr. Tanaka-NOM

gakkoo-ni school-to gakkoo-ni school-to

iki-hazime-ru.³ go-begin-NONPAST mukatte iki-hazime-ru. toward go-begin-NONPAST

What this means is that Japanese kuru and iku are punctual in the strict sense, while the punctuality of Chinese lai ‘come’ and qu ‘go’ can be stretched to denote a situation that involves duration. Let us examine ‘come’ and ‘go’ in Korean. As shown in Tab. 4, test (a) and test (c) show that o-ta ‘come’ and ka-ta ‘go’ are punctual (i.e., achievement). However, as shown in (9) and (10), their compatibility with the peripheral progressive form -nun cwung ita ‘be in the middle of’ (test (b)) suggests that o-ta ‘come’ and ka-ta ‘go’ are not punctual (i.e., non-achievement).

3 This sentence is possible if Mr. Tanaka is entering school and going to school habitually. Habitual reading of -teiru is possible with all dynamic verbs, including achievements (Shirai 2000: 331).

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Tab. 4: Punctuality tests for o-ta ‘come’ and ka-ta ‘go’ in Korean (Nishi 2012: 408) Achievement or non-achievement? (punctual or non-punctual) o-ta ‘come’

ka-ta ‘go’

(a) Can you say “X V shicak-hata” (= “X begin to V”) without an iterative interpretation? If you cannot → Achievement If you can → Non-achievement

No → ACH

No → ACH

(b) Can the verb be complemented by the progressive form -nun cwung ita? If it cannot → Achievement If it can → Non-achievement

Yes → Non-ACH Yes → Non-ACH

(c) Can you say “X V-ed at Y o’clock (e.g. 2 o’clock) sharp” or “X V-ed at that moment”? If you can → Achievement If you cannot → Non-achievement

Yes → ACH

Yes → ACH

(9) Chelswu-ka cip-ey o-nun cwung ita. Chulsoo-NOM home-to come-MOD middle be-DECL ‘Chulsoo is in the middle of coming home’

(Nishi 2012: 407)

(10) Chelswu-ka hakkyo-ey ka-nun cwung ita. Chulsoo-NOM school-to go-MOD middle be-DECL ‘Chulsoo is in the middle of going to school.’

(Nishi 2012: 407)

In addition, although Korean o-ta ‘come’ and ka-ta ‘go’ are generally not compatible with the temporal expression shicak-hata ‘begin to’, which imposes duration (see, test (a) in Tab. 4), they can co-occur with shicak-hata if accompanied by hyanghay (or ccok-ulo) ‘toward’. As we have seen above, there are subtle cross-linguistic differences in the semantic representations of the verbs ‘come’ and ‘go’ in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Chinese and Korean ‘come’ and ‘go’ are more tolerant of the aspectual shift from achievement to accomplishment compared to English or Japanese. In other words, English and Japanese ‘come’ and ‘go’ are more prototypical achievements, while Chinese and Korean ‘come’ and ‘go’ are less prototypical. As Shirai (1991, also Shirai and Andersen 1995) claims, aspectual categories are prototype categories (Taylor 1989), rather than classical categories; the cross-linguistic differences observed here seem to reflect different degrees of prototypicality. The present data also suggest the relevance of adopting a functional-cognitive approach – in particular, the prototype theory – into research on L2 verb learning as the differences discussed here may also imply that L1 speakers of Chinese and

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Korean, and L1 speakers of English have different semantic representations for the verb kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ in L2, if it is indeed the case that learners’ knowledge of verbs in L1 impacts the learning of lexical aspect in L2. The verbs ‘come’ and ‘go’ further demonstrate an interesting aspectual asymmetry within a language. Nishi (2012: 403–404) notes that the interpretation of ‘X V-ed in 10 minutes’ with the verb iku ‘go’ can be ambiguous, while the interpretation of ‘X V-ed in 10 minutes’ with the verb kuru ‘come’ is not. With the verb iku ‘go’, the speaker of the sentence 10-pun de gakkoo ni itta ‘(X) went to school in 10 minutes’ is most likely talking about the time of X’s arrival (i.e., ‘X arrived at school in 10 minutes’), but the speaker might instead be talking about the time of X’s departure (i.e., ‘X left for school after 10 minutes’). On the other hand, with the verb kuru ‘come’, there is no such ambiguity. The speaker of the sentence Tomodati wa 10-pun de kita ‘Friend came in 10 minutes,’ can only be referring to the time of arrival (i.e., ‘Friend arrived in 10 minutes’). The same can be said for English come and go, which parallels the observation that the English come is ‘goal-oriented’ (Goddard 1997; Miller and Johnson-Laird 1976). The asymmetry between ‘come’ and ‘go’ within a language as described above suggests that the semantic representations of ‘come’ and ‘go’ are more complex than they may seem. What this means is that L2 learners need to learn more than the deictic spatial opposition; they need to learn verb-specific aspectual meanings, which go beyond the level that can be defined by categorical classification. In other words, the semantic representations of the verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ must be learned on an item-by-item basis, as rules do not predict verb-specific, verb-internal aspectual structures. Given the cross-linguistic differences observed earlier, a careful examination of how L2 learners acquire the meaning of the Japanese imperfective marker -teiru used with the verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ will allow us to explore what L2 learners know about the aspectual meaning of these verbs and to what extent the semantic representations of L1 counterparts affect the learning of the semantics of these verbs. In the acquisition of -teiru in Japanese, L1 speakers of Chinese and Korean may encounter more problems than L1 speakers of English, if L2 learners’ early semantic representations of these verbs are based on their knowledge of their L1 translation equivalents. The research questions of this chapter are as follows: 1. Does the way in which L2 learners of Japanese acquire the aspectual meaning of a sentence depend on the verbs associated with it? In other words, do L2 learners learn the meaning of -teiru on an item-by-item basis? 2. Between -teiru used with kuru ‘come’ and -teiru used with iku ‘go’, do L2 learners find one more difficult than the other? If so, why?

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This chapter consists of two studies. Study 1 draws on Nishi’s (2008) study, which investigated the acquisition of -teiru by L1 English, Chinese, and Korean speakers. In Study 1, the results of the test items that involved the verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ from L1 Chinese and Korean groups were analyzed post hoc in order to check whether differences can be observed in the accuracy rates between the two verbs. In Study 2, the acquisition of -teiru that involve the verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ by L1 English speakers was examined using the same methodological design as Nishi (2008). This study was conducted to complement Study 1, since the materials used for the L1 English group in Nishi’s (2008) study did not include test items that involved the verb iku ‘go’ and comparison between the two verbs was not possible.

2 Study 1: Post-hoc analysis of data from Nishi (2008) In order to investigate how the learning of verb semantics interacts with the L2 acquisition of the Japanese imperfective aspect -teiru, Nishi (2008) systematically manipulated the verbs used in the written judgment tasks and compared the accuracy rates of items that involve L1–L2 cross-linguistic discrepancy in lexical aspect (e.g., siru ‘know’ is achievement while know in English is stative) and those that do not (e.g., otiru ‘fall’ in Japanese and fall in English are both achievement). More specifically, the accuracy rates were compared among the four L1–L2 aspectual correspondence patterns: activity-activity (e.g., aruku ‘walk’ vs. walk), achievement-achievement (e.g., otiru ‘fall’ vs. fall), achievement-state (e.g., siru ‘know’ vs. know), and achievement-activity (e.g., noru ‘ride’ vs. ride). The test items were presented in two question types, accept-type and reject-type. Accepttype questions test whether learners can identify acceptable aspectual structures in L2, while reject-type questions test whether learners can correctly reject unacceptable aspectual structures in L2. It is important to make this distinction, because it has been found that L2 learners respond differently to sentences that are acceptable in L2 and not acceptable in L2 (R. Ellis 2005). The participants (N = 251) were beginner, intermediate, and advanced learners of Japanese whose L1 was Chinese (n = 91), Korean (n = 83), or English (n = 77). A graduated dictation test (Kaga 1991) was used to determine participants’ proficiency level. The results of this study revealed the main effect of L1 (p < .05), proficiency level (p < .0001), L1–L2 aspectual correspondence pattern (p < .0001), and question types (p < .0001). A three-way interaction among L1, L1–L2 aspectual correspondence pattern, and question type (accept-type or reject-type) was also found

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to be at the significant level (p < .0001). It was found that L1–L2 cross-linguistic discrepancy in lexical aspect affects the acquisition of -teiru in Japanese and that learners have problems rejecting structures that are not possible in L2 when there is cross-linguistic discrepancy in lexical aspect. Although Nishi’s (2008) study was designed to investigate the effect of L1–L2 correspondence patterns (i.e., types), it showed interesting results with respect to items that involved the verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’. When the results are compared by item (i.e., verb), we see a gap in the accuracy rates between the items that involved the verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’, even though both are achievement verbs. A closer look at such data provides insights into whether L2 learners learn the aspectual meanings of verbs on an item-by-item basis or by aspectual types (i.e., lexical aspect). Therefore, the present study analyzes the data from the original study by focusing on the items that involved kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’. Tab. 5 summarizes the mean accuracy rates of items that included the verb kuru ‘come’ or iku ‘go’.⁴ Consistent with the overall results described above, the accuracy rates of the accept-type items were higher than the reject-type items in most cases, except for the ‘come’ item by the L1 Chinese group. What is notable here is that accuracy rates of the items that involved kuru and iku varied for both L1 Chinese and Korean groups, despite the fact that kuru and iku are both considered to be achievements, as are their translation equivalents in Chinese and Korean. The L1 Chinese group had a much lower mean accuracy rate for the verb ‘come’ for the accept-type at 20.9 % than the reject-type at 47.3 %, which goes against the general trend. However, when accuracy rates of reject-type with ‘come’ are compared across the three L1 groups, we find that the accuracy rate of 47.3 % for the L1 Chinese group is comparable to the accuracy rates of the L1 English (48.1 %) and L1 Korean groups (47.0 %). What is peculiar about this data is the underperformance of the L1 Chinese group with the accept-type, rather than the seemingly high score of the reject-type. This particularly low accuracy rate for the accept-type with ‘come’ for the L1 Chinese group may be attributed to learners’ strong association between Chinese perfective -le and Japanese perfective -ta. Sheu (1997) argues that because many of the resultative situations expressed by imperfective -teiru in Japanese are expressed by perfective -le in Chinese, learners tend to develop a strong association between the resultative situation and -ta, and accordingly, a weaker association between the resultative situation and -teiru. In fact, the resultative situation

4 For the L1 English group, only the accuracy rates for kuru ‘come’ item are presented, because the task for L1 English group did not include a sentence with the verb iku ‘go’.

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denoted by kuru ‘come’ marked by -teiru is most naturally expressed by perfective -le in Chinese, as shown in (11). Tab. 5: Mean accuracy rates by verb, L2 proficiency level, and question type L1

Verbs

L2 Level

N

Accept-type

Reject-type

English

kuru ‘come’

All levels

77

 58.4 %

48.1 %

Level 1

43

 46.5 %

34.9 %

Level 2

23

 65.2 %

52.2 %

Level 3

11

 90.9 %

90.9 %

All levels

91

 20.9 %

47.3 %

Level 1

33

 21.2 %

30.3 %

Level 2

41

 19.5 %

51.2 %

Level 3

17

 23.5 %

70.6 %

All levels

91

 94.5 %

20.9 %

Level 1

33

 93.9 %

 9.1 %

Level 2

41

 92.7 %

29.3 %

Level 3

17

100.0 %

23.5 %

All levels

83

 62.7 %

47.0 %

Level 1

33

 54.5 %

24.2 %

Level 2

31

 61.3 %

54.8 %

Level 3

19

 78.9 %

73.7 %

All levels

83

 69.9 %

27.7 %

Level 1

33

 51.5 %

33.3 %

Level 2

31

 74.2 %

22.6 %

Level 3

19

 94.7 %

26.3 %

Chinese

kuru ‘come’

iku ‘go’

Korean

kuru ‘come’

iku ‘go’

(11) a. Matsuda-san-wa kotira-ni ki-te i-masu. Matsuda-miss-TOP here-DAT come-ASP-NPST ‘Miss. Matsuda is here (as a result of coming).’ b. Songtian xiaojie lai zheli le. Matsuda miss come here ASP ‘Miss Matsuda is here (as a result of coming).’

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Koyama’s (2003) study lends support to the above observation (Nishi 2008: 69–70). Koyama examined the use of -teiru by L1 Chinese, Korean, and English groups and found that the L1 Chinese group’s accuracy rate for resultative was lower than that of the L1 Korean group and that -ta was used more frequently by L1 Chinese speakers in contexts where learners failed to use -teiru. Since the resultant state denoted by -teiru can be expressed by -ta, learners’ association of -le and -ta is strengthened even more (Shirai and Kurono 1998); consequently, -teiru used with kuru ‘come’ becomes very difficult for L1 Chinese speakers.⁵ Let us examine the effect of L2 proficiency. Across the three L1 groups, the accuracy rates of accept-type items improved as the proficiency level increased, except that the gain for the ‘come’ items for the L1 Chinese group was very small. The accuracy rates of reject-type items with ‘come’ also improved, ranging from 24.2 % to 34.9 % at Level 1 (beginner), 51.2 % to 54.8 % at Level 2 (intermediate), and 70.6 % to 90.9 % at Level 3 (advanced). However, the accuracy rates of rejecttype items with ‘go’ did not show such improvement. What is interesting about this data is that the mean accuracy rates of rejecttype items with ‘go’ are lower than the mean accuracy rates of reject-type items with ‘come’ for both L1 Chinese (20.9 % vs. 47.3 %) and L1 Korean groups (27.7 % vs. 47.0 %), and the accuracy rates at Level 3 remain low at 23.5 % for the L1 Chinese group and 26.3 % for the L1 Korean group. That is, L2 learners struggle in correctly rejecting aspectual structures involving ‘go’ that are not possible in L2 at the initial stage of learning, and this continues to be a problem at a later stage of learning. To be more specific, L2 learners of Japanese do not know even at the advanced level that it-te-iru (iku ‘go’ + -teiru) does not denote a situation where ‘one is on the way to (a place)’, while the sentences with ‘come’ do not seem to pose such a problem. Even though learners do not know at the initial stage that ki-te-iru (kuru ‘come’ + -teiru) does not denote a situation where ‘one is on the way to (a place)’, they do eventually learn that it does not. Why is this the case? The low accuracy rates of reject-type items for L1 Chinese and Korean groups may be explained by the effect of learners’ L1. As mentioned earlier, Nishi (2008) found that it is difficult for learners to correctly reject items that are not possible in L2 when there is a cross-linguistic discrepancy in lexical aspect. Although ‘come’ and ‘go’ in Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean are all categorized as achievements, the semantic representations of these verbs in Chinese and Korean are slightly different from those of Japanese and English, in that they can co-occur with expressions that enforce duration, as demonstrated earlier. If it is the case that L2 learners are directly mapping semantic representations of verbs in L1 onto

5 See Nishi (2008: 69–71) for more discussion on this.

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L2 forms, we would expect to see lower accuracy rates for L1 Chinese and Korean speaking learners of Japanese than L1 English speaking learners. Although only the accuracy rates of ‘come’ are available for cross-linguistic comparison between the three L1 groups, it seems that the L1 English group, whose semantic representation of come is closer to that of kuru ‘come’ in Japanese, performed slightly better than the other L1 groups, scoring 90.9 % at Level 3, while the accuracy rates of the L1 Chinese and Korean groups remained at 70.6 % and 73.7 % at Level 3, respectively. Still, L1 influence does not explain the low accuracy rate of the L1 English group at the early stage of learning. The accuracy rate of ‘come’ for the L1 English group is 34.9 % at Level 1, which is not much higher than the 30.3 % of the L1 Chinese group and 24.2 % of the L1 Korean group. Furthermore, the effect of L1 does not explain why the accuracy rates of ‘go’ items are much lower than ‘come’ items and why the accuracy rates remain low even at the advanced level. One possibility is that L2 learners process the notions of ‘coming’ and ‘going’ quite differently, possibly due to the aspectual asymmetry between ‘come’ and ‘go’ discussed earlier. It can be speculated that the ‘goal-oriented’ nature of the verb kuru ‘come’ precludes learners from allowing a progressive reading (i.e., one is on the way to (a place)), while iku ‘go’ can more easily attract a progressive interpretation, especially when translation equivalents in L1 take expressions that enforce duration (e.g., ‘to start’) to denote progressive meaning, as in the case of L1 Chinese and Korean speakers. In other words, ‘come’ may be a more prototypical achievement than ‘go’. Although ‘come’ and ‘go’ appear to be a pair of achievement verbs that differ only in terms of their deictic opposition, they have distinct aspectual meanings and L2 learners may thus be processing them separately. As for the accept-type with ‘come’, the L1 Korean group scored higher than the L1 English group. This goes against the prediction that semantic difference concerning ‘come’ and ‘go’ between English and Japanese on the one hand and Chinese and Korean on the other hand might work against L1 Chinese and Korean speakers in learning -teiru. However, this result may be explained by the fact that there are more straightforward associations between Japanese and Korean grammatical aspect than between Japanese and English: resultative -e/a iss- in Korean roughly corresponds to resultative -teiru while English does not have a resultative marker that corresponds to resultative -teiru. The results seem to indicate that L1 influences stemming from cross-linguistic differences in grammatical aspect can override L1 influence stemming from differences observed in lexical aspect.

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3 Study 2 In Study 2, I investigate how L1 English speaking L2 learners of Japanese acquire the meaning of imperfective -teiru used with kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’. This study also reevaluates the observations from Study 1 by analyzing the new data statistically. In Study 1, a statistical analysis was not possible due to the limitations of post-hoc analysis.

3.1 Method This study used the same methodology as Nishi’s (2008) study so data from the two studies are comparable. Below, I describe methodological aspects that are specific to this study, such as participant information and test materials designed for L1 English speakers.

3.1.1 Participants and procedure The data was collected from 43 learners of Japanese studying Japanese as a foreign language at a university in the northeastern United States. The participants took the proficiency test followed by the interpretation matching test. After completing the two tests, participants completed a background questionnaire. All participants were given monetary compensation of $10 at the end of the session. Data from six participants was not used for analysis. Among the six, four participants did not complete at least one of the tests or the background questionnaire. Data obtained from a participant with more than one year of living experience in Japan and a native speaker of two languages (English and Greek) were also excluded. Therefore, we had a sample of 37 participants. The participants were all native speakers of English, among which 7 were beginner, 20 were intermediate, and 10 were advanced learners of Japanese.

3.1.2 Materials The interpretation matching test was used to measure learners’ comprehension of aspectual structures that involve iku ‘go’ and kuru ‘come’. The test included 20 test items and 10 fillers. Of the 20 test items, 10 included the verb iku ‘go’ and 10 included the verb kuru ‘come’. The test items were presented in -ru (simple

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nonpast) or -teiru (nonpast imperfective) forms in polite speech style (i.e., ikimasu/kimasu or itteimasu/kiteimasu). For each item, participants were given a set consisting of a Japanese sentence and an English sentence. They were asked to read the Japanese sentence first then judge whether the Japanese sentence had the same meaning as the sentence given in English. The sentences were given in romanized Japanese, since most participants were more comfortable with romanized Japanese than Japanese orthography, due to the nature of the textbook the university used for Japanese language instruction. Samples of the test items are shown below in (12) and (13). (12) Tanaka-san wa kaigi ni itte imasu. Mr. Tanaka is at a meeting (as a result of going). Yes No Not sure (13) Takeda-san wa kekkonsiki ni itte imasu. Mr. Takeda is on the way to the wedding ceremony. Yes No Not sure Since Tanaka-san wa kaigi ni itte imasu means the same as Mr. Tanaka is at a meeting (as a result of going), the correct answer for (12) would be yes, while the correct answer for (13) would be no, because Takeda-san wa kekkonsiki ni itteimasu does not mean Mr. Takeda is on the way to the wedding ceremony. Participants were asked to mark ‘not sure’ if they were not sure whether the paired sentences had the same meaning or not. In this study, we distinguished between two types of questions referred to as accept-type questions and reject-type questions, exemplified by (12) and (13) respectively. As alluded to earlier, accept-type questions test whether learners can identify acceptable aspectual structures in L2, while reject-type questions test whether learners can correctly reject unacceptable aspectual structures in L2. Therefore, the test included 8 accept-type questions and 12 reject-type questions. Tab. 6 summarizes the test items (See, Appendix 1 for a full list of test items). All test items had a third-person singular subject. The test items were also controlled for types of locative nominal and the use of a temporal adverbial ima ‘now’, so all iku and kuru items had equivalent constructions. There were two versions of the test, A and B, which were different only in the order of presentation of the test items. This was done to counterbalance the learning effect.

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Tab. 6: Test items by verb types and question types Accept-type

Reject-type

N

-(r)u

13, 15

17, 19

 4

-teiru

1, 3

5, 7, 9, 11

 6

-ru

14, 16

18, 20

 4

-teiru

2, 4

6, 8, 10, 12

 6

Total

8

12

20

iku ‘go’

kuru ‘come’

3.2 Analysis and results The overall accuracy of the two test versions is summarized in Tab. 7. Tab. 7: Overall accuracy of the two test versions Test version

N

Mean

Std. Deviation

A

18

.603

.1770

B

19

.624

.2245

To test whether there was statistical difference in overall accuracy between the two test versions A and B, a t-test was applied. The results showed that there was no significant difference in overall accuracy between the two test versions (p = .756). Thus, the test version was eliminated as a factor and the results from the two test versions were collapsed in the main analysis. Tab. 8: Overall accuracy by proficiency level Level

Mean

Std. Deviation

N

Beginner

.6143

.24785

 7

Intermediate

.6000

.18778

20

Advanced

.6400

.20923

10

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The overall accuracy by proficiency level is summarized in Tab. 8. The mean accuracy rates were about 60 % for all three proficiency levels. When the t-test was applied, the results revealed no significant difference in overall accuracy between the three proficiency groups (p = .881), suggesting that there was no effect of L2 proficiency level on the overall accuracy. However, there was a main effect of the question type. Tab. 9 summarizes the overall accuracy for accept-type items and reject-type items. The results of a paired t-test showed significant difference between the accept-type and rejecttype items (p = .001). Tab. 9: Overall accuracy by question type Question type

Mean

Std. Deviation

N

Accept-all

.6926

.19002

37

Reject-all

.5608

.25050

37

Furthermore, the results of the two-way ANOVA showed that there was an interaction between the question type (accept and reject) and the verb type (kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’) (p = .041). This indicates that how learners interpret the aspectual meaning of a sentence depends on both the question type and the verb type. Tab. 10 summarizes the accuracy by question type and verb type. Tab. 10: Overall accuracy by question type and verb type Question type

Verb type

Mean

-(r)u

-teiru

Accept-type

iku ‘go’

.750

.865

.635

kuru ‘come’

.635

.770

.500

iku ‘go’

.568

.919

.392

kuru ‘come’

.554

.946

.358

Reject-type

For the accept-type, the mean accuracy rate for iku ‘go’ was higher at 75.0 % than for kuru ‘come’ at 63.5 %, while the mean accuracy rates of reject-type items were similar, both scoring around 55 %. To follow up, a paired t-test comparing acceptgo and accept-come was applied. The result was significant (p = .008), indicating that it is easier for learners to correctly accept iku ‘go’ items than kuru ‘come’ items. On the other hand, a paired t-test comparing reject-go and reject-come showed no significant difference (p = .744).

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The results suggest that, regardless of their L2 proficiency level, it is easier for learners to accept correct aspectual structures involving iku ‘go’ than those involving kuru ‘come’. On the other hand, it is difficult to correctly reject aspectual structures that are not possible in L2, regardless of whether the verb is iku or kuru. Lastly, I would like to note that the test items included four pairs of sentences that are different in terms of the presence or absence of the temporal adverbial ima ‘now’. For the accept-type, sentences without ima ‘now’ (#1, #2, #13, #14) showed higher accuracy rates than the accuracy rates of their counterparts that contained ima (#3, #4, #15, #16). The differences in the accuracy rates seem to suggest that resultative sentences with ima ‘now’ are more difficult for learners than resultative sentences without ima. There may be a strong association between ima and progressive meaning in learners’ semantic representations, which makes it difficult to associate ima with resultative. As for the reject-type items, no such pattern was observed.

4 Discussion Let us first examine the results from the two studies in relation to the main questions under investigation, repeated here for convenience: 1. Does the way in which L2 learners of Japanese acquire aspectual meaning of a sentence depend on the verbs associated with it? In other words, do L2 learners learn the meaning of -teiru on an item-by-item basis? 2. Between -teiru used with kuru ‘come’ and -teiru used with iku ‘go’, do L2 learners find one more difficult than the other? If so, why? For the first question, the results from Study 2 clearly show that learners’ interpretation of the aspectual meaning of a sentence depends on the question type (i.e., the acceptability of aspectual structure) and the verb type. More specifically, whether or not learners correctly accept structures that are possible in L2 depends on whether the verb is kuru ‘come’ or iku ‘go’. The results support the prediction in that the way in which L2 learners of Japanese acquire the aspectual meaning of a sentence is influenced by the verb associated with it, lending support for the claim that L2 learners are processing the meaning of -teiru on an item-by-item basis (Sugaya and Shirai 2009). For the second question, in order to examine the results cross-linguistically, the data from the two studies are summarized below in Tab. 11. To be consistent with the data from Study 1, for the results of Study 2, the accuracy rates of only

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the test items that were presented in -teiru form are used for comparison. For a reference, overall accuracy rates are noted in brackets. Tab. 11: Accuracy rate of items with -teiru comparing three L1 groups L1

N

Accept-kuru

Accept-iku

Reject-kuru

Reject-iku

Study 1

English

77

.584

n/a

.481

n/a

(Nishi 2008)

Chinese

91

.209

.945

.473

.209

Korean

83

.627

.699

.470

.277

English

37

.500 (.635)

.635 (.750)

.358 (.554)

.392 (.568)

Study 2

As for learners’ ability to accept the correct use of -teiru, the results of the present study (Study 2) are consistent with Nishi (2008), showing higher accuracy rates for iku ‘go’ items at 63.5 %, while the accuracy rate of kuru ‘come’ items was 50.0 %. For all L1 groups, it is easier to correctly accept -teiru structures that are possible in L2 when -teiru is attached to iku ‘go’ than when it is attached to kuru ‘come’. However, as for the ability to reject incorrect use of -teiru, the results of the present study show a somewhat different picture. Unlike L1 Chinese and Korean speakers, who showed lower accuracy rates for iku ‘go’ items, L1 English speakers showed low accuracy rates for both kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ items, rating 35.8 % and 39.2 %, respectively. L1 English speakers found -teiru used with kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ equally difficult in correctly rejecting structures that are not possible in L2. The results of the two studies seem to suggest that iku ‘go’ items are easier in one way (accept-type) and kuru ‘come’ items are easier in the other (reject-type), if not equally difficult. These seemingly conflicting results can be reconciled if we take into account the aspectual asymmetry in the intrinsic meaning of ‘come’ and ‘go’ discussed earlier. Due to its goal-oriented nature, I argued that ‘come’ may be the more prototypical achievement, while ‘go’ is less prototypical and closer to accomplishment, allowing the speaker to refer to either the point of departure or the point of arrival. To put it differently, it is easier to find duration in the event denoted by ‘go’ than in the event denoted by ‘come’. If this is the case, it seems conceivable that L2 learners of Japanese more comfortably accept -teiru structures that involve iku ‘go’ than those that involve kuru ‘come’ when correct aspectual structures in L2 are presented because -teiru imposes duration (Shirai 1998b). On the other hand, learners more comfortably reject -teiru structures that involve kuru ‘come’ than those that involve iku ‘go’ when incorrect aspectual structures are

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given because the notion of ‘come’ is by nature at odds with durative expressions, resulting in higher rates of accuracy for reject-come items. The exceptionally low accuracy rates of reject-go items by L1 Chinese and L1 Korean groups may be explained by the effect of L1. In Japanese, if -teiru imposes duration on achievements, the sentence has to mean resultative (Shirai 1998b) and it cannot have a progressive reading. However, as discussed earlier, Chinese and Korean ‘come’ and ‘go’ allow an aspectual shift from achievement to accomplishment when temporal expressions impose duration and, as a result, obtain progressive meaning. L1 Chinese and Korean speakers may thus find it more difficult to reject incorrect use of -teiru because the progressive reading with ‘come’ and ‘go’ is possible in their L1 in certain contexts. This also explains why the accuracy rates for reject-come items for L1 Chinese and Korean groups (20.9 % and 27.7 %, respectively) are lower than the accuracy rate of reject-come items for the L1 English group (39.2 %) in Nishi’s (2008) study. This is because, just as in Japanese, a progressive reading is not possible in English. In English, the preliminary state reading (e.g., he is dying) is obtained when duration is imposed by the imperfective marker (Shirai 1998b). The results seem to indicate that learners’ semantic representations of verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ are shaped by those of L1 translation equivalents. However, why L1 English speakers find reject-come items equally difficult as reject-go items remains to be accounted for. The aim of this study was to uncover what L2 learners know about the lexical aspect of verbs in L2 and how they learn it. Given that ‘come’ and ‘go’ in all four languages analyzed in this chapter are categorized as achievements and crosslinguistic differences are not categorically distinct, the present data may not provide definitive evidence for the effect of L1 on the semantic representation of verbs in L2. However, it is clear from the results that learners are processing aspectual structures that involve kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ used in exactly the same contexts differently, regardless of proficiency level. This suggests that L2 learners have specific semantic representations for the verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ from the early stage of learning, rather than having underspecified aspectual values (e.g., Giacalone-Ramat and Rastelli 2013). As we have seen, data from L1 Chinese and Korean groups appear to show the effect of L1 on the semantic representation of L2 verbs. The lack of advantage for L1 English speakers despite the transparent L1–L2 form-meaning mapping in lexical aspect thus seems to indicate that there are other factors that are significantly affecting the acquisition of -teiru other than the effect of semantic representations in L1 verbs. However, this observation is based on the comparison of data coming from two studies that had slightly different purposes. A more controlled systematic study that directly compares multiple L1 groups is needed to confirm the effect of L1.

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Now, what do these results indicate with respect to the process of L2 acquisition of aspectual morphology? The findings of this study are most consistent with a usage-based view of language learning, which is defined by its strong emphasis on the role of knowledge that emerges from language use (e.g., Bybee 2006, 2010; Croft and Cruise 2004; N. Ellis 2013; Tomasello 2003). Usage-based theories posit that language learning involves “the piecemeal learning of many thousands of constructions and the frequency-biased abstraction of regularities within them” (N. Ellis and Larsen-Freeman 2006: 565). The first piece of supportive evidence from the present study for such a usage-based view of language learning would be that learners performed significantly better in correctly accepting aspectual structures that are possible in L2 (i.e., accept-type items) than correctly rejecting aspectual structures that are not possible in L2 (i.e., reject-type items), which is consistent with the results of Nishi’s (2008) more large-scale cross-linguistic acquisition study. The fact that L2 learners struggle to identify what is not possible in L2, even at the advanced level, shows that their L2 knowledge is strongly influenced by the lack of negative input; the difficulty appears to intensify when equivalent forms are available in their L1, as we have seen in the case of L1 Chinese and Korean speakers. If L2 learning is fundamentally guided by language use or frequency in input, then it is impossible to naturally learn what does not exist in L2 from input. Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that the lack of negative input inhibits L2 learners’ acquisition of native-like knowledge of L2 aspectual structures. The limited L2 end-state is argued to be characteristics of usage-based L2 learning; the results of this study may lead us to identify exactly where form-focused instruction is necessary in the L2 acquisition of aspect in order to draw a greater level of explicit awareness of the L2 constructions (e.g., N. Ellis 2008). The second piece of evidence comes from the fact that L2 learners’ interpretations of aspectual meaning of a sentence depend on the verb. To recapitulate, it was found that L2 learners tend to show higher accuracy in identifying correct L2 aspectual structures when the sentences involve the verb iku ‘go’ than when the sentences involve the verb kuru ‘come’. On the other hand, they have more difficulty with sentences involving iku ‘go’ when identifying incorrect aspectual structures in L2. In other words, the meaning of -teiru is learned in a verb-specific manner. These results are in fact compatible with the results of Sugaya and Shirai’s (2009) study in which they found verb-specific patterns in the early acquisition of Japanese tense-aspect morphology, in particular for verbs denoting resultative state meaning with -teiru. They claim that learners rely more on frequency-based rote learning with achievement verbs, since form-meaning mapping is more difficult in the case of achievement verbs with -teiru.

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5 Pedagogical implications The post-hoc analysis of data from Nishi (2008), shown in Study 1, showed that it is difficult for L1 Chinese and Korean learners to correctly reject incorrect aspectual structures that involve iku ‘go’, even at the advanced level. As for L1 English learners, the results of the new study demonstrated that proficiency level has no effect on accuracy rate, suggesting that regardless of the L2 proficiency level, it is easier for learners to accept correct aspectual structures when iku ‘go’ is involved than when kuru ‘come’ is involved, while rejecting incorrect aspectual structures in L2 remains difficult for learners regardless of the verb type. Tab. 12: Items with low accuracy rate (< 50.0 %) at Level 3 (Study 1) or in mean accuracy (Study 2) Accept-kuru ‘come’

Accept-iku ‘go’

Reject-kuru ‘come’

Reject-iku ‘go’

Study 1: Accuracy rates at the advanced level (Level 3) L1 English

–

n/a

–

n/a

L1 Chinese

23.5 %

–

–

23.5 %

L1 Korean

–

–

–

26.3 %

Study 2: Mean accuracy of all proficiency levels (No effect of proficiency found.) L1 English

–

–

35.8 %

39.2 %

Tab. 12 summarizes the items with which learners continue to have difficulty (50.0 % >). For Study 1, accuracy rates at the advanced level were used. For Study 2, mean accuracy rates were used, since there was no main effect of L2 proficiency. The findings from the two studies seem to suggest that learners of all L1 groups continue to struggle with correctly judging at least some of the aspectual structures, even at a later stage of learning. Given that most of the difficulties observed at the advanced level involve the ability to reject incorrect aspectual structures, it seems that it is not possible to gain native-like knowledge of aspect in L2 from positive input only, since there is nothing in the input that tells learners what is not acceptable in L2. It is especially difficult for learners to correctly reject certain L2 structures when learners’ semantic representations of L2 verbs or aspectual morphology are influenced by their L1 knowledge. The fact that learners continue to have problems at a later stage of learning suggest that L2 learners do not fully learn L2 aspectual structures simply by receiving positive input. The results seem to suggest that negative input might be needed.

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How then might we improve the way we teach -teiru in classroom so that learners will eventually be able to correctly judge the acceptability or unacceptability of the -teiru constructions? One possibility is to revisit -teiru in classroom instruction at a later stage of learning. In college-level Japanese language instruction, the meanings of -teiru as well as the verbs kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’ are generally taught in the first year of learning the language; once they are introduced, they rarely receive focus in classroom instruction. Further, since these items are taught at the beginner level, instruction of -teiru tends to be simplified, and different meanings of -teiru (progressive, resultative, habitual, and perfect) are introduced one by one, except in some cases. The aspectual system involving -teiru is rarely presented to learners in its entirety, implicitly or explicitly. Given that L1 learners learn the verb meaning and aspectual morphology on a verb-by-verb basis, putting more emphasis on the meaning of verbs as we teach -teiru might also be helpful, including those verbs that seem to be the most basic, such as kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’. There is some preliminary evidence that supports the idea that form-focused instruction on verb meaning (i.e., lexical aspect) and how it interacts with -teiru to describe different meanings has a positive effect on the L2 learning of aspect. Nishi (2003) conducted a small-scale study with mostly L1 English speakers (N = 23) in which the results of the post-test showed some improvement in the experimental group of the beginner level, although the difference between the experiment and control groups was not large. In addition to the more explicitly form-focused instruction on -teiru described above, instruction that includes systematic comparison of aspectual systems in L1 and L2 might also help learning, given that difficulties seem to be stemming from L1 transfer. It is hoped that a more systematic, larger-scale study that includes immediate and delayed post-tests will be conducted in the future to confirm the effect of such form-focused instruction.

6 Conclusion In this chapter, by examining learners’ interpretation of sentences with -teiru that involve two motion verbs, kuru ‘come’ and iku ‘go’, I showed that the way in which L2 learners of Japanese acquire the aspectual meaning of a sentence depends on the verbs associated with it and that learners’ difficulty seems to arise from the lack of negative input, suggesting that the learning is fundamentally guided by input.

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It has been proposed that the core of syntactic processing in children’s L1 acquisition is the learning and use of item-based constructions (e.g., MacWhinney 1975, 1982, 2005). The data from the present study seem to suggest that L2 acquisition of aspectual morphology can also be explained by postulating a similar process. The findings of the present study cohere with the notion that L2 learners acquire the semantics of verbs and aspectual morphology through item-based constructions, which can best be explained by a usage-based theory of language acquisition.

Appendix: Test items 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Tanaka-san wa kaigi ni itte imasu. Mr. Tanaka is at a meeting (as a result of going). (Yes) Yamada-san wa paatii ni kite imasu. Mr. Yamada is at a party (as a result of coming). (Yes) Satoo-san wa ima ginkoo ni itte imasu. Ms. Satoo is at the bank now (as a result of going). (Yes) Honda-san wa ima kuukoo ni kite imasu. Ms. Honda is at the airport now (as a result of coming). (Yes) Yoshida-san wa ima tanzyookai ni itte imasu. Mr. Yoshida is going to a birthday party. (No) Matsuda-san wa sotugyoo paatii ni kite imasu. Ms. Matsuda is coming to the graduation party. (No) Koyama-san wa ima atira ni itte imasu. Ms. Koyama is going over there now. (No) Imai-san wa ima kotira ni kite imasu. Mr. Imai is coming here now. (No) Takeda-san wa kekkonsiki ni itte imasu. Mr. Takeda is on the way to the wedding ceremony. (No) Ikeda-san wa sotugyoosiki ni kite imasu. Mr. Ikeda is on the way here to the graduation ceremony. (No) Fujita-san wa ima yuubinkyoku ni itte imasu. Ms. Fujita is on the way to the post office now. (No) Nishida-san wa ima tosyokan ni kite imasu. Ms. Nishida is on the way here to the library now. (No) Ishii-san wa kyooto ni ikimasu. Ms. Ishii is going to Kyoto. (=Ms. Ishii will go to Kyoto.) (Yes)

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14. Ishida-san wa tookyoo ni kimasu. Mr. Ishida is coming to Tokyo. (=Mr. Ishida will come to Tokyo.) (Yes) 15. Hayashi-san wa ima eki ni ikimasu. Mr. Hayashi is going to the station now. (Yes) 16. Morita-san wa ima basutee ni kimasu. Ms. Morita is coming to the bus stop now. (Yes) 17. Toyoda-san wa oosaka ni ikimasu. Ms. Toyoda is in Osaka (as a result of going). (No) 18. Matsui-san wa sendai ni kimasu. Ms. Matsui is in Sendai (as a result of coming). (No) 19. Nakano-san wa ima tomodati no ie ni ikimasu. Mr. Nakano is at his friend’s house now (as a result of going). (No) 20. Nakada-san wa ima watasino ie ni kimasu. Mr. Nakada is at my house now (as a result of coming). (No)

Acknowledgements This research was supported by a grant from the Asian Studies Center at the University of Pittsburgh. I thank Corey Hassell for his assistance in data entry and coding. I also thank the anonymous reviewers, Kaori Kabata, and Kiyoko Toratani for their helpful comments.

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Wilkins, David. P. & Deborah Hill. 1995. When “go” means “come”: Questioning the basicness of basic motion verbs. Cognitive Linguistics 6. 209–259.

Kaori Kabata

5 A usage-based account of learner acquisition of Japanese particles ni and de Abstract: The last two decades have seen the development of a usage-based theory of language acquisition, which maintains that language learning is exemplary-based and operates on the basis of what has been heard and/or said (e.g., Tomasello 2000). An important aspect of this theory is that it recognizes the role of collocations, either lexical or grammatical, in the acquisition process. Based on data from a corpus of spontaneous speech through interviews, this study investigates whether and how learners of Japanese utilize collocations when using particles. The focus is on two particles, ni and de, which are both associated with a wide range of meanings and interact with each other at various semantic domains. The results indicated different patterns of acquisition between the two particles. Learners started to learn ni by associating its spatial senses with a small number of verbs and in restricted environments, demonstrating a pattern that is consistent with a usage-based model of language acquisition. De, on the other hand, did not seem to be associated with any particular nouns or verbs, and multiple senses appeared from the initial stage. The different patterns of acquisition between the two particles, as well as among different senses within each particle, lend support for item-based language development, and thus for a usage-based model of language acquisition. Keywords: usage-based model, collocation, particles

1 Introduction Recently, numerous studies have adopted a usage-based model, originally proposed by Langacker (1987) as an approach “to linguistic structure that employs fully articulated schematic networks and emphasizes the importance of lowlevel schemas” (1987: 494). The model pertains to the non-reductive, bottom-up nature of Cognitive Grammar, which successfully accounts for children’s early language acquisition (e.g., Kidd and Cameron-Faulkner 2004, 2008; Lieven, Pine, and Baldwin 1997). However, very few studies to date have applied the model to the analysis of second language (L2) acquisition (c.f. Durrant and Schmitt 2009; Lemmens and Perrez 2010). This study aims to determine the extent to which the acquisition patterns of Japanese particles by L2 learners can be accounted for by a usage-based model

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and to evaluate the role of usage-based models in L2 acquisition. A corpus containing cross-sectional speech data is examined in order to investigate how collocation patterns are utilized in the uses of two particles in Japanese, namely ni and de, by English-speaking learners of Japanese at different proficiency levels. In the following, I will first provide a brief explanation of usage-based models and discuss the previous studies that applied these models to first language (L1) and L2 acquisition. I will then present a review of the previous studies on the particles ni and de in Section 2, and cover the present study in Section 3. Discussion of the results in the light of a usage-based model of L2 acquisition and the pedagogical implication will conclude this chapter.

2 Usage-based models of first and second language acquisition The central notion underlying usage-based models is that language structures emerge from language use through entrenchment, a term Langacker uses to refer to psychological phenomena like routinization, automatization, and habit formation (Langacker 1987, 2000). In usage-based models there is no clear distinction between syntax and lexicon, and grammatical items and constructions are just as meaningful as lexical items (e.g., Goldberg 1995), with simpler structures or units combined though a process of composition to yield a more complex structure (Langacker 2000: 4). Such a usage-based view of language sharply contrasts with the rule-based view maintained by generative grammar, whose main tenets are centered around the modularity of language systems and innateness of core linguistic principles. Among the earliest and probably the most influential studies that lend supportive evidence for usage-based models of L1 acquisition is the one by Tomasello (1992), who conducted a case study of his own child’s early language development. His diary data indicated that the child’s early multiword utterances revolved around specific verbs. Some semantically similar verbs were used in one type of construction (e.g., Cut ___) while others were used in different, more complex constructions (e.g., Draw __ on ___). Based on the observation of the item-based nature of the child’s language use, Tomasello proposed what he termed as the Verb Island Hypothesis, stating that “children have an early period in which each of their verbs forms its own island of organization in an otherwise unorganized language system” (Tomasello 2000: 157). Similar results were reported in a number of studies published following Tomasello (1992), adding further support to usage-based models of L1 acquisi-

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tion. Lieven, Pine, and Baldwin (1997), for example, found in an examination of the first 400 multiword utterances from 11 children that over 90 % of them appeared either in one of the first 25 patterns observed for each child or as frozen expressions, suggesting low-scope and lexically-based frames of children’s early utterances. Lieven, Salomo, and Tomasello (2009), on the other hand, were interested in how related multiword utterances of young children are to their previous utterances. Using a traceback method whereby target utterances are compared to those in a test corpus, they examined highly dense speech corpora from four twoyear-old children and found that 58–92 % of children’s utterances could be traced back either to exact repeats of what they said, or to an utterance that could be derived though a single substitution into a slot. The data also showed that as the degree of the children’s mean length of utterance (MLU) increased, they produced a larger amount of multiword types that required more than one operation, suggesting “the development of schematized slots in constructions, initially for referring expressions, and that a wider and more abstract range of slots develops with increasing language experience” (Lieven, Salomo, and Tomasello 2009: 505). There have been a few studies that applied a usage-based approach to the study of L1 acquisition of grammatical morphemes, including English prepositions. One of those is Kidd and Cameron-Faulkner (2008), who were interested in how children acquire multiple senses of the English preposition with. An examination of the utterances containing with in a corpus of one child, Brian, and his mother revealed that the senses that appeared early in the child’s speech were those that were most frequent in the input from his mother, namely, accompaniment, attribute, and instrument. Furthermore, around his third birthday the child was found to use each of these three senses of with most often in one construction type – for example, accompaniment appearing most often in the (NP)-V-with-NP construction and instrument and attribute in the (NP)-V-NP-with-NP construction – mirroring the patterns found in the input. While the findings of these studies of L1 acquisition lend strong support for usage-based models, they have not entertained much attention nor been regarded positively in L2 acquisition studies, an area in which cognitive linguistics has become interested only in the last decade. Ellis (2008) stated that “usage-based Second Language Acquisition (L2A) is typically much less successful that [sic] L1A, with naturalistic or communicatively-based L2A stabilizing at end-states far short of nativelike ability” (2008: 372). According to Ellis, this is because input does not always become intake, due to various factors that are unique to L2 acquisition, including interference, selective attention, and feature imprinting, particularly in regards to sound categories and categorical perception. Nevertheless, there have been a few studies that provided supportive evidence for usage-based models of L2 acquisition. Lemmens and Perrez (2010) examined

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uses of Dutch posture verbs staan ‘stand/lie’ and zitten ‘sit’ by French speaking learners in their written texts. The data revealed that learners were more inclined to use the posture verbs in their basic context, but were less at ease with their metaphorical usage compared to native speakers, who also produced idiomatic expressions significantly more frequency. However, certain metaphorical usages of the posture verbs did appear, and they tended to overextend some of these metaphorical patterns. A further examination of error patterns indicated that the learners were aware of certain common extensions of staan and zitten, but had not fully mastered collocational subtleties. Based on these findings, Lemmens and Perrez concluded that their results suggest “evidence for partially unit-based learning strategies as well as for systematic overgeneralizations of acquired patterns, much like what is known to occur in L1-acquisition” (2010: 316). In an attempt to determine the extent to which L2 learners use formulaic sequences, Durrant and Schmitt (2009) compared the collocations found in English native vs. non-native texts. The data indicated that native writers used more low-frequency collocations than non-natives, while non-natives used more high-frequency collocations than natives. It was also found that non-natives underused collocations with high mutual information scores – those whose components are not often found apart. Durrant and Schmitt claimed that their findings suggest the important role formulaic language plays in L2 acquisition, like in L1 acquisition, thus supporting usage-based models. Drawing on the findings from these previous studies, the present study examines the role of collocations in the L2 acquisition of Japanese particles.

3 Acquisition of Japanese particles ni and de Japanese particles, like many other grammatical morphemes, not only play grammatical roles but also bear semantic values, and therefore exhibit interactions with one another in a complex manner, reflecting the speakers’ sensitivity to the semantic environment. For example, Shibatani (1990) demonstrates that the accusative marker o and the dative marker ni lead to different interpretations in causative sentences, as shown in (1):¹ 1 The abbreviations used in this paper are as follows: ACC ALL ANIM AUX

accusative allative animate auxiliary

INT MAN NEG PAST

interjective manner negative past

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a. Tanaka-san wa musume o nihonzin to kekkons-ase-ta. Mr. Tanaka TOP daughter ACC Japanese COM marry-CAUS-PAST ‘Mr. Tanaka forced his daughter to marry a Japanese (man).’ b. Tanaka-san wa musume ni amerikazin to kekkons-ase-ta. Mr. Tanaka TOP daughter DAT American COM marry-CAUS-PAST ‘Mr. Tanaka allowed his daughter to marry an American (man).’

Shibatani (1990: 308–309) argues that o is more appropriate when the causee is forced to do the described activity, as indicated by the English translation, while ni is more appropriate when the causee is willing, or, in many cases, allowed to do so. Ni and de, the two particles that are the focus of the present study, are both associated with a wide range of meanings. In an empirically based study drawing on historical, developmental, corpus, and comparative research, Kabata (2000) identified nearly two dozen senses of ni in modern Japanese. Following Traugott (1982), Kabata linked her classification of sense types to a domain-based taxonomy, as determined based on the claims made in the grammaticalization theory and circumstantial historical record. For example, ni is associated with two senses, namely, allative (Tookyoo ni itta ‘[I] went to Tokyo’) and locative (Tookyoo ni ita ‘[I] was in Tokyo’) in the most concrete spatial domain. Kabata (2000) further demonstrated that these two spatial senses have been extended to other senses in less concrete domains, which include time point sense (hatizi ni tuita ‘[I] arrived at eight’) in the temporal domain, and various goal-oriented (Hanako ni atta ‘[I] met ø Hanako’; Hanako ni okasi o ageta ‘[I] gave sweets to Hanako’) and even source-oriented senses (Hanako ni okasi o moratta ‘[I] received sweets from Hanako’; oya ni sikarareta ‘[I] was scolded by my parent.’) in the social domain. Ni is also associated with both goal-oriented and source-oriented senses in the cognitive and perceptual domain (rekisi ni kyoomi o motteiru ‘[I] have an interest in history’; hitogomi ni odoroita ‘[I] was surprised at the crowd’), and purpose, reason, and concessive (‘although’) senses in the domain of logical relations. For the purpose of the present study, the twenty-some senses have been collapsed into seven senses, as listed in Tab. 1. For example, ‘SOCIAL’ has subsumed

CAUS COM CONJ COP DAT DEST GEN

causative commitative conjuctive copula dative destination genitive

PROG Q QT TEMP TOP VOL

progressive question quotative temporal topic volitional

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nine subcategorized senses in the social domain from the original list by Kabata (2000); dative, addressee, benefactive, possessive, experiencer, cause, passive agent, source of transfer, and communicative source. Similarly, various goal- and source-oriented senses in the cognitive domain that occurred very infrequently were also grouped into one sense as ‘COGNITIVE.’ Senses like concessive are not included in the list as they never appeared in the data. Tab. 1: Senses of ni identified in the present study sense

Sample sentences

ALLATIVE (ALL)

Taro wa hakubutukan ni Taro TOP museum NI ‘Taro went to the museum.’

LOCATIVE (LOC)

Musume wa tookyo ni iru. daughter TOP Tokyo NI be.ANIM ‘My daughter is in Tokyo.’

TEMPORAL (TEMP)

Zyuuitigatu ni nihon e ki-ta. November NI Japan DEST come–PAST ‘(I) came to Japan in November.’

SOCIAL (SOC)

Makoto wa omotya o otooto ni Makoto TOP toy ACC brother NI ‘Makoto gave a toy to his brother.’

COGNITIVE (COG)

Haha wa mame o kona ni mother TOP beans ACC powder NI ‘My mother ground beans into powder.’

MANNER (MAN)

Taro wa sizuka ni hon o Taro TOP quiet NI book ACC ‘Taro was quietly reading a book.’

PURPOSE (PUT)

Yumiko wa hon o kai ni Yumiko TOP book ACC buy NI ‘Yumiko stopped to buy a book.’

it-ta. go-PAST

yat-ta. give-PAST

hii-ta. grind- PAST

yon-de-i-ta. read-CONJ-PROG- PAST

tatiyot-ta. stop.by- PAST

Like ni, de is associated with a variety senses, some of which seem more semantically similar to each another (e.g., locative and temporal) than others. According to Moriyama (2006), the prototype of de’s senses is marking location, and other senses have derived from that through metaphorical extensions. Five major senses were identified for de, following Moriyama (2006), as shown in Tab. 2. Sample sentences are from Moriyama (2006).

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Tab. 2: Senses of de identified in the present study sense

Sample sentences

LOCATIVE (LOC)

Nihon de keezai o manabu. Japan DE economics ACC study ‘(I) study economics in Japan.’

INSTRUMENT (INST) Nihongo de hanasu. Japanese DE speak ‘(I) speak in Japanese.’ TEMPORAL (TEMP)

Syokuzi no ato de meal GEN after DE ‘(I) study after dinner.’

benkyoo study

MANNER (MAN)

Hitori de sun-de-imas. alone DE live-CONJ-PROG-PAST ‘(I) live by myself.’

CAUSE (CAU)

Syuttyoo de Oosaka ni iku. business DE Osaka ALL go ‘(I) go to Osaka on business.’

o simasu. ACC do

As can be noted by looking at the lists in Tabs. 1 and 2, ni and de demonstrate some semantic overlap and interact at various semantic domains. For example, both ni and de are associated with locative, temporal, and manner senses. Such semantic overlap and interaction is possibly due to the fact that they are related historically, as historical evidence indicates de has developed out of nite, a combination of ni and te, a connective particle (e.g., Matsumura 1971). Nonetheless, the two particles show a rather clear boundary when examined closer. For example, while they are both used to describe location, they are mostly complementary in their semantic distribution, as shown in (2). With the verb of existence aru, only de is acceptable in describing a location “when the subject stands for an activity” (Alfonso 1966: 104), as shown in (2a), while only ni is acceptable “when the subject is one concrete tangible thing which occupies a definite place” (Alfonso 1966: 104), as shown in (2b): (2) a. Kaigi wa kono heya de/*ni aru. meeting TOP this room DE/NI exist ‘The meeting is (held) in this room.’ b. Piano wa kono heya *de/ni aru. piano TOP this room DE/NI exist ‘The piano is in this room.’

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In describing temporal events, as well, they demonstrate semantic differences; namely, ni describes a point in time, while de marks a deadline or endpoint of an event, as shown in (3): (3) a. Zyugyoo wa zyuuiti-zi ni/*de class TOP eleven-o’clock NI/DE ‘The class starts at eleven o’clock.’ b. Zyugyoo wa zyuuiti-zi ni/de class TOP eleven-o’clock NI/DE ‘The class ends at eleven-o’clock.’

hazimaru. start owaru. end

In the sentence (3a), with the verb hazimaru ‘start’ only ni is acceptable; de is not compatible since the event lacks the notion of an endpoint. In (3b), on the other hand, with the verb owaru ‘end’ both ni and de are acceptable. Because of the similarity of their functions, these two particles have been claimed to be confusing to L2 learners of Japanese (e.g., Sakoda 2001). However, previous studies that examined the L2 acquisition of these two particles were mostly interested in only their spatial senses and in the semantic restrictions of the preceding nouns (e.g., Masuda 2004; Sakoda 2001; Wako 2012). Taking a cognitive linguistic approach to the analyses of spontaneous speech data, this study examines the usage patterns of multiple senses of the two particles to determine the similarities and differences both between them and among the different senses within each particle.

4 The present study The purpose of this study is to determine the patters of usage of ni and de by English-speaking L2 learners of Japanese. Specifically, the study aims to investigate: (i) Do learners associate particle use with the linguistic environment?; (ii) How do the usage patterns of the two particles compare?; and (iii) Are the various senses of each particle used differently? By analyzing cross-sectional sets of interview data, this study examines the extent to which the data could be accounted for by usage-based models of language acquisition. Usage-based models of language acquisition predict that these particles first emerge within a restricted context and undergo entrenchment before they can be used productively in more full-fledged semantic environments. It is also predicted that one or even a few senses will be learned earlier than others, and the two particles will differ from each other in the way they are learned. Although this

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study cannot attest to the influence of input due to the lack of comparable data available, it is maintained that input is among one of the determining factors in the acquisition of these particles. Tab. 3: Description of each proficiency level according to ACTFL guidelines² Superior

Speakers at the Superior level are able to communicate with accuracy and fluency in order to participate fully and effectively in conversations on a variety of topics in formal and informal settings from both concrete and abstract perspectives. […] Speakers at the Superior level demonstrate no pattern of error in the use of basic structures, although they may make sporadic errors, particularly in low-frequency structures and in complex high-frequency structures. Such errors, if they do occur, do not distract the native interlocutor or interfere with communication.

Advanced

Speakers at the Advanced level engage in conversation in a clearly participatory manner in order to communicate information on autobiographical topics, as well as topics of community, national, or international interest. The topics are handled concretely by means of narration and description in the major time frames of past, present, and future. These speakers can also deal with a social situation with an unexpected complication. The language of Advanced-level speakers is abundant, the oral paragraph being the measure of Advanced-level length and discourse. Advanced-level speakers have sufficient control of basic structures and generic vocabulary to be understood by native speakers of the language, including those unaccustomed to non-native speech.

Intermediate

Speakers at the Intermediate level are distinguished primarily by their ability to create with the language when talking about familiar topics related to their daily life. They are able to recombine learned material in order to express personal meaning. Intermediate-level speakers can ask simple questions and can handle a straightforward survival situation. They produce sentence-level language, ranging from discrete sentences to strings of sentences, typically in present time. Intermediate-level speakers are understood by interlocutors who are accustomed to dealing with non-native learners of the language.

Novice

Novice-level speakers can communicate short messages on highly predictable, everyday topics that affect them directly. They do so primarily through the use of isolated words and phrases that have been encountered, memorized, and recalled. Novice-level speakers may be difficult to understand even by the most sympathetic interlocutors accustomed to non-native speech.

2 The information is available at .

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4.1 The corpus English-speaking learners’ data was extracted from the KY corpus (Kamata and Yamauchi 1999), which is a collection of Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPI) between leaners of Japanese and native speaker interviewers conducted in accordance with the ACTFL (American Council on The Teaching of Foreign Languages) guidelines. For the purpose of the present study, only the data from English speaking learners was extracted for analysis. This subset of the corpus contained data from 5 Superior, 10 Advanced and 10 Intermediate learners, as well as 5 Novice learners. Each level is defined as shown in Tab. 3. The Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced levels are further divided into either two or three sublevels, High, Mid, and Low, and, therefore, the data in the KY corpus is categorized into 9 different levels: ES (English Superior), EAH (Advanced-High), EA (English Advanced Mid&Low), EIH (English IntermediateHigh), EIM (English Intermediate-Mid), EIL (English Intermediate-Low), ENH (English Novice-High), ENM (English Novice-Mid), and ENL (English NoviceLow). Each data file contained transcriptions of an interview between a tester (T), who is a native speaker of Japanese, and a learner (S), with the length varying from 20 to 30 minutes. All sentences including instances of ni or de were extracted using the Tagged KY Corpus tool (Lee 2009)³, and each instance of the two particles was labeled according to the list of senses provided in Tabs. 1 and 2.

4.2 Results 4.2.1 Overall usage patterns Tab. 4 shows the total number of instances of ni and de at the different proficiency levels. Ni was produced more frequently than de at all levels. The novice-level learners’ uses of the two particles were very limited, and one learner (ENL01) did not produce either particle at all. On average, learners at the intermediate level produced ni three times and de two times more than at the novice level. While learners at the advanced level produced ni significantly more frequently than those at the intermediate level (t= 2.78, p < 0.05), the difference in the frequency of de was not significant between the intermediate and advanced levels.

3 The tool is available at http://jhlee.sakura.ne.jp/kyc.

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Tab. 4: Total number of instances of ni and de by proficiency level LEVEL

n

NI (total/average)

DE (total/average)

Novice

 5

  50 / 10

 30 /  6

Intermediate

10

 309 / 31

115 / 11

Advanced

10

 604 / 60

139 / 14

Superior

 5

 346 / 69

 89 / 18

TOTAL

30

1309 / 44

373 / 12

A preliminary examination indicated that ni appeared more frequently in an environment where the ni-phrase was directly followed by a verb, at 768 out of 1309 instances (59 %), as opposed to de, which was used in such environments with half the frequency, at 105 instances or 28 % of the total 373 instances. Another collocational pattern that distinguished between the two particles was the co-occurrence with a complex NP, in the form of NP-no-NP ni/de (e.g., eki no mae ni/de ‘at/ in the front of the station’). While ni was used with [NP no NP] phrases (henceforth NP-NPs) in 178 out of the total 1310 instances (14 %), de appeared only in 27 out of the total 374 instances (7 %) with NP-NPs. In the following, therefore, the results will be presented according to four major parameters: level of proficiency, sense type, and the proximity between the -de/ni phrase and the verb, as well as the complexity of the preceding nouns.

4.2.2 Acquisition of ni by proficiency level Tab. 5 shows the distribution of ni among its major senses by proficiency level. Learners’ self repetitions or repetition of the tester’s speech (REP) and indecisive uses in incomplete or truncated utterances (IND) were excluded from further analyses. Instances of erroneous uses of ni where another particle was supposed to be used (ERR) were categorized as such and were subject to further analyses. As mentioned above, one novice learner (ENL01) did not use ni at all, and the other four learners’ uses of ni were very limited both in terms of frequency and range. 17 or 34 % out of the total 50 instances of ni were allative senses, 14 of which were directly followed by verbs, including iku ‘go’ which appeared in 13 instances, as in mainiti biiti ni ikimasu ‘(I) go to the beach every day’ (ENH01: line 127). All of the four instances of ni as locative were found with the verb sumu ‘live’ directly following it, as in …ni sun-de imasu ‘(I) am living in/at …’. The manner

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sense, which appeared six times, was exclusively used in the expression issyo ni ‘together’, which was possibly learned as a chunk.

Novice (5)

50

6

13

4

average + VP

10

1.2

2.6 2 15 %

Intermediate (10)

309

32

average + VP

30.9

Advanced (10)

17

PUR

MAN

COG

SOC

TEMP

ALL

LOC

ERR

TOTAL

REP/IND

Tab. 5: The Usage Patterns of Ni

3

0

0

6

1

0.8 3.4 4 14 100 % 82 %

0.6 2 67 %

0 0

0 0

1.2 3 50 %

0.2 1 100 %

34

44

83

34

19

26

25

12

3.2

3.4 17 50 %

4.4 31 71 %

8.3 72 87 %

3.4 7 21 %

1.9 7 37 %

2.6 23 88 %

2.5 9 36 %

1.2 6 50 %

604

35

13

73

114

55

30

120

135

29

average + VP

60.4

3.5

1.3 7 54 %

7.3 51 70 %

11.4 105 92 %

5.5 7 13 %

3 13 43 %

12 111 93 %

13.5 63 47 %

2.9 16 55 %

Superior (5)

346

9

5

38

49

35

24

77

90

19

average + VP

69.2

1.8

1 2 40 %

7.6 21 55 %

9.8 47 96 %

7 4 11 %

4.8 10 42 %

15.4 61 79 %

18 31 34 %

3.8 6 32 %

One learner (ENM02) was responsible for 11 of the total 13 erroneous uses of ni. Two instances involved the ni-VP contained the verb sumu ‘live’, as seen in (4). Considering the same learner used it correctly in other parts of the interview, as in (5), ENM02 was very likely using the expression ni sunde imasu as a set phrase. (4) T: hitori de sun-de-imasu ka. alone MAN live-CONJ-PROG Q ‘Are (you) living alone?’ S: uun, yo..yonin to watasi ni sun-de-imasu. no four people with 1SG NI live-CONJ-PROG (Intended) ‘No, I live with four other people.’ (ENM02 Line 183)

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(5) T: de, nizyuuku-niti ni kite ima doko ni th and 29 -day TEMP come-CONJ now where NI sun- de-imasu ka. live-CONJ-PROG Q ‘and after arriving on the 29th, where are you living now?’ S: ima, katura ni sun-de-imasu. now Katsura NI live-CONJ-PROG ‘I am living in Katsura now.’ (ENM02 Line 100) All but one of the other errors involving ni were found where the ni-phrase was used without a verb directly following it, indicating that learners at this level were dependent on collocational environments for their use of ni, where ni is used in a proximity to a small set of verbs in [NP-ni VP] units. Learners at the intermediate level produced ni over three times more frequently than novice learners, at 309 times in total, or on average 31 times per learner. The most frequent sense type was the allative sense, at 83 times, followed by the locative sense, at 44 times. Although the range of verbs and nouns used with ni was wider than that of novice learners, there are still strong associations between ni and certain groups of verbs or nouns. For example, for the allative and locative senses, six verbs, aru/iru ‘exist’, sumu ‘live’, iku ‘go’, hairu ‘entre’, ireru ‘put in’, kuru ‘come’, and kaeru ‘return’, made up 96 instances or 76 % of the total 127 instances. Moreover, these senses continued to show close proximity to verbs at 80 % (102 out of the total 127 instances) Similarly, five out of the 12 instances of ni’s purpose sense contained the verb iku ‘go’, all of which followed ni-phrases, as illustrated in (6): (6) booto si-nai toki wa tamaani ano nomi ni ikimasu. boat do-NEG when TOP sometimes INT drink NI go ‘When I have boat training, I sometimes go (out) for a drink.’ (EIH04 Line 1857) Cognitive senses also appeared at this level, and were mostly in close proximity to verbs at 89 % (23 out of the total 26 instances). The time and manner senses were closely associated with the nouns to which ni was attached. For the time sense, two nouns, namely, toki ‘time’ and mae ‘front/anterior’, together counted 46 % or 15 instances out of the total 33 instances, and the noun issyo ‘accompaniment’ was used in 13 instances out of the total 25 instances (52 %) of manner uses.

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The errors involving ni by the group of intermediate leaners also revealed that they continue to closely associate ni with certain verbs, resulting in misuses in some cases. 17 or 50 % of the total 34 erroneous cases involved an [NP-ni VP] construction, and two of these contained the verb iru ‘exist’ while six contained hairu ‘enter’ or ireru ‘put in’, which were among the frequently used verbs with the locative and allative senses of ni. Seven of the eight errors made by EIM05 were of this particular type. EIM05 used the verb hairu 11 times during the interview, and always with ni in a ni-hairu expression, resulting in errors in five instances. (7) illustrates EIM05’s correct use of ni-hairu in (7a), and one of the four incorrect uses in (7b): (7) a. tabun aano aikido saakuru ni hair-oo to omoimasu. perhaps INT aikido circle NI enter-VOL QT think ‘I perhaps will join an aikido circle.’ (EIM05 Line 920) b. yakisoba anoo soosu to kyabetu to ano negi fried noodle INT sauce and cabbage and INT green.onion to iroirona ano yasai ni hait-te and various INT vegetable NI entre-CONJ (Intended) ‘I put sauce, cabbage, green onion, and various vegetables in the noodle.’ (EIM05 Line 1006) At the advanced level, the average number of instances of ni increased significantly from 30.9 at the intermediate level to 60.4 (t=–2.78, p < 0.05). A major increase was observed for the cognitive and manner senses, indicating learners at this level have learned to describe abstract events. The range of verbs used with ni-phrases also widened, with nine different verbs used with the locative sense and 19 with the allative sense, compared to five and 13, respectively, at the intermediate level. However, these verbs appeared mostly in environments where they directly followed ni-phrases – 105 out of 114 instances (92 %) of allative use and 51 out of 73 instances (70 %) of locative uses – indicating their close relationship with the particle. A similarly close relationship was found between the cognitive sense and verbs, with 111 of the total 120 instances (93 %) used with the verb directly following them. The number of errors per learner at this level was much smaller, at 1.3 instances on average, compared to 3.2 instances at the intermediate level. While seven instances involved the [NP-ni VP] constructions, they seemed to have been caused by the wrong choice of particles with rather infrequent verbs, including mawaru ‘go around’ and senkoosuru ‘major’, both of which take o for their object

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rather than ni, and which may be caused by the confusion between English counterparts of the verbs. These errors indicate that learners were aware of the grammatical function of ni, rather than using it as part of common (and entrenched) expressions. Other erroneous instances were associated with the complexity of the noun phrases that were attached to ni, as discussed further below. The frequency and usage pattern of ni at the superior level were very similar to those at the advanced level; the manner and cognitive senses were the most frequent, followed by the allative, locative, as well as temporal senses. Allative and cognitive senses were used in proximity to verbs in 96 % and 79 % of the total instances respectively.

4.2.3 Acquisition of de by proficiency level Tab. 6 presents the usage distribution of de by sense type and proficiency level.

CAUSE

MANNER

TIME

INST

LOC

ERROR

COPULA

TOTAL

REP/IND

Tab. 6: The Usage Patterns of De

Novice (5)

30

2

0

6

16

5

1

0

0

average + VP

6

0.4

0

1.2 1 17 %

3.2 4 25 %

1 0 0 %

0.2 0 0 %

0

0

Intermediate (10)

115

1

0

10

51

40

4

8

1

average + VP

11.5

0.1

0

1 2 20 %

5.1 4 8 %

4 8 20 %

0.4 1 25 %

0.8 4 50 %

0.1

Advanced (10)

139

2

2

10

69

32

5

12

7

average + VP

13.9

0.2

0.2

1 4 40 %

6.9 20 29 %

3.2 15 47 %

0.5 2 40 %

1.2 5 42 %

0.7 0 %

Superior (5)

89

5

9

1

32

8

2

18

14

average + VP

17.8

1

1.8

0.2

6.4 14 44 %

1.6 4 50 %

0.4 0 0 %

3.6 8 44 %

2.8 5 36 %

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Novice learners produced in total 30 instances, including six erroneous uses. Unlike ni, which was strongly associated with a small number of verbs or nouns, de did not indicate such a strong association with either verbs or nouns; the 16 instances of locative uses of de were used with nine different nouns and seven different verbs. Similarly, the five instances of instrument uses of de were found with four different nouns and three different verbs. Even though some nouns were used with de in multiple instances, including oosutoraria ‘Australia’ (three times) and resutoran ‘restaurant’ (four times), they appeared in other environments as well, indicating that learners were not treating those [NP de] expressions as collocational units. Errors did not appear to be associated with any specific collocational types. Only one instance was found where the de-phrase was directly followed by a verb, hanasimasu ‘talk’ (ENM02). One erroneous use, shown in (8), seemed to be triggered by the use of de as location in the interviewer’s question, but the learner self-corrected right after, possibly realizing that ni, instead of de, should be used with the verb iku ‘go’. (8) T: kittin de itumo gohan o tukurimasu ka kitchen DE always meal ACC make Q ‘Do you always make meals in the kitchen?’ S: tukuri [:tukura]-nai desu, itumo suupaa de, ni, ikimasu make-NEG COP always supermarket DE NI go to gohan kaimasu. and meal buy (Intended) ‘No, I do not. I always go to the supermarket and buy meals.’ (ENH01 Line 310) Learners used twice as many de at the intermediate level than at the novice level, and the largest increases were observed for the instrument and manner senses, both of which appeared with a small set of nouns. 20 instances of the 40 instrument uses of de appeared with either eigo ‘English’ or nihongo ‘Japanese’, and 12 were associated with transportation nouns including zitensya ‘bicycle’, which appeared five times, and aruki ‘walking’, which appeared three times. Similarly, seven out of the eight instances of manner de were used with either zibun as in zibun de ‘by myself’ or hitori as in hitori de ‘alone’, indicating that learners may be learning these expressions as a chunk. EIM05 was responsible for half of the 10 erroneous uses of de produced at this level. One of them was associated with the use of de after locative nouns, namely sanhuransisuko ‘San Francisco’, which in fact was a topicalized subject requiring the topic maker wa, as shown in (9).

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(9) ee, ano sanhuransisuko de tyotto ano abunai desyoo. well INT San Francisco DE a little INT dangerous COP-AUX ‘well, San Francisco is a little dangerous.’ (EIM05 Line 476) EIM05 also made a mistake involving an erroneous use of the locative sense of de, as shown in (10): (10) haihai, anooo pan de ano oiru ni hait-te … yes, INT frying.pan DE INT oil NI enter-CONJ (Intended) ‘yes, I put oil into the frying pan.’ (EIM05 Line 1017) EIM05 wrongly used the collocation ni haitte ‘enter’ – an intransitive form of irete ‘put in’ – which led to an incorrect choice of particle de (instead of ni) with the noun pan ‘[frying] pan’. While the number of uses of ni significantly increased from the intermediate to the advanced level, a similar increase was not found between uses of de, with the increases between the intermediate and the advanced, as well as the advanced and the superior levels found to be not statistically significant. The usage distributions at both the advanced and superior levels were also quite similar to that of the intermediate level, with the locative sense being the most frequent, followed by instrument and manner. However, compared to intermediate level learners’ uses of de that were centered around a small set of nouns (14 different nouns for 40 instances), learners at the advanced and superior levels used a wider variety of nouns. At the advanced level, for example, learners used 19 different nouns in the 32 total instances of the instrument sense, although nouns like eigo and nihongo were still frequent and used in 12 of those instances. The time and manner senses were also used with a wider range of nouns, with four different types for the five instances of time, and 12 different nouns for the 12 instances of manner, as well as six nouns for seven instances of cause.

4.2.4 [NP-no-NP] and ni vs. de One of the noteworthy differences between the usage patterns of ni and those of de is concerned with occurrence vs. non-occurrence of NP-NP strings that were attached to the respective particles. As shown in Tab. 7, ni was used with NP-NPs almost twice as frequently as de, with the largest difference at the intermediate level.

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Tab. 7: The frequency of [NP-no-NP] expressions with ni vs. de ni

novice intermediate advanced superior TOTAL

de

NP-no-NP ni

total

%

NI-no-NP de

total

%

  2  54  72  43 171

  50  309  604  346 1309

 4 % 17 % 12 % 12 % 13 %

 0  7 13  7 27

 30 115 139  89 373

0 % 6 % 9 % 8 % 7 %

Half of these NP-NPs used with ni contained a formal noun (keishiki meisi) such as tame ‘purpose’, yoo ‘way, manner’, or tokoro ‘place’, or position nouns like mae ‘front’, ue ‘top’, or sita ‘below’. Some of the erroneous usages of ni were associated with the overuse of NP-NPs, as shown in (11): (11) anoo eegakan no mae ni ano ai-masyoo ka. INT movie theater GEN front NI INT meet-VOL Q ‘well, shall we meet in front of the movie theater?’ (EIM07 Line 2487) EIM07 used the expression (NP no) mae ‘in front of ~’ eight times during the interview, and six of them were used with ni as in (NP no) mae ni. These errors involving NP-NPs were also found at the advanced and superior levels; seven out of 13 erroneous instances at the advanced level and two of the four at the superior level involved NP-NPs. For example, EAH01 used ni after a positional noun ue ‘top’, as shown in (12): (12) watasitati wa niwa no soozi suki dat-ta kara we TOP yard GEN cleaning fond COP-PAST because ki o nobot-tari nnn sibahu no ue ni ason-dari tree ACC climb-AUX INT lawn GEN top NI play- AUX ‘Because we liked cleaning the yard, we climbed trees and played on the lawn.’ (EAH01 Line 237) This tendency of learners to use ni after positional nouns like naka ‘inside’, ue ‘top’, and mae ‘front’, has been reported in previous studies (e.g., Noda 2001). Noda argued that learners may come up with such a ‘false’ rule because of the way Japanese textbooks introduce these strings of words (2001: 53). In the current data, however, it was not only the positional words that appeared in NP-NPs but

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the construction itself that showed the tendency of being followed by ni rather than de.

5 Discussion 5.1 The usage patterns of ni vs. de The results from the present cross-sectional study indicated different acquisition processes for the two particles. Depending on the sense, ni showed its close relationship with verbs or nouns both at the novice level and at more advanced levels. At the novice level in particular, using only a very small group of verbs, learners used the locative and allative senses of ni almost exclusively with a verb following it. Moreover, errors at the novice level were all related to an association between ni and verbs. The manner sense also appeared, but only with one single NP, indicating that the string was learned as a chunk. Similar close associations with verbs or nouns were found for other senses of ni, such as the cognitive sense, which appeared only at more advanced levels. De was produced at a much smaller frequency than ni, and unlike ni, whose spatial senses were dominant at the novice level, both locative and instrument senses appeared from the beginning for de. Neither sense showed a strong association with either verbs or nouns at the novice level. At the intermediate level, however, where de was produced twice as often, learners showed a close association between de and a small number of nouns. Furthermore, at the advanced and superior levels de was used with a wide range of senses, with each sense appearing with a range of nouns. The two particles also differed in regards to their association with [NP-noNP] expressions, with ni produced twice as often with them than de. Many errors involving ni that were associated with [NP-no-NP] expressions can be interpreted as a kind of overgeneralization; namely, various senses of ni were associated with certain formal nouns that appeared in this construction, such as tame ‘purpose/ reason’ as in NP-no-tame ni ‘for the purpose/reason of …’ and yoo ‘way, manner’ as in NP-no-yoo ni ‘like.’

5.2 Usage-based models for second language acquisition The central feature of usage-based models is the effect of entrenchment (Langacker 1987, 2000), and the results of the present study indicate that the pattern

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of acquisition of ni is more readily explained through this feature of usage models. Ni, which was used far more frequently than de, was first learned with a small set of senses within a fairly restricted semantic environment, and then other senses were subsequently learned and used with a wider range of words in a variety of constructions, showing a pattern similar to that reported for children’s L1 acquisition of grammatical words. In contrast, de was not associated with any specific collocational patterns, at least at the initial stage of acquisition. The close relationship between NP-NPs and ni can also be interpreted as reflecting the effect of entrenchment. Ni’s various senses were associated with certain formal or positional nouns, which in turn might be influencing the frequency of use of NP-NPs with ni in general. The different patterns of acquisition between the two particles and among the different senses of ni lend support for item-based development, which is another characteristic of usage-based models of language acquisition. Even the two locative senses of the two particles, which are often compared as if they are contrastive, demonstrated different collocational patterns associated with each of them. Ni’s locative and allative senses seem to be learned at least initially in a [NP-ni VP] construction, and with a small set of VPs that are used in that construction. De, on the other hand, relates itself with a rather loose set of nouns instead of verbs, such as ‘nouns that describe locations’, or ‘nouns that describe languages’. Based on usage-based models, the differences in the acquisition patterns between these two particles are assumed to be influenced by input. The superior level learners, whose speech is considered fairly close to that of native speakers, demonstrated a strong relationship between ni and certain constructional patterns and/or verbs, but not for de. At the same time, however, what constitutes input for L2 learners may be very different from that for children, whose language development is largely dependent on the caregiver’s speech. If the input does not foster a usage-based language development, as in the case of de, what other tools do learners have available? While it is possible that the learners in the present study were dependent on grammatical knowledge they learned explicitly through formal learning, such an explanation will not work for those who learn an L2 in a natural setting. I hope a future study will address this issue. Usage-based models have always been interested in the role of chunks, or frequent strings of words or constructions in language development. The results from this study were consistent with such a view and revealed that learners utilize particular senses or particle uses in association with particular sets of words or group of words. As such, the acquisition patterns seem to differ between the two particles, and even between the two locative senses that are often treated as if they are contrastive (e.g., Ueno 1995).

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While the concept of chunks has attracted a certain level of attention in L2 research (e.g., Ellis, 1996; Taguchi 2007, 2008), what constitutes a chunk for L2 learners has not been fully examined. Taguchi (2008), for example, who was interested in whether instruction of chunks would help L2 learners improve in the complexity and/or fluency of their speech, tested approximately 40 grammatical chunks which were, according to Taguchi, semi-fixed lexico-grammatical frames that carried specific grammatical functions (2008: 137). The results from the present study indicate certain collocational patterns are more readily perceived as chunks by learners than others. Further research should be done on whether or not instruction on those chunks might help learners improve their language ability more rapidly.

6 Conclusions In this study, a cross-sectional corpus data of spontaneous speech during interviews was analyzed in order to examine the L2 acquisition patterns of two particles, ni and de, which are both associated with multiple senses – some of which are treated as if they are contrastive. By doing so, this study examined how the learners’ acquisition patterns can be explained based on usage-based models. The results showed different patterns of acquisition between the two particles; namely, learners start to learn ni by associating its spatial senses with a small number of verbs and in restricted environments. Other senses of ni, like manner, also appeared at the initial stage of learning, but only in a fixed string of words, indicating that they are learned as if they are one word, or a chunk. De, on the other hand, did not seem to be associated with any particular nouns or verbs, and multiple senses appeared from the initial stage. Furthermore, these patterns were consistent with the patterns of usage of the two particles by superior level learners, as predicted by usage-based models. This study also highlighted the importance of examining what learners actually do, instead of just what they can do. Previous studies on L2 acquisition of Japanese particles have treated correct uses and errors separately, and have been only interested in either simply analyzing correct uses (e.g., Moriyama 2008), or in identifying the semantic or syntactic properties that trigger errors (e.g., Masuda 2004). However, when examined systematically in fuller contexts from the perspective of a usage-based model, errors may tell us as much about learners’ language development as correct uses do. One of the questions that arise from this study deals with what determines the language learning processes when input does not seem to be the main factor,

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as in the case of de. A future study should compare data from L2 learners in formal settings with those in natural settings. Such a study will lead to pedagogical advancement by providing information as to what kind of instruction should be given when teaching different linguistic items. Lastly, it needs to be emphasized that corpus data provides incredibly valuable information about language use. While the last two decades have seen a remarkable development in corpus building and corpus linguistics, there is very little corpus data available for Japanese, for both native speakers and learners. The findings of the present study, which was based on a corpus of spontaneous speech data recorded from interviews, should be attested against longitudinal corpus data and corpus of spontaneous speech in more natural settings than interviews.

References Alfonso, Anthony. 1966. Japanese language patterns: A structural approach. vol. 1. Tokyo: Sophia University L. L. Center of Applied Linguistics. Durrant, Philip, & Norbert Schmitt. 2009. To what extent do native and non-native writers make use of collocations? IRAL 47. 157–177. Ellis, Nick C. 1996. Sequencing in SLA phonological memory, chunking, and points of order. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18. 91–126. Ellis, Nick C. 2008. Usage-based and form-focused language acquisition: The associative learning of constructions, learned attention, and the limited L2 endstate. In Peter Robinson & Nick C. Ellis (eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition, 372–405. New York: Routledge. Goldberg, Adele E. 1995. Constructions: A construction grammar approach to argument structure. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kabata, Kaori. 2000. Japanese ni: A cognitive analysis of a lexically complex particle. Edmonton: University of Alberta dissertation. Kamata, Osamu, & Hiroyuki Yamauchi. 1999. KY corpus versition 1.1(Report): Dainigengo toshiteno nihongo no shuutoku nikansuru sougou kenkyu group (Vocabulary Acquisition Study Group). Kidd, Evan, & Thea Cameron-Faulkner. 2004. Overcoming polysemy in first language acquisition: The case of ‘with’. Paper presented at Boston University Conference on Language Development (BUCLD), Boston, M.A. Kidd, Evan, & Thea Cameron-Faulkner. 2008. The acquisition of the multiple senses of with. Linguistics 46. 33–61. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 2000. A dynamic usage-based model. In Michael Barlow and Suzanne Kemmer (eds.), Usage based models of language, 1–64. CSLI Publications.

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Lee, Je-ho. 2009. Tagu tsuki nihongogakushusha kopasu no kaihatsu [Development of a tagged corpus of Japanese leaners]. Keiryo Kokugogaku 27. 60–72. Lemmens, Maarten, & Julien Perrez. 2010. On the use of posture verbs by French-speaking learners of Dutch: A corpus-based study. Cognitive Linguistics 21. 315–347. Lieven, Elena, Dorothé Salomo & Michael Tomasello. 2009. Two-year -old children’s production of multiword utterances: A usage-based analysis. Cognitive Linguistics 20. 481–507. Lieven, Elena V. M., Julian M. Pine, & Gillian Baldwin. 1997. Lexically-based learning and early grammatical development. Journal of Child Language 24. 187–219. Masuda, Kyoko. 2004. Nihongo gakushusha no bashokaku ni to de no goyo: taimenhatsuwa chosa, eigo intabyu, joshianaumetesuto kara wakatta koto [Incorrect uses of spatial markers ni and de by learners of Japanese: What was found from a face-to-face conversation, English interviews, and a fill-in-the-blanks test]. In Masahiko Minami & Makiko Asano (eds.), New Directions in Applied Linguistics, 127–142. Tokyo: Kurosio. Matsumura, Akira. 1971. Nihon bunpo daijiten [Dictionary of Japanese Grammar]. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin. Moriyama, Shin. 2006. Dai-ni gengo toshite no nihongo ni okeru kakujoshi de no shutokukatei ni kansuru ninchigengogaku teki kosatsu [A cognitive linguistics analyses of the acquisition process of case particle DE in Japanese as a second language]. Proceedings for the Japanese Cognitive Linguistics Conference 6, 64–74. Moriyama, Shin. 2008. Ninchigengogaku kara Mita Nihongo Kakujoshi no Imikozo to Shutoku [The semantic structures and acquisition of Japanese case particles from perspectives of cognitive linguistics]. Tokyo: Hitsuji Shobo. Noda, Hisashi. 2001. Gakushusha dokuji no bunpo no haikei [The background of learners’ own grammar]. In Hisash Noda, Kumiko Sakoda, Katsumi Shibuya & Noriko Kobayashi (eds.), Nihongo Gakushusha no Bunpo Shuutoku [Acquisition of Grammar by Learners of Japanese], 45–62. Tokyo: Taishukan. Sakoda, Kumiko. 2001. Gakushusha no bunposhorihoho: Gakushusha wa chikaku o mite shori o suru [Learners’ grammar strategies: Leaners look at nearby contexts. In Hisash Noda, Kumiko Sakoda, Katsumi Shibuya and Noriko Kobayashi (eds.), Nihongo Gakushusha no Bunpo Shutoku [Acquisition of Grammar by Learners of Japanese], 25–43. Tokyo: Taishukan. Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1990. The languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Taguchi, Naoko. 2007. Chunk learning and the development of spoken discourse in a Japanese as a foreign language classroom. Language Teaching Research 11, 433–457. Taguchi, Naoko. 2008. Building language blocks in L2 Japanese: Chunk learning and the development of complexity and fluency in spoken production. Foreign Language Annals 41. 132–156. Tomasello, Michael. 1992. First verbs: A case study of early grammatical development. Cambridge University Press. Tomasello, Michael. 2000. The item-based nature of children’s early syntactic development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 4. 156–163. Traugott, Eliabeth C. 1982. From propositional to textual and expressive meanings: Some semantic-pragmatic aspects of grammaticalization. In Winfred P. Lehmann & Yakov Malkiel (eds.), Perspectives on Historical Linguistics, 245–271. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

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Ueno, Seiji. 1995. Locative/goal phrases in Japanese and conceptual structure. In Kansai Linguistic Society 15: Proceedings of the nineteenth annual meeting: The Kansai Linguistic Society. Wako, Masakazu. 2012. Kankokujin nihongo gakushusha niyoru basho no kakujoshi ni to de no sentaku ni kansuru kenkyu [A research on choice of locative particles ni and de by Korean JSL learners]. Osaka Kyoiku Daigaku Kiyo Dai 1-Bumon 60, 91–99.

Sanako Mitsugi

6 A usage-based approach to relativization: An investigation of advanced-learners’ written production of relative clauses in Japanese Abstract: Earlier research has shown that L2 learners performed better with subject relatives (e.g., the boy that hit the girl) than with object relatives (e.g., the boy that the girl hit) in English and other European languages. However studies have often referred to animacy configurations that are rare in natural language usage. This study builds on the usage-based proposal, according to which experience with language shapes the representation of grammatical structures (e.g., Bybee 2006). Taking a corpus linguistic approach, I examine the use of subject and object relatives by second-learners of Japanese and native Japanese speakers, with respect to the grammatical role of heads, verb transitivity, and head animacy. Quantitative analysis shows that both native speakers and learners produced object relatives predominately with inanimate heads. The nonnative linguistic features reside in the use of subject relatives: Although native speakers produce subject relatives with animate and inanimate heads in equal proportion, learners demonstrated a strong preference toward animate agents, regardless of verb transitivity, which serves as a diagnostic for structural acquisition problems. The results are discussed in the context of linguistic universals and specifics of relative clause and are evaluated in light of the claim that the distribution of relative clauses is best explained by discourse functions (Fox and Thompson 1990). Keywords: Relative clauses, quantitative corpus linguistics, discourse function, animacy

1 Introduction Relative clauses are linguistic structures that demonstrate one of the most interesting generalizations in cross-linguistic research. The noun phrase accessibility hierarchy proposed by Keenan and Comrie (1977) maintains that the degree of ease in relativization of a particular noun phrase proceeds in the following order:

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Subject > direct object > indirect object > oblique > genitive > object of comparison.

The noun phrase accessibility hierarchy is implicational; that is, if a language can relativize a certain category – say, indirect objects – it also allows the relativization of all grammatical positions to the left of that category: in the case of indirect objects, direct objects and subjects. The field of second language acquisition adopted the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy as a universal hierarchy that predicts the difficulty order of relative clause acquisition (Doughty, 1991; Eckman, Bell and Nelson, 1988). The acquisition of relative clauses has been investigated in numerous experimental studies across different target languages. The findings are robust, especially for subject and object relatives, on the left side of the hierarchy.¹ Second language learners are better at producing and understanding subject relatives, such as that in (2), than object relative clauses, such as in (3), in English and several European languages (Croteau 1995; Eckman, Bell and Nelson 1988; Gass 1979; Hawkins 1989; Hyltenstam 1984). (2) the boy that hit the girl (3) the boy that the girl hit The phenomenon that subject relatives are easier to acquire or process than are object relatives are often referred to the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy effect, following Comrie (2007). In the present study, I use the terms subject–object asymmetry interchangeably with the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy effect in many studies, because the present study was concerned only with subject and object relatives. Researchers taking formal approaches have claimed that linguistic operations such as movement result in greater syntactic complexity in object relatives than in subject relatives (Hawkins 1989; O’Grady, Lee, and Choo 2003; Tarallo and Myhill 1983). From a more functional perspective, it has been argued that subject–object asymmetry is an artifact of the difficulty associated with object relatives, which do not follow discourse constraints, and, therefore, they are dif-

1 The terms subject relative and object relative are used, as in many previous studies on relative clauses, to refer to the role of relative clause head. Subject relative refers to a relative clause in which the head is the subject of the relative clause. Object relative refers to a relative clause in which the head is the object of the relative clauses. The term relative clause is used to refer to relative clauses in general.

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ferent from the relative clauses that people typically experience (e.g., Mak, Vonk, and Schriefers 2002). In particular, according to the influential study by Fox and Thompson (1990), whose theoretical framework I adopt here, object relatives are most often headed by inanimate heads, whereas subject relatives do not have such an animacy bias. Fox and Thompson (1990) further argued that such semantic associations are driven by discourse functions – that is the intent behind our communication. The present study reports the results of a corpus linguistic study of the use of Japanese relative clauses. I investigate the question of how Japanese relative clauses are distributed in written production by second-language learners of Japanese and native Japanese speakers and how discourse functions play role in the distribution. Japanese is a head-final language with prenominal modification (Kuno 1973); these linguistic profiles render it an important testing ground for understanding the universals and particulars of the second-language acquisition of relative clauses. In what follows, I will first provide an overview of previous studies on relative clauses in second-language. Then I introduce the present study, in which I examined the patterns of more than 600 relative clauses extracted from a second-language corpus and a native speaker baseline corpus. A detailed sampling and classification procedure is provided, followed by the quantitative and qualitative results. The results thereby suggest that the distribution of Japanese relative clauses is influenced by discourse functions, which, in turn, interact with the grammatical role of the head, animacy, and verb transitivity. Nonnativelike performance rests in the interaction of these factors. These results speak against purely structural approaches to subject–object asymmetry, arguing in favor of usage-based language acquisition accounts, according to which language use shapes the representation of linguistic structures (e.g., Bates and MacWhinney 1987; Bybee 2006; Ellis 2003; Goldberg 2006; Tomasello 2003).

2 Previous second-language studies on relative clauses Drawing from the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy, researchers of second-language acquisition have investigated how second-language learners perform on different types of relative clauses in their target languages in numerous production and comprehension studies. Since the first influential study by Schachter (1974), the shared finding of this line of research is that second-language learners are better at producing and understanding subject relatives than object relatives. In one of the earliest second-language studies on relative clauses in English, Gass

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(1979) demonstrated that learners’ accuracy rate paralleled the order predicted by the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy in sentence combination tasks. The noun phrase accessibility hierarchy effect has been observed not only in secondlanguage English but also in some European languages, such as Italian, French, and Swedish (Croteau 1995; Doughty 1991; Eckman, Bell, and Nelson 1988; Gass 1979; Hawkins 1989; Hyltenstam 1984). The experimental findings on performance accuracy are also compatible with those on production frequency; second-language learners produce types of relative clauses that are in the higher positions in the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy more frequently and produce them earlier than those in the lower positions (Hyltenstam 1984; Mellow 2006; Pavesi 1986).

2.1 Formal approaches to relative clauses One way to explain why typological generalizations such as the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy manifest themselves in acquisitional patterns is to hypothesize the preference arising from the mechanisms that underlie sentence processing. Tarallo and Myhill (1983) and Hawkins (1989) advanced the linear distance hypothesis, which relates the increase in processing difficulty to the increase in linear distance between the gap and the head noun phrase. There are different ways to implement this idea, but one possibility is simply to count the number of intervening constituents (e.g., O’Grady 1996). In English, object relatives as in (5) are predicted to be more difficult than subject relatives, such as that in (4), because the gap site, indexed by e in the examples, is farther from the head noun phrase than is the case for subject relatives.² (4) the womani [CP that [IP ei hit the man]] called the police (5) the mani [CP that [IP the woman [VP hit ei]]] called the police Similarity, O’Grady, Lee, and Choo (2003) proposed the structural distance hypothesis, arguing that the processing difficulty associated with relative clauses

2 Whenever appropriate, the standard phrase structure rules are used to describe sentence structure in this manuscript. The phrase structure abbreviation CP corresponds to complementizer phrase, IP corresponds to inflection phrase, and VP to verb phrase. Gap positions are marked by e, and coindexation is indicated by a subscript i. The abbreviations in this chapter are ACC, accusative case; ASP, verb aspect marker; BEN, benefactive; DAT, dative; INS, instrumental; LOC, locative case; NOM, nominative case; PAST, past tense.

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is indexed by the number of syntactic nodes (i.e., X Phrase categories) intervening between the gap and the head noun phrase. Subject relatives involve two syntactic nodes – the complementizer phrase and inflection phrase nodes, as is shown in (4) – whereas object relatives involve three nodes – complementizer phrase, inflection phrase, and verb phrase, as is shown in (5)  – and, therefore, object relative clauses are predicted to be more difficult than subject relative clauses. In English, the linear distance hypothesis and the structural distance hypothesis produce the same prediction regarding the ease of processing; that is, subject relatives are easier to process that object relatives. Japanese relative clauses have various characteristics that are different from those in English; Japanese is classified as a subject–object–verb language, and relative clauses appear in a prenominal position (Kuno 1973). Because of these linguistic properties, the predictions of the abovementioned hypotheses vary in Japanese. The linear distance hypothesis predicts that object relatives (which have one constituent intervening between the gap and its coreferent noun) are easier than subject relatives (two constituents intervening). The structural distance hypothesis, on the other hand predicts that subject relatives are easier than object relatives in Japanese (complementizer phrase and inflection phrase versus complementizer phrase, inflection phrase, and verb phrase, respectively), as is illustrated in (6) and (7). Because the subject gap is always closer to the head noun than the object gap in terms of phrase structure, the predictions made on the basis of the structural distance hypothesis do not vary regardless of whether relative clauses in a language are pre-nominal or post-nominal. (6) [CP ei [IP otokonohito-o tatai-ta]] onnanohitoi-ga keesatu-o man-ACC hit-PAST woman-NOM police-ACC ‘(the) woman that hit (the) man called the police’

yon-da. call-PAST

(7) [CP onnanohito-ga [IP ei [VP tatai-ta]]] onnanohitoi-ga keesatu-o yon-da. woman-NOM hit-PAST man-NOM police-ACC call-PAST ‘(the) man that (the) woman hit called (the) police’ Interestingly, previous studies on relative clauses in Japanese have already demonstrated empirical complexities. To examine how learners of Japanese with English as a first language comprehend relative clauses, Kanno (2000) employed a picture-selection task and found that her participants performed more accurately on subject relatives than on object relatives, which provided evidence in favor of the structural distance hypothesis in Japanese. On the other hand, using a grammaticality-judgment task, Tarallo and Myhill (1983) looked at the acquisition of relative clauses in various languages by learners with English as their

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first language. Their participants judged object relatives more accurately than subject relatives in Japanese. This result is in accordance with the prediction of the linear distance hypothesis. These mixed results in Japanese relatives give rise to the question of whether a purely structural approach explains the phenomenon adequately.

2.2 Usage-based approaches to relative clauses An alternative explanation for subject–object asymmetry derives from the study by Fox and Thompson (1990). Examining English relative clauses from native speaker conversations, Fox and Thomson (1990) found interesting animacy associations with subject and object relatives. Specifically, object relatives are used almost exclusively with inanimate heads, whereas subject relatives do not demonstrate such a bias; they are evenly headed by inanimate and animate referents. Fox and Thompson (1990) claim that these animacy associations with the grammatical role of the head were driven by discourse function, the argument being that object relatives are used to ground inanimate referents. Inanimate referents are made relevant in the ongoing discourse by linking them to animate referents. These animate referents serve as agents, which act on and manipulate the inanimate referents in the object position (e.g., the shop that John owns). Therefore, object relatives predominately occur with inanimate heads. Subject relatives, however, are used to characterize and provide new information about animate and inanimate referents. Therefore, there is no animacy bias in subject relatives. These subject relatives often involve intransitive verbs that provide attributes and properties of their subjects (Fox and Thompson 1990: 307). In recent analyses using larger corpora, similar patterns have been found in English (Roland, Dick, and Elman 2007) and in languages such as Dutch and German (Mak, Vonk, and Schriefers 2002) and Chinese (Pu 2007; Wu, Kaiser, and Andersen 2012). The animacy associations with the grammatical role of the head discussed above have been empirically shown to affect real-time language processing. Mak, Vonk and Schriefers (2002) investigated how native speakers of Dutch process sentences that contain relative clauses. When heads had animate referents, their participants took longer to read object relatives than they did subject relatives. Nevertheless, when the object relatives involved inanimate heads, the previously observed processing cost diminished, and there was no difference in the reading times of subject relatives with animate heads and those of object relatives with inanimate heads. Similar results were observed in other languages, such as English, French, Spanish, and Chinese (Baudiffier et al. 2011; Betancort, Carreiras, and Sturt 2009; Gennari and MacDonald 2008; Traxler 2002; Wu, Kaiser,

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and Andersen 2012). Given these observations, it is reasonable to presume that not just in these languages but also in Japanese, the animacy association with the grammatical role of the head affects the distribution of relative clauses and the ease of processing. These findings are in line with the central claim of the usagebased approach, in that linguistic usage shapes our representation and processing mechanism (e.g., Bates and MacWhinney 1987). Do second-language learners demonstrate the same animacy association in their own production? Many second-language studies of relative clauses have employed animate referents for heads and embedded noun phrases for keeping linguistic conditions as consistent as possible (Aydin 2007; Kanno 2000; O’Grady, Lee, and Choo 2003; Tarallo and Myhill 1983). There are few second-language studies in which animacy was considered an important determinant of the distribution of subject and object relatives. The notable exception is the study by Ozaki and Shirai (2007), who examined the production of relative clauses by second-language learners of Japanese. Their relative clauses were elicited from a corpus consisting of oral proficiency interviews from the American Council of the Teaching of Foreign Languages (Kamada 2006). Ozeki and Shirai (2007) found that intermediate-level learners demonstrated a strong animacy association with relative clauses. Specifically, they associated subject relatives with animate heads and object relatives with inanimate heads. Native speakers of Japanese and advanced-level learners also produced object relatives almost exclusively with inanimate heads. However, they did not show a tendency to associate subject relatives with animate heads. The subject relatives were headed with both animate and inanimate heads. On the basis of these findings, Ozeki and Shirai (2007) argued that learners are guided by the animacy of the head noun rather than by syntactic properties, at least at the initial stage of learning. Despite these intriguing findings, the study by Ozeki and Shirai (2007) has some limitations. As Kanno (2007) cautiously mentioned, some of the relative clauses produced by the learners were short, and it was therefore difficult to preclude the possibility of their being produced as chunks. Spontaneous speech production has the limitation that it constrains learners’ planning. Consequently, second-language learners tend to select simpler and more available words and structures (Rubin 1978). Furthermore, the findings regarding the animacy associations provide only weak empirical support. The data from native speakers were analyzed for baseline comparison, but the size of the corpora was not controlled for the frequency profiling, which was also true for between-group comparisons of different first-language and proficiency groups. As a result, their analysis remains confined to descriptive statistics. Finally, it is not clear whether Ozeki and Shirai (2007) analyzed their subject relatives with respect to the transitivity of the relative clause verbs. As reviewed earlier, Fox and Thompson (1990) pointed out the

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prominence of intransitive verbs in subject relatives and its effect on the discourse function. Further analysis regarding the verb transitivity in subject relatives should shed light on the relative clause distribution driven by discourse function. In the present chapter, I take steps toward closing this gap. Taking a corpus linguistic approach, I investigated the use of relative clauses by advanced-level second-language learners in their written production. Written language allows more time to select the lexemes and structures that best communicate the writer’s intention than spontaneous speech, especially for second-language learners. This difference in the task demand may render the relative clause construction more perceptible than in spoken production. Importantly, quantitative comparisons between a first and second language can highlight a range of nonnative uses of relative clauses via comparisons of the linguistic features in the native norm. In this study, frequency counts and log-likelihood calculations were used to measure the frequency of relative clause types and to determine whether the possible differences were statistically significant. I examine relative clauses with respect to the grammatical role of head (e.g., subject and object relatives), head animacy, and the transitivity of relative clause verbs. I adopt the usage-based perspective (Bates and MacWhinney 1987; Bybee 2006; Ellis 2003; Goldberg 2006; Tomasello 2003). I argue that discourse functions and language experience have an effect on the distribution of Japanese relative clauses produced by secondlanguage learners.

3 The present study 3.1 Data I analyzed relative clauses sampled from The International Corpus of Learners of Japanese (version β, Mochizuki 2012). The corpus consists of two parts: the data collected from advanced learners of Japanese and the data from Japanese native speakers. The second-language learner participants’ first languages were Chinese (n = 20) and Korean (n = 25). The participants’ proficiency was set consistent; they were advanced-level learners of Japanese, who passed the highest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. The native baseline data are from 53 native speakers of Japanese, who were either college students or college graduates in Japan. The participants were asked to choose a topic from 20 suggested topics for their essays (e.g., expository or narrative essays). They were required to write during 60-minute-long periods. They either typed or wrote the essay by hand and were allowed to use dictionaries.

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This corpus was chosen because it consists of written production data from highly proficient second-language learners of Japanese. Writing production data provide an excellent window into second-language knowledge of complex grammatical constructions, such as relative clauses. More planning and reflection in writing usually lead to syntactically more complex language than does speaking (Rubin 1978). Furthermore, advanced-level second-language proficiency was also an important criterion for choosing this corpus. As I examine the distribution of relative clauses here, it is crucial to make sure that the participants are proficient and capable of producing the target construction (Odlin 2003). Finally, the availability of data involving a native baseline allows us to ensure the compatibility of the types and amount of data being analyzed, which speaks to our interest in underuse and overuse patterns in second-language learners’ production (Granger 2002).³

3.2 Sampling and categorization Subject and object relatives, such as those shown in (6) and (7), that involve gaps in the verb argument structures were analyzed.⁴ Relative clauses were hand searched by reading all the essays in the corpus. Because Japanese does not have a relative pronoun or a morphological marker to initiate relative clauses, automatic sampling techniques, which are conventionally used in corpus linguistics, cannot be applied. Once they were sampled, the relative clauses were coded for three features: (1) the grammatical role of the head (i.e., subject and object relatives), (2) the transitivity of the relative clause verb, and (3) head animacy. Fig. 1 illustrates these classifications, chosen on the basis of the study by Fox and Thompson (1990). I will explain each classification in detail below.

3 The terms overuse and underuse are defined here as statistically significant differences between second-language distributions and first-language distributions such that the second-language leaners produce the structure more or less often, respectively, than the native speakers. 4 Although it is an interesting issue in its own right, relative clauses involving outer-relationship or adnominal clauses (Matsumoto 1997; Teramura 1970) were not included in the current analysis, because the grammatical relations of the head noun in these types of noun-modifying clause cannot simply be determined from the surface (i.e., tabeta resutoran, ‘the restaurant at which (I or someone) ate’; Matsumoto 1997: 89).

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Relative clause (1) Grammatical role of head (2) Transitivity of verb

(3) Head animacy

Subject relative

Transitive (A-relative) Animate

Inanimate

Intransitive (S-relative) Animate Inanimate

Object relative

(Transitive) Animate

Inanimate

Fig. 1: The classification of the relative clauses used in the present study.

For Feature 1 (grammatical role of relative clause head), the sampled relative clauses were classified into either subject or object relatives, following the widely used procedure developed by Teramura (1970). In order to identify the relative clause type, the head noun is moved to the extracted position and is attached to an appropriate case marker. It is then judged on the basis of the attached case marker. For instance, in (8a), mado, ‘(the) window,’ is moved back to the object position, as is shown in (8b), and the case marker -o is attached. Then, this relative clause is classified as an object relative. (8) a. otokonohito-ga kowasi-ta mado man-NOM break(tr.)-PAST window ‘(the) window that (the) man broke’ b. otokonohito-ga mado-o kowasi-ta man-NOM window-ACC break(tr.)-PAST ‘(the) man broke (the) window’ For Feature 2, subject relatives are classified into those with transitive verbs, such as that shown in (6), and with intransitive verbs, as is shown in (9). (9) koware-ta mado break(in.)-PAST window ‘(the) window that broke (by itself)’ The term a-relatives is used for subject relatives with transitive verb, and s-relative is defined as subject relatives with intransitive verb, following the notation proposed by Comrie (1978) and Dixon (1979). Finally, for Feature 3, regarding the semantic type of the head, I adopted a binary category of human or animal versus

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other and classified head noun phrases into two levels: animate head and inanimate head, which are shown in (10) and (11), respectively.⁵ (10) otokonohito-ga tatai-ta onnanohito man-NOM hit-PAST woman ‘(the) woman that (the) man hit’ (11) otokonohito-ga tatai-ta mado man-NOM hit-PAST window ‘(the) window that (the) man hit’ Animacy is an important factor to consider because of its central role in assigning thematic roles and grammatical relations in argument structure. In the usagebased approach, associations between grammatical relations and semantic roles are also considered part of our linguistic knowledge (e.g., Diessel and Tomasello 2005). Tab. 1: The number of participants and corpus size. Language group

Participants

The average number of essays per participant

Corpus size

Native Japanese speakers Second-language total  First-language Chinese  First-language Korean

53 45 20 25

1.60 1.76 2.10 1.44

37,358 31,601 17,053 14,548

Once relative clauses were identified, they were coded for each feature (Fig. 1) and were plotted in stacked-column graphs to visualize the production distributions. Wherever was necessary, statistical tests were performed on the token frequency of relative clauses. I used the log-likelihood G-test to compare the secondlanguage learner data against the native speaker data, using frequency profiling (Rayson and Garside 2000). These analyses were performed using the Deducer package (ver. 0.7–7; Fellows 2012) of the statistical software environment R. The log likelihood G-test considers the reliability of the frequency profiling in relation

5 The concept of animacy can be regarded as a kind of assumed cognitive scale extending form human through animal to inanimate. The distinction between animate and inanimate is not merely a matter of dichotomy; it exhibits a hierarchic scale (e.g., Comrie 1989; Dixon 1979). Because of data sparseness in the present study and in the quantitative analysis, the binary scale is adopted here.

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to the size of the corpora. In order to obtain the corpus size, I used the Japanese morphological analyzer MeCab (Kudo 2006). Tab. 1 reports the identified corpus size and also the number of essay samples submitted by each participant, which varies across participants in the β version of the corpus.

4 Results 4.1 Overall relative clause distribution First, let us look at the overall trend of subject and object relative clauses found in the learner corpus and the native baseline corpus. In total, 634 subject relatives and object relatives were sampled; 273 were from second-language learners, and 361 were from native speakers. A series of comparisons of the relative clauses produced by the learners with Korean and those with Chinese as their first language did not show a statistically significant difference (log likelihood ratio, Gs < 3.70, df = 1, ps < 0.06), which suggests that first-language effects may not be pronounced in the use of relative clauses by the present populations of second-language learners.⁶ This finding is in line with previous studies, which have shown that higher second-language proficiency writers demonstrate less first-language transfer in their production of the second language (e.g., Scott 1996). Furthermore, the result is compatible with that of Ozeki and Shirai (2007). Ozeki and Shirai (2007) also showed no firstlanguage effect in the use of relative clauses by learners with English, Chinese, and Korean as their first language with advanced-level proficiency, whereas their intermediate-level learners demonstrated such patterns, which differed depending on the learners’ first language. In the following analyses, these two second-language learner groups are therefore combined and are treated as one group. Hereafter, this combined group is called the second-language learner group. Next, I compared the overall use of subject and object relatives between the second-language learner group and the native speaker group. Subject relatives outnumbered object relatives for both the second-language learners and the native speakers (73 % and 70 %, respectively), which suggests that subject–object asymmetry manifests itself in the written production of relative clauses in Japanese. The 6 These comparisons were analogous to those presented in the rest of the paper, treating the second-language learners with the Chinese background and those with the Korean background separately. Because none of the results were statistically significant, I treated these learners as a single group.

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token frequencies of subject and object relatives of the second-language learners and the native speakers were compared. The results show that the second-language learners used subject relatives and object relatives as frequently as did the native speakers; for the subject relatives, G = 0.40, df = 1, p = 0.52, and for object relatives, G = 2.62, df = 1, p = 0.10. These results suggest that the overall use of subject and object relatives by the second-language learners was nativelike. Subject relatives consist of those with transitive verbs (i.e., a-relatives) and with intransitive verbs (i.e., s-relatives). In previous second-language studies on relative clauses, a-relatives have been considered a baseline against which object relatives are compared. When I focused only on a-relatives and compared those with object relatives, the previously observed subject preference was no longer present in the native speakers’ production (25 % for a-relatives and 30 % for object relatives). However, the second-language learners showed a preference for a-relatives over object relatives (37 % for a-relatives and 27 % for object relatives). Fig. 2 shows the distribution of a-relatives, s-relatives, and object relatives. The distributions are normalized by the total number of relative clauses analyzed for visualization. In order to better understand the differences in the relative clause distribution, between-group analyses were performed; the second-language learners significantly overused a-relatives relatives to the native speaker group (G = 3.83, df = 1, p = 0.05), but, in contrast, the learners underused s-relatives (G = 6.50, df = 1, p < 0.01). 100% 36% 75%

50%

44%

37%

25%

27%

30%

L2

NS

Relative clause type S−relative A−relative Object relative

25%

0%

Fig. 2: The overall percentages of relative clause types produced by the second-language learners (L2) and by the native speakers (NS). Notes. S-relative refers to a subject relative with an intransitive verb, and a-relative refers to a subject relative with a transitive verb.

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The native Japanese speakers demonstrated a predominance of s-relatives over a-relatives. This result is in line with the findings of the study by Fox and Thompson (1990). Fox and Thomson (1990) and Fox (1987) accounted for the predominance of s-relatives in term of their discourse functions. Specifically, s-relatives provide a characterization and attributes of the head noun. In the present study, I observed some s-relatives in Japanese that suggest the same discourse functions as Fox and Thompson (1990) identified. Sentence (12) is an example of an s-relative found in the native speaker data that shows the function of characterization. (12) Edozidai-ni sono tiiki-ni sun-de-i-ta noumintati Edo era-DAT that area-LOC live-ASP-PAST peasants ‘the peasant who lived in that area during the Edo era’ In sentence (12), the relative clause provides an explanation and characterization about the peasants. Fox and Thomson (1990) pointed out that when subject relatives are used for the function of characterization, verbs used in s-relatives are highly stative. In fact, the verb in (12) involves the resultative aspect. In other cases, verbs are combined with naru, ‘become,’ (e.g., utsu-ni naru hito, ‘the person who becomes depressed’), which also focuses on the results of an action (Ikegami 1991). These instances highlighted the possibility that the discourse function of s-relatives identified in English also apply in Japanese relative clauses.

4.2 Interaction of verb transitivity and head animacy In the previous section, we observed differences in the use of s-relatives between the native and nonnative speakers. In fact, head animacy intricately interacted with the use of s-relatives. The analysis of head animacy revealed that, out of all of the s-relatives, only those with inanimate heads accounted for the secondlanguage learners’ underuse of s-relatives (G = 4.14, df = 1, p = 0.04). The learners’ frequency of using s-relatives with animate heads was not statistically different from that of the native speakers (G = 2.03, df = 1, p = 0.15). Fig. 3 demonstrates the distribution of head animacy in s-relatives. Why did second-language learners demonstrate the underuse of s-relatives only when those were headed by inanimate heads? It is possible that the secondlanguage learners’ underuse may result from the general difficulty associated with intransitive verb constructions involving inanimate subjects for secondlanguage learners of Japanese. Japanese allows a wide range of verbs to undergo transitivity alternation (Ikegami 1991; Jacobsen 1992). That is, Japanese can describe the change of state caused by an animate agent intransitively, whereas

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50%

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Head animacy Inanimate Animate

40% 26%

30% 20% 20%

10%

0%

16%

19%

L2

NS

Fig. 3: The percentage of head animacy type in s-relatives produced by second-language learners (L2) and native speakers (NS). Notes. This is the distribution of s-relative with animate and inanimate heads as the percentage of all relative clauses analyzed. This plot effectively zooms in to the “S-relative” portion of Fig. 2.

in English, verbs that describe action with the involvement of an agent are realized in the transitive construction (e.g., I found the money versus *the money found), which results in a transitivity mismatch. Teramura (1976) argued that second-language learners have difficulty using the intransitive verb construction with inanimate subjects, especially when the event in question could not have been realized without the involvement of an agent. Pardeshi (2008) calls this type of verb “agent-implying verbs”. It is possible that, in the present study, the second-language learners might have consciously or unconsciously avoided s-relatives with inanimate heads in their Japanese essays, owing to the difficulty associated with verbs in the agentimplying type. What the second-language learners might have done instead when they intended to modify inanimate referents is to use object relatives with inanimate heads. To illustrate this point, let us consider example (13), taken from the second-language learners’ data. (13) teniire-ta sakana ya kani, ebi-o okaasan-ga acquire(tr.)-PAST fish and crab shrimp-ACC mother-NOM oisiku ryoorisite-kure-ta deliciously cook-BEN-PAST ‘(my) mother cooked fish, crabs, shrimps deliciously that (I) acquire for me’

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The relative clause teniireta sakana “the fish I acquire” is an object relative with an inanimate head and is grammatically correct. Nevertheless, it might have been more natural to use an s-relative with an inanimate head (i.e., tenihaitta sakana, ‘the fish that became possession’). The sentence was produced in the context of describing a beautiful river, which offers a variety of activity, and, therefore, it does not seem necessary to describe the volitional action of a writer in obtaining fish. The event of acquiring fish cannot be realized without the involvement of an agent in English, and it is therefore possible that the characteristics of the Japanese intransitive construction itself (and its differences from that in the learners’ first language) result in the underuse of s-relatives with inanimate heads. Another possibility is that second-language learners prefer subjects to be animate in general, and therefore use few inanimate subjects, regardless of the verb type. The second-language learners’ use of a-relatives suggest this possibility. The analysis shows that the second-language learners overused a-relatives compared to the Japanese native speakers. Further analysis with respect to head animacy reveals that only a-relatives with animate heads accounted for the sec-

50%

Head animacy Inanimate Animate

40%

30%

12%

20%

10%

12% 25% 14%

0%

L2

NS

Fig. 4: The percentage of each head animacy type in a-relatives produced by second-language learners (L2) and native speakers (NS). Notes. This is the distribution of a-relative with animate and inanimate heads as the percentage of all relative clauses analyzed. This plot effectively zooms in to the “A-relative” portion of Fig. 2.

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ond-language learners’ overuse of a-relatives (G = 7.10, df = 1, p = 0.007). There was no first-language–second-language distributional difference in a-relatives with inanimate heads (G = 0.03, df = 1, p = 0.84). Fig. 4 shows the distribution of the head animacy of a-relatives. A within-group comparison of the production proportions showed that there was a preponderance of animate heads over inanimate heads in a-relatives, by a ratio 2:1 (25 % and 12 %) in the second-language learners’ production. However, the native speakers did not associate subject relative clauses with transitive verbs with a particular semantic role (13 % and 12 %). The second-language learners demonstrated their preference to associate subject relatives (both a-relatives and s-relatives) with animate heads. The difficulty associated with the intransitive verb construction with inanimate subjects, as was discussed earlier, in turn, encourages the use of the transitive construction with an animate subject instead. Furthermore, there is a typologically universal preference, in which animate referents tend to be realized in the subject position in the transitive construction (Du Bois 1987). Together, these two effects – namely, the difficulty of using the Japanese intransitive construction itself and the typologically universal preference  – synergistically yield second-language learners’ overuse of animate subjects, regardless of the verb type. Turning next to object relatives, the second-language learners demonstrated strong associations between object relatives and inanimate heads (96 % of the 73 token object relatives). The same pattern of distribution was observed in the native speakers’ production (94 % of 110 token object relatives). When I compared these two groups, the likelihood of using object relatives with animate heads (G = 1.04, df = 1, p = 0.30) and with inanimate heads (G = 2.02, df = 1, p = 0.154) was not significantly different, which suggests that the use of object relatives was comparable between the two groups. This pattern of results is in line with previous second-language spoken corpus studies in Japanese (Ozeki and Shirai 2007) and with previous first-language corpus studies in other languages (Fox and Thompson 1990; Mak, Vonk, and Schriefers 2002; Roland et al. 2012). As was reviewed earlier, Fox and Thompson (1990) accounted for the animacy association in terms of the discourse function of object relatives, in which inanimate heads are made relevant to the discourse by animate agents. To see how this works, let us consider the following utterance from a second-language learner participant. (14) dareka-ga naihu-de kizan-da ji-ga mieru someone-NOM knife-INS inscribe-PAST letter-NOM can-see ‘you can see letters that someone inscribed (on the Great Wall)’

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This is a typical instance of the object relatives that we are considering here. In the context prior to (14), this writer talked about the air quality along the Great Wall of China. Then, with sentence (14), closer views of the Great Wall are discussed. The letters are first mentioned in this passage. To locate the inanimate noun phrase ji “letters” in discourse, it was related to a given referent already established or assumed – that is, some anonymous person who vandalized the wall by carving letters.

5 Discussion In this study, I investigated the use of Japanese relative clauses in second-language learners’ writing in comparison with a native speaker baseline. The results demonstrate that, contrary to the formal accounts, the distribution of Japanese relative clauses cannot be explained adequately by purely structural properties, such as gap positions in subject and object relatives. It was found that head animacy is a crucial determinant of the distribution of subject and object relatives used by both native Japanese speakers and second-language learners of Japanese. Because animacy has an effect on thematic roles assignments, which, in turn, largely depend on the type of verb (i.e., verb transitivity), I observed intricate interactions among the factors considered in the study: the grammatical role of the head, verb transitivity, and head animacy. Moreover, despite the typological differences between English and Japanese, we observed similar patterns in relative clause distribution that reflect discourse functions: Subject relatives are used to provide descriptions and attributes of head nouns, and object relatives are used to relate an inanimate referent to the ongoing discourse. The study demonstrated that Japanese relative clauses have discourse functions that are similar to those identified in English, such as the characterization of referents and grounding inanimate referents in ongoing discourse. From a pedagogical standpoint, by focusing on such discourse functions, instructors can make grammatical instruction truly conform to the central ideas of communicative models of foreign language teaching, such as task-based instruction and content-based teaching. At the beginning level, common grammar instruction often relies on individual sentences to present and explain second-language grammatical rules. Yabuki-Soh (2013) reported that one of the most common exercises after the grammatical explanation is pattern practice at the sentence level. The specific discourse functions that were identified in the present study are not necessarily recognized when reading decontextualized sentences. A larger discourse context can highlight the function and communicative value of different types of

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relative clauses early on in foreign language instruction. In so doing, instructors can discuss the discourse explanations that often favor s-relative with inanimate heads over object relatives with inanimate heads as a means of showing how competing constructions have different communicative meanings, which should be a part of second-language grammatical knowledge. The central idea in usage-based approaches is that linguistic structures and their representations are shaped by usage, and, therefore, learners’ linguistic knowledge is assumed to emerge as a result of exposure to usage events (Barlow and Kemmer 2000). One of the major advantages of the usage-based approach is to allow us to relate the second-language learners’ use of relative clauses to language input that they have received. In foreign language settings, initial exposure may take place predominantly in the language classroom and through the textbook, specifically. Tono (2004) argued that beginning- and intermediatelevel textbooks are designed to contain forms and types of a target grammatical structure, which facilitates learning. In order to determine whether learners receive linguistic resources that reflect characteristics of Japanese relative clause construction, Yabuki-Soh (2013) examined the types of relative clauses that were found in seven textbooks commonly used for learning Japanese as a foreign language. She found that 86 % of the subject relatives had animate heads and that all of the object relatives identified had inanimate heads. The distribution of relative clauses by second-language learners observed in the present study is congruent with the results from the textbook analysis by Yabuki-Soh (2013). In comparing the patterns of written production observed in the present study with the textbook analysis by Yabuki-Soh (2013), it is possible that the types of relative clauses in instructional input may have an effect on second-language learners’ production and their subsequent demonstrations of semantic associations. Therefore, it would be a reasonable suggestion to include a variety of relative clause in the instructional input, especially those underused by the second-language learners. Furthermore, the relative clause construction can be reintroduced at a later stage, focusing on discourse function to promote second-language learners’ understanding of the functional use. Examining production data by highly proficient learners allows us to assume that these learners are proficient enough to understand and produce a variety of relative clauses, and, therefore, we can consider their underuse as a diagnostic for structural acquisition. The results of the present study demonstrated that there is a difference between second-language and native performance on s-relatives and a-relatives. The pattern of the results implies that nonnative performance might not be solely due to the lack of knowledge in relativization, but rather the lack of knowledge on argument structure – when to use an appropriate verb in a given

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context. As a result, second-language learners relativize using verbs, which are not context and/or discourse appropriate, especially for intransitive verbs. The present study only employed written production data, and future research should investigate whether second-language learners’ underuse of a certain relative clause type stems from their lack of knowledge. Because avoidance is a feasible cause for learners’ underuse, it is possible that different patterns emerge in a comprehension task. Therefore, future studies should include experimental designs to determine whether the observed pattern indeed exists in comprehension, despite the advantages that a written production task seems to convey. In numerous adult monolingual and second-language processing studies, relative clauses have been examined using self-paced reading tasks. Therefore, it would be interesting to address this issue with the effect of discourse functions in mind. Finally, the present study demonstrated that the types of relative clauses underused by the second-language learners somewhat correspond to the absence of such structures in the introductory textbook. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that the study does not provide direct evidence for the relationship between the input given in the introductory level and the production pattern of relative clauses by highly advanced-level learners of Japanese, who presumably received much more input than those introductory textbooks provide. Future studies including multiple proficiency groups appear fully justified for our better understanding of the relative clause acquisition with evidence of a developmental trajectory toward structural completion.

6 Conclusion The present study examined the use of Japanese relative clauses by second-language learners and native Japanese speakers. The study revealed a nonnativelike pattern in the sub-categories of subject relative clauses: s-relatives and a-relatives. The highly proficient second-language learners of Japanese demonstrated strong associations between both a-relatives and s-relatives and animate heads and between object relatives and inanimate heads, possibly driven by the combination of the universally preferred semantic roles of subjects and objects (e.g., Du Bois 1987) and the difficulties associated with the use of Japanese intransitive verbs (Teramura 1976). The pattern of results cannot be fully explicated by structural factors, such as gap positions. Instead, the current results can be best explained within the usage-based framework (e.g., Bybee 2006; Tomasello 2003); the distribution of relative clauses are also influenced by the grammatical role of

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the head, head animacy, and verb argument structure, which, in turn, are influenced by discourse functions.

Acknowledgements This work was supported by the University of Kansas General Research Fund allocation 2302332-099 to Sanako Mitsugi. A part of this paper was presented at the Annual Conference of the American Association for Applied Linguistics 2014, Portland, OR. I would like to thank the organizers of that conference and the audience for their helpful comments and discussion. I would like to thank anonymous reviewers of this edited book for their comments on earlier versions of this paper. All errors are my own.

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Kanno, Kazue. 2007. Factors affecting the processing of Japanese relative clauses by L2 learners. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 29(2). 197–218. Keenan, Edward & Bernard Comrie. 1977. Noun phrase accessibility and universal grammar. Linguistic Inquiry 8(1). 63–99. Kudo, Taku. 2006. MeCab: Yet another Part of Speech and Morphological Analyzer. http:// mecab.sourceforge.net. Kuno, Susumu. 1973. The structure of the Japanese language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Mak, Willem, Wietske Vonk & Herbert Schriefers. 2002. The influence of animacy on relative clause processing. Journal of Memory and Language 47(1). 50–68. Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 1997. Noun-modifying constructions in Japanese: A frame-semantic approach. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mellow, Dean. 2006. The emergence of second language syntax: A case study of the acquisition of relative clauses. Applied Linguistics 27(4). 645–70. Mochizuki, Michiko. 2012. Construction of learner corpora and international corpus of learner Japanese (ICLEAJ) in Japanese language education [in Japanese]. Journal of Foreign Language Studies 7. 111–19. O’Grady, William. 1996. Language acquisition without universal grammar: A general nativist proposal for L2 learning. Second Language Research 12(4). 374–97. O’Grady, William, Miseon Lee & Miho Choo. 2003. A subject-object asymmetry in the acquisition of relative clauses in Korean as a second language. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 25(3). 433–48. Odlin, Terence. 2003. Cross-linguistic influence. In Catherine Doughty & Michael Long (eds.), Handbook of second language acquisition, 436–86. Oxford: Blackwell. Ozeki, Hiromi & Yasuhiro Shirai. 2007. Does the noun phrase accessibility hierarchy predict the difficulty order in the acquisition of Japanese relative clauses?. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 29(2). 169–96. Pardeshi, Prashant. 2008. No smoke without fire: Invisible agent constructions in South Asian languages.” Annual Review of South Asian Languages and Linguistics, 63–82. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pavesi, Maria. 1986. Markedness, discoursal modes, and relative clause formation in a formal and an informal context. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 8(1). 38–55. Pu, Ming-Ming. 2007. The distribution of relative clauses in Chinese discourse. Discourse Processes 43(1). 25–53. Rayson, Paul & Roger Garside. 2000. Comparing corpora using frequency profiling. The 38th annual meeting of the association for computational linguistics, 1–6. Roland, Douglas, Frederic Dick & Jeffrey Elman. 2007. Frequency of basic English grammatical structures: A corpus analysis. Journal of Memory and Language 57(3). 348–79. Roland, Douglas, Gail Mauner, Carolyn O’Meara & Hongoak Yun. 2012. Discourse expectations and relative clause processing. Journal of Memory and Language 66(3). 479–508. Rubin, Joan. 1978. Learner strategies: Theoretical assumptions, research history and typology. In Anita Wenden & Joan Rubin (eds.), Learner strategies in language learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall International. Schachter, Jacquelyn. 1974. An error in error analysis. Language Learning 27(2). 205–14. Scott, Virginia. 1996. Rethinking foreign language writing. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle Publishers. Tarallo, Fernando & Myhill, John. 1983. Interference and natural language processing in second language acquisition. Language Learning 33(1). 55–76.

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Part II: Conceptual approaches

Kimi Akita

7 A multimedia encyclopedia of Japanese mimetics: A frame-semantic approach to L2 sound-symbolic words Abstract: This paper demonstrates how the basic notions of frame semantics are incorporated into our online multimedia encyclopedia of mimetic words in Japanese. The difficulty and importance of learning mimetics for L2 learners of Japanese has motivated the emergence of online dictionaries of mimetics that provide various types of information, such as collocations and illustrative videos. Recent studies in sensory and encyclopedic semantics have revealed the semantic specificity, holisticity, and modality-specificity of mimetics. These psycholinguistic findings allow us to hypothesize that effective sets of illustrative media differ from mimetic (type) to mimetic (type). For example, videos may help one to understand various types of mimetics with dynamic meanings, such as a hitting noise (e.g., gatagata ‘rattling’) and motion (e.g., hurahura ‘tottering’). Conversely, mimetics for pain (e.g., gangan ‘one’s head pounding’) and emotion (e.g., gakkari ‘disappointed’) may be better illustrated by animations and cartoons, as the internal experiences they represent involve invisible sensations but are visualizable in these media. The effectiveness of the selective and combined uses of multiple media was supported by an experiment in which Japanese speakers guessed the mimetics intended by dictionary descriptions and visual stimuli. Keywords: mimetics, multimedia encyclopedia, frame semantics

1 Introduction The Japanese language makes fine distinctions of events by means of mimetics. Mimetics (or ideophones) are sound-symbolic words that form a large lexical class in many languages of the world, such as Basque, Korean, Quechua, Semai, and Siwu (Hinton, Nichols, and Ohala 1994; Bartens 2000; Voeltz and Kilian-Hatz 2001; Ibarretxe-Antuñano 2006; Dingemanse 2011). Japanese also has thousands of mimetics that have characteristic morphophonologies (e.g., reduplication) and that cover both auditory (e.g., nyaa ‘meow’) and non-auditory events (e.g., porori ‘dropping of a small object’, iraira ‘irritated’) (Hamano 1998; Tamori and Schourup 1999; Akita 2009). It has been known that the acquisition of Japanese mimetics is quite easy for Japanese children but extremely difficult for nonnative learn-

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ers of the language (Iwasaki, Vinson, and Vigliocco 2007a, 2007b; Mikami 2007). In fact, Japanese linguists have published more than 20 dictionaries devoted to this particular word class (e.g., Asano 1978; Atoda and Hoshino 1995; Kakehi, Tamori, and Schourup 1996; Yamaguchi 2003; Ono 2007), and the last decade has seen some noteworthy attempts at compiling online mimetic dictionaries and thesauri for L2 learners of Japanese. The current project makes some practical suggestions about this direction of research on the basis of the theoretical framework of frame semantics (Fillmore 1982). The theory has recently been applied to the semantic analysis of mimetics (Akita 2012; Yu 2012), and we have extended these explorations to the construction of an online multimedia encyclopedia of Japanese mimetics called “MEJaM” (Multimedia Encyclopedia of Japanese Mimetics; all URLs are given in the Websites section following the list of references). A frame-semantic view of mimetics successfully captures the specific, holistic, but modality-unique nature of their meaning. This semantic characteristic leads us to emphasize the effectiveness of different sets of media (especially visual) in teaching and learning different semantic types of mimetics. This paper aims at the theoretical and experimental clarification of the effective media type(s) for the illustration/understanding of each type of mimetic. The organization of this paper is as follows. Section 2 reviews related projects of making online tools for learning Japanese mimetics. Section 3 sets the theoretical grounds of this study, citing related cognitive-semantic studies in the recent literature. Section 4 describes how MEJaM incorporates the frame-semantic features of mimetics and discusses what media are effective in illustrating each type of mimetic. Section 5 reinforces the advantage of our frame-semantic approach by an experiment that asked native Japanese speakers to guess mimetics from linguistic and visual explanations for them. The section also notes that the semantic illustration of mimetics requires different levels of semantic classifications and generalizations. Section 6 concludes the paper.

2 Previous studies As already mentioned, many dictionaries have been compiled for the semantic description of Japanese mimetics, some of which are Japanese-English or Japanese-Chinese bilingual (Gomi 1989; Chang 1990; Kakehi, Tamori, and Schourup 1996; Guo 2012). However, surprisingly little is known about the details of the L1 and L2 acquisition of mimetics, such as the order of semantic acquisition and the relationship between mimetic acquisition and lexical acquisition in general.

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This seems to have prevented these dictionaries from being developed on firm theoretical ground. This section begins with a brief summary of previous achievements in the linguistic and psychological literature on the acquisition of mimetics. The second half of the section reviews some existing websites for L2 learners of Japanese and clarifies what we need to improve and supplement this literature.

2.1 L1 and L2 acquisition of mimetics It has long been argued that Japanese-acquiring children can readily learn mimetics, but L2 learners of Japanese cannot. To our knowledge, no direct counterevidence has been reported for this contrast. However, recent studies have also revealed a shared tendency in the L1 and L2 acquisition of mimetics: some mimetics are easier for both types of learners to learn than others. Okubo (1967: 59), Herlofsky (1998), Fukuda (1999), Akita (2009: 26–31), and Saji and Imai (2013) suggest that Japanese children learn mimetics with “high iconicity” (i.e., the resemblance or direct link between form and meaning), especially onomatopoeic, sound-mimicking mimetics (e.g., buubuu ‘zoom-zoom’), earlier than those with “low iconicity” (e.g., booQ ‘drowsy’).¹ The advantage of iconicity in lexical acquisition is also suggested by Imai et al.’s (2008) experiments, in which 3-year-old Japanese children succeeded in generalizing soundsymbolic (i.e., iconic) novel verbs, but not non-sound-symbolic (i.e., non-iconic) novel verbs (see also Tsujimura 2005b). It is generally assumed that iconicity helps language acquisition because of its motivated, non-arbitrary nature that is associated with universality. Similarly, Iwasaki, Vinson, and Vigliocco’s (2007b) questionnaire-based study showed that native English speakers were more successful in guessing the meanings of mimetics for laughing (mostly sound mimetics; e.g., kusukusu ‘giggling’) than those of mimetics for walking (mostly manner mimetics; e.g., yotayota ‘staggering’). They also found that evaluative semantic features of mimetics, such as gracefulness of laughter, are particularly difficult for English speakers to share (see also Iida, Tamaoka, and Hatsu 2012; Wang 2012; Iida and Tamaoka 2013 for related studies on Chinese and Korean speakers’ understanding of Japanese mimetics). The results of Sugiura and Iwasaki’s (2003) multiple-choice fill-in-theblank questionnaire also suggest that evaluative or situational meaning hinders L2 learners’ acquisition of some mimetics (e.g., surasura ‘speaking fluently and 1 The abbreviations and symbols used in this paper are as follows: acc = accusative; conj = conjunctive; cop = copula; mim = mimetic; nom = nominative; pst = past; Q = glottal stop; quot = quotative.

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smoothly’ vs. perapera ‘speaking fluently or thoughtlessly’). Importantly, recent experimental studies have demonstrated the relevance of these connotative features in mimetic semantics (Tsuchida 2005; Ikeda, Hayakawa, and Kamiyama 2006). From the viewpoint of iconicity, evaluative/situational meaning is thought to be particularly language-specific due to its highly arbitrary relationship to linguistic sound (see Toratani (this volume) for actual uses of mimetics in L2 Japanese). These previous findings allow us to reach the general conclusion that the L2 acquisition of mimetics is difficult due to their fine-grained semantics, which even involves rich evaluative or situational meaning, and to the language-specific aspect of their sound symbolism (see Haryu and Zhao 2007; Iwasaki, Vinson, and Vigliocco 2007a, 2007b; Saji et al. 2013). The present study offers a frame-semantically based solution to this issue.

2.2 Websites for L2 learners Mimetics are not systematically included in textbooks for L2 learners. They are quite suddenly confronted with a number of mimetics in higher-level textbooks, which largely consist of natural text, such as novels and essays (Mikami 2003, 2007). This appears to be one of the reasons the last decade has seen the emergence of several websites that provide searchable mimetic dictionaries with hyperlinks. The Internet made it possible not only to electronize the traditional descriptions of mimetics but also to equip them with a rich amount and variety of linguistic and nonlinguistic information. We introduce five such websites here. First, “Onomatopedia” (Asaga, Mukarramath, and Watanabe 2007–present) seems to be the best-known online mimetic dictionary, which provides collocational data for each mimetic collected from the Internet. Although both mimetics and their collocational instances are limited in number, the information about shared collocates (e.g., waraw- ‘laugh’ for the mimetics getageta ‘laughing loudly’, kusukusu ‘giggling’, nikkori ‘beaming’, and niyaniya ‘grinning’) gives us a glimpse into the semantic clusters in the mimetic lexicon. The significance of collocational information in mimetics has been acknowledged since the early years of mimetic research and is receiving special emphasis in recent cognitivesemantic approaches (see Section 3). Second, the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) (2004–2007) constructed a website called “Giongo/gitaigo: Nihongo-o tanosimoo!” [Mimetics: Let’s enjoy Japanese!] (see Mikami 2007 for some details). The website provides basic dictionary descriptions, which are illustrated by simple sentences, conversations, and comic strips. The last feature is of particu-

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lar significance in relation to our multimedia approach. Comic strips allow us to place mimetics in simple contexts and visualize them (see Gomi 1989 for an earlier attempt to illustrate the meanings of mimetics by drawings). Third, comics are also effectively used in “Japanese in anime & manga” (Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute, Kansai 2010). On this website, we can hear actual sounds imitated by sound mimetics that appear as a “sound effect” in or across comic panels by clicking on them. Those comics and animations are of good quality and are expected to attract many L2 learners. Fourth, “Giongo/gitaigo-no resutoran” [Restaurant for onomatopoeia] (see Lo and Sugiura 2001) is a CALL program that illustrates 20 mimetic sentences with short animations. It illustrates five sets of mimetics, each of which comprises four mimetics (e.g., ziroziro ‘staring’, kyorokyoro ‘looking around restlessly’, tirari-to ‘glancing’, and zit-to ‘gazing’) for the same event type (looking, flowing, eating, hitting, or laughing). The website also gives the pronunciation, a concise definition, example sentences, and typical syntactic environments (see Hashimoto and Takeuchi 2010 for a related project) for each mimetic, along with four practice questions for each set. Sugiura and Iwasaki (2003) demonstrated the effectiveness of this program by testing actual learners who used it. The present project shares the basic idea with this multimedia CALL program and extends it to different types of mimetics and media (see also Ochi et al. 1997 for an earlier multimedia program for L2 learners of Japanese mimetics called “JAMIOS”). Fifth, as far as we know, “Kirakira onomatope” [Glittering onomatopoeia] (“TMU-mic-J” 2012) is the newest website for L2 learners’ study of Japanese mimetics (as of December 2013). The descriptive part of the website is given in five languages: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, English, and Indonesian (see also Koubayashi and Masunaga 2002 for another attempt at multilingual annotation of mimetic sentences). More importantly, the website illustrates 73 mimetics (mostly from Mikami 2007; see Section 4) in seven quality video skits of common scenes of college students’ everyday lives, such as a class, a cafeteria, a club activity, and a part-time job. Like comics and animations, videos visually and realistically illustrate the meanings of mimetics. However, unlike comics and animations, videos can only show visible entities unless we combine them with animations or computer graphics. This potential limitation of videos suggests the need for combined uses of multiple media in explaining mimetics. Furthermore, this website only consists of seven contexts, which imposes a restriction on the range of scenes in which the 73 mimetics are illustrated. The most appropriate illustrative context should differ from mimetic to mimetic. In summary, previous scholars and website constructors have more or less acknowledged the usefulness of multimedia in the semantic illustration of mimetics (see Chun and Plass 1996, Al-Seghayer 2001, and Yeh 2003 for the effec-

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tiveness of multimedia annotations in L2 vocabulary learning in general). The media that have been adopted range from linguistic (e.g., example sentences and conversations, collocational information) to nonlinguistic materials (e.g., actual sounds, comics, animations, video skits). Crucially, however, the above attempts do not appear to be fully based on theoretical grounds. In fact, these educational/ engineering projects of making websites and the psycholinguistic studies summarized in Section 2.1 have been conducted independently of each other. As the research question in (1) indicates, this paper proposes specific improvements in the multimedia approach to mimetic semantics by discussing what type of illustration is effective for each semantic type of mimetic. The proposal will be reinforced by a preliminary experiment examining different types of illustrative media for 12 mimetics. (1)

Research question: What type of media is effective in illustrating each semantic type of mimetic?

3 Theoretical basis The current project takes an “encyclopedic” view of linguistic meaning within the framework of frame semantics (Fillmore 1982; Fillmore and Baker 2010). Frame semantics sees the meanings of words and phrases in terms of the background situations and scenarios (or “frames”) they evoke. Frames have structure. They consist of core and peripheral participants and the relationships among them. Accordingly, this cognitive-semantic framework goes far beyond truth-conditional semantics and tries to take the maximal content of linguistic expressions into account. Commercial_transaction is a classic example of a frame. To understand the meanings of a group of words related to selling and buying, such as sell, auction, retail, sale, buy, and purchase, one has to understand the human convention of commercial transactions, which involves not only a seller, a buyer, and goods but also money. Frame semantics emphasizes the existence of elements such as money in this case that are conceptually relevant but not necessarily linguistically encoded, as in [Mary]Buyer bought [a car]Goods from [Joe]Seller. The encyclopedic semantics of mimetics has been discussed in various ways, such as “prototype scenarios” in natural semantic metalanguage (Hasada 2001), “Idealized Cognitive Models” in prototype semantics (Lu 2006), “phenomenemes” in Japanese cognitive semantics (Inoue 2010), “qualia structure” in the

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Generative Lexicon (Hasebe 2012; Usuki and Akita 2013), and “frames” in frame semantics (Tsujimura 2009, 2014; Akita 2012, forthcoming; Yu 2012). Although the specific frameworks underlying these studies differ, it is noteworthy that many linguists agree upon the semantic richness of mimetics. In the rest of this section, we focus on three key findings on mimetic semantics in the recent literature: high semantic specificity, holisticity, and modality-specificity. All of these features constitute the basis of our multimedia approach to L2 mimetics. First, mimetics generally evoke a highly specific frame. Major evidence comes from the collocational restrictions on mimetics. Akita’s (2012) corpusbased study showed that many verbs and nouns that form strong collocations with mimetics are semantically related to one another, and this is not true for the collocates of non-mimetic adverbials (e.g., hayaku ‘quickly’). For example, the mimetic sutasuta ‘walking briskly’ is often found with verbs like aruk- ‘walk’ and ik- ‘go’. According to the frame-based annotations of English text in the Berkeley FrameNet (an online lexical resource based on frame semantics), aruk- ‘walk’ can be analyzed as evoking the Self_motion frame and ik- ‘go’ as evoking the general Motion frame. These two motion frames are related to each other via an “Inheritance” relation (i.e., self-motion is a kind of motion). The strong semantic restriction on mimetic collocates observed in the study suggests the high specificity of mimetic frames. Second, the frame evocation by mimetics is holistic. For example, the mimetic nikoniko (optionally followed by the quotative particle -to) and the non-mimetic adverb manmen-no emi-de (all.face-gen smile-with) both represent smiling. However, nikoniko has more detailed semantic specifications about the manner and evaluation of smiling, as tested in (2) and summarized in (3). (2) a. Facial expression: Ai-ga {nikoniko-to/manmen-no emi-de} {warat/*kao-o sikame} -ta. Ai-nom laugh/frown -pst ‘Ai {smiled/*frowned} {beamingly/with a big smile}.’ b. Teeth: Ai-ga ha-o mukidasi-ni si-te {*nikoniko-to/manmen-no emi-de} Ai-nom tooth-acc bare-cop do-conj warat-ta. laugh-pst ‘Ai smiled {*beamingly/with a big smile} baring [her] teeth.’ c. Laughter: Ai-ga {*nikoniko-to/manmen-no emi-de} warai-goe-o age-ta. Ai-nom laugh-voice-acc raise-pst ‘Ai laughed {*beamingly/with a big smile}.’

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d. Activity: Ai-ga {*nikoniko-to/?manmen-no emi-de} nai-te i-ta. Ai-nom cry-conj be-pst ‘Ai was crying {*beamingly/?with a big smile}.’ e. Pleasantness: Ai-ga iyami-na-hodo {??nikoniko-to/manmen-no emi-de} warat-ta. Ai-nom unpleasantly laugh-pst ‘Ai smiled unpleasantly {??beamingly/with a big smile}.’ (3)

nikoniko-to ‘beamingly’

a. b. c. d. e.

Facial expression: Teeth: Laughter: Activity: Pleasantness:

(mimetic adverb) smiling not bared no smiling pleasant

manmen-no emi-de ‘with a big smile’ (non-mimetic adverb) smiling ϕ ϕ ϕ ϕ

Obviously, the semantic holisticity of mimetics is ascribed to their frame-semantic specificity. The same semantic feature is also suggested in some studies on polysemy (Yu 2012; Akita, forthcoming; Usuki and Akita 2013). For example, it is quite common for a sound-mimicking mimetic to extend to a state expression, as illustrated in (4). (4) a. Ai-ga karintoo-o karit-to kan-da. (sound) Ai-nom fried.dough.cake-acc mim-quot bite-pst ‘Ai bit the fried dough cake with a crunch.’ b. Ai-ga karintoo-o karit-to age-ta. (state) Ai-nom fried.dough.cake-acc mim-quot deep.fry-pst ‘Ai deep-fried dough cake crunchy.’ As Mikami (2006) and Yu (2012) discuss, this is a case of metonymy based on “fictive” cognition (Talmy 1996), in which a particular state of an object (e.g., the crunchiness of deep-fried dough) is expressed by referring to the sound (e.g., a crunching sound) that would be made if one physically acts on it (e.g., bites it). This means that mimetic frames even contain such conditional information. Interestingly, the holisticity of mimetics has also gained neural support. Arata et al. (2010) and Kanero et al. (2014) report that mimetics activate more brain regions than do verbs and non-mimetic adverbs. The general characterization of mimetics as “multimodal”, “crossmodal”, or “synesthetic” expressions found in

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some cognitive-semantic and psychological studies (Yamanashi 1988; Yaguchi 2011; among others) is also consistent with the observation. Third, it should be stressed that being frame-semantically specific and holistic does not entail representing the whole event in a homogeneous fashion. Kita (1997: 387) argues that in mimetic semantics, “various kinds of information from different cognitive modalities remain modality-specific”. In more linguistic terms, modality specification can be understood as “profiling” (or perspectivization) against the base frame (Langacker 1987). For example, as shown in (2) and (3), the mimetic nikoniko specifies various aspects of a human smiling event, but it still is primarily regarded as a manner-of-smiling expression that profiles the manner component of the relevant frame. It is this profile that the mimetic form has an iconic relation to. Dingemanse and Majid (2012) more explicitly show the modality-specificity of mimetics. They asked native speakers of Siwu (a NigerCongo language spoken in Ghana) to sort a pile of cards with Siwu mimetics on them and found that the cards were sorted along the fine-grained dimensions of sensory perception such as taste, sound, and surface appearance, rather than generic connotative dimensions such as evaluation and potency. Yaguchi (2011) reached a similar conclusion on the basis of a cluster analysis of native speakers’ subjective sensory ratings of 39 Japanese mimetics (how related to vision, audition, touch, olfaction, and gustation they are). Furthermore, these recent experimental findings are consistent with the traditional semantic classes of Japanese mimetics primarily based on sensory modalities, such as giongo (phonomimes, sound mimetics), gitaigo (phenomimes, mimetics for visual or textural information), and gizyoogo (psychomimes, mimetics for bodily feelings or emotion) (Martin 1975; Kindaichi 1978; see also Hinton, Nichols, and Ohala 1994: 9–10). The recognition of both holisticity and modality-specificity for mimetic semantics may also reconcile the seemingly opposite views of mimetics as “elusive” (Tsujimura 2005a) vs. “explicit” (von Staden 1977: 195) or “concrete” (Childs 1994: 188). To sum up, the cognitive semantics of mimetics has provided basic findings on what the meanings of mimetics are like. The three semantic properties of mimetics noted above have direct implications for our encyclopedia compilation. First, high semantic specificity and holisticity strongly motivate the use of the holistic illustration of scenes by means of (audio)visual media, such as videos and animations. Second, modality-specificity suggests the effectiveness of different media in illustrating different semantic types of mimetics. In the next two sections, we will actualize these concepts by considering and examining what media type is suitable for each type of mimetic.

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4 The present project MEJaM is currently a Japanese-English bilingual website. It was created using Google Sites in October 2012. This webpage-creation tool allows us to readily upload videos and animations through YouTube, which guarantees virtually limitless capacity. In this section, we describe the basic design of our website. In Section 4.1, we classify Mikami’s (2007) “basic” mimetics into 11 semantic categories and observe their collocability in corpora. In Section 4.2, we predict the suitable media type for each mimetic category and give example illustrations for them.

4.1 Semantic types and collocability We started with Mikami’s (2007) 70 “basic” mimetics for L2 learners of Japanese (e.g., hoQ ‘relieved’, nikoniko ‘beaming’), which were selected based on their easiness, frequency, and presence in major basic vocabulary lists. Although the first two criteria are not clearly defined and appear to be based on Mikami’s personal experience in teaching Japanese as a second language, it is important for the purpose of comparison to use the pre-chosen list that was also used in other related studies, including NINJAL (2004–2007), Mikami (2007), and “TMU-mic-J” (2012). The website is currently sectioned into the 11 relatively fine-grained semantic classes listed in (5). (5) 70 “basic” mimetics classified into 11 semantic subtypes: a. Voice: gayagaya ‘a crowd humming’, geragera ‘guffawing’ b. Noise: batabata ‘fluttering’, gatagata ‘rattling’, zaazaa ‘raining hard’ c. Motion: barabara ‘scattered’, burabura ‘strolling’, gorogoro ‘a heavy object rolling’, guruguru ‘spinning, moving in circles, rolling up forcefully’, hurahura ‘tottering, dizzy’, huwahuwa ‘floating lightly, fluffy’, kossori ‘sneaking’, kurukuru ‘spinning, rolling up’, noronoro ‘sluggish’, saQ ‘quick’, urouro ‘wandering’, zorozoro ‘in droves’ d. Activity: battari ‘running into someone, with a thud’, dondon ‘without rest’, guQ ‘gulping, jerking’, gussuri ‘sleeping fast’, nikoniko ‘beaming’, nonbiri ‘tranquil’, pekopeko ‘bowing’, perapera ‘chattering’, sassa ‘doing promptly’, soQ ‘doing gently’, surasura ‘smooth’, yukkuri ‘slow’, zikkuri ‘without haste’

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e. Vision: paQ ‘looking suddenly, flaring up’, zaQ ‘glancing over’, ziQ ‘keeping still’, ziroziro ‘staring’ f. Appearance: assari ‘plain’, bon’yari ‘blurred’, gissiri ‘jam-packed’, girigiri ‘almost at the limit’, hakkiri ‘clear’, kirakira ‘glittering’, kitin ‘neat’, metyakutya ‘messy’, pikapika ‘shining’, pittari ‘fitting’, sokkuri ‘exactly like’, tappuri ‘in plenty’, zurari ‘lined’ g. Touch: karakara ‘dried up’, sarasara ‘dry and smooth’ h. Bodily movement: buruburu ‘shivering’ i. Bodily feelings: gangan ‘one’s head pounding’, sappari ‘refreshed’, suQ ‘refreshed, cool’, sukkiri ‘refreshed, cleared up’ j. Emotion: bikkuri ‘astonished’, dokidoki ‘one’s heart beating’, gakkari ‘disappointed’, haQ ‘noticing with a start’, harahara ‘thrilled’, hoQ ‘relieved’, iraira ‘irritated’, unzari ‘fed up’, ukkari ‘careless’, wakuwaku ‘excited’ k. Scale, time, etc.: doQ ‘all at once’, hu ‘unintendedly’, sikkari ‘for sure, firmly’, sorosoro ‘soon’, sukkari ‘completely’, tyan ‘properly’ The meaning(s) and scene(s) of each mimetic were determined according to their typical collocations (discussed below), which are given under each heading with sentence examples. For example, the mimetic burabura is polysemous, and its meanings range over ‘strolling’, ‘swinging’, and ‘idle’ (see Tsujimura 2005a: 147). However, our corpora showed a strong preference for the first meaning. Therefore, we decided to register this meaning in this preliminary version. Note that the holistic semantics of mimetics does not allow us to make a clear-cut classification of them. We examined the collocational properties of the first 10 semantic groups of mimetics (518 reduplicative forms from Kakehi, Tamori, and Schourup 1996) in the Aozora Bunko Corpus and the Meidai Conversation Corpus to see their rough semantic profiles. Figs. 1a and 1b, respectively, show the mean collocational strength (t-value) of the significant verbal and nominal collocates (t ≥ 2) of each mimetic class (Ms = 3.39 (V), 2.87 (N)) (see Akita 2012 for details).

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a. Verbal collocations

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b. Nominal collocations Fig. 1: The collocability (t-values) of different semantic types of mimetics

Interestingly, some classes (i.e., voice, vision, bodily movement) are characterized by their strong collocation with certain verbs, whereas others (i.e., noise, vision, bodily feelings, emotion) show remarkable nominal collocations. These results can be straightforwardly interpreted in terms of the semantic content of each mimetic class. On the one hand, the verb orientation of mimetics for voice, vision, and bodily movement can be ascribed to their strong association with particular dynamic events. For example, the mimetic for voice kusukusu represents the giggling manner of laughing, so it typically collocates with the verb waraw- ‘laugh’. Likewise, the mimetic for bodily movement buruburu depicts a shivering movement, so it collocates with the verb hurue- ‘shiver’. On the other hand, mimetics for noise and those for bodily feelings are closely associated with a particular source of sound and a particular cause of the feeling (or a particular body part), respectively, both of which are nominal referents. For example, the mimetic for noise kotukotu ‘rapping’ forms a strong collocation with the noun tobira ‘door’, which represents a typical source of the “hard” sound. Similarly, the mimetic for bodily feelings gangan ‘one’s head pounding’ collocates with the noun hutuka-yoi ‘hangover’ due to the nature of the headache it represents. Fur-

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thermore, mimetics for vision are associated with both verbal and nominal referents. For example, the staring event represented by ziroziro involves an active perception and a specific body part (i.e., eyes). It should be noted that not all of the 11 semantic classes are homogeneous with respect to their semantics and collocability (see Toratani 2012: 122). A clear instance of deviance is a group of words called “semi-mimetic adverbs.” Semimimetic adverbs share morphophonological characteristics with typical mimetics, but their meanings are as abstract as those of non-mimetic adverbs (e.g., tyokutyoku ‘often’, yukkuri ‘slowly’, zut-to ‘all the time’) (see Tamori and Schourup 1999: 68–69). They are “abstract” in the sense that they are not unique to a particular event and, therefore, are found with various predicates (e.g., yukkuri {aruk-/ hasir-/hanas-/tabe-/yar-} ‘{walk/run/speak/eat/do} slowly’). These adverbs belong to the “activity” and “scale, time, etc.” types in our classification. It may be possible to obtain more homogeneous categories by applying a more fine-grained classification to some groups. We will come back to this issue in Section 5.

4.2 Media type selection The collocational properties of mimetics discussed in Section 4.1 reveal some of their important semantic features. Here, we take a closer look at the holisticity and modality-specificity of each type of mimetic in order to select an appropriate set of media for it. We exclude the highly conventionalized, semi-mimetic adverbs (i.e., some items in (5d) and all items in (5k)) from the discussion, assuming them to be learnable as normal adverbs due to their non-mimetic-like semantics. Tab. 1 lists the media types we selected for the 10 types of mimetics in (5a–j). Tab. 1: Media types for the 10 semantic types of mimetics

a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i. j.

Semantic type

Audio

Video

Animation Cartoon/picture Scenario

Voice Noise Motion Activity Vision Appearance Touch Bodily movement Bodily feelings Emotion

√ √

(√) √ √ √ √

(√) √ √ √ √

(√) √ (√) (√)

(√) √ √ √

√ (√) (√) (√) (√) √ (√) √ √ √

Metaphor

√ √

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The semantic holisticity of mimetics discussed in Section 3 allows us to predict that (audio)visual media, including videos and animations, are effective for many types of mimetics, particularly those with high verbal collocability (i.e., mimetics for voice, vision, and bodily movement) (see Figs. 2, 3, and 4).

Fig. 2: ziroziro ‘staring’ (vision)

Fig. 3: hurahura ‘tottering’ (motion)

Fig. 4: buruburu ‘shivering’ (bodily movement)

The high nominal collocability of some mimetic classes (i.e., mimetics for noise, vision, bodily feelings, and emotion) suggests that illustrative visual materials for them should clearly specify relevant frame elements, such as sound sources and body parts. What is especially significant in terms of frame semantics is that visual media can visualize background events that are not necessarily encoded linguistically. For example, the noise imitated by a mimetic for noise (e.g.,

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gatagata ‘rattling’) presupposes a noise making event – typically, an impact or change-of-state event (e.g., the contact between a wobbly chair and the floor) (Yu 2012; Akita, forthcoming) (see Fig. 5). Similarly, the tactile property represented by a mimetic for touch (e.g., sarasara ‘dry and smooth’) is normally perceived as a result of the perceiver’s contact with the object. Furthermore, the emotion depicted by an emotion mimetic (e.g., bikkuri ‘astonished’) may cause a particular action (e.g., jumping) (Akita 2010) (see Fig. 6).

Fig. 5: gatagata ‘rattling’ (noise)

Fig. 6: bikkuri ‘astonished’ (emotion)

Other media types will also play an important role. Onomatopoeic mimetics for animal cries are expected to be learnable only with the pictures of the animals (e.g., a cat for nyaa ‘meow’) and perhaps with the audio of the actual cries, as they are especially iconic and are found across languages. Videos and animations may not be effective in the illustration of mimetics for appearance (e.g., gissiri ‘jam-packed’) and some mimetics for touch (e.g., karakara ‘dried up’), which are stative in nature. They will be better understood with a still image of an object with the relevant shape, configuration, or texture (e.g., Fig. 7).

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Fig. 7: gissiri ‘jam-packed’ (appearance)

Images can also be made available through links to public visual search engines, such as Google Images. Pictures and short cartoons as well as animations, but to a lesser degree videos, may help understand mimetics for internal experience (i.e., bodily feelings and emotions), as these media can even visualize invisible things, such as pain and shock (e.g., Figs. 8 and 9), just like mimetics even “mimic” inaudible things by linguistic sound. Note, however, that as an anonymous reviewer noted, specific conventions of visualization may be more or less culture-specific.

Fig. 8: hirihiri ‘one’s skin stinging’ (pain) (Gomi 1989: 153)

Fig. 9: zokuzoku ‘thrilled’ (emotion) (Gomi 1989: 101)

Moreover, mimetics for emotion (e.g., gakkari ‘disappointed’) typically evoke a scenario about the cause (e.g., the cancellation of an excursion) and effect (e.g., drooping) of their referent emotion (Hasada 2001). This type of script can readily be incorporated into videos, animations, and comic strips (see Figs. 6 and 10; note that Fig. 9 fails to include the cause of the thrill).

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Fig. 10: gakkari ‘disappointed’ (emotion)

Finally, some types of pain that are mimicked by mimetics in Japanese are expressed by metaphors in another language (e.g., gangan ‘one’s head pounding’, kirikiri ‘one’s stomach splitting’, sikusiku ‘one’s stomach griping’). Because sound symbolism is also a type of metaphor that takes advantage of the perceived “resemblance” between a linguistic sound and an object or an event, learners may benefit from this linguistic/conceptual information. Note that the various media illustrated above give specific images not only to the meanings of mimetics for physical experience, including highly iconic ones (see Section 2.1) but also to those of mimetics for internal experience, which are known to be extremely challenging for L2 learners to understand (Iwasaki, Vinson, and Vigliocco 2007a). Thus, our frame-semantic view predicts the effectiveness of multimedia, especially visual ones, in the semantic illustration of mimetics.

5 Experiment As a preliminary examination of the high applicability of multimedia, particularly visual media, to the semantic illustration of mimetics, we conducted an experiment in which Japanese speakers guessed the mimetics intended for linguistic descriptions and (audio)visual representations for them. The results supported the frame-semantic/multimedia approach to mimetic semantics and suggested the need of semantic generalizations at more than one level.

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5.1 Method A total of 139 undergraduate students in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, and engineering at Osaka University (44 females and 95 males, all native speakers of Japanese) participated in the experiment. They were asked to guess the Japanese mimetic intended for each of the twelve slides randomly displayed on a classTab. 2: Linguistic stimuli Intended mimetic

Dictionary description (Atoda and Hoshino 1995)

ukkari

Huyooi-de kanzin-na kikubari-ga kakete itari, ki-ga nukete iru yoosu. (p. 11) ‘The state of being careless, lacking important attention, or being absentminded.’

kurukuru

Nagai mono-o keikai-ni maitari, maite aru mono-o hodoitari suru yoosu. (p. 137) ‘The light manner of rolling or undoing something long.’

hurahura

Huantei-na zyootai-de, tikaranaku renzoku site yureugoku yoosu. (p. 456) ‘The unstable and faint manner of wavering continuously.’

gatagata

Katai buttai-ga yureugoite syuuhen-no katai bubun-ni butukatte tateru renzokuon. (p. 35) ‘A continuous sound made by a hard object shaking and hitting another hard surface close to it.’

karakara

Kawakikitte suibun-ga mattaku nakunatte iru yoosu. (p. 62) ‘The state of being dried up and completely lacking moisture.’

bon’yari

Monogoto-no rinkaku-ya katati-ga meiryoo-de naku, usuku kasunde mieru yoosu. (p. 524) ‘The state of an object or matter looking dim without a clear outline and shape.’

sokkuri

Hutatu-no mono-ga yoku nite iru yoosu. (p. 256) ‘The state of two things resembling each other very much.’

kirakira

Tiisai kootai-ga kokizami-ni renzoku site hikarikagayaku yoosu. (p. 101) ‘The manner of a small luminous body shining quickly continuously.’

gangan

Itami-ya koohun-de tainai-ga narihibiku-yoo-ni kanziru yoosu. (p. 72) ‘The state of the inside of the body feeling like resounding due to pain or excitement.’

geragera

Oogoe-de buenryo-ni warau koe. (p. 144) ‘The voice in which one laughs loudly and unreservedly.’

ziQ

Onazi zyootai-o ugokazu sonomama tamotte iru yoosu. (ziiQ, p. 193) ‘The state of keeping one’s state without moving.’

nikoniko

Uresisa, kokoroyosa-o kanzite nagoyaka-ni, koe-o agezu-ni waratte iru yoosu. (p. 341) ‘The manner of laughing gently and quietly from feeling happy and pleasant.’

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room screen and to write it on a piece of paper (see Oda 2000 for related forcedchoice experiments with native and nonnative speakers of Japanese). The twelve mimetics were all “basic” mimetics (see Section 4), and each was explained in the following three conditions: – The language-only condition (L): Dictionary description (cited from Atoda and Hoshino 1995; see Tab. 2) – The image-only condition (I): Visual illustration (a video, photograph, or comic illustration; see Tab. 3) – The language + image condition (L + I): Both of the above two media types (a dictionary description placed above an image) Tab. 3: Visual stimuli Image type Intended mimetic

Details of the image

Video

ukkari ‘careless’ (emotion)

A man comes out of an office, notices that he forgot to lock the door, and locks it.

kurukuru ‘rolling up’ (motion)

A woman quickly rolls up a MacBook adaptor with its cord.

hurahura ‘tottering’ (motion)

A woman staggers across a hallway. (Fig. 3)

gatagata ‘rattling’ (noise)

Sliding doors are rattling due to a strong wind.

karakara ‘dried up’ (appearance)

a dried-up patch of ground

bon’yari ‘blurred’ (appearance)

a blurred eyechart

Photo

sokkuri ‘exactly like’ (appearance) an apple and a wooden apple (ornament) kirakira ‘glittering’ (appearance) Illustration gangan ‘one’s head pounding’ (bodily feelings)

a pond reflecting the sunshine a man suffering from a hangover headache, which is visualized by jagged lines, and regretting his excessive drinking the previous evening

geragera ‘guffawing’ (voice)

a woman guffawing with her mouth wide open and tears in her eyes

ziQ ‘keeping still’ (vision)

a cat glaring at a sparrow that has not noticed the cat

nikoniko ‘beaming’ (activity)

a boy with a big smile

Note: The mimetic for laughing geragera ‘guffawing’ was illustrated by a comic illustration, rather than a video or photo, as we found that we cannot “act out” the meaning of the mimetic by laughing in a loud voice. In this regard, like nikoniko ‘beaming’, this mimetic may be more appropriately classified as an activity mimetic, whose primary concern is not sound imitation.

I

L

L+I

L

L+I

L

I

L+I

I

L+I

L

L+I

L

I

bon’yari

L

I

L+I

L

I

I

L+I

L

‘exactly like’

sokkuri

L+I

‘dried up’ ‘blurred’

‘rolling up’

‘careless’

‘tottering’ ‘rattling’

karakara

gatagata

kurukuru

ukkari

I

Class A (N = 42)

hurahura

Photo

Video

Tab. 4: Conditions

Image type

Intended mimetic

Class B (N = 48)

Class C (N = 49)

‘glittering’

kirakira

L+I

L

I

geragera

L

I

L+I

‘one’s ‘guffawing’ head pounding’

gangan

Illustration

I

L+I

L

nikoniko

I

L+I

L

‘keeping ‘beaming’ still’

ziQ

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The visual stimulus for each mimetic was selected on the basis of the frame-semantic discussion in Section 4 (see Tab. 1). The participants guessed each mimetic in one of the three conditions, as shown in Tab. 4. The actual instructions were as follows: “You will see 12 slides, each of which is intended to illustrate a mimetic word in Japanese (giongo/gitaigo). Please guess what the mimetic is and answer in hiragana or katakana [orthographies used for mimetics] within 15 seconds after each slide” (translated). “Mimetics” were neither defined nor illustrated in advance to avoid possible biases toward particular word types, such as reduplicatives. We regarded as “correct” answers that were identical to or shared roots and referential meanings with the intended mimetics (e.g., boyaaQ ‘blurred’ for bon’yari). We also included in the “correct” category answers that were contrasted with the intended mimetics with regard to initial voicing (e.g., guruguru ‘rolling up forcefully’ for kurukuru), unless voicing alternation caused a change in referential meaning. The frame-semantic consideration in Section 4 allows us to predict that visual stimuli generally help the participants guess the intended mimetics more effectively than dictionary descriptions. However, it is also expected that the effectiveness of visual stimuli differs from mimetic to mimetic depending on the semantic content.

5.2 Results and discussion The results supported our predictions and turned our attention to some crucial issues. Fig. 11 shows the overall results.

Fig. 11: Overall results

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Chi-square tests revealed significant group differences for all three image types: videos (χ2(2) = 52.11, p < .001), photos (χ2(2) = 17.23, p < .001), and illustrations (χ2(2) = 28.09, p < .001). Significant positive inclinations calculated by adjusted residual analysis (i.e., significantly large figures) are indicated by asterisks in Fig. 11 (**p < .01; ***p < .001). The success rate generally increases in the following order: the language-only condition (M = 44.42 %) < the image-only condition (M = 63.85 %) < the language + image condition (M = 69.96 %). This hierarchy suggests the overall insufficiency of previous dictionary descriptions, and supports both the usefulness of the three types of visual media in the semantic illustration of mimetics and the advantage of the combined use of multiple media (see Kaneko and Miyakoda 2013 for a preliminary attempt to combine linguistic and visual explanations of Japanese mimetics). It is noteworthy that video illustrations (the leftmost group in Fig. 11) yielded striking improvement in success rate. The item-by-item results in Tab. 5 give us a clearer image of the usefulness and limits of linguistic and (audio)visual explanations. The image helps us sort effective and ineffective media types for each (type of) mimetic. Tab. 5: Item-by-item results Image type Intended mimetic

Language only Image only

Video

ukkari ‘careless’

  3 (6.25 %)

kurukuru ‘rolling up’

 22 (45.83 %)  38 (90.48 %)  33 (67.35 %)

hurahura ‘tottering’

 23 (46.94 %)  36 (75.00 %)  34 (80.95 %)

gatagata ‘rattling’

  8 (19.05 %)  34 (69.39 %)  38 (79.17 %)

karakara ‘dried up’

 43 (89.58 %)  11 (26.19 %)  32 (65.31 %)

bon’yari ‘blurred’

 31 (63.27 %)  40 (83.33 %)  38 (90.48 %)

sokkuri ‘exactly like’

 25 (51.02 %)  25 (52.08 %)  29 (69.05 %)

kirakira ‘glittering’

 13 (30.95 %)  44 (89.80 %)  44 (91.67 %)

Photo

Language + image

  5 (11.90 %)  12 (24.49 %)

Illustration gangan ‘one’s head pounding’   7 (14.58 %)  12 (28.57 %)  24 (48.98 %)

Total

geragera ‘guffawing’

 26 (53.06 %)  34 (70.83 %)  23 (54.76 %)

ziQ ‘keeping still’

 25 (59.52 %)  33 (67.35 %)  42 (87.50 %)

nikoniko ‘beaming’

 21 (50.00 %)  43 (87.76 %)  40 (83.33 %) 247 (44.17 %) 355 (62.72 %) 389 (70.25 %)

First, although most cases (e.g., kirakira ‘glittering’, nikoniko ‘beaming’) showed that two media are more helpful than one, kurukuru ‘rolling up’ and geragera

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‘guffawing’ were better understood without linguistic descriptions. This suggests that some dictionary descriptions may mislead learners. Kurukuru and geragera illustrate two opposite directions of misleading: the excess and insufficiency of information. On the one hand, the dictionary description for kurukuru (see Tab. 2) refers to both rolling and undoing motion. The latter is possible but realistically less common than the former, and the dictionary’s equal treatment of the two motions appears to have made the guess difficult. On the other hand, the linguistic stimulus for geragera is not sufficient for us to arrive at this specific mimetic, as Japanese has a large set of mimetics for laughing (e.g., ahaha ‘ha-ha’, kakkakka ‘laughing like a king’, kerakera ‘cackling’, kusukusu ‘giggling’) (Hirose 1981; see also the note on Tab. 3). Second, as illustrated by the appearance mimetic karakara ‘dried up’, which was best understood in the language-only condition, some images may also be misleading. It appears that the photograph used for karakara (the dried-up ground) failed to focus on the tactile aspect of this mimetic, which is its essential semantic component. The limits of visual stimuli were also suggested by the low success rate of the psychological mimetic ukkari ‘careless’. Because this mimetic represents a psychological experience, we used a video that involved a brief scenario (see Tab. 3). Obviously, however, the complex scenario (a man forgetting to lock his office door), which comprised multiple subevents, caused interpretive ambiguity. In fact, many (54.76 %) of the participants who watched the video without a linguistic description were misled to gatyagatya ‘jangling’ or its variants, which mimic the key’s locking noise. These mimetics were not produced at all in the other two conditions. This means that the ambiguity of the video was successfully solved by the dictionary description (although it failed to lead most participants specifically to the intended mimetic). Another concern about the high complexity and specificity of videos is the potential ambiguity as to perspectivization and event packaging. For example, a video for kurukuru in which a woman rolls a cord quickly around an adapter might make an L2 learner understand that this mimetic can only be used for causative events. However, it can also depict the spinning or rolling manner of self-motion. Possible solutions will include disambiguation by linguistic explanations or multiple videos for (each meaning of) each mimetic. The use of animations that do not contain unnecessary details will be another promising possibility. Third, as mentioned for geragera ‘guffawing’ above, due to the high density of some parts of the mimetic lexicon, semantic disambiguation between lexical neighbors is often crucial. For example, the relatively low success rate of the appearance mimetic kirakira ‘glittering’ in the language-only condition (30.95 %) is ascribed to the use of other mimetics for shining, such as pikapika ‘sparkling’, tikatika ‘flickering, glimmering’, and tiratira ‘flickering’. These alternative mimet-

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ics accounted for 61.90 % of the answers in the language-only condition. As Tab. 5 shows, this ambiguity problem was successfully solved by the photograph of a shining pond. Meanwhile, neither the dictionary description nor the illustration succeeded in disambiguating the pain mimetic gangan ‘one’s head pounding’ from another headache mimetic, zukizuki ‘one’s head or tooth throbbing’. This “incorrect” mimetic accounted for nearly half the answers in all three conditions (language only: 42.86 %; image only: 47.62 %; language + image: 42.86 %). The result suggests the need for other types of information. For example, a metaphor that refers to the clanging sound that gangan originally imitates may help. The metaphor is readily presented both linguistically (e.g., ookina kane-ga naru-yoo ‘like a large bell rings’) and aurally (e.g., the sound of a Japanese temple bell). In summary, the experiment confirmed the effectiveness of different media types, especially visual ones, in the semantic illustration of different (types of) mimetics. Emphasis should be placed on the suggestion based on the results that an effective media in one mimetic type may hinder the understanding of another. Moreover, the present data crucially show that generalizations about appropriate media types have to be made at more than one level. For example, in the broad category called “mimetics for emotion,” the best set of illustrative media may differ from item to item (Akita 2010). Because the level of generalization is one of the central issues in frame semantics (Iwata 2002; Boas 2008; Croft 2009), the discussion here need not necessarily limit itself to mimetics.

6 Conclusion In this paper, we have demonstrated the usefulness of multimedia in explaining the meanings of mimetics, which are highly specific, holistic, and modalityspecific. Our multimedia website is, therefore, an attempt to give shape to the rich encyclopedic semantics of Japanese mimetics. Crucially, we have both theoretically and experimentally argued that effective sets of illustrative media differ from mimetic (class) to mimetic (class), according to their semantic content. Thus, a frame-semantic analysis of mimetic semantics allows us to find the best media for each mimetic. The different-media-for-different-meaning principle, as such, may also be applicable to the semantic illustration of non-mimetic sensory words, such as subjective adjectives. The search for other media types is another important issue, as the success rates in the present experiment with native Japanese speakers were no higher than 91.67 % (for kirakira in the language + image condition). In this sense, careful examinations of different sets of illustrative media for each

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mimetic, including experimental ones with nonnative speakers of Japanese, will be essential. We are also planning to collaborate with related projects to improve both the quality and accessibility of our website. Cross-linguistic and cross-dialectal extension will be another fruitful research direction.

Acknowledgements An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Cognitive and Functional Approach to the Study of Japanese as a Second Language Symposium held at the University of Calgary in June 2013. I am grateful to the symposium organizers Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani and the participants for their insightful comments. I also benefited from the insightful comments from Weilun Yu and the two anonymous reviewers. I also thank the following “actors” who assisted me in making the illustrative videos: Hideki Goto, Naoki Kiyama, Irina Novikova, Shanshan She, Gunes Ustuner, and Kyosuke Yamamoto. Any remaining inadequacies are my own. This study was partly supported by Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) (no. 24720179), Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) (no. 25370425; PI: Kazuko Shinohara), and a Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness grant for Proyectos de Investigación Fundamental no Orientada (Tipo A) (no. FFI2010–14903; PI: Iraide Ibarretxe-Anuñano)

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Websites Akita, Kimi. 2012-present. Multimedia encyclopedia of Japanese mimetics (MEJaM). https://sites.google.com/site/jpmimeticthesaurus/ (accessed 30 July 2014). Asaga, Chisato, Yusuf Mukarramath & Chiemi Watanabe. 2007–present. Onomatopedia. http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/onomatopedia (accessed 30 July 2014). FrameNet. https://framenet.icsi.berkeley.edu/fndrupal/ (accessed 30 July 2014). Giongo/gitaigo-no resutoran [Restaurant for onomatopoeia]. http://oscar.gsid.nagoya-u. ac.jp/~sugiura/proj/giongogitaigo/demo/ (accessed 30 July 2014). The Japan Foundation Japanese-Language Institute, Kansai. 2010. Japanese in anime & manga. http://www.anime-manga.jp (accessed 30 July 2014). National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics. 2004–2007. Giongo/gitaigo: Nihongo-o tanoshimo! [Mimetics: Let’s enjoy Japanese!]. http://www.ninjal.ac.jp/ archives/Onomatope/index.html (accessed 30 July 2014). “TMU-mic-J”. 2012. Kirakira onomatope [Glittering onomatopoeia]. Tokyo: Tokyo Metropolitan University. http://nihongo.hum.tmu.ac.jp/~nishigori/onomatopee/index.html (accessed 30 July 2014).

Zoe Pei-sui Luk

8 A cognitive approach to the comprehension of intransitive constructions in L1 and L2 Japanese Abstract: The present study investigates whether an agent is invoked by native Japanese speakers and native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese upon hearing sentences with “ordinary” intransitive verbs and what Pardeshi (2008) called “agent-implying intransitive verbs” by using an eye-tracking experiment. Participants were presented with a spoken sentence and a scene containing an object mentioned in the spoken sentence, a person, and two unrelated pictures. It was assumed that an agent was invoked in the intransitive conditions if the participants fixated on the person picture in the intransitive conditions as long as they would in the transitive conditions. Results showed that the native speakers tended to fixate on the person picture longer in the transitive and agent-implying transitive conditions than in the intransitive and agent-implying intransitive conditions respectively, but that the L2 learners showed opposite trends. These findings suggest that native Japanese speakers do not distinguish between ordinary intransitive verbs and agent-implying intransitive verbs, and they tend not to pay attention to an agent in either case. It is also speculated that the native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese failed to pay attention to verb morphology, and as such their performance deviated from that of the native speakers. Keywords: Causative events, fixation, L1 Cantonese, Idealized Cognitive Model, visual-world paradigm

1 Introduction Verb alternation has been one of the most difficult areas in the acquisition of Japanese as a second language. Although sources of errors can be many (e.g., confusion of forms), there is evidence that suggests that the difficulty for some learners, especially the advanced ones, may be related to event conceptualization. Kobayashi (1996), for example, found that the L2 learners of Japanese with various L1s in her study were shown to be familiar with the verb forms in a paper-andpencil test, but when they were asked to choose an appropriate verb to complete a discourse, they tended to deviate from the native speakers. For instance, in (1), most learners preferred the transitive verb aketa ‘opened’ or the potential form

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akerareta ‘was able to open’. However, the intransitive verb aita ‘opened’ was deemed the most appropriate by the native Japanese participants. (1)

Tonari no hito ga “kagi nara arimasuyo. Koko ni otite imasu. Kore desu ka?” to kagi o mise masita “ee, so desu.” (gatya gatya to kagi o kagi’ana ni ireru) “aa 1) ake-ta 2) ai-ta 3) ake-rare-ta ‘Your neighbor said “(if you are looking for the key), it is here. It is here on the floor. Is this your key?’ and showed you the key. ‘Oh yes.’ (inserting the key into the keyhole with clattering noises) ‘Oh, 1) (I) opened (it) 2) (it) opened 3) (I) was able to open (it) (Kobayashi 1996: 48, translation by author)

Nakaishi (2005) also found that learners have a greater tendency to overuse transitive verbs than intransitive verbs. Luk and Shirai (2012) found that Chinese learners of Japanese tend to use the passive form of a transitive verb when they perceive that an event should be brought about by a person (i.e., externally caused), whereas native Japanese speakers would use the intransitive counterpart to describe the same event. For example, the learners were more likely to use the passive form toosareta in example (2a), in which a new law is often understood to be passed by a group of people, than in (2b), in which the lowering of the cost of living is often not caused directly by a group of people. (2) a. kokkai de atarasii horituan-ga (toot-ta/ toosare-ta) Congress at new law-nom pass(intr.)-past be.passed-past ‘At the congress, the new law (passed/was passed).’ b. fukeeki de bukka-ga (sagat-ta/ recession because cost.of.living-nom lower(intr.)-past sagerare-ta) be.lowered-past ‘Because of the economic downturn, the cost of living (lowered/was lowered).’ The findings of Kobayashi (1995) and Luk and Shirai (2012) thus suggest that the non-native use of transitive verbs in Japanese may be attributed to event conceptualization: learners tend to use the transitive construction and include an external causer when they perceive the presence of an external causer. The purpose of this chapter is to incorporate an eye-tracking experiment in order to compare the conceptual structures invoked by native Japanese speakers with those invoked by advanced learners of Japanese whose L1 is Cantonese after

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hearing transitive and intransitive sentences, in particular, sentences containing what Pardeshi (2008) called “agent-implying intransitive verbs” in Japanese. This chapter is organized as follows. In the next section, theories on the conceptualization and linguistic coding of causative and inchoative events are reviewed. In Section 3, transitivity and argument structures in Japanese are discussed. Section 4 briefly reviews transitivity in Cantonese, which was the first language of the learner participants in the present study. The tasks in the present study are then described and the results are reported in Section 5. Finally, Section 6 discusses the theoretical and pedagogical implications of the findings.

2 Idealized Cognitive Model and transitivity In this section, I briefly review the concepts involved in understanding the different event views and the linguistic coding associated with these views. Lakoff (1987) defined the Idealized Cognitive Model (ICM) as the body of knowledge, including world and cultural-specific knowledge, invoked by a lexical item. For example, one can only understand the term “birth mother” in an adoption ICM. That is, we need to understand that in some cultures adoption occurs such that the term “birth mother” is meaningful. While Lakoff mainly discusses ICMs associated with nouns, Croft (1994) extended the idea to verbs. He hypothesized that the ICM of a verb represents a self-contained event, that is, an event “can be isolated from the rest of the causal network” (1994: 91). According to Croft (1990), any event can be viewed causatively, inchoatively, or statively, as illustrated in (3)-(5) (the presentation below follows Croft (1994), where ### signifies the start and the end of the verbal segment). (3) Causative: The rock broke the window. rock → window → (window) → cause become broken ### break (transitive) (4) Inchoative: The window broke. window → (window) → become broken ### break (intransitive)

(window) ###

(window) ###

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(5) Stative: The window is broken. window → (window) broken ### be broken ### The causative view in (3) involves a causer acting upon a causee, which, as a result, undergoes a change of state. The inchoative view in (4), on the other hand, only contains the change-of-state part of the causal chain. Finally, the stative view in (5) only highlights the state of an entity. Although the speaker can adopt any of these event views, Croft argues that the markedness of a given linguistic form is strongly associated with the prototypical event view, that is, “the more typically the change of state requires an external agent, the more likely the causative type will be unmarked” (1990: 60). In other words, if an event is often seen to be caused by an external causer, the unmarked form would be a transitive verb. Similarly, if an event is often seen to happen spontaneously (i.e., inchoatively), the unmarked form would be an intransitive verb. It follows that, if the speaker wishes to adopt a non-prototypical view, he/she will more likely use marked forms. For example, if the speaker wishes to focus on the resultative state of a breaking of a window, he/she will use a derived adjective broken, as shown in (5). Conversely, an unmarked transitive verb would prototypically invoke a causative view, and an unmarked intransitive verb would prototypically invoke an inchoative view. Croft (1994) further argues that an event view like the one in (6) constitutes “deviation from ICM” (1994: 98). (6) Causer

→ Cause

subject ###

→ (subject) → become state self-contained event

(subject) ###

In (6), the event is agentive, but the verb only denotes part of the causal chain, with the causee being the subject.

3 (In)Transitivity and Agentivity in Japanese Although Croft argues that (6) is a deviation from ICM, Pardeshi (2008) suggested that some languages such as Marathi, Hindi, and Japanese have verbs that have a semantic structure like the one in (6). These verbs are intransitive verbs, but they describe actions that must be brought about by an intentional animate agent.

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For example, in Japanese, the transitive verb tukamaeru ‘catch/arrest’ has an intransitive counterpart tukamaru. The transitive tukamaeru, like other transitive verbs, takes the agent as the subject and the patient as the object as shown in (7a), whereas the intransitive counterpart takes the patient (e.g., the offender) as the subject of the sentence, as shown in (7b). (7) a. hannin-o tukamae-ta ‘offender-acc catch-past ‘(Someone) caught the offender.’ b. hannin-ga tukamat-ta. offender-nom be.caught-past ‘The offender got caught.’ It should be noted that the Japanese sentence in (7b) is syntactically not a passive sentence, although it is translated into a get-passive construction in English. This is because there is not another way to express the same meaning in English. Other examples of this kind of intransitive verb in Japanese include kimaru ‘be decided’, tasukaru ‘be helped’, and kurumaru ‘be wrapped’. Pardeshi (2008) called these verbs “agent-implying intransitive verbs” (2008: 69). Intransitive verbs like tukamaru ‘get caught’ are semantically different from intransitive verbs such as kowareru ‘break (intransitive)’, because the act of catching must involve an external agent (e.g., a police officer), whereas an event of something breaking may not involve one. The difference between kowareru ‘break (intransitive)’ and tukamaru ‘get caught’ is illustrated in terms of their ICMs in (8) and (9). The structure of (9) parallels the one which Croft claims to deviate from the ICM of an event in (6). (8) mado-ga koware-ta. Window-nom break-past ‘The window broke.’ Window → (window) → (window) Become broken ### kowareru ### (9) doroboo-ga tukamat-ta Thief-nom get.caught-past Police officer → thief → (thief) → (thief) Cause become caught ### tukamaru ###

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Thus, in Japanese, there seem to be two types of unaccusative verbs depending on whether an agent is entailed or not¹: the kowareru ‘break’ type, which does not entail an agent, and the tukamaru type, which entails an agent. The tukamaru type (i.e., agent-implying) intransitive verbs are problematic, because if the act of catching is understood to be a causative event and the patient is to be the subject of the sentence, some kind of passive morphology should be applied. The verb tukamaru ‘be caught’, however, is not morphologically marked. In fact, it is even morphologically less marked than its transitive counterpart tukamaeru ‘catch’. Croft (1994) also commented that, for this kind of intransitive verb, “construal of the event as self-contained does not match objective semantic expectations, in fact defies them” (1994: 102). The distinction between ordinary intransitive verbs (i.e., the kowareru ‘break’ type) and agent-implying intransitive verbs (i.e., the tukamaru ‘get caught’ type) may be related to Croft’s (1991) argument about the difference between “process passive” and “result passive” in English (1991: 249). Croft explained that the door was unlocked is conceptually different from the door is unlocked, although both sentences may be used to describe the same situation. The door was unlocked is an example of a process passive, and has the causal chain shown in (10). The sentence describes a process that unfolded in the past, and thus the verbal segment covers the whole causal chain from the causer to the resultative state of the door. (10) The door was unlocked. John → latch → door → (door) → (door) Disable Phys Change Result ### unlocked ### (Croft 1991: 249) The door is unlocked, on the other hand, is a result passive sentence. It refers to the current state of the door, and the verbal segment only covers the resultative state, as shown in (11).

1 The term ‘unaccusative’ is only used in this study as a convenient label to refer to ‘patient-assubject’ type of verbs, such as break and melt, which is the type of intransitive verb in which this study is interested, as opposed to ’agent-as-subject’ type of verbs, such as walk and laugh, respectively. The author is not committed to a syntactic distinction of intransitive verbs with the use of this term.

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(11) The door is unlocked John → latch → door → (door) → (door) Disable Phys Change Result ### unlocked ### (Croft 1991: 249) Croft (1991) also points out that one of the major differences between the process passive and the result passive is that the former allows progressive interpretation, whereas the latter does not. Using the unlock example above, the sentence in (12a) is acceptable, but the one in (12b) is not. (12) a. The door was being unlocked. b. *The door is being unlocked. [*in result passive reading] (Croft 1991: 250) In fact, if we compare the Japanese sentences in (13), we will see that (13a), in which an ordinary intransitive verb korogaru ‘roll’ is used, has a progressive meaning when -teiru ‘-ing’ is added to it, whereas in (13b), with tasukaru ‘be saved’, which is classified as an agent-implying intransitive verb, has a resultative meaning when the same marking is added to the verb. (13) a. booru-ga korogat-tei-ru ball-nom roll-asp-nonpast ‘The ball is rolling.’ b. kodomo-ga tasukat-tei-ru child-nom be.saved-asp-nonpast ‘The child is saved/safe.’ Agent-implying intransitive verbs are therefore probably similar to the result passive, in that they do not include the process in their meaning. In this case, the agent may not be within the speaker’s or the hearer’s conceptualization of the event. Testing the distinction of ‘ordinary’ and agent-implying intransitive verbs is the first goal of this study.

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4 Transitivity in Cantonese Because this study examines the acquisition of Japanese by native Cantonesespeaking learners, it may be useful to understand how transitivity is manifested in Cantonese. Cantonese is a variety of Chinese, and thus shares many grammatical properties with Mandarin Chinese. Using the syntactic definition of transitivity (i.e., the number of arguments a verb can accommodate), verbs in Cantonese can be classified into transitive verbs and intransitive verbs. For example, the verb saat ‘kill’ must have a subject and an object, as shown in (14). If koei ‘him/her’ (the object) is omitted, the sentence becomes ungrammatical. (14) ngo saat zo koei/*Φ I kill perf him (or her)/*Φ ‘I killed him (or her).’ Intransitive verbs, on the other hand, are verbs that accommodate only one argument. For example, sei ‘die’ is an intransitive verb, as illustrated in (15). (15) koei sei zo. He/she die perf ‘He/she died.’ However, determining whether a verb is transitive or intransitive in Cantonese can be difficult, because of three reasons. First, Cantonese, like other varieties of Chinese, is morphologically very impoverished. As shown in (14) and (15), there is no morphological marking on the subject or the object noun phrases. The object koei ‘him/her’ in (14) has the same form as the subject in (15). There is also no subject-verb agreement. Identifying the subject is dependent largely on the word order, which can be altered due to topicalization (i.e., movement of a non-subject noun phrase to the beginning of the sentence). Second, in addition to topicalization, Cantonese also allows for null-argument. Topicalization and null argument together make it difficult to tell whether a verb is transitive or intransitive. This is illustrated in (16). The canonical sentence is (16a), where wandou ‘find’ has two arguments, namely ngo ‘I’ and gong ‘job’. One can move the object gong ‘job’ to the beginning of the sentence to produce (16b). Furthermore, the subject I can be omitted to produce (16c), making gong ‘job’ look like a subject. Therefore, one might even argue that wandou is an intransitive verb.

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(16) a. ngo wandou gong I find job ‘I found a job’ b. gong ngo wandou la job I find sfp ‘A job, I found (it).’ c. gong wandou la job find sfp ‘(I) found a job. A job was found.’ Third, some verbs in Cantonese that are usually classified as intransitive verbs in English and many other languages allow a noun phrase to directly follow the verb, making these verbs look like transitive verbs in Cantonese. For example, hoei ‘go’ allows the place to which the person goes to directly follow the verb, as shown in (17a). (17) a. ngo gamjat heoi gongjyun. I today go park ‘I went to the park today.’ b. ngo heoi jat go zong I go one cls hour ‘I will go there for one hour.’ In English, go is an intransitive verb, as it is followed by the preposition phrase ‘to the park’. However, in Cantonese heoi ‘go’ is directly followed by the noun phrase gongjyun ‘park’. What makes it even more complicated is that other thematic roles, such as time, can occupy the same position, as shown in (17b). It is thus difficult to decide whether heoi ‘go’ is an intransitive verb in Cantonese. Because of these reasons, native Cantonese speakers do not rely on morphological marking in understanding noun-verb relationships. In fact, it seems that transitivity in Chinese (and Cantonese) is often understood in purely semantic terms. Li and Thompson (1981), for example, described a transitive verb as a verb that “requires two participants and one of them is doing something to or directing some behavior at the other one” (1981: 157). Under this definition, verbs denoting events that must involve an agent would be understood as transitive. How this may affect native Cantonese-speaking learners comprehend transitive and intransitive verbs in Japanese is the second goal of this study.

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5 The present study 5.1 Research goals Previous studies suggest that learners of Japanese have difficulty choosing between a transitive and an intransitive counterpart of a verb pair, and this difficulty may come from learners’ perceptions of an external causer. However, studies thus far have not measured learners’ attention to an agent during language comprehension, which may explain the wrong use of intransitive verbs, especially when in Cantonese (the first language of the learners in this study), transitivity can hardly be defined in syntactic terms. This study thus proposes an eye-tracking experiment to investigate the contrasts in the intransitive argument structures of Japanese verbs, and the difference in attention to an agent between native Japanese speakers and native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese. The eye-tracking technology has been used in many psycholinguistic studies in both language comprehension (e.g., Altmann and Kamide 1999; Altmann and Kamide 2007; Kamide et al. 2003) and language production (e.g., Griffin 2004; Papafragou et al. 2008). Many of these studies utilized the visual-world paradigm (Cooper 1974; Tanenhaus et al. 1995). This paradigm presumes that participants attend to relevant objects or persons during language processing. For example, Altmann and Kamide (1999) found that their participants were more likely to fixate on a cake in a scene with other inedible objects when hearing the verb eat than when hearing the verb move even before the object noun phrase was presented. In other words, people do not only attend to nouns that they actually hear, but also to entities that potentially help them understand the situation. The visual-world paradigm may thus be useful in understanding any differences in attention to an agent between native speakers and L2 learners. In this study, it is assumed that participants would be more likely to fixate on a person if they hear a sentence that suggests the presence of an agent. That is, they would fixate longer on a person after hearing a transitive sentence than after hearing an intransitive sentence, because only the transitive sentence suggests the presence of an agent. If this difference in fixation is indeed valid, it should be possible to compare the agent-implying intransitive and transitive verb pairs and infer from the results whether native speakers and learners attend to an agent after hearing a sentence with an agent-implying intransitive verb. Based on the previous research on verb transitivity in Japanese and Cantonese, as well as the studies that utilized the visual-word paradigm, this study asks the following questions:

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1.

Do native Japanese speakers fixate longer on a picture of a potential agent upon hearing a transitive sentence than an intransitive sentence? 2. Do native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese focus longer on a picture of a potential agent upon hearing a transitive sentence rather than an intransitive sentence? 3. Do native Japanese speakers conceptualize the presence of an agent when comprehending a sentence involving an agent-implying intransitive verb (e.g., tukamaru ‘be caught’)? That is, do native Japanese speakers fixate longer on a picture of a potential agent upon hearing an agent-implying intransitive sentence than they do upon hearing a sentence with the transitive counterpart of the same verb (i.e., tukamaeru ‘catch’)? 4. Do native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese conceptualize the presence of an agent when comprehending a sentence involving an agent-implying intransitive verb (e.g., tukamaru ‘be caught’)? That is, do learners of Japanese fixate equally long on a picture of a potential agent upon hearing an intransitive sentence as they do upon hearing a sentence with the transitive counterpart of the same verb (i.e., tukamaeru ‘catch’)?

5.2 Participants Eight native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese participated in the study. They were students majoring in Japanese Studies in a university in Hong Kong. They were advanced learners of Japanese who had either passed N1 (the highest level) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test or had received language instruction equivalent to the N1 level. All of them had studied in Japan for about 10 months in an exchange program as part of the curriculum. A group of seven native Japanese speakers also participated. All participants completed two tasks, namely the production task and the eye-tracking comprehension task, as described in the next section.

5.3 Method 5.3.1 Task 1: Production task The purpose of the production task was to test the participants’ knowledge on the verbs that appeared in the eye-tracking task. The design of the task follows Kobayashi (1996). In this task, participants were presented one counterpart of a transitive-intransitive verb pair in a sentence, and they were asked to produce

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the other counterpart of the pair. There were 24 items in the test, in which 16 were constructed with the 16 test verb pairs in the eye-tracking task and 8 were constructed using other verbs as fillers. Two examples of the test items are shown in (18a)–(18b)². (18) a. Tegami-o moyasu. Tegami-ga (  ). Letter-acc burn. Letter-nom (  ) ‘(someone) burns the letter. The letter (  )’ b. Megane-o (  ). Megane-ga kudakeru. Glasses-acc (  ) glasses-nom shatter ‘(Someone) shattered the glasses. The glasses shatter.’ All sentences were in present tense to test whether the participants knew the basic forms of the verb pairs. Participants were given as much time as they needed. The actual task is given in Appendix A. The 16 test verb pairs were selected from the verb list in the appendix in Jacobsen (1992) based on two criteria: (1) native speakers’ familiarity with these verbs³, and (2) the ease to create test items in Task 2 (i.e., the eye-tracking task). Familiarity was judged both by the author, who is a near-native speaker of Japanese, and a native Japanese-speaking linguistics professor. In terms of ease of creating test items, some verbs were relatively more difficult to represent with pictures. For example, kimeru ‘to decide’ and kimaru ‘to be decided’ are more abstract in meaning and it is relatively more difficult to represent their meanings with the use of pictures. These verb pairs were thus not selected. To categorize an intransitive verb into either “ordinary” intransitive or agentimplying intransitive verbs, the following test was used. The transitive clause and the corresponding intransitive clause were fit into the sentence frame in (19a) to see whether it was semantically acceptable. If the resulting sentence is semantically acceptable, the intransitive verb would then be categorized as an “ordinary” intransitive verb; otherwise, it would be categorized as an agent-implying intransitive verb. The rationale is that, if an agent must be involved, it should not be possible to say that something happened without anyone causing it. For instance, if we fit doa-o akeru ‘to open a door’ (transitive) and doa-ga aku ‘a door to open’ (intransitive) into the appropriate places, the resulting sentence would become (19b). Since the resulting sentence was acceptable, it was categorized as an “ordinary” intransitive verb. On the other hand, if we fit ie-o tateru ‘to build 2 The questions in the actual test were written in Hiragana and Kanji. 3 There was one case (i.e., uwaru ‘be planted’) in which familiarity was slightly compromised due to the relatively limited agent-implying intransitive verbs available in Japanese.

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a house’ (transitive) and ie-ga tatu ‘a house to be built’ (intransitive), the resulting sentence would become (19c), which is not acceptable. Tatu ‘be built’ was thus categorized as an “agent-implying intransitive verb”. Two native Japanese speakers were consulted, both of whom were Japanese language teachers with one having a linguistic background. They were blind to the purpose of the study. Both of them agreed that the verbs classified as “ordinary” produced naturalsounding sentences⁴, whereas the verbs classified as agent-implying intransitive verbs produced unacceptable sentences.⁵ (19) a. dare-mo (transitive clause) noni, (intransitive clause) b. dare-mo doa-o ake-tei-nai noni, doa-ga ai-ta no.one door-acc open-asp-neg despite, door-nom open-past ‘Despite that no one was opening the door, the door opened.’ c. *dare-mo ie-o tate-tei-nai noni, ie-ga tat-ta. no.one house-acc build-asp-neg despite, house-nom be.built-past ‘Despite that no one was building the house, the house was built.’

5.3.2 Task 2: Eye-tracking comprehension task The eye-tracking comprehension task adopted the visual-world paradigm (Tenanhaus et al. 1995). Under this paradigm, the eye movements serve as a measure of attention during the processing of the sentences, which were presented to them auditorily.

5.3.2.1 Materials The design followed Huettig and Altmann (2005), whose participants were presented scenes with four pictures on a computer screen (as shown in Fig. 1) while listening to a sentence in Japanese. There were four conditions, namely transitive, intransitive, agent-implying transitive and agent-implying intransitive. The “intransitive” condition consisted of verbs that denote events that do not necessarily

4 There was one item, kagami-o kudaku/kagami-ga kudakeru ‘someone shattered the mirror/ the mirror shattered’, in which both consultants were slightly hesitant about its naturalness, but they explained that it would sound better if it is a rock instead of a mirror, suggesting that its naturalness may come from the fact it is relatively more common for a rock to shatter spontaneously than a mirror. 5 The author is aware of the fact that different noun phrases may produce sentences of different degrees of acceptability. The test was only testing the items used in this study.

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involve an animate entity (e.g., kowareru ‘break’) and may happen spontaneously or due to natural forces (e.g., wind). The “transitive” condition consisted of verbs that are the transitive counterparts of the verbs in the “intransitive” condition. The “agent-implying intransitive” condition consisted of verbs that denote events that must involve an animate entity (e.g., tukamaru ‘be caught’), and the “agentimplying transitive” condition consisted of verbs that are the transitive counterparts of the verbs in the agent-implying intransitive condition (e.g., tukamaeru ‘catch’)⁶. The classification of the verbs into various conditions was described in the previous section. Eight verb pairs were used to construct 16 test sentences (eight transitive and eight intransitive), and eight other verb pairs to construct another 16 test sentences (eight agent-implying transitive and eight agent-implying intransitive). There were another 16 sentences that acted as fillers. The verbs and the sentences are given in Appendix B.

Fig. 1: An example of a scene of the test item tyawan-ga wareta/tyawan-o watta ‘the bowl broke/(someone) broke the bowl’

All 32 test sentences and 16 fillers contained a noun phrase, a case particle, and a verb in past tense, as shown in (20). The noun phrases were either the subject 6 For example, tukamaru is an agent-implying intransitive verb, while its transitive counterpart tukamaeru is the agent-implying transitive verb. Thus, semantically they are not different from the verbs in the transitive condition.

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or the object of the sentence, depending on the verb type. For example, if the verb was waru ‘break’, which is a transitive verb, the sentence would be tyawan-o watta ‘(someone) broke the bowl’, and the intransitive version would be tyawanga wareta ‘the bowl broke’. Examples in all conditions are shown in (20). (20) a. Transitive:

b.

c.

d.

e.

tyawan-o wat-ta. bowl-acc break-past. ‘(someone) broke the bowl.’ Intransitive: tyawan-ga ware-ta. bowl-nom break-past ‘the bowl broke.’ Agent-implying transitive: sika-o tukamae-ta deer-acc catch-past ‘(someone) caught a deer.’ Agent-implying intransitive: sika-ga tukamat-ta deer-nom caught-past ‘A deer was caught.’ Filler: biru-o non-da beer-acc drink-past ‘(someone) drank beer.’

The 32 test sentences were divided into 2 lists, each of which contained four test items of each condition (i.e., transitive, intransitive, agent-implying transitive, and agent-implying intransitive). Each participant only did one of the two lists. The lists were created such that no verb appeared in both the transitive and intransitive case frames within a list. In other words, if a participant heard tyawan-o watta (transitive), he/she would not hear tyawan-ga wareta (intransitive) in the experiment. All the sentences were read out by a male native speaker of Japanese. Each test or filler sentence was paired with a scene shown on a computer screen. In the scene of a test sentence, there were a picture of the noun phrase mentioned in the sentence, a picture of a person capable of carrying out the action (e.g., a man rather than a baby if the sentence is ie-o tateta ‘(someone) built a house), and two other unrelated pictures. The hypothesis was that participants would look at the picture of the person after hearing a transitive sentence, but would be less likely to do so after hearing an intransitive sentence, because the transitive case frame suggests the presence of an agent, and the intransitive case frame does not. For example, in the phrase tyawan-o watta, there were a bowl, a boy, and two distractors (a shirt and a boat, as shown in Fig. 1), and the participants were predicted to look

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at the boy longer after hearing the transitive sentence than after hearing the intransitive sentence tyawan-ga wareta, which was also paired with the same scene. The 16 filler sentences were all transitive sentences, as in (20e). In these filler items, there were no matching objects in the scene of a filler sentence. There were three unrelated inanimate objects and an animate entity, either an animal or a person. Half of the filler items contained a person and the other half contained an animate entity which was expected to be conceived as incapable of carrying out the action described by the sentence. For example, the animate entity was a rabbit for the sentence hon-o kaesita ‘(someone) returned the book’. The reasons for including an animate entity in the filler were, first, to make the fillers less different from the test items such that participants were unable to identify the test and non-test items, and second, to test how much attention would be given to an animate entity when an unrelated sentence was presented. The locations of the pictures were arranged so that each picture type (i.e., the noun phrase and the person) appeared equally often in each quadrant. This was to eliminate the effect of preferential looking at a certain position. All pictures shown were black-and-white line drawings downloaded from the World Wide Web through a Google image search. The distractors were selected so that they were from a category different from the target pictures in the same scene based on Battig and Montague (1969). For example, if the target picture was a door, the distractors would be a ladder and a banana. Moreover, the pictures used in the experiment were simple depictions of the objects or persons, and were not comical or exaggerated to avoid participants’ attention due to these properties of the pictures. The pictures were also resized so that they were of comparable sizes.

5.3.2.2 Procedures The participants viewed the scene projected onto a 24-inch computer screen at a distance of about 65 cm. The participants were instructed to listen to the sentences and look at the computer screen. Their eye movements were then measured by Tobii TX300. The participants were told that they were not required to give any response during the experiment, but to ensure that comprehension of the sentences actually took place, they were told that there was a third task that would ask about the sentences they heard during the experiment. This third task was a memory task that asked them to circle the verbs they heard during the experiment from a verb list. The results of the third task were not analyzed in the present study. Before the display of the actual test items, the participants were given two items as practice. The scene and the spoken sentence of each item were presented simultaneously. The eye-tracker was recalibrated after every eight items were presented

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(i.e., a total of four calibrations during the experiment) to ensure that the tracking of the eye gaze was accurate. The items were separated by a screen with a central fixation cross that lasted 500ms. Each scene was shown for 4 seconds. The experiment lasted for about 10 minutes.

5.3.2.3 Interpretation of results The fixation time for a given object or person was seen as a measure of attention to that object or person, and thus the longer the fixation time towards an object or person, the more attention would be paid to that object or person. The differences in fixation times between the transitive and the intransitive conditions, and that between the agent-implying transitive and agent-implying intransitive conditions were used to indicate whether the native speakers and the learners interpret the agent-implying intransitive verbs differently from the ordinary intransitive verbs. For example, if there is a large difference in the fixation times between the transitive and the intransitive conditions, but there is little difference in the fixation times between the agent-implying transitive and agent-implying intransitive conditions, it may suggest that the participants interpret agent-implying intransitive verbs in a similar way to the agent-implying transitive verbs. Based on the findings of previous research, the following hypotheses are proposed: Hypothesis 1: Native Japanese speakers would fixate longer on the person picture in the transitive condition than in the intransitive condition, because a transitive verb suggests an agent whereas an intransitive verb does not. Hypothesis 2: Native Cantonese-speaking learners would fixate longer on the person picture in the transitive condition than in the intransitive condition, because a transitive verb suggests an agent whereas an intransitive verb does not. Hypothesis 3: Native Japanese speakers would fixate on the person picture in the agent-implying transitive condition longer than in the agent-implying intransitive verbs, because they understand that an agent-implying intransitive verb only indicates part of the causal chain without an agent, as in (9), because the agent-implying intransitive sentences have the same linguistic form as the basic intransitive sentences. Hypothesis 4: Native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese would fixate on the person picture when comprehending agent-implying transitive verbs for an equal amount of time as when comprehending agent-implying intransitive verbs, because they tend to think that agent-implying intransitive verbs involve an agent

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like their transitive counterparts due to influence from their L1, in which the subject of a sentence is often semantically determined.

5.4 Results 5.4.1 Task 1: Production task The purpose of the production task was to test whether participants were familiar with the verbs presented to them in the eye-tracking task. Only the 16 verb pairs used in the eye-tracking experiment were counted. The mean accuracy of the native-speaking participants was 100 % (all native participants obtained 100 % accuracy) and that of the learner participants was 71.9 % (range = 50 % to 87.5 %). The results suggested that some of the learner participants were unfamiliar with some of the verb forms. The verbs that most learner participants produced incorrectly, or left their answers blank, were korogaru ‘roll’ (intransitive), tukamaru ‘catch’ (agent-implying intransitive), and kudaku ‘shatter’ (transitive). Some incorrect responses were verbs with similar morphological forms but were completely different in meaning. For example, some learners wrote korobu ‘fall’ as a counterpart to korogasu ‘roll (transitive)’. The percentages of correct responses of the learner participants are shown in Tab. 1. Tab. 1: Percentage of correct responses of the learner participants in Task 1 Condition

Verb pairs

% correct

Ordinary pairs

taosu/taoreru korogasu/korogaru tomeru/tomaru kudaku/kudakeru sodateru/sodatu akeru/aku waru/wareru kowasu/kowareru

 87.5   0 100  25  62.5  87.5  87.5  87.5

Agent-implying pairs

mitukeru/mitukaru tukamaeru/tukamaru umeru/umaru tasukeru/tasukaru turu/tureru tateru/tatu ueru/uwaru todokeru/todoku

 87.5  50  87.5  87.5  75  87.5  75  62.5

Comprehension of intransitive constructions   

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5.4.2 Task 2: Eye-tracking comprehension task 5.4.2.1 Overall mean fixation times The fixation times were measured from the end of the spoken sentence to 2 seconds after the end of the sentence. For each participant, the fixation times of the items created from the verbs on which the participant made mistakes in Task 1 were removed. The hypothesis was that the participants would look longer at the person picture in the transitive condition than in the intransitive condition, because the use of a transitive verb implies the presence of an agent, whereas the use of an intransitive verb implies the absence of the agent. A 2 (Group) X 4 (Construction) X 3 (Picture type) ANOVA revealed a main effect for Picture type, F(2, 42) = 129.44, p < 0.001. A post hoc Tukey HSD test showed that the mean fixation time on the noun pictures (i.e., the pictures of the nouns mentioned in the sentence) was significantly longer than that of the distractor pictures and that of the person pictures, and the mean fixation time of the person pictures was also significantly longer than the distractor pictures (Fig. 2). There were no main effects for Construction and Group. All other interaction terms were also statistically insignificant. In other words, the different verb conditions did not produce any significant difference in the fixation times as hypothesized.

Fig. 2: Fixation time (second) on different types of pictures of the native control group and the learners

5.4.2.2 Mean fixation times on the person picture by item Because no significant difference was found for construction type, the fixation times on the person picture by item were examined to see whether there are any variations in fixation times among the items. Looking at the fixation times by item was expected to reveal whether all items produced similar fixation times in the transitive and intransitive conditions, or some items produced rather different

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fixations times in the two conditions, but the differences were offset by the differences in the opposite direction of the other items. The fixation times were compared statistically using t-tests with Bonferroni adjusted alpha levels of 0.00625 per test (.05/8). The results are shown in Tabs. 2 to 5. The negative values of difference, which suggest the person picture was fixated on longer in the intransitive condition than in the transitive condition and thus go against the hypotheses, are shown in boldface. With Bonferroni corrections, only the difference between todoketa and todoita ‘delivered/arrived’ for the native speaker participants was statistically significant. Tab. 2: Native speakers’ mean fixation time (second) on Person for the transitive and the intransitive conditions by item Verb pair

transitive

intransitive

difference

p value

aketa/aita korogasita/korogatta kowasita/kowareta kudaita/kudaketa sodateta/sodatta taosita/taoreta tometa/tomatta watta/wareta Average

0.340 0.647 0.245 0.375 0.590 0.523 0.123 0.667 0.439

0.000 0.523 0.480 0.553 0.390 0.235 0.108 0.388 0.335

0.340 0.124 –0.235 –0.178 0.200 0.288 0.015 0.279 0.104

0.084 0.628 0.619 0.157 0.308 0.086 0.917 0.183

Note: Bonferroni adjusted alpha level = 0.00625.

Tab. 3: Native speakers’ mean fixation time (second) on Person for the agent-implying transitive and the agent-implying intransitive conditions by item Verb pair

agent-implying transitive

agent-implying intransitive

difference

p value

mituketa/mitukatta tasuketa/tasukatta tateta/tatta todoketa/todoita tukamaeta/tukamatta tutta/tureta ueta/uwatta umeta/umatta Average

0.287 0.320 0.370 0.965 0.500 0.363 0.433 0.377 0.452

0.463 0.365 0.427 0.073 0.640 0.498 0.055 0.365 0.361

–0.176 –0.045 –0.057 0.892 –0.140 –0.135 0.378 0.012 0.091

0.557 0.847 0.776 0.006* 0.569 0.660 0.097 0.967

Note: Bonferroni adjusted alpha level = 0.00625. * p < 0.00625

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Tab. 4: Learners’ mean fixation time (second) on Person for the transitive and the intransitive conditions and their difference by item Verb pair

transitive

intransitive

difference

p value

aketa/aita korogasita/korogatta kowasita/kowareta kudaita/kudaketa sodateta/sodatta taosita/taoreta tometa/tomatta watta/wareta Average

0.083 N/A# 0.145 N/A# 0.445 0.205 0.335 0.353 0.261

0.073 N/A# 0.260 0.290 0.623 0.433 0.000 0.443 0.303

0.011 N/A –0.115 N/A –0.178 –0.228 0.335 –0.091 –0.044

0.926 N/A 0.589 N/A 0.697 0.435 0.011 0.760

Note: Bonferroni adjusted alpha level = 0.00625. # Data unavailable due to removal of data points.

Tab. 5: Learners’ mean fixation time (second) on Person for the agent-implying transitive and the agent-implying intransitive conditions by item Verb pair

agent-implying transitive

agent-implying intransitive

difference

p value

mituketa/mitukatta tasuketa/tasukatta tateta/tatta todoketa/todoita tukamaeta/tukamatta tutta/tureta ueta/uwatta umeta/umatta Average

0.358 0.433 0.163 0.430 0.570 0.340 0.125 0.177 0.325

0.737 0.090 0.393 0.900 0.353 0.220 0.000 0.110 0.350

–0.379 0.343 –0.231 –0.470 0.217 0.120 0.125 0.067 –0.026

0.698 0.233 0.597 0.378 N/A# 0.604 0.5 0.408

Note: Bonferroni adjusted alpha level = 0.00625. # The data could not be analyzed statistically because there was only one data point for tukamaeta.

It can be seen from Tab. 2 that the native speaking participants, despite the insignificant results in general, tend to be consistent with the prediction in that the mean fixation times were longer in the transitive condition than in the intransitive condition, except for two items, namely kowasita/kowareta ‘break’ and kudaita/ kudaketa ‘shatter’. The reasons for these findings are not clear at this point and further study is required to determine them. Results of the agent-implying verb pairs (shown in Tab. 3), in contrast, were less consistent with the hypotheses. In

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five out of eight items the mean fixation times were longer in the agent-implying intransitive conditions than in the agent-implying transitive conditions. Todoketa/todoita ‘delivered/arrived’ had the highest difference (which is also the only statistically significant difference), equivalent to 0.892s, accounting for a large proportion of the difference between the two conditions. The learners, on the other hand, were less consistent in general. In the ordinary transitive/intransitive conditions, there were more negative values than positive values, suggesting that there were more items for which the intransitive condition led to longer fixation on the person picture than did the transitive condition (Tab. 4). In the agent-implying conditions, the data were more consistent with the hypotheses with only three negative differences. Interestingly, whereas todoketa/todoita ‘delivered/arrived’ produced the highest positive difference in the native speakers’ data, the same verb pair produced the highest negative difference in the learners’ data, suggesting that the learners fixated on the person picture longer after hearing the intransitive verb todoita ‘arrived’ as opposed to the transitive verb todoketa ‘delivered’.

5.4.2.3 Difference in mean fixation times The difference in tendency to fixate on the person between the learners and the native speakers was also examined. The mean fixation times on the person in different conditions are shown in Tab. 6. Tab. 6: Mean fixation time (second) on the person in different conditions by learners of Japanese and native Japanese speakers (Standard deviations in parentheses)

Learner Native

Agent-implying intransitive

Agent-implying transitive

Intransitive

Transitive

0.390 (0.366) 0.355 (0.137)

0.297 (0.175) 0.463 (0.174)

0.260 (0.209) 0.331 (0.155)

0.220 (0.195) 0.431 (0.124)

There was a tendency for the native speakers to fixate longer on the person picture in the transitive condition than in the intransitive condition (0.431s versus 0.331s). This is consistent with the results discussed above that for most of the verb pairs there was a tendency for the verbs in the transitive condition to produce longer mean fixation times than those in the intransitive condition. The native speakers also tended to look longer at the person picture in the agent-implying transitive condition than in the agent-implying intransitive condition (0.463 versus 0.355). Interestingly, the learners, on the other hand, did not look longer at the person pictures in the transitive condition than in the intransitive condition. The mean

Comprehension of intransitive constructions   

   191

fixation time in the transitive condition was in fact shorter than in the transitive condition (0.220 versus 0.260). They also tended to look longer at the agentimplying intransitive condition than at the agent-implying transitive conditions (0.390 versus 0.297). Fig. 3 shows the difference in fixation times between the transitive and the intransitive conditions, and that between the agent-implying transitive and the agent-implying intransitive conditions for both the learners and the native speakers.

Fig. 3: Difference in mean fixation times (second) on the person picture between the agentimplying transitive and the agent-implying intransitive conditions, and the transitive and the intransitive conditions

The figure clearly shows that native speakers fixated longer on the person picture for both types of transitive verbs than for both types of intransitive verbs, but the learners’ results did not demonstrate the same trend. In other words, the native speakers behaved in accordance with the hypotheses, but the learners did not. Although not statistically significant, which may be attributed to the small number of participants, the differences in performance between the native speakers and the learners require some explanation. To summarize the results, overall, both the native speakers and the learners fixated significantly longer on the person pictures than on the distractor pictures, but no effects of Construction (i.e., verb type) and Group (i.e., native or learner) were found. The native speakers, however, had a tendency to look longer at the person picture in the transitive and the agent-implying transitive condition than the intransitive and agent-implying intransitive conditions respectively. The learners, in contrast, were inconsistent with the hypotheses and tended to look longer in the intransitive conditions instead.

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6 Discussion 6.1 Summary of the results The purpose of the present study was to use an eye-tracking experiment to examine the native-nonnative difference, if any, in the attention of the agent when comprehending sentences with different verb types. The results showed that overall the participants did fixate longer on the person picture than other inanimate distractors in the same scene, suggesting that they considered the person in the scene to be potentially involved in the events described by the sentence they heard. As no significant differences were found for any interaction terms (e.g., Group X Construction X Picture type), Hypotheses 1 and 2, which state that both native Japanese speakers and L2 learners of Japanese would fixate longer on the person in the transitive condition than in the intransitive condition, were not confirmed. However, looking at the differences in fixation times, the results suggest two important findings. First, for the native speakers, there was little difference between the ordinary conditions and the agent-implying conditions. That is, the difference in mean fixation times on the person picture between the transitive and the intransitive conditions was comparable with the difference between the agent-implying intransitive and the agent-implying transitive conditions, as shown in Fig. 3. These results are consistent with Hypothesis 3, which states that the native speakers would fixate on the person picture in the agent-implying transitive condition longer than in the agent-implying intransitive condition, as they did in the “ordinary” conditions. In other words, the data suggest that native speakers do pay more attention to the agent in the agent-implying transitive condition than in the agent-implying intransitive condition, which is similar to the transitive/intransitive conditions. Second, in contrast with the native speakers, the learners did not look longer at the person picture in the transitive and the agent-implying transitive conditions than in the intransitive and the agent-implying intransitive conditions respectively. Compared with the considerable difference between the transitive and intransitive conditions for the native speakers, the differences in fixation times for the learners were much smaller and in the opposite direction (negative values as shown in Fig. 3). The finding that the learners did not show a tendency to fixate longer on the person in the transitive condition than in intransitive condition may suggest that the learners did not distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs, which may in turn mean that they were not sensitive to the morphological marking

Comprehension of intransitive constructions   

   193

of the verbs. Although many of them were able to provide the transitive or the intransitive counterpart within the verb pairs in Task 1, which was like an exercise that they might have used to practice transitive and intransitive verb pairs in their Japanese language class, they might not be actually processing the endings when listening to a sentence in an online comprehension task such as the eyetracking experiment in the present study. The original purpose of the study was to understand how L2 learners of Japanese conceptualize an event upon hearing a transitive or intransitive verb, and it was assumed that the learner participants in the present study would be able to at least distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs like the native speakers. The results, however, suggest that this assumption may not stand.

6.2 Theoretical and pedagogical implications The results of the present study shed light on some theories related to verb transitivity. As discussed earlier, the ICM of a verb and its morphology should invoke the knowledge about the verb, such as whether a causer exists or not. The hypothesis was that both the native speakers and the learners should be sensitive to the transitive form and pay more attention to the causer when comprehending a transitive sentence, but for an intransitive form they would pay less attention to the causer because the ICM of an intransitive verb does not include a causer. The finding that the difference in the mean fixation times between the transitive and the intransitive conditions was comparable with that between the agentimplying transitive and agent-implying intransitive for the native speakers may suggest that the two kinds of intransitive verbs may not be different in terms of the prominence of the causer. In other words, although the agent-implying intransitive verbs, based on world knowledge, should involve an agent, the ICM of these verbs may only indicate the states of the patient. This is consistent with the prediction that agent-implying intransitive verbs are like a result passive. In fact, all intransitive verbs that were classified as agent-implying intransitive verbs in this study are punctual verbs (i.e., they have no duration). These verbs denote the resultative state, and thus little attention is given to the process and the agent. Although agent-implying intransitive verbs are often said to be passive in nature, the passive form of the transitive verb may be distinct from these intransitive verbs in that the semantic structure of the former may include a durative process in which a force is transferred from the agent to the patient/theme. As shown in (21), the progressive interpretation is possible when -teiru is added to tasuker-are-ru ‘be saved’, the passive form of the transitive verb tasukeru.

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(21) mi-te, onnanoko-ga ima kyuuzyotai’in ni Look-ger girl-nom now rescue.team.member by tasuker-are-tei-ru save-pass-asp-nonpast ‘Look! The girl is now being saved by a rescue team member.’ This example may suggest that the agent-implying intransitive verbs yield the result passive only, whereas the passive form of the transitive verb can yield the process passive. This study also has important pedagogical implications. First, the findings suggest that native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese tend not to pay attention to the morphological marking of verbs to distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs. This can be explained in terms of L1 influence. As Cantonese is morphologically impoverished, and distinguishing between transitive and intransitive verbs in Cantonese could be difficult due to reasons discussed earlier, it is not surprising that learners of Japanese who speak Cantonese as a native language do not rely on morphology when comprehending Japanese sentences. Second, the finding that the fixation time difference between the transitive and intransitive conditions was comparable to the fixation time difference between the agent-implying transitive and agent-implying intransitive conditions (i.e., the finding shown in Fig. 3) may suggest that that native speakers do not think that agent-implying and ordinary intransitive verbs are different regarding how much agentivity is involved, and they are able to conceptualize a causative event as if it is inchoative. This can be challenging for native Cantonese-speaking learners, because in their first language, transitivity is often understood in semantic terms. That is, the use of a transitive verb is prototypically associated with a causative event view, and the use of an intransitive verb is prototypically associated with an inchoative event view. These two issues concerning linguistic form and verb meanings may be dealt with at the same time using a cognitive linguistic approach. Pütz (2007) suggests that learners’ language awareness can be raised through making them aware of the semantic impact of symbolic units. He also argues that “students should not be geared toward random blind memorization of symbolic units, but should rather be offered explanations of the systematicity and schematic nature” of the language forms (2007: 1143). In the context of the acquisition of transitivity alternation, it may mean that language teachers, while highlighting the differences in form, should emphasize the nuances of meaning associated with each form through real-life examples. In the early stages of learning, learners can be shown some typical examples of the use of, say, the intransitive verb mitukaru ‘get found’

Comprehension of intransitive constructions   

   195

and the transitive verb mitukeru ‘find’ with clear contexts in corpora. Teachers could also direct the learners’ attention of relevant semantic features such as whether the discovery of something is intentional, or the discovery can be attributed to the actions taken by the “finder”. In other words, learners would not only be instructed to memorize the forms, but also encouraged to form association between the form and the meaning. Boer and Lindstromberg (2006) also point out that linguistic motivation (i.e., explanation behind form-meaning mappings) can help learners “reach a deeper understanding of” the target language structures (2006: 313) and enhance their retention of those structures. In the domain of transitivity alternation, this motivation can be provided through the introduction of form-meaning mapping. Typical examples can also help heighten the prototypical usage of the constructions (e.g., Langacker, 2001). This is especially useful for foreign language learners who do not have frequent encounters with native speakers to develop understanding of the use of these constructions in context. At later stages, learners can be shown other less prototypical examples. This approach of emphasizing the association between form and meaning fits the tenets of Cognitive Linguistics, which emphasizes that language is related to our conceptual world and human experience (e.g., Langacker, 1987). By giving real-life examples with which learners themselves may have experience and directing their attention to different ways of construal of the same event, they would be able to associate their experience with the new linguistic forms in the target language.

7 Conclusion The present study reported an eye-tracking experiment, which was designed to investigate the attention paid to transitive and intransitive sentences in Japanese among native speakers and native Cantonese-speaking learners of Japanese. The results suggest that native speakers do not distinguish between ordinary intransitive and agent-implying intransitive verbs. They interpret both types of intransitive verbs as an event with little involvement of an agent. Native Cantonesespeaking learners, on the other hand, do not distinguish between transitive and intransitive verbs. It is therefore suggested that learners should be directed more to the verb morphology in Japanese, and that they should be taught, with the use of real-life examples, that some intransitive verbs in Japanese act like adjectives: they only indicate a resultative state and do not include a process. To further investigate the issue of the acquisition of transitivity alternation, two major of lines of research may be conducted. First, studies can be conducted

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to investigate how much attention is given to the verb endings in Japanese by L2 learners of Japanese who speak a native language which makes little use of morphological marking, such as Cantonese. For example, another eye-tracking experiment can be used to examine learners’ fixation on the verb endings when reading Japanese sentences. The second line of research would involve teaching methods. It would be interesting to test whether associating the use transitive and intransitive verbs with real-life situations actually helps learners understand the difference between the transitive and the intransitive counterparts of a given verb. To test this, a pre-test-post-test design may be used. A group of students can be shown with real-life examples (i.e., the treatment group), and another group will only be taught verb meanings and their equivalents in the learners’ L1 (i.e., the control group). Their understanding of transitive and intransitive verbs can then be tested and compared with the use of a post-test.

Appendix A The production task 空欄の中に、適切な動詞を書いてください。 (Please write the appropriate verb forms in the blanks below.) 例）予定を決める。予定が（　決まる　）。 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

手紙を燃やす。手紙が（　　　　　　　　）。 敵を（　　　　　　　　）。敵が倒れる。 タイヤを転がす。タイヤが（　　　　　　　　）。 携帯を見つける。携帯が（　　　　　　　　）。 泥棒を捕まえる。泥棒が（　　　　　　　　）。 空き瓶を（　　　　　　　　）。空き瓶が埋まる。 事件を（　　　　　　　　）。事件が起きる。 車を止める。車が（　　　　　　　　）。 子供を生む。子供が（　　　　　　　　）。 女の子を助ける。女の子が（　　　　　　　　）。 メガネを（　　　　　　　　）。メガネが砕ける。 水を（　　　　　　　　）。水がこぼれる。 音楽を流す。音楽が（　　　　　　　　）。 茄子を育てる。茄子が（　　　　　　　　）。 うなぎを（　　　　　　　　）。うなぎが釣れる。 病院を（　　　　　　　　）。病院が建つ。

Comprehension of intransitive constructions   

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

   197

桜を（　　　　　　　　）。桜が植わる。 郵便を届ける。郵便が（　　　　　　　　）。 幕を（　　　　　　　　）。幕が開く。 花瓶を割る。花瓶が（　　　　　　　　）。 犯人を（　　　　　　　　）。犯人が逃げる。 時計を（　　　　　　　　）。時計が壊れる。 歯を（　　　　　　　　）。歯が抜く。 髪を伸ばす。髪が（　　　　　　　　）。

Appendix B Test and filler sentences used with the pictures in each scene Transitive/intransitive conditions Sentence

Noun

Person

Distractor 1 Distractor 2

kamera ga kowareta kamera o kowasita ‘The camera broke/(someone) broke the camera.’

camera (LU)*

boy (LL)

plane

broccoli

kagami ga kudaketa kagami o kudaita ‘The mirror shattered/(someone) shattered the mirror.’

mirror (LU)

boy 2 (RU)

hat

cupcake

bôru ga korogatta bôru o korogasita ‘The ball rolled/(someone) rolled the ball’

ball (LL)

girl 1 (LU)

gun

bookcase

ki ga taoreta ki o taosita ‘The tree fell/(someone) felled the tree.’

tree (LL)

worker (RL)

lamp

shoes

doa ga aita doa o aketa ‘The door opened/(someone) opened the door.’

door (RU)

man 1 (LU)

ladder

banana

boy 6 (RL)

shirt

boat

tyawan ga wareta bowl tyawan o watta (RU) ‘The bowl broke/(someone) broke the bowl.’

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Sentence

Noun

Person

Distractor 1 Distractor 2

sentakuki ga tomatta sentakuki o tometa ‘The washing machine stopped/(someone) stopped the washing machine.’

washing machine (RL)

woman (LL)

piano

tea

man (RU)

racket

hammer

hana ga sodatta flower hana o sodateta (RL) ‘the flower grew/(someone) grew the flower.’

*Note: the abbreviations after the noun and person in the table indicate the location of the picture in the four positions in the scene. The locations of the noun and the person were random, but each noun or person picture appeared in a given location twice so as to minimize the effect of participants’ preference to look at a given position. RU – Right Upper RL – Right Lower LU – Left Upper LL – Left Lower

Agent-implying transitive and agent-implying intransitive conditions Sentence

Noun

Person

Distractor 1

Distractor 2

saifu ga mitukatta saifu o mituketa ‘The wallet was found/(someone) found the wallet.’

wallet (LU)

man 1 (RL)

phone

bottle

sika ga tukamatta sika o tukamaeta ‘A deer was caught/(someone) caught a deer.’

deer (LU)

hunter (LL)

book

chair

neko ga tasukatta neko o tasuketa ‘The cat was saved/(someone) saved the cat’

cat (LL)

boy1 (RL)

frying pan

bag

sakana ga tureta sakana o tutta ‘A fish was caught/(someone) caught a fish’

fish (LL)

man (RU)

umbrella

juice

hana ga uwatta hana o ueta ‘A flower was planted/(someone) planted a flower.’

flower (RU)

girl (LL)

bed

scarf

Comprehension of intransitive constructions   

Sentence

Noun

Person

Distractor 1

   199

Distractor 2

yûbin ga todoita parcel (RU) yûbin o todoketa ‘A parcel was delivered/(someone) delivered a parcel.’

postman (LU) guitar

tomato

daikon ga umatta daikon o umeta ‘A radish was buried/(someone) buried a radish’

radish (RL)

farmer (LU)

teapot

sweater

ie ga tatta ie o tateta ‘The house was built/(someone) built the house.’

house (RL)

worker (RU)

saxophone

pepper

Fillers Sentence

Distractors

ringo o tabeta ‘(Someone) ate an apple.’

sofa

screw

violin

butterfly

bîru o nonda ‘(Someone) drank a beer.’

axe

church

volleyball

mouse

hon o kaesita ‘(Someone) returned the book.’

radio

rolling pin

hamburger

rabbit

piano o hîta ‘(Someone) played the piano.’

rubbish bin

toaster

saw

bird

syasin o totta ‘(Someone) took a picture.’

grape

knife

blender

duck

okane o haratta ‘(Someone) paid the money’

onion

clock

sewing mach dog

osara o aratta ‘(Someone) washed the dishes.’

pear

scissors

tent

penguin

tabako o sutta ‘(Someone) smoke a cigarette.’

icecream

pan

iceskates

dolphin

basu o matta. ‘(Someone) waited for a bus.’

steak

basket

dress

nurse

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Sentence

Distractors

kutu o nuida ‘(Someone) removed (his) shoes.’

apple

binoculars

stapler

thief

kôto o hosita ‘(Someone) hung the coat.’

paint brush

newspaper

bulldozer

girl

pen o karita ‘(Someone) borrowed a pen.’

headphones

flash light

toilet paper

wife

Kagi o sagasita ‘(Someone) looked for the key.’

bulb

fire truck

trumpet

man2

terebi o mita ‘(Someone) watched television.’

bottle

pineapple

flag

boy

tegami o kaita ‘(Someone) wrote a letter.’

high heels

iron

bathtub

baby

sinbun o yonda ‘(Someone) read the newspaper.’

cake slice

cap

suitcase

policeman

Acknowledgements This research is supported by the Internal Research Grant at the Hong Kong Institute of Education. I thank the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on the earlier versions of this paper, and Wendy Martelle for proofreading it.

References Altmann, Gerry T. M. & Yuki Kamide. 1999. Incremental interpretation at verbs: Restricting the domain of subsequent reference. Cognition 73(3). 247–264. Altmann, Gerry T. M. & Yuki Kamide. 2007. The real-time mediation of visual attention by language and world knowledge: Linking anticipatory (and other) eye movements to linguistic processing. Journal of Memory and Language 57(4). 502–518. Battig, William F. & William E. Montague. 1969. Category norms of verbal items in 56 categories A replication and extension of the Connecticut category norms. Journal of Experimental Psychology 80(3). 1–46. Boer, Frank & Seth Lindstromberg. 2006. Cognitive linguistic applications in second or foreign language instruction: rationale, proposals, and evaluation. In Gitte Kristiansen, Michel Achard, René Dirven & Francisco J. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez (eds.), Cognitive Linguistics: Current applications and future perspective, 305–355. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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Cooper, Roger M. 1974. The control of eye fixation by the meaning of spoken language: A new methodology for the real-time investigation of speech perception, memory, and language processing. Cognitive Psychology 6(1). 84–107. Croft, William. 1990. Possible verbs and the structure of events. In Savas L. Tsohatzidis (ed.), Meanings and prototypes: Studies in linguistic categorization, 48–73. New York: Routledge. Croft, William. 1991. Syntactic categories and grammatical relations: The cognitive organization of information. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. Croft, William. 1994. Voice: beyond control and affectedness. In Barbara A. Fox & Paul J. Hopper (eds.), Voice: Form and function 27, 89–117. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Griffin, Zenzi M. 2004. Why look? Reasons for eye movements related to language production. In John Henderson & Fernanda Ferreira (eds.), The integration of language, vision, and action: Eye movements and the visual world, 213–247. New York: Taylor & Francis. Huettig, Falk & Gerry Altmann. 2005. Word meaning and the control of eye fixation: Semantic competitor effects and the visual world paradigm. Cognition 96(1), B23–B32. Jacobsen, Wesley. 1992. The transitive structure of events in Japanese. Tokyo: Kurosio. Kamide, Yuki, Gerry Altmann & Sarah L. Haywood. 2003. The time-course of prediction in incremental sentence processing: Evidence from anticipatory eye movements. Journal of Memory and Language 49(1). 133–156. Kobayashi, Noriko. 1996. Sotaijidoshi ni yoru kekka/jotai no hyogen – nihongo gakushusha no shutoku jokyo [The expression of resultative state with paired intransitive verbs in Japanese], Bungen Gengo Kenkyu Gengo-hen 29. 41–59. Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire and dangerous things. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar: Theoretical prerequisite. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Langacker, Ronald W. 2001. Cognitive linguistics, language pedagogy, and the English present tense. In Martin Pütz, Susanne Niemeier, and Rene´ Dirven (eds.), Applied cognitive linguistics, vol. 1, Theory and language acquisition, 3–39. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Li, Charles N. & Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: A functional reference grammar. Los Angeles, CA: University of Berkeley Press. Luk, Zoe P. S. & Yasuhiro Shirai. 2012. Transitivity alternation in second language acquisition. Paper presented at the NINJAL International Symposium, valency classes and alternations in Japanese, National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, 4–5 August. Nakaishi, Yuko. 2005. Nihongo gakushusha ni yoru tai no aru jitadoshi no shiyo no fukinkosei – OPI deita no bunseki o toshite [Uses of transitive-intransitive verb pairs by learners of Japanese: An analysis of KY Corpus]. Nihongo Kyoka Kyoiku Gakkaishi 6(1). 59–68. Papafragou, Anna, Justin Hulbert & John Trueswell. 2008. Does language guide event perception? Evidence from eye movements. Cognition 108(1). 155–184. Pardeshi, Prashant. 2008. No smoke without fire: Invisible agent construction in South Asian languages. In Rajendra Singh (ed.), Annual review of South Asian languages and linguistics, 63–82. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Pütz, Martin. 2007. Cognitive Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. In Dirk Geeraerts & Hubert Cuyckens (eds.), The Oxford handbook of cognitive linguistics, 1139–1159. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tanenhaus, Michael K., Michael J. Spivey-Knowlton, Kathleen M. Eberhard & Julie C. Sedivy. 1995. Integration of visual and linguistic information in spoken language comprehension. Science 268(5217). 1632–1634.

Sayaka Abe

9 An L2 corpus study of the Japanese grammatical marker -te-simau: An application of force dynamics Abstract: Second language (L2) Japanese instruction materials typically indicate that the grammatical marker -te-simau has primarily two meanings: (a) the completion of an action/event and (b) speaker’s negative assessment. While this characterization serves as a concise description for ease of learning, it fails to capture the nature of causality that the marker indicates, in particular, lack of intention, which has become an integral part of its contemporary meaning and usage (Abe 2007). The discrepancy between L1 usage and grammatical descriptions in L2 Japanese textbooks has been pointed out with regard to the usage of -te-simau (Hanai 2010, Kurosawa 2012). To date, however, there has been no systematic analysis of its causal nature that considers how L2 learners’ usage is motivated. The purpose of the present study is two-fold: i) to establish a classification system of the polysemous -te-simau by adopting a cognitive semantic tool, namely, the notion of force dynamics (Talmy 1988, 2000), and ii) to analyze an L2 corpus (Kamada and Yamauchi 1999), applying the classification system to examine how learners use -te-simau. The study argues that causality, as characterized in terms of force conflict, is a core concept for understanding and using the marker -te-simau effectively in communication. Keywords: -te-simau, force dynamics, causality, lack of intention, polysemy

1 Introduction The marker -te-simau is one of the grammatical items that remain under-investigated in L2 research, despite the importance of its mastery.¹ From the time it emerged as an auxiliary verb of “completion” (from the independent verb, simau ‘to put away; finish’) in the mid Pre-Modern period (Yamaguchi 2003), it has developed multiple senses that play an important role in communication as the 1 The multiple senses of -te-simau have been described in a number of linguistic studies including Alfonso (1966), Fujii (1992), Hasegawa (1996), Kindaichi (1976[1955]), Ono (1992), Ono and Suzuki (1992), Soga (1983), Strauss (1994, 1996, 2002, 2003), Strauss and Sohn (1998), Suzuki (1999), Takahashi (1976[1969]), Yoshida (1994), Yoshikawa (1976[1973]), etc. The ways of classifying its meanings vary depending on the scholar.

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frequency of its usage has dramatically increased (Abe 2007, Kurosawa 2012).² In general, however, the marker’s meanings are simplified in L2 Japanese instruction materials as having two senses, (a) a temporal concept of completion and (b) speaker’s negative assessment or regret. The former, completion, is typically characterized as a marker that “emphasizes the completion of an action” (Hatasa, Hatasa, and Makino 2011: 142). Consider the examples in (1) (-simau will be glossed as SIMAU henceforth without specifying its meaning):³ (1)

a. watasi wa syukudai o si-ta I top homework acc do-pst ‘I did (the/my) homework.’ b. watasi wa syukudai o site-simat-ta I top homework acc do.te-simau-pst ‘I did (the/my) homework [intentionally/completely].’

Sentence (1a) describes that the actor, expressed by the subject watasi ‘I’, did (the/my) homework, without specifying whether or not the action has been completed, while (1b), with the addition of -te-simau, indicates that the actor did the homework completely.⁴ Note that this sense of -te-simau is distinguished from merely “finishing” and is often understood as emphasizing the resulting state of completion as well as intention toward the goal. In fact, the marker can also attach to the verb oeru ‘to finish’ (transitive) as oete-simau, to indicate ‘finish completely’. The second sense, speaker’s negative assessment, is generally characterized in terms of the notion of regret, for example, as a feeling toward “something that should not have happened took place, or that someone did something that he or she should not have done” (Hatasa, Hatasa, and Makino 2011: 143). The marker -te-simau, collocating with a third-person subject, tends to be associated with

2 The Pre-Modern period corresponds to the Edo period (1603–1868). Yamaguchi (2003) (originally in Japanese) uses another commonly-used term, Kinsee, to refer to this period. 3 Glossing conventions are as follows: ACC: accusative, ADV: adverb(ial), CLF: classifier, COP: copula, GEN: genitive, FP: final particle, HON: honorific marker, NEG: negative, NMLZ: nominalizer, NOM: nominative, NPST: nonpast, POL: polite, POT: potential, PROG: progressive, PST: past, Q: question, QUOT quotative, SIMAU: simau, TE: te form, TMP: temporal, TOP: topic, VOL: volitional. 4 In natural conversations, the subject, especially the first person, watasi ‘I’, is often elliptic.

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the speaker’s inability to control the situation brought about by the subject, as shown in (2):⁵ (2) zyon wa syukudai o site-simat-ta John top homework acc do.te-simau-pst ‘John did (the/his) homework [completely/to my regret].’ In this sentence, the addition of -te-simau to the te form site- (< suru ‘do’) indicates speaker’s frustration and possibly criticism toward the situation wherein his/her friend, John, did his homework (while the completion sense may also be present).⁶ Likewise, speaker’s inability to control the situation is indicated in the following example; here, the situation occurred naturally without the subject’s intention: (3) zyon wa byooki ni natte-simat-ta John top illness adv become.te-simau-pst ‘John became ill [to my regret].’ The marker -te-simau in this example indicates the speaker’s empathy toward the situation, wherein his/her friend, John became ill. In both (2) and (3), speaker’s involvement and negative feeling toward the expressed situation, broadly conceived as “regret”, is expressed. In actuality, -te-simau involves additional meanings beyond the types “completion” and “regret”. Several scholars have recognized that the usage of -te-simau has been progressively oriented toward causality, in particular, lack of intention (Abe 2007, Hanai 2010, Kurosawa 2012). The prevalence of causality has been empirically shown by Abe (2007) from cognitive linguistic and historical perspectives, which suggest that the development, or strengthening, of the sense of speaker’s regret further gives rise to an emphasis of the sense of nonintentionality, to the extent that the agency of the predicate to which -te-simau is attached is, in some instances, lost. For example, the sentence in (1b) ‘I did (the/ my) homework [intentionally/completely]’ can also be interpreted as ‘I did (the/ my) homework by mistake’, in which -te-simau specifies the nature of causation, rather than the temporal aspect of the event.

5 See Abe (2007) for an empirical analysis on the relationship between the personhood of the subject that occurs with -te-simau and the degree of subjectivity (i.e., speaker’s involvement) that it expresses. 6 Yoshida (1994) characterizes this type of usage in terms of speaker’s negative, critical view about the subject’s intentional and daring action, or “violation of social expectation”.

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While the characterization of -te-simau based on the two widely-accepted meanings, “completion” and “regret”, is meant to provide a concise and intuitive understanding of the marker for teachers and learners, it fails to recognize the important aspect of its meaning that is centered on causality. This point is echoed in Kurosawa (2012), who has shown using L1 corpora that the frequency of -te-simau that indicates “non-intentionality”, or to use her term, muisisee, has substantially increased over time, and that this tendency needs to be actively incorporated into L2 instruction. Although previous studies on L2 Japanese learning convincingly show discrepancies between the instruction materials and L1 speakers’ actual usage, and suggest which meanings we should be aware of in teaching, it is still necessary to examine how L2 learners actually use the marker in order to consider ways to inform them as to why such under-recognized meanings associated with causality are important. The purpose of the current study is two-fold. First, it develops a cognitivelymotivated classification system of the polysemous -te-simau, incorporating force dynamics (Talmy 1988, 2000), and argues that the force dynamic concept that underlies the polysemy provides us with a useful conceptual tool for understanding the meaning and usage of the marker in communicative situations. Second, based on this newly developed classification, the study analyzes how L2 learners use -te-simau using KY Koopasu (Kamada and Yamauchi 1999) together with its tagged, searchable version, Tagutuki KY Koopasu (Lee 2013), publicly available L2 data, to examine how L2 learners recognize the marker as having those meanings that pertain to causality and use the marker accordingly in conversation. The study shows that L2 learners use the marker in ways that reflect their understanding of the nature of the causality it expresses to some extent, but not fully; and that causality, as characterized in terms of force conflict, is a core concept for understanding and using the marker -te-simau effectively in communication. The organization of the remainder of the chapter is as follows. Section 2 introduces the concept of force dynamics followed by a classification of the meanings of -te-simau. Section 3 introduces the methodology of the corpus analysis. Section 4 provides the results of the analysis. Section 5 discusses the implications of the findings and pedagogical possibilities, incorporating a cognitive linguistic perspective as represented in the system of force dynamics, followed by concluding remarks in Section 6. A word on the morphological formation of -te-simau is in order. The marker -te-simau, which developed over time from the verb simau ‘to put away; finish’, is morphologically dependent on a non-finite form, referred to as the -te form (including the variant, -de form), of its preceding verb, and can productively occur with different types of verbs, such as suru ‘to do’, nomu ‘to drink’, kieru ‘to

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disappear’, to form site-simau, nonde-simau and kiete-simau, respectively. Note also that -te-simau and -de-simau have contracted forms, -tyau and -zyau respectively. Thus, the examples above, realized in their contracted forms, using -tyau (-zyau) instead of -te-simau (-de-simau), become sityau, nonzyau, kietyau, respectively. They will all be referred to as -te-simau unless otherwise noted.

2 Force dynamic meanings of -te-simau The present section introduces the concept of force dynamics (2.1) and establishes a classification of the meanings of -te-simau (2.2).

2.1 Force dynamics In mundane settings, humans use force in a variety of situations, e.g., a police officer uses force against a criminal in an attempt to capture him/her, or a man uses force to open a jammed door. In this study, we use the term force as a conceptual category associated with the nature of causality involved in an action, event or situation. Consider (4): (4) The ball kept rolling because of the wind blowing on it. (Talmy 2000: 416) We can intuitively sense that some kind of force is acting on the ball in the event described by this sentence. The wind, with its force (of blowing), causes the ball, which would otherwise remain in place, to move. To characterize the various force relationships found in linguistic expressions, Talmy (1988a, 2000) proposes an image schematic system called force dynamics (FD), whereby conceptual entities are shown to interact with respect to force. The system allows us to elucidate various types of linguistically encoded force interactions, such as the exertion of force, resistance to a force, overcoming of resistance, blockage of the exertion of force, and removal of such blockage. FD schemata normally consist of two participants: agonist and antagonist. In the example in (4), the wind is the antagonist, which impinges on the agonist’s force tendency to rest, and the ball is the agonist, a focal entity, which either “is able to manifest its force tendency” or “is overcome” (Talmy 2000: 413). These participants enter into a variety of relations. Fig. 1 shows one of the basic relations, which corresponds to the FD schema for (4):

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Fig. 1: The ball kept rolling because of the wind blowing on it. (Talmy 2000: 415 [3a])⁷

In this example, the ball, the agonist, represented by the circle, has a tendency to rest, represented by the dot. The resulting motion, represented by an arrowhead pointing to the right, was caused by the force exerted by the wind, the antagonist, which is stronger, represented by the concave shape on the left labeled with a plus sign. As this representation is a concept that applies across languages, the FD schema for a translation of (4) in Japanese, (5), needless to say, can also be represented by the illustration in Fig. 1. (5) kaze ga huite-ita node booru ga korogari-tuduke-ta wind nom blow.te-prog because ball nom roll-continue-pst ‘The ball kept rolling because of the wind blowing on it.’ Before moving on to a discussion of how this FD notion is relevant to the meaning of -te-simau, we consider another example, which illustrates a representation of the psychological domain. Consider (6): (6) He held himself back from responding. (Talmy 2000: 432) In this example, we can readily conceive that the protagonist applied a psychological force onto himself so that he produced no response. Talmy (2000) calls this pattern, the “divided self” and schematizes it as represented in Fig. 2:

Fig. 2: He held himself back from responding. (Talmy 2000: 431 [18a])⁸ 7 Reprinted with the permission of MIT Press. 8 Reprinted with the permission of MIT Press.

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This pattern involves a stronger antagonist with a tendency toward “rest”, corresponding to he (marked “1” for subject status), and a weaker agonist with a tendency toward “motion”, himself (marked “2” for object status), which results in the agonist’s “rest”. The two force components are enclosed in a dotted box to indicate that the force opposition occurs within a single sentient entity. The examples introduced here are relevant to the force dynamic meaning of -te-simau, in which a single psyche is conceptualized as comprising two force entities, i.e., exhibiting a divided-self pattern. Together with their force tendencies, relative strengths and the resultant state, the two force entities make up the core schema of FD and characterize the concepts that underlie the meaning and usage of -te-simau, which will be discussed next.

2.2 FD-based classification of -te-simau As illustrated by Talmy’s FD schemata above, psychological and social conflicts that humans experience can be understood in terms of physical force interactions. The senses of -te-simau have been characterized with an implication of force in previous studies, such as “actively taking on an action and finishing it up” (Yoshikawa 1976 [1973]) and “determination for an action, no hesitation toward carrying out (an action), no compromising” (Fujii 1992);⁹ and more directly, “resistance” (Strauss 2002). More recently, Abe (2007) characterized the prevalence of force dynamic concepts underlying the polysemous -te-simau using Talmy’s system. The present study reinterprets Abe (2007)’s analysis, proposing that -te-simau has a core schema as represented in Fig. 3:

ANTAGONIST (stronger, motion)

“divided self”

+

AGONIST (weaker, rest)

resulting action: “motion”

Fig. 3: Core schema of -te-simau 9 These two senses, originally given in Japanese, have been translated into English by the present author.

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The psychological state indicated by the marker may be analyzed as a conflict between two entities, agonist and antagonist, represented by a circle and a concave shape, respectively. The two entities conflict with each other within a single conceptualizer’s (= subject’s or speaker’s) psyche, which is represented by a dotted box.¹⁰ This core schema captures the basic causality sense of -te-simau, as shown in (7): (7) hutoru to wakatte-iru noni itumo okasi gain.weight quot understand.te-be although always sweets o tabete-simau acc eat.te-simau.npst ‘Although I understand that I would gain weight, I can’t help but eat sweets.’ In this example, the core schema consists of a weaker agonist (e.g., the self who tries not to eat sweets) and a stronger antagonist (e.g., the other self who “controls me”), and the resulting state is “motion” (e.g., enactment of the action of eating). The agonist represents the psychological resistance (e.g., I shouldn’t eat sweets), or reluctance towards the action, against the antagonist, which is the part of the self that forces oneself to action. (e.g., Forget about dieting. Sweets are delicious, so just eat them.) To demonstrate the consistency of this schema, the example presented in (7) could also be interpreted as I forced myself to eat sweets. Given recent semantic developments, however, -te-simau, especially in the context provided by the subordinate clause, hutoru to wakatte iru noni ‘though I understand I would gain weight’, is likely to be interpreted as indicating the sense of “lack of intention”, i.e., I can’t help but eat sweets. The interpretation provided in (7) can be paraphrased in a way that conforms to the FD schema, something (= antagonist) makes me eat sweets despite my reluctance (= agonist). Note that the force interaction between the two components occurs within the speaker’s psyche. The possibility of these multiple interpretations is suggestive of the human nature of manipulating causality when describing events, often by absolving one’s responsibility, as if to say, something made me do X, as opposed to I intentionally do X. Such shifts in agency

10 This is a modified and simplified version of the system proposed in Abe (2007), which is based on the schemata by Talmy (1988, 2000). Under Talmy’s system, -te-simau would be represented in three stages including: (a) an initial stage of force exertion, (b) a shift in strength, and (c) an outcome. The current analysis also omits the numbers that correspond to syntactic elements and the force entity, e.g., “1” and “2” as in Fig. 2.

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are even more prevalent in speech acts wherein the message requires sensitivity to the addressee. For example, in a conversation between a man and his boss, where the boss wants to fire the man, he may tactfully phrase the message as if there is some external force that is responsible, rather than the boss’s (speaker’s) own decision that leads to the act of firing. In Japanese, such a statement may be phrased as, yamete-itadaku-koto-ni-nat-ta n desu (resign-give [to speaker]-thing/ case-become-pst nmlz cop.pol.npst; lit. ‘It became the case that I receive your favor of resigning’), as opposed to, anata o kaiko-simasu (you acc fire-do.pol. npst ‘I will fire you’). In English, the same function may be achieved by phrasing the message as, I have to let you go, as opposed to, I’m firing you, as if to say, I don’t want to, but I have to. In both the Japanese and English renditions, there are lexical and morpho-syntactic adjustments that minimize the impact of the message on the addressee; that is, the speaker strategically presents his/her inner psychological “conflict” between the force that tries to stop the firing from happening (i.e., agonist) and the force that recognizes the necessity to execute it (i.e., antagonist). In the case of -te-simau, it takes only a single morpheme to mark this kind of force relation. One of the unique contributions of the present study is that an FD-based analysis elucidates the fact that the designations of the force entities, i.e., what kind of psychological elements are considered to be the agonist and antagonist, vary depending on the meaning type, while the core schematic pattern (presented in Fig. 3) remains intact. We saw that the recent tendency in the usage of -te-simau, where its meaning has gravitated from “temporal” toward “causal”, or from “intentional” toward “non-intentional”, correlates with how a speaker frames the force-involved events in a way that is effective in communication. This tendency implies fluidity between the two types of agonistic ideas, I’m reluctant and I shouldn’t; and between two types of antagonistic ideas, I force myself and something makes me. These shifts occur while the basic FD schema, i.e., the relative strengths of the two elements and the resulting state, remain consistent. Built upon the idea presented above, the current study offers an FD-motivated reclassification of -te-simau, which is the result of incorporating the FD system introduced in 2.1 into Abe (2007)’s classification system. Examples used in the present section are from BS Archive compiled and maintained by Ohori (1993, 1997), which contains forty sets of transcriptions of recorded conversations collected at Rikkyo University in 1993 and Tokyo University, Komaba campus in 1997. All examples from the archive used in this section will be indicated with the labels, Rikkyo or Komaba, each with a corresponding file number.

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2.2.1 Completion: [+ complete] [+ exerted, action] [+ reluctant, action] Under the category of completion (“completion” to denote the meaning it indicates henceforth), the marker -te-simau indicates the sense of completion of an action performed by the actor (expressed by the subject, who may or may not be the speaker), labeled [+complete], that was forcefully achieved. Such an action involves the actor’s reluctance toward it as the agonistic force, labeled [+reluctant, action], and his/her intention (or determination in many cases) that overcomes that feeling of reluctance as the antagonistic force, labeled [+exerted, action]. Consider the following example from L1 conversation data: (8) ato wa huyu-yasumi ni yatte-simat-ta no ne rest top winter-break tmp do.te-simau-pst nmlz fp ‘I did the rest (of the assignments) during the winter break [forcing myself], you see.’ (Rikkyo 13) In this example, two college students are talking about class assignments, and the subject as an actor, who is also the speaker in this sentence, has forcefully brought the assignments, which she does not feel enthusiastic about, to completion. (The speaker’s negativity was confirmed later in the conversation, wherein she explains that she prefers to first take care of things she does not like to do.) The FD concept associated with this meaning type is schematized in Fig. 4:

“I exert it.”

“I am reluctant to do it.”

+

(antagonistic intention)

(agonistic reluctance) subject

Fig. 4: FD schema for completion

The force dynamic sense here is characterized by the interaction between the agonistic feeling of the actor (subject)’s reluctance underlying the action (it in the diagram), i.e., toward doing the assignments ([+reluctant, action]), and an antagonistic feeling toward the exertion, typically out of obligation, of doing the assignments [+exerted, action], representing a superego oriented toward the realization of the action. The former is overcome by the latter, resulting in the completion of the action, or “motion”.

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Note that only those examples that do not involve a sense of regret (as stipulated in 2.2.3) are classified into this category. Examples that belong to this category must be compatible with sassato ‘quickly’, which is an adverb that is used for agentive actions, and incompatible with zannen nagara ‘unfortunately’, as shown in the modified version of (8) below: (8)' ato wa {sassato/*zannen nagara} huyu-yasumi ni rest top quickly /*unfortunately winter-break tmp yatte-simat-ta no ne do.te-simau-pst nmlz fp ‘I did the rest (of the assignments) during the winter break [forcefully to completion] quickly (with intention)/*unfortunately, you see.’ Other examples of predicates that occur in sentences classified as the present meaning type in the L1 data include: sumaseru ‘to finish [things unfavorable]’, kaeru ‘go home’ and tukuru ‘make [a board game]’.

2.2.2 Spontaneity: [+ inclined, action/event] [+ not intended, action/event]¹¹ The category spontaneity (“spontaneity” to denote the meaning it indicates henceforth) applies to cases in which the event or action occurs without involving the intention of the participant in the speech content, labeled [+not intended]. Spontaneity can be conceptualized in terms of the interaction between the agonistic feeling of not intending/expecting an action/event to happen and the antagonistic inclination of that same action/event to occur, labeled [+inclined, action/event]. Consider (9): (9) kugatu ni kaette-ki-ta toki wa kekkoo September tmp return.te-come-pst when top quite syaber-eru tokoro made it-tyau speak-pot point to go-te.simau.npst ‘When she comes back in September, (her language skill) [spontaneously] reaches the point where she is able to speak quite well.’ (Rikkyo 18)

11 The category of spontaneity is newly developed and was not characterized in terms of FD in Abe (2007).

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The marker -te-simau, in its contracted form -tyau, indicates the spontaneity of the occurrence of the event, an improvement in language skills. The sentence occurred in a conversation between college students. They are talking about travelling abroad as a potential vacation plan. Speaker uttered this sentence in response to a question about his sister’s experience abroad and her English skills, stating that having left in May (provided as discourse context) she was quite fluent by the time she came back in September. (The sentence is in the present tense, presumably since the speaker is presenting the idea as a general fact as well.) The FD schema of this meaning type is represented in Fig. 5:

“It is not intended to occur.” “It is inclined to occur.”

+

(agonistic intention for nonoccurrence)

(antagonistic inclination) subject /speaker Fig. 5: FD schema for spontaneity

The force dynamic sense is characterized in terms of the interaction between lack of intention in (or expectation against) the improvement of English skills ([+not intended, action/event] as an agonist and an inclination of the occurrence ([+inclined, action/event]) as an antagonist. The divided self is labeled “subject/ speaker” to indicate that it belongs to the undergoer of the expressed event (denoted by the subject), whose perspective the speaker takes. While spontaneity is often subject to speaker’s negative assessment, only those examples that do not involve a sense of regret are classified into this category, as this was the case for the previous category. Examples that belong to this category must be compatible with sizenni ‘naturally’, and incompatible with zannen nagara ‘unfortunately’, as shown by the modified version of (9) below: (9)' kugatu ni kaette-ki-ta toki wa kekkoo September tmp return.te-come-pst when top quite {sizenni/*zannen nagara} syaber-eru tokoro made it-tyau naturally/*unfortunately speak-pot point to go-te.simau.npst ‘When she comes back in September, (her language skill) will [spontaneously] naturally/*unfortunately reach (lit. ‘go to’) the point where she is able to speak quite well.’

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Other examples of predicates that occur in sentences classified as the present meaning type in the L1 data include: (to) omou ‘to think (that)’, bikkuri susu ‘to be surprised’, warau ‘to (burst out) laugh(ing)’, gootee tatu ‘[a mansion] builds itself’.

2.2.3 Empathetic regret: [+realized, situation] [+undesirable, situation] The category empathetic regret, or regret for shorthand (“regret” to denote the meaning it indicates henceforth) applies to examples in which the described situation is viewed negatively by the speaker. The situation that is realized here is considered as the antagonistic force, labeled as [+realized, situation], and the speaker’s psychological resistance toward such an occurrence, often for ethical or social reasons, is considered as the agonistic force. These components together capture the concept of speaker’s empathy and frustration over his/her inability to control the situation, which is analogous to Ono (1992)’s description, “frustrative”.¹² To examine the kinds of concepts involved in regret. Consider (10): (10) otaru no zinkoo ga zyuuroku-man o Otaru gen population nom sixteen-ten.thousand acc kitte-simat-ta nee go.below.te-simau-pst fp ‘The population of Otaru has gone below 160,000 [to my regret].’ (Rikkyo 11) This example occurs in a conversation among three colleagues discussing statistical facts about the town of Otaru. In the conversation, the speaker presents the fact that the population of the town has been declining. In general, the decline of a town’s population is viewed negatively, and speaker’s regrettable feeling is observed later in the conversation when the same speaker explains the reason, which is that young people fled (to bigger cities). The FD schema of this meaning type can be represented as follows:

12 This type of force dynamic concept is also analogous to what Talmy refers to as associative ception, described as the kind of feeling one might experience when viewing a tilted picture frame, “a motoric impulse to manipulate the frame as if to right it” or “on viewing a bowling ball inexorably heading for the side gutter, …a gyration of ‘body English’ as if to effect a correction in the ball’s path” (2000: 157–168).

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“It occurs.”

+

“I don’t want it to occur.”

(antagonistic realization of

(agonistic negativity)

situation) speaker Fig. 6: FD schema for regret

Regret in this example is conceptualized in terms of the occurrence of a situation ([+realized, situation]), i.e., the decline of the town’s population, as an antagonist, and speaker’s psychological resistance or wish against it, i.e., empathetic feeling, or the wish or psychological urge to stop the decline ([+undesirable, situation]), as an agonist. The usage of -te-simau in this category is compatible with zannen nagara ‘unfortunately.’ (10)' {zannen nagara}otaru no zinkoo ga zyuuroku-man o unfortunately Otaru gen population nom sixteen-ten.thousand acc kitte-simat-ta nee go.below.te-simau-pst fp ‘The population of Otaru has gone below 160,000 [to my regret].’ Other examples of predicates that occur in sentences classified in the present category include: suima ni osowareru ‘to get drowsy’, zuruzuru kuru ‘to procrastinate/to drag’, and tukareru ‘to be tired’.

2.2.4 Modesty: [+realized, speech act] [+reluctant, speech act] The meaning type modesty applies to examples in which the speaker is reluctant about delivering a message, but nevertheless the speech act is realized, typically out of necessity. This ambivalent feeling in speech situations often manifests through linguistic forms in other languages as well, often as hedge markers, such as sort of and kind of, and so-called small words, such as a little, as a common type of politeness strategy. The meaning of -te-simau here can be understood in terms of the antagonist representing reluctance toward delivering a message, labeled [+reluctant, speech act], and the agonist representing the necessity of delivering the message, labeled [+realized, speech act]. This meaning is considered as being

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relatively new.¹³ While its development can be understood in terms of a shift from negative attitude toward the speech content’ to that toward the speech situation, to avoid confusion with the previous category, the term modesty is used to refer to speaker’s regret toward the speech act itself. The most common type of modesty is identified with speech acts that speaker thinks have an impact on the addressee in some way, as in (11): (11) e kore ne, boku wa tyotto, ano, karu-sugiru na tte oh this fp I.male top a.little um light-excess fp quot ki si-tyau n desu kedo feeling do-te.simau nmlz cop.pol.npst but ‘It feels to me naturally that it is too light [humbly (speaking)].’ (Komaba 13) In this example, the speaker tactfully expresses an opinion that may not be agreeable to the addressee. The speaker achieves this communicative goal by emphasizing the automatic nature of the occurrence of his thought. This means that speaker is aware of -te-simau as a marker that modifies the causal nature of the event and that it may be viewed negatively. For this reason, it is often difficult to distinguish between modesty and spontaneity/regret. While modesty is often connected to other meaning types, its status as a new meaning can be illustrated through examples that cannot be classified as belonging to any of the other three types. Many instances of this kind are characterized as “guiltily positive” (Ono and Suzuki 1992), “pride” (Soga 1983), terekakusi (hiding one’s embarrassment) (Kurosawa 2012) and “light” or “no emphasis” (Strauss and Sohn 1998). Consider (12): (12) de, ik-ko omake-site-morat-tyat-ta and one-clf service-do.te-receive-te.simau-pst ‘And, I got an extra one free [humbly (speaking)].’ (Rikkyo 13)

no fp

13 As recognized in several studies (Nakau 1992, Hasegawa 1996), this type of usage can be explained in terms of a meaning shift from the speech content toward the domain of the speech act, which has been confirmed by cross-linguistic studies in historical pragmatics (Traugott 2004, Traugott and Dasher 2002). That is, -te-simau has been increasingly used as a marker of negativity toward the speech situation (including the addressee[s]), in addition to negativity toward the expressed content (Abe 2007).

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This sentence, in which the speaker reports an incident of having received an extra, free piece of cake at a shop, is not presented as a negative incident, but rather the opposite, and it cannot be interpreted in terms of completion or spontaneity of an event.¹⁴ The FD pattern of modesty is shown in Fig. 7:

“I need to convey this.”

+

“I don’t want to convey this.” (agonistic reluctance toward utterance)

(antagonistic realization of speech act) speaker Fig. 7: FD schema for modesty

Note that the force interaction lies at the level of the speech situation rather than the concepts expressed by the verbal predicate or the proposition. The conceptual elements represented here are the self who is feeling the necessity of conveying the information (antagonist) and the other self who is resisting the utterance (agonist). Examples in this category can naturally occur with zitu o iu to ‘to tell you the truth; actually’ (or more lightly for some cases, zitu wa) or sumimasen ga ‘sorry to say this/ask you’ (for directives such as requests and order) in the particular discourse/situational context and the nature of speech acts, as shown in the modifications of (11) and (12) below:¹⁵ (11)' e kore ne, {zitu o iuto} boku wa tyotto, ano, karu-sugiru oh this fp to.tell.the.truth I.male top a.little um light-excess na tte ki si-tyau n desu kedo fp quot feeling do-te.simau nmlz cop.pol.npst but ‘It feels to me naturally that it is too light [humbly (speaking)].’

14 This type of usage tends to occur in a casual context, frequently with the contracted form -tyau. 15 Since the modesty type by nature does not concern the properties of speech content and, rather, concerns the speaker’s attitude toward the speech act per se, examples in this category may be compatible with adverbials that were compatible with sentences in the other three categories. However, the adverbial used in the present category, zitu o iu to, would sound unnatural with examples in those categories in that such examples are not face-threatening in nature and the addition of the phrase would be pragmatically awkward.

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(12)' de, {zitu o iu to} ik-ko omake-site-morat-tyat-ta no and to.tell.the.truth one-clf service-do.te-receive-te.simau-pst fp ‘And, I got an extra one free [humbly (speaking)].’ Other instances that belong to the present category include speech acts of requests, reporting the speaker’s own action that he/she should not have done. All of these examples are uttered with the fear of creating a negative impact on the addressee(s), either by negative news or by sounding too fortunate for him/ herself.

3 Data and Hypotheses The present section introduces the data and scope of the L2 corpus analysis (3.1) and presents the hypotheses with respect to how FD-based meanings surface in the data (3.2).

3.1 Data To investigate how L2 learners use the marker -te-simau, the present study analyzes KY Koopasu, version 1.2 (Yamauchi and Kamada 1999, “KY Corpus” hereafter) in combination with its tagged version Tagutuki KY Koopasu (Lee 2013, “Tagged KY Corpus”, henceforth). KY Corpus is an L2 speech corpus that consists of ninety Oral Proficiency Interviews in transcription, each containing a conversation between an L2 Japanese learner and an interviewer. In each interview, the interviewer typically initiates new topics and elicits personal information about the learner and his/her opinions on certain social or cultural issues, and the learner answers questions and occasionally initiates utterances. An interview may also incorporate one or more role-play scenarios. The corpus is classified by skill level as assessed by the interviewers as follows: 15 Novice, 30 Intermediate, 30 Advanced and 15 Superior learners. The first three levels are further divided into subcategories: Novice – Novice-Low (NL)/ Novice-Mid (NM)/Novice-High (NH); Intermediate – Intermediate-Low (IL)/Intermediate-Mid (IM)/Intermediate-High (IH); Advanced  – Advanced (A)/AdvancedHigh (AH). As for native language, the data consists of 30 Chinese, 30 English and 30 Korean speakers (i.e., each consisting of five Novice, ten Intermediate, ten Advanced and five Superior). The subdivisions of skill level and native language will be incorporated into the discussion when relevant. The study also looked at

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some of the data qualitatively, by examining individual learners when relevant. (See also Appendix for results by individual speaker.) Tagged KY Corpus was used for the purpose of extracting instances of the usage of -te-simau. 117 tokens of -te-simau and its morpho-phonological variants (e.g., -de-simau) were extracted. Seven of them, which did not belong to the lexeme of -te-simau, were eliminated from the data, rendering a total of 110 tokens, consisting of 63 -te-simau and 47 -tyau.¹⁶ All 110 examples have been marked as being correct in the corpus. Each instance was categorized into one of the four meanings established in Section 2.2. The key points of each meaning are summarized in Tab. 1 for convenience. Tab. 1: Classification of the meanings of -te-simau (ANT = Antagonist; AGO = Agonist) Type

Description

Features

Examples

(1) Completion

An action is brought to comple- [+ complete] tion intentionally/forcefully. ANT: [+ exerted, action] Compatible with: sassato AGO: [+ reluctant, action] ‘quickly (agentive)’

(8)

(2) Spontaneity

An action/event is realized ANT: [+ inclined, action/ event] (9) without intention (expectation). AGO: [+ not intended, action/ Compatible with: sizen ni event] ‘naturally’

(3) Regret

The situation is undesirable. ANT: [+ realized, situation] (10) (Pragmatically compatible with AGO: [+ undesirable, situation] zannenna koto ni ‘unfortunately’)

(4) Modesty

The speech act was performed ANT: [+ realized, speech act] (11), (12) with speaker’s modesty. (Prag- AGO: [+ reluctant, speech act] matically compatible with zitu o iu to ‘to tell you the truth’ and sumimasen ga ‘sorry to say/ ask’)

16 The data includes both phonological variants, -te-simau and -tyau. However, the present study includes both without counting them separately, as the implication of the usage of variants is not the central issue. The eliminated tokens were -tyau, a contracted form of tigau meaning ‘different’ in the Kansai dialect, and simau ‘put away’, as a full lexical verb.

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3.2 Hypotheses Two hypotheses have been formulated with regard to learners’ proficiency levels (as assessed by the Oral Proficiency Interview interviewers) (13a) and types of meaning (13b). (13) Hypotheses of L2 usage of -te-simau a. The distribution of the lexeme -te-simau does not diverge across users who are at the late elementary level and higher. b. The tokens of -te-simau are either of the completion type or the regret type, and not of the spontaneity type or the modesty type. Hypothesis (13a) is posited under the assumption that -te-simau is typically introduced at the late elementary level (equivalent to some point between NH and IL) and, once introduced, learners will use -te-simau at similar frequencies across levels. As for Hypothesis (13b), since the completion and regret types are those meaning types that are primarily dealt with in textbook instructions, these are the types, rather than the spontaneity and modesty types, that are expected to surface in the L2 data.

4 Results Three (out of 15) Novice speakers (0 NL, 1 NM, 2 NH), eight (out of 30) Intermediate speakers (0 IL, 5 IM and 2 IH), 19 (out of 30) Advanced speakers (6 A, 14 AH) and 12 (out of 15) Superior speakers used -te-simau at least once. (See Appendix.) The present section provides the results of an L2 data analysis of the distribution of -te-simau with regard to learners’ skill level (4.1) and to meaning type (4.2), as hypothesized in (13a) and (13b), respectively.¹⁷ Each of the learners’ sentence examples used here are labeled with capital letters consisting of the first letter of the learner’s native language followed by the subcategory of his/her skill level, e.g., English native speaker who was assessed as an intermediate-high speaker: EIH.

17 There are several studies on markers of speaker’s view that point out under-usage by L2 learners, as is the case with -te-simau (Hanai 2010, Tanahashi 1996). While under-usage is an important issue of what is considered as natural usage, the current study focuses on the attested tokens.

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4.1 Distribution by skill level The token counts of -te-simau by skill level are as follows: three tokens in Novice, 12 tokens in Intermediate, 55 tokens in Advanced and 40 tokens in Superior. In Fig. 8, each bar represents the average number of tokens in the skill level, which is derived from the number of tokens divided by the number of total speakers, thus, 0.2 in Novice (three divided by 15 speakers), 0.4 (12 divided by 30 speakers), 1.83 (55 divided by 30 speakers) and 2.66 (40 divided by 15 speakers). 3

2,66

tokens/speaker

2,5 1,83

2 1,5 1 0,5

0,2

0,4

0 Novice

Intermediate

Advanced

Superior

Fig. 8: The average number of tokens of -te-simau per speaker by skill level

Hypothesis (13a) predicts that there can be some difference in the distribution of token frequency in the Novice and Intermediate levels, but there should not be any difference between the Advanced and Superior levels. As shown in Fig. 8, there is a substantial gap between the Intermediate and Advanced levels, showing that the usage of -te-simau is sporadic for the lower two levels, and more frequent for the two higher levels. The slight increase in frequency from the Novice level to the Intermediate levels, as well as the higher frequency of the Advanced and Superior levels are expected from the timings of the introduction of the marker. The results, however, diverge from the prediction by Hypothesis (13a) in that they show a further increase from the Advanced level to the Superior level.

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4.2 Distribution by meaning types The results by skill types are further categorized by the four meaning types (cf. Tab. 1) and are summarized in Tab. 2. The columns represent skill levels, and the rows represent meaning types. Each cell provides the token count and the number of learners who used the marker at least once (in parenthesis). Lexical errors (the row below the last meaning type) are included in the total tokens, but were excluded from the discussion.¹⁸ Tab. 2: Distribution of -te-simau by meaning type and skill level Number of tokens (Number of learners who used -te-simau) Novice (N) (N = 15)

Intermediate (I) (N = 30)

Advanced (A) (N = 30)

Superior (S) (N = 15)

Total (N = 90)

Completion

0 (0)

0 (0)

2 (2)

2 (2)

4 (4)

Spontaneity

0 (0)

0 (0)

1 (1)

4 (4)

5 (5)

Regret

3 (2)

9 (8)

48 (18)

32 (12)

92 (39)

Modesty

0 (0)

0 (0)

2 (2)

2 (2)

4(4)

[Lexical errors]

[0 (0)]

[3 (2)]

[2 (2)]

[0 (0)]

[5 (4)]

Combined (# of users)

3 (2) NL 0 (0) NM 1 (1) NH 2 (1)

12 (8) IL 0 (0) IM 8 (6) IH 4 (2)

55 (19) A 4 (6) AH 51 (13)

40 (12)

110 (47)

The table shows that all four types are attested in the data. There are several generalizations to be made. First, overall, the occurrences of the regret type were much more frequent (91/110 = 82.7 %) than the other three types, completion (4/110 = 3.6 %), spontaneity (5/110 = 4.5 %) and modesty (5/110 = 4.5 %). As for the Novice level, all three tokens occurred when or right after speaker read a role-play card containing the marker, and they do not seem to reflect his/ her own language ability. As for the Intermediate level, all but one out of nine valid examples belong to the regret type. Let us look at an example from an IM speaker: 18 A “lexical error” is an instance in which the utterance containing -te-simau is incomprehensible or the choice of the verb combined with -te-simau is not compatible with other syntactic elements, e.g., kuruma ga atete-simau [car NOM hit (transitive)-SIMAU] instead of kuruma o atete-simau [car ACC hit (transitive)-SIMAU] or kuruma ga atatte-simau [car NOM hit (intransitive)-SIMAU]. These instances were not marked as ‘errors’ in Tagged KY Corpus.

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(14) ano dareka ano motte nige-tyat-ta kara, ano hontoni well someone well take.te escape-te.simau-pst because well really sinpai-desu worried-cop.pol.npst ‘Well, someone, well, took and ran away, so I’m really worried.’ (EIM07) This sentence was uttered when prompted by a role-play scenario to talk about a situation in which the speaker’s house had been robbed. The marker -te-simau is used with the intransitive motion verb, nigeru, which describes the action of the thief. Other examples from the Intermediate level include statements of negative content similar to (14), with verbal predicates, such as okane ga nakunaru ‘money is lost’ (CIM01), wasureru ‘forget (what to say)’ (CIM05), iku ‘go (the wrong way)’ (EIH04), kowareru ‘break’ (KIM04, two tokens), which are all from role play scenarios, as well as makeru ‘to lose (a game)’ (EIH06) and yubi o kiru ‘cut a finger’ (KIM05), which occurred in less controlled contexts. As for the Advanced level, the regret type occupied 48 out of the 55 examples (87.3 %). The majority of the examples at this level occur in less-controlled or free conversation, as shown in an example from an AH learner: (15) Amerika wa tasikani rikon ga ookute, ano, koo, Amerika top surely divorce nom frequent.te well, like.this anmari yoku kangae-naide kekkon-site-simatte much well think-neg.te marriage-do.te-simau.te ‘It is surely the case that in America, divorce is very frequent, and well, like, people get married without thinking much about what marriage is.’ (EAH06) This sentence occurred during a conversation about Japanese social issues associated with the economy, working and spending time with family in comparison to those aspects in American society, and there were no direct factors that prompted the speaker to use the marker -te-simau. This kind of uncontrolled topic and discourse setting is typical at the Advanced level and to a greater extent at the Superior level, in which 32 out of 40 instances (80 %) belong to the regret type. Note that the dominance of the regret type is not as extreme as it is in the other levels, which leads to the next point. The second generalization concerns the relationship between learners’ skill levels and the distribution of meaning types; as skill level increases, the usage of -te-simau becomes more diverse in terms of the meanings that it indicates. As for the completion type, there are no instances at the Intermediate level, two

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instances at the Advanced level and two instances at the Superior level. Here is an example from an AH learner: (16) dakara moo isogasikute, pappatto nanka sumasite-simat-tari so (hedge) busy.te quickly like (hedge) finish.te-simau-and ‘…so they are (kansai people) busy and, like, get things done quickly and…’ (KAH04) In this sentence, the speaker describes his impression about the subject, kansai people (people in the Western part of Japan), which is not syntactically present and inferred from the context, that they tend to be busy and get things done quickly. The marker -te-simau indicates that the action of finishing things was exerted and completed. As for the spontaneity type, there is one instance of the Advanced level and four instances (four different speakers) of the Superior level. Here is an example from an AH learner: (17) T: […] anoo, iyana mondai tte ari-masu ka, hara no tatu um negative problem quot exist-pol q upsetting yoona mondai like problem ‘Now, have you had any bad experiences? Any kind of problems that upset you…’ S: soodesune, yoku ari-masu ne […] soko iku-to… i, tamani let.me.see often exist-pol fp there go-if sometimes ano asita demo ka… kikoku-si-tai sooiu kimoti de, um tomorrow even return.home-do-want such feeling with demo soto deru-to ma moo wasurete-simau but outside exit-if well already forget.te-simau.npst ‘Well, there are a lot. […] when I’m there, sometimes, well, I feel like going back to my country even tomorrow, but once I step outside, I forget (everything).’ (CAH02) This interaction concerns the interviewee’s experience at an immigration office. When asked about it, the interviewee (indicated with an “S” above) answered that she had had a bad experience and sometimes feels like going home, but once she steps outside she usually forgets about it. The marker -te-simau is used in the part that describes that she forgot negative things. Here is another example:

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(18) T: karaoke o-suki-desu karaoke hon-like-cop.pol.npst ‘Do you like karaoke?’ S: suki-desu ne. suki ni like-cop.pol.npst fp like adv ne fp ‘Yes, I do. I became hooked.’ (ES06)

ka q nat-tyat-ta desu become-simau-pst cop.pol.npst

In this example, in reply to the question of whether he likes karaoke or not, the interviewee answers that he likes it and restates with an emphasis that his “liking” occurred naturally. Note that this type of usage is closely associated with the notion of modesty, which makes the classification of meaning ambiguous. In (18), the test phrase for spontaneity sizen ni ‘naturally, automatically’ rather than zitu o iuto is appropriate, and therefore is classified in the former category. There are five instances of the modesty type, one in the Intermediate level, two in the Advanced level (two different speakers) and two in the Superior level (two different speakers). Consider an example from an Intermediate-high (IH) speaker in (19): (19) tyotto ani yori hayaku kekkon-site-simai-masita kara a.little older.brother than early marry-do.te-simau-pol.te because ‘She kinda got married a little earlier than her brother (=me)’ (CHI01) In this example, the speaker uses -te-simau in stating that his younger sister got married before him. What is characteristic in this example is that the subject is part of the speaker’s in-group and the marker -te-simau is used for an event that is typically done intentionally. Although this example can be interpreted as showing the speaker’s negative evaluation of the situation, from the conversation context it is more compatible with the test phrase for the modesty type (jitu o iu to ‘to tell you the truth’) and is considered as a case of what Kurosawa calls terekakusi ‘shyness hiding’. Other examples similar to this include one with the predicate, ukaru ‘to pass (an exam)’, in which the speaker experienced a fortunate event. Consider another example:

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(20) tomodati ga iku n desu kara ikoo kana friend nom go nmlz cop.pol.npst because go.vol I.wonder to omotte-simai-masite quot think.te-simau-pol.te ‘Since my friends are going, I was, I would go too, kinda…’ (EA01) Here, the speaker expresses that the idea of going to college (on the East coast) occurred because of his/her friends are going there. What the marker -te-simau emphasizes is the nature of the occurrence of his idea, namely that going to such a college, was beyond speaker’s control to be modest in presenting his thought. Note that cognition verbs, such as omou ‘to think’, which involve no inherent end point or volitional activity, are not traditionally marked with -te-simau and such combinations are considered as recently emerged usage (Abe 2007, Kurosawa 2012), often for describing speaker’s own psychological activities. The usage of -te-simau of this type can also involve an intended action (but not completion) as in (21): (21) nanka omoikitte tanonde-simai-masita somehow daringly.te ask.te-simau-pol.pst ‘I [somehow] daringly asked (her to be my witness).’ (CS02) In this example, the speaker expresses hesitation toward admitting his action of asking for a favor. The usage of -te-simau is motivated by the speaker’s “regret” rooted in the nature of his own daring action, rather than the completion of the action. To summarize, regarding meaning types, the hypothesis in (13b) is partially valid in the sense that the regret type is frequent. However, the results largely deviate from the hypothesis, since the distribution of completion and regret is asymmetrical and that spontaneity and modesty were also present.

5 Discussion The discrepancies between the hypotheses and the results suggest that L2 instruction is not the sole factor that influences L2 usage of the marker -te-simau. The present section first discusses the implications of the results (5.1) and how the theoretical ideas of FD can be incorporated into instruction (5.2).

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5.1 What do the discrepancies mean? This section discusses the reasoning behind the results, in particular, (a) why does the way in which the marker -te-simau is used differ across skill levels, and (b) why do the meaning types that are introduced in instruction materials surface differently in actual L2 usage, in terms of the asymmetry in distribution between the completion type and the regret type (5.1.1) and the unexpected presence of spontaneity and modesty types (5.1.2).

5.1.1 Asymmetry between the completion and regret types The dominance of regret over completion seems to be attributed to the inherent nature of the meaning types. In fact, L2 usage of -te-simau in this respect is reminiscent of L1 patterns found in previous research (Abe 2007, 2008; Suzuki 1999). The frequency of the regret type seems to be associated with the fact that the meaning is speaker-oriented and concerns his/her attitude toward the propositional content. The nature of the meaning of this type is often described in terms of subjectivity, as established and investigated by studies in historical pragmatics (Traugott 2004), which have shown that the subjective usage of a given grammatical marker tends to become more frequent over time as the marker grammaticalizes and its syntactic scope increases (Shinzato 2007). The frequency of subjective meanings seems to stem from the fact that the occurrences of expressions of speaker’s subjective stance toward a propositional idea, such as “positive” or “negative”, are not limited by the particular speech content, or the tense or aspect types involved. For example, one can have a negative attitude toward an event that has been completed or one that is ongoing. On the contrary, expressions of concepts that concern temporal details, such as “completion” are more incidental and limited. High frequency of the occurrence of -te-simau as a marker of regret can also presumably be attributed to how the topics and tasks were introduced in the interviews, namely, establishing hypothetical situations that are undesirable, such as being involved in or witnessing a robbery or an accident. These are reminiscent of the way L2 materials incorporate contexts as sample sentences and exercises. Emphasis on these types of contexts clearly surfaced in the present data, on both interviewers’ and learners’ sides when they speak in role-play settings, and this is especially noticeable in the intermediate level examples, in which all but two of the valid tokens were from role-plays. Thus, while all the users of -te-simau had one or more examples that were classified in the regret type, their usage may have simply been prompted by the situational contexts established in the interview,

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rather than by being motivated by their own internal psychological conflict, i.e., FD-motivated concept, induced from the conversational context. To summarize, the asymmetry between the completion type and the regret type itself is not unique to L2 behavior, but rather, largely due to the semantic and pragmatic nature of the meanings. At the same time, however, the extent to which the latter is dominant may possibly indicate that the full meaning and function of the marker have not yet fully been understood, at least for some learners. In considering this possibility, the implications of the distribution of the spontaneity and modesty types need to be considered.

5.1.2 Presence and infrequency of the spontaneity and modesty types Another generalization on L2 usage of -te-simau that needs attention concerns the tokens of the spontaneity and modesty types, in terms of both their presence and infrequency. Although the presence of these types itself does not conform to the prediction based on L2 materials, it is in part consistent with L1 usage in the sense that the two types occurred much less frequently compared to the regret type. The modesty type has developed through the strategic use of the marker, indicating interpersonal sensitivity through empathetic regret, and is considered as being associated with the reinforcement of subjective and causality meanings (Abe 2007). This means that L1 users in contemporary Japanese are aware that -te-simau as a marker of regret toward the speech content can be used to express negativity toward the speech act itself and that such an expression can have the effect of altering causal relationships involved in an event. Such strategic use may involve defocusing of the agency of the action in which the speaker is involved, as an indication of guilt or empathy, as if to say I don’t mean to, but it sort of happens to me/I end up doing it (cf. (12)), or I don’t expect this to happen, but I’m afraid it turns out to be the case (cf. (11)). Considering the fact that these kinds of pragmatically motivated developments are common across languages (Traugott and Dasher 2002), it is, therefore, possible that the spontaneity and modesty types surfaced as strategic use of the marker. Thus, (assuming that there is no formal or explicit introduction to the grammatical item -te-simau for such usage after its initial instruction) those speakers who exhibit the modesty or spontaneity types have somehow gained the skills necessary to use the marker strategically, suggesting the possibility that L2 learners can utilize general socio-pragmatic skills to use a learned linguistic item in a novel way. While the presence of the types is noted, its infrequency also needs some attention. In our data, only 20 % of the learners with high proficiency level (three Advanced and six Superior out of 45 learners, i.e., 9/45) exhibited the usage of

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spontaneity and modesty. The low frequency may indicate that many learners conceptualize -te-simau as a marker that is used simply in unfavorable contexts without understanding its sense of conflict. Since spontaneity and modesty are relatively new meanings associated closely with communicative strategies, the infrequency may be indicating that many learners only understand general notions of negativity and possibly of completion without being aware of their force-dynamic meanings. A qualitative observation of the corpus text reveals that there were a few learners who used the marker -te-simau in various ways in terms of meaning type, especially in Advanced (AH, in particular) and Superior levels. One speaker classified as a Superior learner (ES06) used -te-simau with the predicate suki ni naru ‘become fond of’ (spontaneity), as shown in (18), as well as with sigoto mo hueru ‘there is more work (for me)’ (regret). Likewise, the speaker, using an example of modesty, sentence (21) (CS02), combined -te-simau with kansin-suru ‘to be impressed’ (spontaneity), as well as with sinu ‘to die’ (regret). These learners may be aware of the strategic use of linguistic markers, which were taught as markers of completion and regret, to express lack of intention and/or speech act sensitivity. In summary: (22) a. In L1 usage of -te-simau, the senses of modesty and spontaneity are associated with regret, as well as with each other and with completion, through FD. b. Some Advanced and Superior learners may be aware of the strategies of indicating psychological conflict in communication, which are motivated in ways similar to those of L1 speakers, i.e., using the conceptual connections among the meanings through FD. Having established what it is that learners can learn or need to learn to progress toward L1-like usage, the ideas of force dynamics can be incorporated into pedagogy, which will be discussed next.

5.2 Theoretical and pedagogical implications As seen above, the results from the L2 data deviate from expectations based on instruction materials, but in different ways in which L1 usage patterns deviate from expectations. Based on the discrepancies between L2 instruction materials and L1 data, Hanai (2010) suggested that the asymmetry between the two frequently discussed meaning types, completion and regret, needs to be reflected in instruction materials. While the saliency of the regret type is important, the

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current study, however, emphasizes the importance of strategic skills that are cognitively-motivated and are associated with the ability to connect concepts. It considers the connection to be possible through an understanding of the notion of force conflict, which we have established as a core conceptual component of -te-simau. We have seen that the notion of conflict is prevalent across different conceptual levels, from predicative (pertaining to predicate-level concepts) to subjective (pertaining to speakers’ view toward speech content) to interpersonal (pertaining to speakers’ view toward speech act and addressee). It seems that the concept of conflict in the social and psychological domains can be taught regardless of language skill level, especially since such conflicts are already implicitly introduced. For example, through strategic understatement using the word, tyotto ‘a little’, which learners are encouraged to use in various situations, such as when declining an invitation, as doyoobi wa tyotto (Saturday TOP a.little ‘Saturday is a little [inconvenient for me].’) (Banno et al. 2011). Furthermore, selfinternal conflict like this is not an exotic concept, as there are many so-called small words or hedges, such as kinda and sorta, which are used for similar strategies in English. Markers, such as -te-simau, can also be taught as strategic devices together with other markers, such as these hedge markers or ambiguous expressions. This is one aspect of learning grammatical items like -te-simau that can be illuminated by the ideas of FD. Recall that different meaning types consisting of different causal relationship patterns of two opposing force entities have the same basic schematic force relations. In other words, in L1 speakers’ mind, and according to our findings, those of some L2 speakers, different senses are conceptually connected. I propose that the recognition of this connection, or the commonalities associated with the schema across meaning types is key to facilitating an understanding of the meaning and usage of -te-simau. We will now consider how the idea of force dynamic interactions can be incorporated into teaching. As an implicit way of introducing the notion of FD, I suggest that the most essential task is to make clear the context in which the agonistic and antagonistic feelings arise in prototypical settings so that the usage of the marker is motivated. The conceptual framework of FD can function as a reference for language instructors who may design their own activities from the idea of “conflict” as characterized analytically in this study. Instructors can implicitly build appropriate contexts for the target grammatical item, by instructing learners to think about situations in which they have experienced a psychological or social conflict, or a dilemma, between “agonistic feeling” and “antagonistic feeling”, e.g., in the context of eating sweets, the conflict would be between the will to stay on the diet vs. the desire to eat sweets, etc. This step can easily be achieved as long as the instructions are appropriate to the level of learners’ readiness.

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Alternatively, the concept of FD can be presented more explicitly, as an image schema and can be explained in language classrooms. Utilizing schemata is not a new idea, and is, in fact in line with previous empirical work in cognitive linguistics, especially those motivated by studies on polysemy and/or metaphor (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Sweetser 1990). In L2 studies, a schematic approach has been shown in Japanese as well with different grammatical items and different types of image schematic systems (e.g., Masuda 2010). As for the effects of presenting FD image schemata specifically, there have been several studies on English modal verbs (Sweetser 1990, Talmy 1988), reported in Tyler (2012), including those by Abbuhl (2005) and Tyler, Mueller, and Ho (2010), which showed the advantage of using schematic pictures and discussions of some cognitive linguistic concepts. The motivation underlying these studies is that knowing the basic meaning in abstraction, in particular in schematized visual forms, allows learners to more readily understand extended meanings, and to this end, knowing the schematic meaning of -te-simau, at least theoretically, potentially facilitates an understanding of how to use the marker for different purposes, once the core meaning, i.e., FD, has been established. However, one needs to conduct empirical research to test the effects of this approach with carefully designed pre-test and pot-test, as well as instruction methods.

6 Concluding remarks The present study examined how the notion of causality, which has been underrecognized in L2 instruction, is central to the meaning and usage of the grammatical marker -te-simau. The importance of its causal nature was shown through an FD-based four-way classification system, as a way of recognizing the internal psychological conflict underlying the meaning and usage of the marker. The architecture of force dynamic meaning, which comprises two force entities in conflict with each other in subject’s, or most often in speakers’, psyche, helps us elucidate how we use linguistic expressions to manipulate causality in everyday communication. Such mechanisms in effect allow speaker to express empathetic negative feelings or avoid responsibility, often as a type of interpersonal strategy. To this end, the study pointed out that the lack of recognition of the notion of conflict, in particular, as an indicator of spontaneity and modesty, surfaced in learners’ utterances. FD has not yet been applied to L2 Japanese learning systematically. The present paper is intended to add to the lines of research in cognitive linguistics, which is a growing discipline with a wide range of applicability to L2 acquisi-

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tion research. In this study, through the case study of -te-simau, I hope to have established a foundation for future L1 and L2 research of polysemous grammatical markers that have developed similar communicative functions.

Appendix: Corpus results by individuals L=Low, M=Mid, H=High Proficiency

Novice (N)

Intermediate (I)

Advanced (A)

Superior (S)

CNL01 : 0

CIL01 : 0

CA01 : 1

CS01 : 0

CNM01 : 0

CIL02 : 0

CA02 : 3

CS02 : 4

CNM02 : 0

CIL03 : 0

CA03 : 0

CS03 : 0

CNH01 : 0

CIM01 : 2

CAH01 : 0

CS04 : 5

CNH02 : 0

CIM02 : 0

CAH02 : 2

CS05 : 2

–

CIM04 : 0

CAH03 : 2

–

–

CIM05 : 1

CAH04 : 0

–

–

CIH01 : 1

CAH05 : 2

–

–

CIH02 : 0

CAH06 : 0

–

–

CIH03 : 0

CAH07 : 6

–

ENL01 : 0

EIL01 : 0

EA01 : 2

ES01 : 1

ENM01 : 0

EIL02 : 0

EA02 : 2

ES02 : 4

ENM02 : 0

EIL04 : 0

EA03 : 1

ES05 : 0

ENH01 : 0

EIL05 : 0

EAH01 : 0

ES06 : 5

ENH02 : 0

EIM04 : 0

EAH02 : 6

ES07 : 4

–

EIM05 : 0

EAH03 : 5

–

–

EIM06 : 1

EAH06 : 10

–

–

EIM07 : 1

EAH07 : 1

–

–

EIH03 : 0

EAH08 : 1

–

–

EIH04 : 3

EAH09 : 1

–

KNL01 : 0

KIL01 : 0

KA01 : 0

KS01 : 3

Native language Chinese (C)

English (E)

Korean (K)

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Proficiency

Novice (N)

Intermediate (I)

Advanced (A)

Superior (S)

KNL02 : 0

KIL02 : 0

KA02 : 1

KS03 : 3

KNM01 : 1

KIM01 : 0

KA03 : 0

KS06 : 2

KNH01 : 0

KIM02 : 0

KA04 : 0

KS07 : 2

KNH02 : 2

KIM03 : 0

KA05 : 0

KS09 : 5

–

KIM04 : 2

KA06 : 0

–

–

KIM05 : 1

KAH01 : 0

–

–

KIM06 : 0

KAH02 : 1

–

–

KIH01 : 0

KAH03 : 4

–

–

KIH02 : 0

KAH04 : 4

–

Native language

Acknowledgements I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the two anonymous reviewers and Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani, the editors of this volume, for their detailed comments. All remaining faults are mine.

References Primary sources Kamada, Osamu and Yamauchi Hiroyuki. 1999. KY Kopasu [KY corpus], version 1.2. Lee, Jaeho. 2013. Tagutsuki KY Kopasu [Tagged KY corpus]. (http://jhlee.sakura.ne.jp/kyc/) Ohori, Toshio. 1993. BS Archive. Rikkyo-93. Tokyo: Tokyo University Ohori, Toshio. 1997. BS Archive. Komaba-97. Tokyo: Tokyo University

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Secondary sources Abbuhl, Rebekha. 2005. The effect of feedback and instruction on writing quality: Legal writing and advanced L2 learners. Washington, DC: Georgetown University dissertation. Abe, Sayaka. 2007. Space, time, subjectivity and beyond: The cognitive semantic development of the Japanese marker -te-shimau. Buffalo, NY: University at Buffalo dissertation. Abe, Sayaka. 2008. How natural is intersubjectification? “Internal” and “external” factors in the development of the Japanese grammaticalized marker -te-shimau. High Desert Linguistic Society 7. 96–111. Alfonso, Anthony. 1966. Japanese language patterns: A structural approach. Tokyo: Sophia University. Banno, Eri, Yutaka Ohno, Yoko Sakane, Chikako Shinagawa & Kyoko Tokashiki. 2011. Genki I: An integrated course in elementary Japanese. Tokyo: The Japan Times Fujii, Yumi 1992. Shite-shimau no imi [The meaning of do-SHIMAU]. In Gengogaku Kenkyukai (ed.), Kotoba no Kagaku [The science of language] 5. Tokyo: Mugi Shobo. Hanai, Yoshiro. 2010. “Te-shimau” no imi kakucho to genzai no shiyo kara miru kyoiku e no ichiteian [Semantic expansion of -te shimau and its pedagogical implications]. In Masahiko Minami (ed.), Gengogaku to Nihongo Kyoiku 6 [New directions in applied linguistics of Japanese 6], 156–174. Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers. Hasegawa, Yoko. 1996. A study of Japanese clause linkage: The connective TE in Japanese. Stanford & Tokyo: CSLI Publications & Kurosio Publishers. Hatasa, Yukiko Abe, Kazumi Hatasa & Seiichi Makino. 2011. Nakama 2: Japanese communication, culture, context, 2nd edn. Boston, MA: Heinle/Cengage Learning. Kindaichi, Haruhiko. 1976 [1955]. Nihongo doshi no tensu to asupekuto [Japanese verb tense and aspect]. In Haruhiko Kindaichi (ed.), Nihongo Doshi no Asupekuto [Japanese verb aspect], 27–62. Tokyo: Mugi Shobo. Kurosawa, Akiko. 2012. Te-shimau no modaritizu to nihongo kyoiku ni okeru kadai [The modality of te-shimau and issues in Japanese education]. In Reiko Tomiya and Tsutsumi Masanori (eds.) Modariti to Gengo Kyoiku [Modality and language education], 39–61. Hituzi Syobo Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Masuda, Kyoko. 2010. Applying cognitive linguistics to teaching Japanese polysemous particles. Sophia Linguistica 60. 105–122. Nakau, Minoru. 1992. Modality and subjective semantics. Tsukuba English Studies 11, 1–45. University of Tsukuba. Ono, Tsuyoshi. 1992. The grammaticalization of the verbs oku and shimau. Cognitive Linguistics 3(4). 367–390. Ono, Tsuyoshi & Ryoko Suzuki. 1992. The development of a marker of speaker’s attitude: The pragmatic use of the Japanese grammaticalized verb shimau in conversation. Berkeley Linguistics Society 18. 204–213. Shinzato, Rumiko. 2007. (Inter)subjectification, Japanese syntax and syntactic scope increase. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 8(2). 171–206. Soga, Matsuo. 1983. Tense and aspect in modern colloquial Japanese. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Strauss, Susan. 1994. A cross-linguistic analysis of Japanese, Korean and Spanish: -te shimau, -a/e pelita, and the ‘Romance reflexive’ se. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 4. 257–273.

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Strauss, Susan. 1996. Metaphors of ‘total enclosure’ grammaticizing into middle voice markers. The construal of space in language and thought. In Martin Pütz & René Dirven (eds.), The construal of space in language and thought, 395–416. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Strauss, Susan. 2002. Distinctions in completives: The relevance of resistance in Korean V-a/e pelita and V-ko malta and Japanese V-te shimau. Journal of Pragmatics 34. 143–166. Elsevier Science. Strauss, Susan. 2003. Completive aspect, emotion, and the dynamic eventive: The case of Korean V-a/e pelita, Japanese V-te shimau, and Spanish se. Linguistics 41. 653–679. Strauss, Susan & Sung-Ock Sohn. 1998. Grammaticalization, aspect, and emotion: the case of Japanese -te shimau and Korean -a/e pelita. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 8. 217–230. Suzuki, Ryoko. 1999. Language socialization through morphology: The affective suffix -CHAU in Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 31(11). 1423–1441. Sweetser, Eve. 1990. From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Takahashi, Taro. 1976 [1969]. Sugata to mokuromi [Aspect and mood]. In Haruhiko Kindaichi (ed.), Nihongo Doshi no Asupekuto [Japanese verb aspect], 117–154. Tokyo: Mugi Shobo. Talmy, Leonard. 1988. Force dynamics in language and cognition. Cognitive Science 12. 49–100. Talmy, Leonard. 2000 Toward a cognitive semantics, Volume I: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge: MIT Press. Tanahashi, Akemi. 1996. Eigo o bogo to suru nihongo gakushusha ni okeru “-te-shimau” no shiyo jokyo. [The usage of -te-shimau by native English speaking Japanese learners]. Nihon Bunka to Nihongo Kyoiku. [Japanese culture and Japanese education], Ochanomizu University Web Library Institutional Repository. http://teapot.lib.ocha.ac.jp/ocha/ bitstream/10083/50206/1/03_024-033.pdf Traugott, Elizabeth. 2004. Historical pragmatics. In Laurence R. Horn & Gregory Ward (eds.), 538–561. Handbook of pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell. Traugott, Elizabeth and Richard B. Dasher. 2002. Regularity in semantic change: Cambridge studies in linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tyler, Andrea. 2012. Cognitive linguistics and second language learning: Theoretical basics and experimental evidence. New York: Routledge. Tyler, Andrea, Charles Mueller & Vu Ho. 2010. Applying cognitive linguistics to instructed L2 learning: the English modal verbs. AILA Review 23. 30–49. Yamaguchi, Gyoji. 2003. Jodoshishi o Saguru [Research on the history of Japanese auxiliary verbs]. Izumi Shoin. Yoshida, Eri. 1994. Speaker’s subjectivity and the use of shimau in Japanese spoken narratives. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 4. 183–199. Yoshikawa, Taketoki. 1976 [1973]. Gendai nihongo doshi no asupekuto no kenkyu [An aspectual study of verbs in modern Japanese]. In Haruhiko Kindaichi (ed.), Nihongo Doshi no Asupekuto [Japanese verb aspect], 228–254. Tokyo: Mugi Shobo.

Kiyoko Toratani

10 The L2 acquisition of Japanese Motion event descriptions by L1 English speakers: An exploratory study Abstract: This study explores how L1 English speakers describe Motion events in L2 Japanese, drawing on the theory of two-way typology (Talmy 2000b) and the “Thinking for Speaking” hypothesis (Slobin 1987, 1996a). To this end, a pilot study was conducted eliciting frog story narratives from L1 English learners of L2 Japanese (N = 8) and native speakers of Japanese (N = 8). The study found the learner data to contain a variety of descriptions: errors that can be predicted from the typological differences between English and Japanese (e.g., use of a manner verb to express a boundary crossing) and those that cannot (e.g., use of a mimetic to express Manner but with a wrong meaning), native-like descriptions (e.g., descriptions that observe the “one path verb per clause” constraint to express multiple boundary crossings), as well as non-production of descriptions that conform to the style of speaking preferred by Japanese (e.g., the descriptions that manifest “subjective construal” (Ikegami 2008)). Evidently, a number of factors come into play in the process of acquisition: from a degree of correspondence between English and Japanese that goes beyond the two-way typology, to the complexity inherent in the target item and learner variables, to name a few, thus agreeing with Cadierno (2004: 42), who views L1 crosslinguistic influence as a complex phenomenon. Keywords: Motion event, lexicalization patterns, path deixis, boundary crossing, subjective construal

1 Introduction Motion is one of the most fundamental human activities. Naturally, narrating Motion events constitutes an indispensable part of human communication. Yet exactly how second language (L2) learners acquire Motion event descriptions has only recently received academic attention, a trend that began when L2 researchers recognized the relevance of seminal works by cognitive linguist Leonard Talmy and psychologist Dan Slobin. According to Talmy (1985), a “Motion event” comprises four basic components: an entity that moves (Figure), an object that serves as the reference

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(Ground), the path taken by the Figure (Path), and the movement displayed by the Figure (Motion), with an optional secondary component (Co-event) such as Manner. He (1985) notes that in their depiction of Motion events, different languages use different form-meaning mapping patterns or “lexicalization patterns”. He (1991, 2000b) further proposes a two-way typology whereby world languages are classed into two broad categories according to which element in a simple sentence characteristically conveys the concept of “Path”.¹ One language group, “verb-framed languages” (V-languages) (e.g., Japanese, Korean, Spanish), expresses it in the verb root; the other, “satellite-framed languages” (S-languages) (e.g., English, Russian, Chinese), uses a “satellite”, an element that annexes itself to the verb root. (1) is illustrative of this contrast (the semantic primitives are shown in the square brackets): Japanese, a V-language, realizes the Path created by the Figure’s movement in the verb root hair- ‘enter’ whereas English, an S-language, realizes it in the satellite into.² (1)

a. Kodomo[figure]-ga hasit[manner]-te heya[ground]-ni hait[path+motion]-ta. child-nom run-l room-dat enter-past ‘The child ran into the room (lit. The child entered the room running).’ b. The child[figure] ran[manner+motion] into[path] the room [ground].

Building on the idea of “lexicalization patterns” and observing speeches produced by speakers of different languages, Slobin (e.g., 1987, 1996a, 2000) has formulated a hypothesis termed “Thinking for Speaking”. According to Slobin (1996a: 75), “[t]he world does not present ‘events’ and ‘situations’ to be encoded in language. Rather, in the process of speaking or writing, experiences are filtered through language into verbalized events.” In other words, how speakers verbalize their thoughts is not random but follows a pattern, suggesting that the verbalization of events is constrained linguistically and culturally. Thus, characteristic differences are observed in the descriptions of an identical target scene produced by the speakers of different languages.

1 The two-way typology is not deterministic. As Talmy (2000b: 27) notes, the Motion expressions must be “colloquial in style, rather than literary, […] frequent in occurrence in speech, rather than only occasional […, and] pervasive, rather than limited”, a point to remember when L2 researchers discuss data (pace Noguchi 2011). 2 The following abbreviations are used for Japanese examples: ACC = accusative, ADD = address form, COM = comitative, COMPL = completive, DAT = dative, EVID = evidential, FOC = focus, GEN = genitive, IMP = imperfective, INST = instrumental, L = linker, NEG = negative, NOM = nominative, NPAST = non-past, P = particle, PASS = passive, POL = polite, Q = question, STAT = stativizer, TOP = topic, and VOL = volitional.

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The postulations of Talmy and Slobin are inspiring L2 researchers to consider how the differences in linguistic encodings affect acquisition of Motion event descriptions when speakers of a language attempt to acquire another language which is typologically distinct from (or approximate to) their L1. While the number of studies on Motion event descriptions is steadily rising (Cadierno 2004, Yoshikawa and Kellerman 2006, Han and Cadierno 2010, Wu 2011, Benazzo, Flecken & Soroli 2012, Yoshinari 2014, among others), to date, no work has comprehensively investigated L2-Japanese learners’ acquisition of Motion event descriptions when these learners are L1-English speakers. This study takes a first step in this direction. It first compares how English and Japanese speakers describe Motion events, drawing on Talmy (1985, 1991, 2000b) and Slobin (1987), predicting what types of utterances L1-English learners of L2-Japanese will produce, given the differences between S- and V-languages. Then, it evaluates the predictions against learners’ descriptions of Motion events in a frog story elicited in a pilot study using a wordless picture book (Mayer 1969). Based on the study’s results, it explores what items learners must acquire to produce Motion event descriptions comparable to those produced by native speakers of Japanese and what factors play a role in facilitating or impeding the process of acquisition. The remainder of this chapter is organized into four sections. Section 2 compares how English and Japanese speakers typically describe Motion events. Section 3 discusses the results of the pilot study. Section 4 considers the essential components of Motion event descriptions in Japanese, and Section 5 contains a conclusion.

2 Describing Motion events As noted, English (S-language) and Japanese (V-language) differ in their lexicalization patterns (cf. (1)). This section takes a closer look at the differences, focusing on how each language expresses Manner and Path. The topics discussed are (a) Path with a single boundary crossing, (b) Manner, (c) Path with multiple boundary crossings, and (d) Path with the deictic component, in this order. Each subsection ends by predicting what types of descriptions learners will produce, given the differences.

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2.1 Path with a single boundary crossing Motion events are necessarily translocational (Talmy 1985, 1991, 2000b), with a “boundary crossing” movement (Aske 1989; Slobin and Hoiting 1994). “Boundary crossing” refers to a movement whereby the Figure comes to occupy a position on the other side of the space by crossing a boundary (the threshold), as portrayed in Fig. 1.

boundary

outside the room

inside the room

Fig. 1: A boundary crossing scene

This boundary crossing instantiates the mismatch in form-meaning mapping between S-languages and V-languages. V-languages use a Path-to-verb mapping pattern to express a boundary crossing, whereas S-languages use a Manner-toverb mapping pattern with the satellite as the designate to express Path, as in (1), repeated below as (2a–2b). If the target scene involves no boundary crossing, both English and Japanese use the Manner-to-verb mapping pattern as shown in (2c–2d). (2) a. Kodomo[figure]-ga hasit[manner]-te heya[ground]-ni hait[path+motion]-ta. child-nom run-l room-dat enter-past ‘The child ran into the room (lit. The child entered the room running).’ b. The child[figure] ran[manner+motion] into[path] the room [ground]. c. Kodomo[figure]-ga hasit[manner+motion]-ta. child-nom run-past ‘The child ran.’ d. The child[figure] ran[manner+motion]. If we assume L1-English learners directly apply their L1 knowledge to construct sentences in L2-Japanese, this difference in single boundary crossings is likely to

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result in infelicity. In fact, Inagaki (2001) reports a result consistent with this prediction. In a grammaticality judgment task, advanced level L1 English learners of L2 Japanese were asked to judge to what extent sentences such as (3) were good descriptions of an accompanying drawing. (3) a. ?* John-ga gakkoo-ni aruita. John-nom school-at walked ‘John walked to school.’ b. ?* John-ga ie-no naka-ni hasitta. John-nom house-of inside-at ran ‘John ran into the house.’ (Inagaki 2001: 154) (3) contains sentences in which the English Manner-to-verb mapping pattern is applied to Japanese: in both (3a) and (3b), the verb expresses Manner. Inagaki found that even his advanced level subjects, whose mean length of stay in Japan was 11.67 years, accepted this type of sentence, even though sentences in (3) are infelicitous.³ The English-Japanese typological differences in the mapping pattern of Path leads to Prediction 1 below, that is, if we assume English speakers apply their L1 mapping pattern. Note that in the following discussion, “Japanese” refers to native speakers of Japanese, and “learners” refers to L1 English speakers learning Japanese as their L2. (4) Prediction 1 – To express Path with a single boundary crossing, while Japanese produce a simple clause with a path verb, learners will produce a simple clause with a manner verb, as in (3).

2.2 Manner Talmy says S-languages “regularly map the co-event [e.g., Manner] into the main verb” (2000b: 222) whereas V-languages “map the co-event either onto a satellite or into an adjunct, typically an adpositional phrase or a gerundive type constituent” (2000b: 222). As predicted, Japanese can employ a gerundive-type form with -te, a linker to a verb (Hasegawa 1996), to express Manner, as in arui-te ‘(lit.) walk and’ in (5a), while English typically expresses the same scene using a manner verb walk as the main verb as in (5b).

3 The raw value cited is 0.78, which falls between ‘0 (not sure)’ and 2 ‘(completely natural)’.

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(5) a. Minna-wa sizukani arui-te heya-ni everyone-top quietly walk-l room-dat ‘Everyone entered the room walking quietly.’ b. Everyone quietly walked into the room.

hait-ta. enter-past

In addition to using the -te form, Japanese can express Manner employing two other major means: (a) a satellite, specifically, the first verbal element (V1) of a compound verb (V1-V2), and (b) mimetics (Ohara 2002; Sugiyama 2005; cf. Brown & Gullberg 2012). Compound verbs comprise two morphologically tightly bound verbs (V1– V2). While their semantic relations vary (Matsumoto 1998), in one type, the V1 expresses Manner and V2 expresses the main Motion event as exemplified in (6). (6) a. Pen-ga tukue-kara korogari-oti-ta. pen-nom desk-from roll-fall-past ‘The pen rolled off the desk.’ b. Ken-ga densya-ni tobi-not-ta. Ken-nom train-dat hop-ride-past ‘Ken hopped onto the train.’ In (6a), while the V2 oti- ‘fall’ expresses the main Motion event, the V1 korogar‘roll’ expresses the Manner displayed by the Figure (pen). In (6b), the V2 nor- ‘get onto (a vehicle)’ expresses the main Motion event, and the V1 tob- ‘hop’ expresses the Manner in which the Figure (Ken) carries out the translocation. In addition to the V1 of the compound verbs, mimetics, or sound-symbolic forms of Japanese (Hamano 1998), provide detailed information about Manner of motion (cf. Akita, Matsumoto and Ohara 2010; Akita and Matsumoto to appear; Toratani 2012a). For instance, batan ‘a thud’ in (7a) expresses the Manner of a sudden fall whereby an object makes contact with a hard surface. In (7b), sutasuta ‘manner of walking briskly’ expresses the Manner in which (how) the Figure (Mari) moves away from the scene. (7) a. Hon-ga batan-to taore-ta. book-nom mimetic-p fall-past ‘The book fell with a thud.’ b. Mari-wa sutasuta-to kaet-te-it-ta. Mari-top mimetic-p return-l-go-past ‘Mari strode off to her home.’

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In other words, as English lacks compound verbs and mimetics as a word group, there is a lexical mismatch between English and Japanese, causing us to predict the following.⁴ (8) Prediction 2 – As a way to express Manner, while Japanese will use compound verbs and mimetics, learners will use neither.

2.3 Path with multiple boundary crossings To examine how English and Japanese speakers express Path with multiple boundary crossings, an extended trajectory, we draw on Fujii’s (1993: 15) study of how English and Japanese speakers describe such an extended trajectory in the “cliff scene” (Picture #17) in Frog, where are you? (Meyer 1969). In the moment captured, the protagonists, a boy and his pet dog, are in midair and about to go down into the lake, while a deer who is at the top of the cliff is looking down with his head tilted down⁵: (9) is the cliff scene described by an English speaker, and (10) is by a Japanese speaker. (9) He was thrown off of the cliff into a lake. (10) Gake-no naka-wa otos-are-ru-to cliff-gen inside-top drop-pass-npast-when soko-ni-wa mizuumi-ga ari-masi-ta. there-dat-top lake-nom exist-pol-past ‘(lit.) When he was dropped off the cliff, there was a lake there.’ (Fujii 1993: 15) These sentences display two interesting differences. The first is the structure. English grammar allows a simple sentence with a manner verb to convey a Motion of the Figure that crosses a boundary multiple times (Slobin 1996b).⁶ (9) is 4 This prediction may reflect the fact that English speakers are accustomed to use a manner verb to express Manner. In other words, they can express Manner for ‘free’ by simply choosing a verb without searching for an extra means to express it. 5 The picture of this scene is reproduced in Cadierno (2004: 45). Prior to this scene, the deer is running with the boy pinched between his antlers, and the boy’s pet dog is catching up to the running deer. It is implied that the deer lets go of the boy at the edge of the cliff, causing him to be in midair with the dog, which apparently jumps off the cliff to follow the boy. 6 This type of linguistic encoding is called “clause compacting” as opposed to “clause-chaining” (Slobin 1996b: 202). The former is a characteristic of English, whereas the latter is a characteristic of a language like Japanese. We do not use these terms here as it implies a structure of a single

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a simple sentence with a manner verb throw that expresses two boundary crossings: once at the source (off of the cliff) and once at the goal (into a lake). Japanese, by contrast, is a V-language and cannot resort to this type of compact encoding of an extended trajectory, since each boundary crossing must be expressed by a path verb within a single clause (Aske 1989; Slobin and Hoiting 1994). This “one path verb per clause” rule is illustrated in (10), where only otos- ‘drop (transitive)’ appears in the subordinate clause. Furthermore, a Japanese translation equivalent of (9) is infelicitous, as shown below.⁷ (11) ??Sika-ga otokonoko-o gake-kara ike-e nage-ta. deer-nom boy-acc cliff-from pond-to throw-past ‘(intended) The deer threw the boy from the cliff to the pond.’ The second difference is rhetorical style. According to Slobin, while English (S-language) descriptions tend to foreground “continuous and dynamic trajectory” (2000: 130), Spanish (V-language) ones foreground “richer imagery for setting” (2000: 130). As Japanese is a V-language, Japanese seems likely to mirror the Spanish pattern (cf. Ohara 2002: 131). In fact, this is exactly the contrast observed in the above example. The English sentence in (9) focuses on moving the Figure forward using a manner verb while the satellites encode the directionality (off of, into). By way of contrast, the Japanese sentence in (10) focuses on the description of the scene-setting, namely the existence of the lake, as conveyed by the matrix clause. Although the sentence includes a portrayal of dynamism using a path verb otos- ‘drop’, it is in the subordinate clause and is, therefore, a secondary description. In light of these differences, we make the following predictions.

sentence; this can be misleading when referring to the two independent sentences produced by some participants in the study. 7 Active voice is used in this example; in Japanese, the passive tends to yield the sense of adversity, something absent in the English original. An anonymous reviewer asked whether the awkwardness of (11) is attributed to the fact that the actor is non-human. This is not the case. Even if it is a human, the awkwardness of the sentence remains: ??Oo-otoko-ga otokonoko-o gake-kara ike-e nage-ta. ‘A big man threw the boy from the cliff to the pond.’

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(12) Prediction 3  – To express Path with multiple boundary crossings (an extended trajectory): a. While Japanese will use a path verb per clause to express a boundary crossing and repeat it as necessary, learners will produce a sentence like (11) in which plural boundary crossing events are packaged into a single clause with a manner verb. b. While Japanese includes a description of the scene-setting whereby continuity of Motion can be implied, learners will focus on explicitly portraying the continuous movement of the protagonists.

2.4 Path with the deictic component Deictic verbs express the Deictic component of Path (Talmy 2000b: 53),⁸ which “typically has only the two member notions ‘toward the speaker’ and ‘in a direction other than toward the speaker’” (Talmy 2000b: 56). Both English and Japanese have lexical deictic verbs (come and go; k- ‘come’ and ik- ‘go’). At first blush, they seem to be used in a similar way, as shown in (13). (13) a. Ue-kara mono-ga oti-te-ki-ta. above-from thing-nom fall-l-come-past ‘From above, something came falling (onto me).’ b. Kodomo-wa sotti-e hasit-te-it-ta. child-top over.there-to run-l-go-past ‘The child went running toward there.’ In both English and Japanese, a deictic verb functions as the matrix verb accompanied by a non-finite form, either of a path verb (come falling vs. oti-te-k- ‘come falling’ (13a)) or a manner verb (go running vs. hasit-te-ik- ‘go running’ (13b)). This parallelism, however, does not guarantee that the speakers of both languages use deictic verbs in an identical way. In a speech production experiment, Akita, Matsumoto and Ohara (2010) find that English speakers do not use deictic verbs as frequently as Japanese (see also Yoshinari, this volume). Example (14) shows the difference between the two: even though all subjects looked at the same video clip of a man walking toward the camera, Japanese subjects typically used a deictic verb as in (14a), but English subjects did not, as in (14b).

8 Path consists of three main components: Vector, Conformation, and Deictic (Talmy 2000b: 53).

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(14) a. Otokonohito-ga kotti-ni mukat-te arui-te-ki-masi-ta. man-nom this.way-dat face-l walk-l-come-pol-past ‘A man came walking toward this way.’ (Akita, p.c.) b. A man walked toward the camera briskly. (Akita, Matsumoto, Ohara 2010: 13) This type of difference is said to reflect the speakers’ perspective points when they narrate the target scene. Akita, Matsumoto and Ohara (2010) note that Japanese subjects prefer describing the scene with the perspective point of narration located at an event participant (i.e., the camera in this case), in which case, a deictic verb must be used (14a); by contrast, English speakers prefer to adopt a neutral perspective point (i.e., from the 3rd person), which necessarily excludes the use of a deictic verb (14b). This difference corresponds to the distinction between “subjective” and “objective” construal (Ikegami 2008, this volume; Langacker 1987). According to Ikegami (2008: 231), Japanese speakers prefer “subjective construal” whereby “the conceptualizer is on the very scene s/he is to construe and construes the scene as it is perceivable to her/him” but English speakers prefer “objective construal” whereby “the conceptualizer is outside the scene s/he is to construe and construes it as it is perceivable to her/him.” Accordingly, in (14a), the Japanese speaker views the scene from the position of the camera, whereas in (14b), the English speaker’s perspective point is from off-stage, with a global scope. If this difference in construal style is indeed pervasive for English and Japanese speakers, the type of descriptions will naturally diverge: a Japanese event description will favor the frequent usage of deictic verbs but its English counterpart will not, as evidenced in (14). In light of this difference in preference, we make the following prediction. (15) Prediction 4 – To express a movement of an event participant, while Japanese speakers will frequently use deictic verbs as part of a complex predicate to conform to their preferred style of “subjective construal”, learners will less frequently use deictic verbs, as they are likely to adopt their preferred style of “objective construal”. The four predictions in this section are, of course, based only on negative transfer. To determine their validity, the next section reports the results of a pilot study eliciting Motion event descriptions.

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3 Pilot study 3.1 Method Participants in the pilot study belonged to one of two groups: a Japanese speakers’ group (N = 8, coded as J1 through J8) and an L1-English L2-Japanese learners’ group (N = 8, coded as E1 through E8).⁹ At the time of story elicitation, the learners were enrolled in or had completed a second or third-year Japanese course at a North American university (E1, E2, E3, E4: enrolled in 2nd year Japanese, E5: completed 2nd year Japanese, E6: enrolled in 3rd year Japanese, E7 and E8: completed 3rd year Japanese and a 1-year study abroad in Japan). Four English speakers identified themselves as English-dominant or as fairly balanced bilinguals, with the other language being Chinese (E1, E4, E7) or Russian (E2), both S-languages;¹⁰ the rest were monolingual English speakers (E3, E5, E6, E8). All learners reported using English as the mediating language from which to directly translate. Based on this, the learners were considered L1-English speakers. The task was a take-home assignment. Participants first received instructions on how they should prepare for their frog story. To aim for consistent quality, participants were instructed to tell a story on the radio to a children’s audience (adapted from Seig 2004). After the learners completed their preparation, the researcher met with each individually and audio-recorded his/her story (see Appendix A for an example of a complete frog story told by a learner). Post-task interviews were conducted to clarify points about the created stories. As discussed in Toratani (2012b), there are pros and cons of the take-home method. In this case, the researcher could not monitor how the participants actually created the story. The stories elicited here, however, are considered a genuine creation by the participants alone, as they were instructed not to consult anyone during their preparation, when they agreed to participate in the study. On the plus side, the format removed the time pressure and allowed learners to revise both language

9 All participants in the learner group fall into the traditional college student age; Japanese participants are all college educated persons in their 20s and early 30s, except one in his/her early 50s (J4). For logistic reasons, a comparable age group was not found for Japanese. This is something to keep in mind when designing future studies. 10 Slobin (2004) finds that Chinese belongs to a third language type called ‘equipollently-framed languages’ (cf. Spring and Horie 2013). While I am aware of the importance of recognition of L1 language categories, in this study, I base my discussions on Talmy’s two-way typology, as my main goal is to lay the groundwork for what is involved when L1 English speaking L2 Japanese learners try to acquire Motion event descriptions.

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and content. It also allowed participants with a lower proficiency level to manage the task (see Toratani 2012b for more on this topic).

3.2 Coding The audio-recorded stories were transcribed using Japanese orthography. They were then examined to determine whether each predicating element of the clause denoted a motion (in lower case). The verbs in (16) were categorized as verbs describing a motion, i.e., either manner verbs or path verbs, broadly defined, in the sense that the assertion of the sentence with the path verb entails a translocation of Figure or change of bodily position. (16) Verbs expressing a motion – Manner verbs: – Path verbs: -Change-of-state verbs -Verbs of motion into stasis -Deictic verbs -Posture verbs

: hasir- ‘run’, ow- ‘chase’, tob- ‘jump’ : hair- ‘enter’, oti- ‘fall’, nor- ‘ride’ : tomar-‘stop’ : k- ‘come’, ik- ‘go’ : tat- ‘stand up’, suwar- ‘sit down’

After separating motion verbs from non-motion verbs, we took a frequency count for the motion verbs.

3.3 Results 3.3.1 Expressing Path with a boundary crossing Let us first observe which types of verbs the participants used, manner or path verbs, focusing on monomorphemic verbs. As the number of clauses with a Motion event description totalled 223 for the learners and 126 for Japanese,¹¹ and there were 181 tokens of monomorphemic verbs used by the learners (manner

11 This discrepancy may have been caused by the difference in how participants produced the story, i.e., written for the learners, and oral and almost spontaneous for Japanese natives. All Japanese participants chose to immediately tell their story after some minutes of preparation. A similar difference in elicitation is reported in Cadierno (2004). It would be ideal to apply the same elicitation method in the future to obtain a comparable set of data between subject and control groups.

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verb: 48 tokens, path verb: 133 tokens), and 101 tokens, by the Japanese (manner verb: 13 tokens, path verb: 88 tokens), we obtain the ratio shown in Fig. 2. 100 73% (133/181)

90 80

87% (88/101)

Learners (L1: English) Japanese (L1)

70 60 50 40 30 20

27% (48/181) 13% (13/101)

10 0 Manner

Path

Fig. 2: Use of monomorphemic verbs expressing a motion

As Fig. 2 shows, the Japanese group used monomorphemic path verbs (87 %) more than monomorphemic manner verbs (13 %) to express a motion. The learners’ group followed this general tendency, although the rate of using path verbs was lower (73 %) and the rate of using manner verbs was higher (27 %).¹² It is worth mentioning that half the Japanese participants did not use manner verbs at all. This tendency is compatible with an oft-discussed characteristic of V-languages, namely that they tend to encode path only without information about manner (see Slobin 2006). Tab. 1 shows the verbs used by the participants, listed according to token frequency. As Tab. 1 shows, among the top five most frequently used verbs, four path verbs (oti- ‘fall’, kaer- ‘return’, de-‘exit’, and ik- ‘go’) and two manner verbs (hasir‘run’, ow- ‘chase’) are common to both groups, suggesting the learners’ choice of these verbs was native-like. Interestingly, tomar- ‘stop’ is only in the learner group’s top five list, although there were two instances among the Japanese.

12 The result indicates that the L1 Japanese group’s verb choice differs statistically significantly from the L2 Japanese group’s verb choice (χ2 = 7.12, df = 1, p < .05).

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Tomar- ‘stop’ implies someone was moving before the stopping event; the combined action of moving and stopping is dynamic, and this depiction of the dynamism conforms to the characteristic way of portraying the scene in English (see Section 2.3). Tab. 1: Path and manner verbs used by the participants¹³ # of Path verb tokens Learners

Japanese

20

de- ‘exit’

18

oti- ‘fall’

16

kaer- ‘return’

15

de- ‘exit’

13

ik- ‘go’

Manner verbs Japanese

oti- ‘fall’

12

hasir- ‘run’

11 10

Learners

ik- ‘go’ tomar- ‘stop’

8

nobor- ‘climb’ kaer- ‘return’, otos‘drop’

aruk- ‘walk’

7

nobor- ‘climb to’

6

nige- ‘escape’

5

hair- ‘enter’

nige- ‘escape’

ow- ‘chase’

hasir- ‘run’

4

modor- ‘return’, nor- ‘ride’, otos- ‘drop’

k- ‘come’

tob- ‘jump/fly’

ow- ‘chase’

3

agar- ‘rise’, k- ‘come’, ok-‘put’

nobor- ‘climb to’, nose- ‘carry’

2

das- ‘let out’, mukaw- ‘face’

das- ‘let out’, mukaw- ‘face’, tomar- ‘stop’

nage- ‘throw’, ture- ‘accompany’

13 The lists contain nobor- twice. One is a path verb (‘climb to’) and the other is a manner verb (‘move upward/climb’). The former is telic and takes a Ground object marked by ni ‘goal’, whereas the latter is atelic and takes a Ground object marked by o ‘accusative’.

Motion event descriptions by L1 English learners   

# of Path verb tokens Learners

   251

Manner verbs Japanese

Learners

Japanese

1

age- ‘raise’, araware‘appear’, atar- ‘hit’, atumar‘gather’, kake- ‘hook’, kie- ‘disappear’, korob‘fall down’, nose- ‘carry’, nuke- ‘come out’, ori- ‘fall down’, sar- ‘leave’, suwar‘sit down’, taore- ‘fall’, tat- ‘stand up’, tootyakusu‘arrive’, tuk- ‘tag’, ukab‘float’, watar- ‘cross’

agar- ‘rise’, modor‘return’, nor- ‘ride’, tikazuke- ‘pull closer’, tikazuk‘approach’, tuk- ‘tag’, yar- ‘send’

hane- ‘jump’, haw- ‘crawl’, kake- ‘run’, oyog- ‘swim’, suber- ‘slide’

hakob‘carry’, kake‘run’, osow‘attack’, ture- ‘accompany’

Total:

34 types, 133 tokens

19 types, 88 tokens

12 types, 48 tokens

6 types, 13 tokens

Now let us turn to the descriptions of Path with one boundary crossing. From Prediction 1, we expect many uses of manner verbs by the learners, with the Japanese natives using only path verbs. In the four scenes that obviously include a boundary crossing (a frog sneaking out of a jar, a dog crossing the window frame to jump out, a mole popping out of a hole, and an owl popping out of a tree hole), the Japanese native speakers produced 19 clauses of descriptions of a boundary crossing, all of which, needless to say, used path verbs such as oti- ‘fall’ and de- ‘exit’. (17) a. Inu-ga mado-kara oti-te … (J4) dog-nom window-from fall-l ‘The dog fell from the window and ...’ b. Hukuroo-ga de-te-ki-masi-ta. (J8) owl-nom exit-l-come-pol-past ‘An owl came out (toward me).’ The learners produced 24 clauses to portray a boundary crossing. Most had path verbs like the natives as in (18) but three had manner verbs as in (19). (18) a. Demo kawarini mogura-ga but instead mole-nom ‘But instead, a mole came out.’ b. Jon-to Bobo-wa ike-ni John-com Bobo-top pond-dat ‘John and Bobo fell into the pond.’

de-te-ki-ta. (E4) exit-l-come-past oti-ta. (E6) fall-past

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(19) a. *Sara-tyan-ga mado-kara tob-oo-to kime-ta. (E3) Sara-add-nom window-from fly-vol-p decide-past ‘Sara decided to fly (intended: jump off ) from the window.’ b. *Suruto, inu-tyan mado-kara ton-de-simat-ta. (E6) then dog-add window-from fly-l-compl-past ‘Then, the doggy flew (intended: jumped off) from the window.’ c. *ana-kara hane-ta. (E2) hole-from spring-past ‘(It) sprang from (intended: jumped out of) the hole.’ Interestingly, the erroneous sentences in (19) are centered on the description of the event of jumping from somewhere. Speculatively, the type of manner (jumping) which differs from a more common type (e.g., walking, running) may have been responsible for the errors (Yoshinari, p.c.). The elicited data include infelicitous utterances conforming to Prediction 1, such as (19). However, the errors do not represent the large majority (3/24 = 12.5 %). Further, the learners’ group behaved much like the Japanese group, using more path verbs with fewer manner verbs.

3.3.2 Expressing Manner As noted, Japanese has two major word groups that can be used to express Manner: compound verbs and mimetics. From Prediction 2, we might have expected learners to use neither form, but this was not the case in the pilot study. As for compound verbs, both Japanese and learners’ groups used them, as listed in Tab. 2 (cf. Spring & Horie 2013). Both groups used the compound verbs at a similar rate (learners: 42 tokens/223 clauses = 18.8 %, Japanese natives: 25 tokens/126 clauses = 19.8 %). But the actual compound verbs used were somewhat different between the two groups. Only four compound verbs were used by both groups (oi-kake- ‘chase after’, de-kake‘go out’, nige-das- ‘escape’, and tadori-tuk- ‘reach’). There are two possible reasons for this dissimilarity. First, the learners used aspectual compounds (e.g., aruki-das- ‘start to walk’, oi-kake-tuduke- ‘continue to chase’) but the Japanese did not. Speculatively, this may be attributed to the fact that the instructional materials for the 2nd year Japanese course contain a brief introduction to compound verbs including aspectual ones and the learners attempted to use the (newly) introduced items. Second, the learners’ usage contained errors, which naturally did not occur in the natives’ stories. In fact, one third of the use was erroneous (14/42 = 33 %). Three types of errors appeared: an error in the form (1 token: *tobu-

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deru (jump out) (E1), an error in creating a non-existing form (2 tokens: *hanekeru (jump and kick) (E2), *nige-hasiru (escape and run) (E2)), and a semantic error in using a compound verb that does not accurately portray the target scene (11 tokens): e.g., E4 used oti-kom- ‘fall onto (a hard surface)’ to describe a motion into water, but it should simply be oti- ‘fall’ (see (26b)); E7 used nage-kom- ‘throw in’ which means to throw something over one’s shoulder to describe the deer’s motion in the cliff scene (20a), but should have selected huri-otos- ‘shake down’ or tuki-otos- ‘poke down’ as in the native’s sentence (20b). Tab. 2: Use of compound verbs # of Learners tokens 7

tobi-das- ‘jump out’

6

oi-kake- ‘chase after’

5

Japanese

oi-kake- ‘chase after’

4

hiki-age- ‘pull up’

nige-das- ‘get away’

3

moti-age- ‘carry up’

2

oi-kake-tuduke- ‘continue to chase’, otikom- ‘fall in’, tati-agar- ‘stand up’

nuke-das- ‘slip out of’, sagasi-mawar‘search around’, tuki-otos- ‘shove off’

1

aruki-das- ‘start to walk’, de-kake- ‘go out’, hairi-kom- ‘get in’, *hane-ker- ‘jump-kick’, hasiri-das- ‘start to run’, nage-kom- ‘throw in’, nige-das- ‘get away’,*nige-hasir‘escape-run’, nige-kir- ‘get away’, suwarinaos- ‘re-sit’, tadori-tuk- ‘reach’, tatakiotos- ‘drop by beating’, tobi-nor- ‘jump onto’, *tobu-de- ‘jump-exit’, tori-modos‘regain’, ugoki-hazime- ‘begin to move’

de-kake- ‘go out’, kake-nobor- ‘run up’, kake-ori- ‘run down’, nige-kom‘take refuge in’, nige-mawar- ‘escape around’, oki-agar- ‘sit up’, sinobi-yor‘sneak up to’, tadori-tuk- ‘reach’, toridas- ‘take out’, tuk-kom- ‘plunge into’

Total:

23 types, 42 tokens

15 types, 25 tokens

Note: ‘*’ indicates that it is an ill-formed compound verb

(20) a. *Sika-ga Jon-o gake-kara ike-ni nage-komi-masi-ta. (E7) deer-nom John-acc cliff-from pond-dat throw-enter-pol-past ‘From the cliff, the deer threw (over its shoulders) the boy into the pond.’ b. Sika-wa otokonoko-o tuki-otosi-te-simai-masi-ta. (J3) deer-top boy-acc poke-drop-l-compl-pol-past ‘The deer poked down the boy.’

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These errors suggest the challenge of using compound verbs is at a lexical semantic level, i.e., finding the one with the right meaning. The learners were not expected to use compound verbs, nor were they expected to use mimetics (Prediction 2). Interestingly, four not only used mimetics (10 tokens in total) but did so in a Japanese fashion.¹⁴ There are two possible reasons for this. For one, the context of the task was story telling geared toward a children’s audience, following Seig (2004). The post-task interviews revealed that three learners actively searched for onomatopoeia so their stories would be more attractive to children. For another, some had exposure to mimetics through instruction in Japan or through Japanese media. (21) contains examples by the Japanese participants; (22) has examples by the learners. (21) a. Kaeru-kun-ga kossori garasu-no-bin-kara nuke-dasi-te … frog-add-nom mimetic glass-gen-bottle-from come.out-let.out-l ‘The froggy slipped out of the glass bottle and ...’ b. Sika-kara Ron-to Peetaa-wa ike-no-naka-e deer-from Ron-com Peter-top pond-gen-inside-to oti-te-simai-masi-ta. Bassyaan! fall-l-compl-pol-past mimetic ‘Ron and Peter fell down into the pond off the deer. Splaash!’

(J6)

(J4)

(22) a. Kiro-kun-ga kosokoso dekakeru. (E3) Kilo-add-nom mimetic go.out-npast ‘Kilo furtively went out.’ b. *Gan-to otokonoko-to inu-ga kawa-no-naka-ni (E6) mimetic-p boy-com dog-nom river-gen-inside-dat tadori-tui-ta. reach-arrive-past ‘The boy and the dog reached (intended: splashed into) the water with a bang.’

14 The ten tokens of mimetics (ten types) used by the learners were: kosokoso ‘furtively’, dondon ‘one after another’, girigiri ‘barely’, tyappun ‘a splash’, pat-to ‘in a flash’, gan-to ‘bang’, pasyaat ‘splash’, gasyan-to ‘crash’, zaburi-to ‘splash’, and yukkuri ‘slowly’. The Japanese used eight tokens of mimetics (six types): botyan ‘splash’, kossori ‘secretly’, pitat-to ‘perfectly’, basyaan ‘splash’, mukkuri ‘abruptly’, and soot-to ‘quietly’ (three tokens).

Motion event descriptions by L1 English learners   

c. Hazumi-de Danii-kun-to Sara-tyan-ga momentum-by Danny-add-com Sara-add-nom gake-kara oti-ta. (?) Tyappun! cliff-from fall-past mimetic ‘Due to the momentum, Danny and Sara fell from the cliff. Plop!’

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(E3)

As (21) shows, the Japanese natives used mimetics in two ways: as an adverbial and as a holophrase (cf. Feist 2013: 115). In (21a), the adverbial mimetic kossori ‘secretly’ modifies the manner in which the frog left the jar. In (21b), the holophrase Bassyaan! ‘Splaash!’ reproduces the sound emitted when the boy and the dog make contact with the water, adding dramatic effect. As (22) shows, the semantics of mimetics challenged the learners, even though they could syntactically use mimetics quite well. In (22a) and (22b), the mimetics are used appropriately as adverbs placed at pre-verbal positions; in (22c), the mimetic is used as a holophrase following a descriptive sentence, just like the Japanese native’s sentence discussed above (21b). While the mimetic kosokoso ‘furtively’ (22a) is used properly (the choice of the mimetic parallels the Japanese native’s choice of kossori ‘secretly’), the mimetic gan ‘bang’ in (22b) is semantically an incorrect choice to express a motion into water since it expresses a hard hit into a hard object. In (22c), the choice of mimetic is semantically inappropriate: the mimetic tyappun implies a small object falling into water; a mimetic that could encode a louder splashing sound such as bassyaan in (21b) would have been felicitous.¹⁵ The other obvious errors were also semantic: pat-to ‘in a flash’ was used to describe a motion of bees gradually coming out of the beehive (E6) (it should be buun-to ‘buzzing’); gasyan-to ‘a clank’ was used to represent the sound emitted when a beehive fell to the ground (E8) (it should be dosat-to ‘a thud’). To sum up, contrary to what is expected in Prediction 2, the study’s learners used both compound verbs and mimetics to express Manner, although their productions contained a range of semantic errors.

3.3.3 Expressing Path with multiple boundary crossings Prediction 3a suggested Japanese natives would express an extended trajectory (the ‘cliff scene’ with its two boundary crossings: (a) departure from the cliff, and (b) submersion in the water) by using a path verb per clause to express a bound15 During the post-task interview, E3 said he found tyappun in an internet dictionary when he searched for the translation equivalent of ‘splash’.

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ary crossing, repeating the process to cover the multiple boundary crossings, but learners would attempt to produce a single clause using a manner verb to express a multiple boundary crossing scene. This prediction was borne out for the former, but not the latter. All the Japanese natives included descriptions of the cliff scene, observing the “one path verb per clause” constraint: they used an intransitive path verb (oti- ‘fall’), a transitive one (otos- ‘drop’) or its compound verb version (tuki-otos-‘poke down’). A few examples are given below (emphasis added): (23) a. Gake-kara kawa-ni otos-are-te-simai-masi-ta. (J5) cliff-from river-dat drop-pass-l-compl-pol-past ‘(He) was made to fall down to the river from the cliff. ’ b. Sono-ikioi-de otokonoko-wa sita-ni oti-te-simai-masi-ta. that-speed-by boy-top below-dat fall-l-compl-pol-past Otokonoko-wa oti-ta-saki-wa ike-de… (J2) boy-top fall-past-ahead-top pond-cop.and ‘because of the momentum (of the deer), the boy fell below. The place ahead (he) fell to was a pond and … ’ (23a) contains the passivized form of the transitive verb otos- ‘drop’. In (23b), the first sentence contains the intransitive verb oti- ‘fall’. As for the learners, seven included descriptions of the cliff scene but none conformed to the predicted pattern of the compact encoding. Five instances resulted in a target-like description, containing a path verb to express a boundary crossing. (24) Kyuuni gake-no hasi-ni [sic] tomari suddenly cliff-gen edge-dat stop.and Jon-to Bobo-wa ike-ni oti-ta. (E5) John-com Bobo-top pond-dat fall-past ‘(intended) Suddenly, (it) stopped at the edge of the cliff, and John and Bobo fell into the pond.’ Two instances resulted in infelicity. (25) a. *Sika-wa Tomu-to Mari-o ike-no naka-ni nage-masi-ta. deer-top TOM-com Mari-acc pond-gen inside-dat throw-pol-past *Tomu-to mari-ga ike-no oti-ta. (E1) Tom-com Mari-nom pond-gen fall-past ‘(intended) The deer threw Tom and Mari into the pond. Tom and Mari fell into the pond.’

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b. *Sika-ga otokonoko-o nake-te [sic] inu-mo deer-top boy-acc throw-l dog-foc otokonoko-o tui-te oti-ta. (E8) boy-acc follow-l fall-past ‘(intended) The deer threw the boy and the dog also fell following (him).’ The infelicity in (25) is attributed to the fact that the manner verb (nageru ‘throw’) is used to express a boundary crossing. These learners had not yet mastered the concept that a boundary crossing must be expressed by a path verb in Japanese, an error anticipated in Prediction 1. Prediction 3b expected Japanese to focus on describing the scene-setting rather than explicitly describing the dynamic aspect of the event, whereas the learners would focus on portraying the dynamic aspect of motion. The result was mixed for the Japanese natives. Five participants used the (23a)-type description only, whereby the dynamism of Motion is highlighted as it portrays the downward movement of the protagonists. Three participants included a description of the scene-setting with a noun-modifying clause referring to the geographical configuration of the lake, as in the second sentence of (23b). This mixed result seems to reflect two styles of narration. One is a here-and-now description where the contents of the picture are recounted one by one as the event unfolds. This naturally renders the description more dynamic as in (23a). The other is a storytelling style proper where a variety of strategies are adopted to make the stories attractive: e.g., adding narrations not shown in the picture, shifting the narrator’s perspective points in-and-out of the story world (cf. Dancygier and Sweetser 2013), or as in (23b), including details on the scene-setting. The prediction was borne out for the learners, however; they all used dynamic descriptions, as in the examples below. (26) a. Kyuuni tomat-tyat-ta-kara otokonoko-to inu-tyan-ga suddenly stop-compl-past-because boy-com dog-add-nom kawa-ni oti-ta. (E6) river-dat fall-past ‘As (the deer) suddenly stopped, the boy and the dog fell into the river.’ b. Mizu-no mae-ni tomat-ta-ga water-gen before-dat stop-past-but Yuuya-to Tinii-wa ike-ni oti-kon-de-simat-ta [sic]. (E4) Yuya-com Tinny-top pond-dat fall-in-cop-compl-past ‘Though (the deer) stopped before the water, Yuya and Tinny fell into the water.’

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Both sentences in (26) have two clauses, each referring to the stopping and the falling. The use of the clause linkage markers kara ‘because’ and ga ‘but’ indicates that the stopping bears a causal relationship to the falling. The descriptions in (26) are dynamic, capturing the sequence of the movement of the protagonists one by one: the deer’s stopping, the boy’s departure from the deer’s back, and his subsequent falling downward to the water. Although two erroneously used a manner verb to express a path trajectory, five learners’ descriptions were target-like. They adopted a strategy to separate the boundary crossing events into two and expressed them individually in a simple clause. Even though they used a path verb, their overall descriptions focused on moving the Figure from one place to another. Their adoption of this method suggests they remained unaware of the availability of a rhetorical style to refer to the physical setting; for instance, using a noun-modifying clause enables narrations to imply the continued trajectory (e.g., oti-ta-saki-wa ike-de… ‘the place ahead they fell to was a pond and …’) (23b).

3.3.4 Expressing Path with the deictic component Prediction 4 expected Japanese would frequently use deictic verbs and learners would use them less frequently. The prediction is supported by the findings: the Japanese clauses contained more V-te-k- ‘V-l-come’ and V-te-ik- ‘V-l-go’ sequences (29 sequences / 126 clauses = 23 %) than the learners’ clauses (18 sequences / 223 clauses = 8 %).¹⁶ Further, two learners (E1 and E2) did not use the sequences at all, although this result must be cautiously interpreted as it is unclear whether they conformed to the prediction: i.e., they did not use the deictic complex because it was not their characteristic way of perceiving the scene or because their proficiency level prohibited them from using it. (27) shows the verbs combined with k- ‘come’ and (28), with ik- ‘go’ (the number in parentheses shows the token frequency):

16 The token frequency varied among participants: J3 used as many as 12 deictic verbs, whereas J7 used none, with the remaining participants using them at least once (i.e., once (J8), twice (J1, J2, J4), four times (J6), and six times (J5)); E6 used deictic verbs six times, two participants used them just once (E3, E5) and three (E4, E7, E8) used them three times. 17 Although the phrase yat-te-k- is lexicalized in that the literal sense of yar- ‘send’ is lost, it is included in the list as it clearly conveys the deictic sense.

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(27) Use of k- ‘come’: – Japanese: combined with 7 types of verbs (18 tokens): de- ‘exit’ (12), agar- ‘rise’ (1), hasir- ‘run’ (1), osow- ‘attack’ (1), ow- ‘chase’ (1), tuk- ‘tag’ (1), and yar- ‘send’ (1)¹⁷ – Learners: combined with 4 types of verbs (13 tokens): de- ‘exit’ (9), tob- ‘fly’ (2), atumar- ‘gather’ (1), and modor- ‘return’ (1) (28) Use of ik- ‘go’: – Japanese: combined with 5 types of verbs (11 tokens) de- ‘exit’ (4), hasir- ‘run’ (4), kaer- ‘return’ (1), kake- ‘run’ (1) and nige‘escape’ (1) – Learners: combined with 3 types of verbs (5 tokens) aruk- ‘walk’ (2), hair- ‘enter’ (1), haw- ‘crawl’ (1), and kie- ‘disappear’ (1) For both groups, (i) the most frequently used combination was de-te-k- ‘came out (toward the deictic center)’ and (ii) the combination with k- ‘come’ was more frequently used than that with ik- ‘go’ (cf. Akita, Matsumoto and Ohara 2010). Both groups used the sequence with k- ‘come’ to describe a scene of an animal’s emergence right in front of the protagonist’s eyes and the combination with ik- ‘go’ to describe a motion away from the deictic center, as exemplified in (29) and (30) respectively. (29) a. Hukuroo-ga de-te-ki-masi-ta. (J8) owl-nom exit-l-come-pol-past ‘An owl came out (toward the deictic center). ’ a. Kyuuni ana-kara hukuroo-ga de-te-ki-te … (E5) suddenly hole-from owl-nom exit-l-come-l ‘Suddenly, an owl came out of the hole (toward the deictic center) and …’ (30) a. Niwa-ni de-te-iki-masu. garden- dat exit-l-go-pol ‘(They) go outside to the garden (away from the deictic center). ’ b. Mori-made arui-te-it-te … forest-up.to walk-l-go-l ‘(They) walked to the forest (away from the deictic center) and ...’

(J3)

(E6)

The selection of verbs by the learners differed somewhat from the Japanese natives, partly because the former created errors by combining with a wrong verb, as exemplified in (31).

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(31) *Otokonoko-ga ki-no ana-ni miru-to boy-nom tree-gen hole-dat look-when hukuroo-ga ton-de-ki-te-simat-ta. own-nom fly-l-come-l-compl-past ‘When the boy looked into the hole of the tree, an owl came flying in (intended: ‘an owl popped out of the hole’).’

(E6)

(31) is infelicitous. It is intended to portray the same scene as (29a): i.e., an owl’s coming out of a tree hole right in front of the boy’s eyes. In this case, a path verb must be used, as the target of the portrayal involves a boundary crossing, but E6 used a manner verb tob- ‘fly’. This does not show an error in the use of a deictic verb per se because the movement is toward the boy (the deictic center). There was one type of infelicity in the use of a deictic verb, however, as shown in (32). (32) ?Ituka kono basyo-ni kaeru-yo. someday this place-dat return-p ‘(intended) Someday, I will return to this place.’

(E3)

(32) is grammatical but as a portrayal of the scene it is infelicitous because a deictic verb is missing. In this sentence, the presence of kono ‘this’ makes it clear that the perspective point of the narration is located at the boy. As the boy is saying he will return to this place (the deictic center) in the future, the deictic verb k- ‘come’ must be added to encode the motion toward the deictic center. E3 also missed using a deictic verb in two other places: Kaerinasai ‘Go home’ which should be Kaet-te-ki-nasai ‘Come back (here)’, and mogura-ga deta which should be mogura-ga de-te-ki-ta ‘The mole pops out (toward me)’ (see Appendix A (11) and (16) respectively). Even so, the fact that E3 could use a deictic verb accurately in the other scene (see Appendix A (21)) suggests the acquisition of deictic verbs can have multiple phases.

4 Discussion As reported in Section 3, the learner data contained descriptions both compatible (Predictions 3b and 4) and incompatible (Predictions 1, 2 and 3a) with the predictions. This mixed result tells us that the differences recognized in the two-way typology alone cannot account for all the learner data, suggesting a need to consider other factors.

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First, Predictions 1 and 3a expected the learners would produce a simple clause with a manner verb to express a boundary crossing or boundary crossings. Indeed, some errors were reflective of this prediction, supporting the view that the learners directly applied the English form-meaning mapping pattern (Manner-to-verb) to express a boundary crossing even though a Path-to-verb mapping pattern must be employed in Japanese. However, the error rate was low. Overall, the learners’ group performed similarly to the native’s group by using more path verbs such as de- ‘exit’ than manner verbs such as hasir- ‘run’ (cf. Fig. 2). This result, however unexpected, is justifiable if we consider that the learners applied their L1 knowledge, specifically the use of Latinate verbs (e.g., enter, exit) to express a boundary crossing, which parallels Japanese path verbs. This would also account for the absence of the predicted errors in a scene with multiple boundary crossings. Though this point requires fuller investigation, the present result suggests we must take into account all the available lexical resources in L1 and how they correspond to the items in L2, regardless of whether their usage is “colloquial […], frequent […, or] pervasive” (Talmy 2000b: 27, emphasis in the original). Prediction 2 expected the learners would use neither mimetics nor compound verbs, as these are absent in their L1, but this was not the case. Admittedly, they did not have a good command of them, frequently choosing a form with a wrong meaning. These errors, therefore, are not due to the difference in the form-meaning mapping pattern between English and Japanese but to the semantic intricacy inherent to these particular vocabulary items. For Predictions 3b and 4, as expected, the learners’ descriptions contained almost no utterances conforming to the style of speaking preferred by Japanese. Section 4 discusses two preferred styles of narration by Japanese: subjective construal and inclusion of descriptions of the scene-settings. To reiterate, in a subjective construal, the speaker narrates a motion by situating his/her perspective point in one of the event participants. This type of construal becomes relevant when a deictic verb appears as part of a complex predicate. For instance, if the speaker situates his/her perspective point in the protagonist who is stationary, and if s/he wants to describe the motion of the antagonist moving away from the protagonist, a deictic verb becomes obligatory (e.g., kaet-te-ik- ‘return (away from the deictic center)’). The learners’ data included fewer rate of deictic verbs as part of a complex predicate than the Japanese data, as Prediction 4 expected. Furthermore, the learners’ data lacked a sentence like (33), repeated from (10), which manifests a different type of subjective construal.

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(33) Gake-no naka-wa otos-are-ru-to cliff-gen inside-top drop-pass-npast-when soko-ni-wa mizuumi-ga ari-masi-ta. there-dat-top lake-nom exist-pol-past ‘(lit.) When he was dropped off the cliff, there was a lake there.’ (Fujii 1993: 15) Here, the narration is in a “sequential mode” achieved by the “adoption of a moving proximal perspective point with local scope of attention” (Talmy 2000a: 70): i.e., the perspective point moves as the event participant moves. The narrator’s perspective point travels to the bottom of the cliff in tandem with the boy’s motion, and the existence of lake is reported at the end of the journey as if the scene is perceived through the eyes of the boy, using an existential construction preceded by the to-conditional clause. Incidentally, (33) is illustrative of another Japanese preferred style of narration, i.e., inclusion of a description of the physical setting (cf. Slobin 2000: 130). In (33), it is not the movement of the protagonist that is elaborated, but the description of the setting on the cliff and the lake. A setting can also be expressed by a noun-modifying clause, e.g., in Otokonoko-wa oti-ta-saki-wa ike-de… ‘The place ahead (he) fell to was a pond and …’ (23b). Such descriptions were totally absent in the learner data. The non-production of these descriptions may be attributed to two factors. One is the lack of knowledge. It seems the learners had no knowledge of the fact that Japanese has a preferred style of speaking, one distinct from that of English speakers. Thus, the learners used descriptions conforming to the style of speaking preferred by the speakers of English (e.g., focus on the dynamism of motion (see (26)). The second is the structural complexity. The forms used to narrate Motion events by adopting the style preferred by Japanese are complex: a successful formation of sentences like (33) with the to-conditional or (23b) with the noun-modifier that refers to a spatial configuration requires advanced knowledge of grammar. The fact that even those who studied a year in Japan did not produce these types of sentences suggests the acquisition of descriptions conforming to the style of speaking preferred by the Japanese is challenging, to say the least. Put otherwise, as shown in Fig. 3, to produce native-like Motion event descriptions, learners must not only acquire the Japanese form-meaning mapping pattern but also learn to describe Motion events conforming to the styles of speaking, or “fashions of speaking” (Whorf 1939/1956), preferred by the Japanese. Needless to say, the learners must acquire the technical details required to use the particular form (e.g., mimetics, noun-modifying clause).

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Japanese internal complexity

Degree of correspondence in the form-meaning mapping patterns

Japanese Form – Monomorphemic verb – Compound verbs – Mimetics – Deictic verbs in a complex predicate – Noun-modifying clause – To-conditional …

– Subjective construal – Describing the scenesetting …

English Semantic primitives – Figure – Ground – Motion – Manner – Path – Boundary-crossing – Deictic component

Preferred styles of speaking

Form – Verb – Satellites – Deictic verbs …

– Objective construal – Describing the dynamism …

Degree of correspondence in the preferred styles of speaking Fig. 3: Essential components of Motion event descriptions

The process of acquisition seems affected positively or negatively by (i) the degree of correspondence between English and Japanese; i.e., the greater the difference is, the more difficult it is to acquire the item, and (ii) the complexity of the particular item (e.g., semantic complexity of mimetics); i.e., the more complex the item is, the more difficult it is to learn. The process seems further affected by other factors, including the learner’s proficiency level, the role of the instruction, as well as the learners’ familiarity with the task (e.g., experience reading and telling a story in L1), and availability of different linguistic resources in L1 going beyond the binary characteristics of V- and S-languages, to name just a few. This echoes the view that “L1 crosslinguistic influence [is] a complex phenomenon which manifests itself in multiple ways (e.g., errors, avoidance, …), and which interacts or is constrained by a number of factors” (Cadierno 2004: 42).

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5 Conclusion Following Cadierno (2004, 2008, 2010) and Cadierno and Ruiz (2006), this study argues that the theoretical framework of cognitive linguistics, particularly the two-way typology proposed by Talmy (1991, 2000b) and Slobin’s “Thinking for Speaking” hypothesis, sheds light on certain characteristics of L2 acquisition. Various production patterns by the L2 learners featured in this study suggest finegrained comparison of the similarities and differences of the source and target languages, in light of Talmy’s two-way typology and beyond, are indispensable if we are to make realistic predictions about L2 learners’ production patterns (cf. Benazzo, Flecken & Soroli 2012). The participants’ production patterns suggest that both boundary-crossing and deixis are important aspects of Path description in Japanese. They also raise questions about the relationship between the structural types and the description styles preferred by the speakers of a language (e.g., whether employment of a particular construction engenders subjective or objective construal) (cf. Hinds 1986). A cognitive linguistic account of this issue would be invaluable for future L2 research on Motion event descriptions. The study identifies key items that must be acquired for L2 learners to be able to successfully narrate Motion events. To understand whether there is a particular developmental order of acquisition (cf. Fig. 3), each item must be thoroughly investigated. Questions may include: which combinatory patterns of compound verbs are more readily acquired (e.g., Manner V1+ Path V2 vs. Path V1+ Path V2); whether the semantic type of mimetics (e.g., phonomimes vs. phenomimes) plays a role in the acquisition of Motion-event related mimetics (cf. Akita, this volume); which factor tends to lead to errors in describing a boundary crossing scene (e.g., manner type, directionality); whether restructuring “Thinking for Speaking”, from objective construal to subjective construal (cf. Ikegami 2008, this volume), can take place in the process of the acquisition of deictic verbs (cf. Yoshinari, this volume). The study demonstrates that motion is an important aspect of Japanese language instruction. The non-target-like expressions of the learners in the pilot study indicate a need for treatment at all proficiency levels, even though it remains to be determined which items should be introduced at each level. The “fashions of speaking” preferred by Japanese natives is a key concern (see Ikegami, this volume). To date, Japanese teaching materials acknowledging this issue are sparse, but it is essential for educators to be aware of the prototype of Motion event descriptions in Japanese in light of the “fashions of speaking” preferred by Japanese. Those who are writing textbooks should consider incorporating Motion event descriptions as a critical topic.

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As this study follows a limited number of learners with mixed language backgrounds, future work that unbundles S-languages (and V-languages) and focuses on monolinguals learning Japanese as a second or foreign language can offer further insights into the language-specific characteristics of describing Motion events in L2 Japanese.

Appendix A A frog story told by a learner, E3, verbatim, with no indications of errors/unnaturalness. (1)

あたたかい夜に、月が見える。 Atatakai yoru-ni tuki-ga mieru. warm night-dat moon-nom be.visible ‘On a warm night, we can see the moon.’

(2) 男の子のダニー君と犬のサラちゃんがキロ君と遊んでいる。 Otokonoko-no Danii-kun-to inu-no Sara-tyan-ga boy-gen Danny-add-com dog-gen Sara-add-nom Kiro-kun-to ason-de.iru. Kiro-add-com play-prog ‘Danny, a boy, and Sara, his dog, are playing with Kiro.’ (3) キロ君はかえるなんだ。 Kiro-kun-wa kaeru-na.n.da Kiro-add-top frog-cop ‘Kiro is a frog.’ (4) ダニー君がもう、遅くなったねと思って、すぐ電気を消してからベッド に入る。 Danii-kun-ga moo osoku nat-ta-ne-to omot-te sugu Kiro-add-nom already late become-past-p-p think-l soon denki-o kesi-te-kara beddo-ni hairu. light-acc turn.off-l-after bedo-dat enter ‘Thinking that “It is late,” Danny went to bed soon after he turned off the light.’

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(5) 寝ている間、キロ君はこそこそ出かける。 Ne-te.iru-aida Kiro-kun-wa kosokoso dekakeru. sleep-prog-while Kiro-add-top mimetic go.out ‘While they are sleeping, Kiro furtively goes out.’ (6) 太陽の光でやっと朝が来た。あれ？びんが空いている。 Taiyoo-no hikari-de yatto asa-ga ki-ta. Arett? sun-gen light-inst finally morning-nom come-past Oh Bin-ga ai-te.iru. jar-nom open-stat ‘With the sunlight, morning has finally come. Oh? The jar is open.’ (7) キロ君はどこに行ったんでしょう。 Kiro-kun-wa doko-ni it-ta-n.desyoo. Kiro-add-top where-dat go-past-I.wonder ‘I wonder where Kiro went.’ (8) 小さいいすの下にいるかも。いない。 Tiisai isu-no sita-ni iru-kamo. I-nai. small chair-gen under-dat exist-may exist-neg ‘He may be under the small chair. (No, he) is not (there).’ (9) さー、ブーツの中に？いない。サラちゃんもよく探してる。 Saa, buutu-no naka-ni. I-nai. Sara-tyan-mo yoku well boot-gen inside-dat exist-neg Sara-add-foc well sagasi-te.iru. search-prog ‘Well, (is he) inside the boot? (No, he) is not (there). Sara is also searching hard.’ (10) あっ。窓が開いているから逃げたの？ Att. Mado-ga ai-te.iru-kara nige-ta-no. Oh window-nom open-stat-because escape-past-q ‘Oh, (because) the window is open, did he escape?’

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(11) キロ君、帰りなさい！いや！サラちゃんなんでびんを被ってしまった の？ Kiro-kun, kaeri-nasai. Iya, Sara-tyan, nande bin-o Kiro-add return-imp No, Sara-add why bottle-acc kabut-te-simat-ta-no. put.on-l-compl-past-q ‘Kiro, go back! No, Sara, why did you put on the jar (on your head)?’ (12) びんを脱ぐためにサラちゃんが窓から跳ぼうと決めた。 Bin-o nugu-tameni Sara-tyan-ga mado-kara tob-oo-to kime-ta. jar-acc take.off-for Sara-add-nom window-from fly-vol-p decide-past ‘To take off the jar, Sara decided to jump from the window.’ (13) 危ないよ、サラちゃん！びんを壊してしまった。 Abunai-yo, Sara-tyan! Bin-o kowasi-te-simat-ta. Dangerous-p Sara-add jar-acc break-l-compl-past ‘Watch out, Sara! She broke the jar.’ (14) 家の近くの森に行ったんでしょうか。調べよう。お互いに“キロ君！”と 呼ぼう Tikaku-no mori-ni it-ta-n.desyoo-ka. Otagai.ni “Kiro-kun!”-to near.by-gen forest-dat go-pst-cop-p each.other Sara-add-p yob-oo. call-vol ‘(I) wonder whether she went to a near-by forest. Let’s call, “Kiro” each other’ (15) このあなにいるかな。ちょっと見てみよう。 Kono ana-ni iru-kana. Tyotto mi-te-mi-yoo. this hole-dat exist-I.wonder a.little look-l-try-vol ‘(He) may be in this hole. Let’s have a look.’ (16) でもいきなりもぐらが出た。わ！びっくりしたよ。 Demo ikinari mogura-ga de-ta. Watt, bikkuri.si-ta-yo. but suddenly mole-nom exit-past wow be.surprised-past-p ‘But suddenly, a mole came out. Wow, (you) surprised me.’ (17) 反対にサラちゃんは木の枝にはちのすを見付けた。 Hantaini Sara-tyan-wa ki-no eda-ni hati.no.su-o contrary suddenly tree-gen branch-dat beehive-acc ‘On the other hand, Sara found a beehive on a tree branch.’

mituke-ta. find-past

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(18) 風で振れている。まがまがしい気がしてるよね。 Kaze-de hure-te-iru. Magamagasii ki-ga si-te.ru-yo-ne. wind-inst shake-prog ominous feeling-nom do-stat-p-p ‘The wind is shaking (it). It is creating an ominous feeling.’ (19) この木のみきはあながある。この中には何かを見付けるかな。 Kono ki-no miki-ni-wa ana-ga aru. Kono naka-ni-wa this tree-gen trunk-dat-top hole-nom exist this inside-dat-top nanika-o mitukeru-kana. something-acc find-I.wonder ‘There is a hole in this tree trunk. I wonder if I find something inside this.’ (20) あいにくサラちゃんのえいきょうではちのすが落ちてしまった！ Ainiku Sara-tyan-no eikyoo-de hati.no.su-ga unfortnuately Sara-add-gen influence-inst beehive-nom oti-te-simat-ta. fall-l-compl-past ‘Unfortunately, due to the influence of Sara, the beehive fell (to the ground).’ (21) サラちゃん、走れ！はちが怒りそうだよ！どんどん集まってきた。 Sara-tyan, hasir-e! Hati-ga okori-soo-da-yo. Dondon Sara-add run-imp bee-nom get.angry-evid-cop-p one.after.another atumat-te-ki-ta. gather-l-come-past ‘Sara, run! It seems that the bees are going to get angry. They are gathering one after another.’ (22) ダニー君にも危ないところなんだ。 Danii-kun-ni-mo abunai tokoro-nan.da. Danny-add-dat-foc dangerous middle.of-cop ‘For Danny, too, he is in the middle of being in a danger.’ (23) ふくろうが突然に飛び出してダニー君が木から落ちさせられた。 Hukuroo-ga totuzenni tobi-dasi-te Danii-kun-ga ki-kara owl-nom suddenly jump-let.out-l Danny-add-nom tree-from oti-sase-rare-ta. fall-cause-pass-past ‘An owl suddenly popped out and he made Danny fall from the tree.’

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(24) ふくろうが大きいいわまで追いかけた。お邪魔してごめん、ふくろうさ ん。 Hukuroo-ga ookii iwa-made oi.kake-ta. Ozyama-si-te owl-nom big rock-till chase.after-past disturbance-do-l gomen, hukuroo-san. sorry owl-add ‘The owl chased (him) after as far as up to the rock. Sorry to have troubled, you, Mr. Owl.’ (25) もしこのいわを上ったらキロ君がみえるかも。キロ君！聞こえるの！？ Mosi kono iwa-o nobot-tara Kiro-kun-ga mieru-kamo. if this rock-acc climb-if Kiro-add-nom be.visible-might Kiro-kun kikoeru-no!? Kiro-add be.audible-q ‘If we climb up this rock, we may be able to see Kiro. Kiro, can you hear me?’ (26) 転ばないように枝を凭れたけどその枝は本当にしかのつのだ。 Koroba-nai-yoo.ni eda-o motare-ta-kedo sono eda-wa tumble-neg-so.that branch-acc lean-past-although that branch-top hontoo.ni sika-no tuno-dat-ta. really dear-gen horn-cop-past ‘Although he leaned on a tree branch so as not to tumble, the branch was really the deer’s horn.’ (27) 触ってからしかを起こしてしまった。 Sawat-te-kara sika-o okosi-te-simat-ta. touch-l-because dear-acc wake.up-l-comp-past ‘Because (the boy) touched the dear, he woke him up.’ (28) しかが頭を上げているところダニー君が浮かぶような気持ちを感じた。 Sika-ga atama-o age-te.iru-tokoro Danii-kun-ga ukabu-yoona dear-nom head-acc raise-prog-when Danny-add-nom float-as.if kimoti-o kanzi-ta. feeing-acc feel-past ‘When the deer was raising his head, Danny felt a sensation as if he is floating.’

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(29) サラちゃん、助けてくれ！しかが走り出した。 Sara-tyan, tasuke-te-kure. Sika-ga hasiri-dasi-ta. Sara-add help-l-please dear-nom run-begin-past ‘Sara, help me! The deer started to run.’ (30) 少し先にがけが現れた。いや！止まれ！ Sukosi saki-ni gake-ga arawre-ta. a.little ahead-dat cliff-nom appear-past ‘A little ahead, a cliff appeared. No! Stop!’

Iya! no

Toma-re! stop-imp

(31) がけのさいにぎりぎり止まったのにはずみでダニー君とサラちゃんがが けから落ちた。 Gake-no sai-ni girigiri tomat-ta-noni hazumi-de cliff-gen edge-dat mimetic stop-past-though momentum-inst Danii-kun-to Sara-tyan-ga gake-kara oti-ta. Danny-add-com Sara-add-nom cliff-from fall-past ‘Although the deer stopped at the very edge of the cliff, due to the momentum, Danny and Sara fell from the cliff.’ (32) チャップン！池に落ち込んだ。あれ？何か聞こえる。 Tyappun! Ike-ni oti-kon-da. Arett? Nanika kikoeru. mimetic pond-dat fall-in-cop oh something be.audible ‘Plop! (They) fell into the pond. Oh? I can hear something.’ (33) この音、もしかして…サラちゃん、静かにしてくれ。 Kono oto, mosikasi-te… Sara-tyan, sizuka.ni.si-te-kure. this soud possibly Sara-add be.quiet-l-please ‘This sound, it may be… Sara, please be quiet.’ (34) 音が丸太の向こうにしてる。 Oto-ga maruta-no mukooni si-te-ru. sound-nom trunk-gen over.there do-prog-npast ‘The sound comes from the other side of the tree trunk.’ (35) 段々ダニー君が丸太を登った。キロ君でしょうか。 Dandan Danii-kun-ga maruta-o nobot-ta. gradually Danny-add-nom trunk-acc climb.up-past Kiro-kun-de-syooka. Kiro-add-cop-I.wonder ‘Gradually Danny climb up the tree trunk. I wonder if it is Kiro.’

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(36) ああ。いい雰囲気だね。キロ君をやっと見付けたけど独りじゃないね。 Aa, ii hun’iki-da-ne. Kiro-kun-o yatto Oh good atmosphere-cop-p Kiro-add-acc finally mituke-ta-kedo hitori-zya-nai-ne. find-past-although alone-cop.p-neg-p ‘Oh, it is a nice atmosphere. Finally I found Kiro, but he is not alone.’ (37) ウアー。子供たちもいるよ。すごい、キロ君。 Uaa. kodomo-tati-mo iru-yo. Sugoi, Kiro-kun. wow child-pl-foc exist-p wonderful Kiro-add ‘Wow, there are children. Wonderful, Kiro.’ (38) 自分の家族に帰りたがったんでしょう。さー僕もすぐ帰らなきゃね。 Zibun-no kazoku-ni kaeri-tagat-ta-n.desyoo. Saa boku-mo sugu self-gen family-dat return-want-past-I.guess now I-foc soon kaer-anakya-ne. return-must-p ‘You wanted to come back to your own family. Now, I must go home soon.’ (39) じゃあね、キロ君！いつかこの場所に帰るよ。 Zyaane, Kiro-kun! Ituka kono basyo-ni bye Kiro-add someday this place-dat ‘Well, Kiro. I will return to this place some day.’

kaeru-yo. return-p

(40) いい日々を過ごそう！ダニー君にもキロ君にも幸せなところだった。 Ii hibi-o sugos-oo! Danii-kun-ni-mo Kiro-kun-ni-mo good days-acc spend-vol Danny-add-dat-foc Kiro-add-dat-focu siawasena tokoro-dat-ta. happy place-cop-past ‘Let’s spend good days! For Danny and Kiro, it was a happy place.’

Acknowledgements Part of the content of this paper was presented at the Cognitive and Functional Approach to the Study of Japanese as a Second Language Symposium held at University of Calgary in June 2013. I thank the participants for their valuable comments. This paper has greatly benefited from insightful remarks by the three anonymous reviewers of the volume as well as two anonymous reviewers of my

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earlier version. I am also grateful to the student volunteers who consented to participate in the pilot study, taking on this extra task independently of their course work. Thanks also go to Elizabeth Thompson for her editorial suggestions. The remaining errors and shortcomings are, of course, solely my responsibility.

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Hasegawa, Yoko. 1996. A study of Japanese clause linkage: The connective -TE in Japanese. Stanford: CSLI & Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers. Hinds, John. 1986. Situation vs. Person Focus. Tokyo: Kurosio syuppan. Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 2008. Subjective construal as a ‘fashion of speaking’ in Japanese. In Gómez González, María de los Ángeles, J. Lachlan Mackenzie & Elsa M. González Álvarez (eds.), Current trends in contrastive linguistics: Functional and cognitive perspectives, 227–250. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Inagaki, Shunji. 2001. Motion verbs with goal PPs in the L2 acquisition of English and Japanese, Studies in Second Language Acquisition 2(2). 153–170. Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of cognitive grammar, volume 2, descriptive application. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Matsumoto, Yo. 1996. Complex predicates in Japanese: A syntactic and semantic study of the notion ‘word’. Stanford: CSLI Publications & Tokyo: Kurosio Publishers. Matsumoto, Yo. 1998. Nihongo-no goiteki fukugo doshi-ni okeru doshi-no kumiawase [Combinations of verbs in lexical compounds in Japanese]. Gengo Kenkyu 114. 37–83. Mayer, Mercer. 1969. Frog, where are you?. New York: Dial Press. Noguchi, Hiromi. 2011. Talmy’s dichotomous typology and Japanese lexicalization patterns of motion events. Teachers College, Columbia University Working Papers in TESOL & Applied Linguistics 11(1). 29–47. Ohara, Kyoko Hirose. 2002. Linguistic encodings of motion events in Japanese and English: a preliminary look. Hiyoshi Review of English Studies 41. 122–153. Ohara, Kyoko Hirose. 2003. Manner of motion in Japanese: not every verb-framed language is poor in manner information. Paper presented at the 8th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, University of La Rioja, Spain, July 22. Seig, Mary. 2004. Episodic boundaries in Japanese and English narratives. In C.L. Moder & A. Martinovic-Zic (eds.), Discourse across languages and cultures, 227–250. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Slobin, Dan Isaac. 1987. Thinking for speaking. Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS) 13. 435–444. Slobin, Dan Isaac. 1996a. From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking”. In John Gumperz & Stephen C. Levinson (eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity, 70–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Slobin, Dan Isaac. 1996b. Two ways to travel: Verbs of motion in English and Spanish. In Masayoshi Shibatani & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), Grammatical constructions: Their form and meaning, 195–219. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Slobin, Dan Isaac. 2000. Verbalized events: A dynamic approach to linguistic relativity and determinism. In Susanne Niemeier & René Dirven (eds.), Evidence for linguistic relativity, 107–138. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Slobin, Dan Isaac. 2004. The many ways to search for a frog: Linguistic typology and the expression of motion events. In Sven Strömqvist & Ludo Verhoeven (eds.), Relating events in narrative: Vol. 2. Typological and contextual perspectives, 219–257. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Slobin, Dan Issac. 2006. What makes manner of motion salient? Explorations in linguistic typology, discourse, and cognition. In M. Hickmann & S. Robert (eds.), Space in languages: Linguistic systems and cognitive categories, 59–81. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Slobin, Dan Issac, & Nini Hoiting. 1994. Reference to movement in spoken and signed language: Typological considerations. Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS) 20. 487–505.

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Spring, Ryan & Kaoru Horie. 2013. How cognitive typology affects second language acquisition: A study of Japanese and Chinese learners of English. Cognitive Linguistics 24(4). 689–710. Sugiyama, Yukiko. 2005. Not all verb-framed languages are created equal: the case of Japanese. Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS) 31. 299–310. Talmy, Leonard. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and lexical description: Grammatical categories and the lexicon, 36–149. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, Leonard. 1991. Path to Realisation: A typology of event conflation. Berkeley Linguistics Society (BLS) 17. 480–520. Talmy, Leonard. 2000a. Toward a cognitive semantics, Volume I: Concept structuring systems. Cambridge, MA & London, England: MIT Press. Talmy, Leonard. 2000b. Toward a cognitive semantics Volume II: Typology and process in concept structuring. Cambridge, MA & London, England: MIT Press. Toratani, Kiyoko. 2012a. The role of sound-symbolic forms in Motion event descriptions: The case of Japanese. Review of Cognitive Linguistics 10. 90–132. Toratani, Kiyoko. 2012b. L2 Japanese learners’ response to a frog story elicitation task. Journal CAJLE 13. 115–134. Whorf, Benjamin Lee. 1939/1956. The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language. In John B. Carroll (ed.), Language, thought, and reality: selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, 134–159. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Wu, Shu-Ling. 2011. Learning to express motion events in an L2: The case of Chinese. Language Learning 61. 414–454. Yoshinari, Yuko. 2014. What is a suitable Japanese expression for describing Motion events? A comparison between Japanese native speakers and intermediate Japanese learners. Journal CAJLE 15. 21–40. Yoshioka, Keiko & Eric Kellerman. 2006. Gestural introduction of Ground reference in L2 narrative discourse. IRAL 44. 173–195.

Yuko Yoshinari

11 Influence of L1 English on the descriptions of motion events in L2 Japanese with focus on deictic expressions Abstract: In the linguistic typology of motion events, it is widely recognized that the semantic components of path and manner information are encoded differently depending on typological language groups. For L2 learners, whose target language is typologically different from their native language, such as English speakers learning Japanese, previous studies found that linguistic methods of encoding and structuring information in L2 are influenced by L1 patterns. The remaining issue is that how and in what extent typological and grammatical differences between source and target languages affect the expression of motion in L2 acquisition. To examine this, we administered video clips as the stimuli and elicited utterances from three groups: native speakers of Japanese (JL1) and English (EL1), and L1 English learners of L2 Japanese (JL2). The results revealed that each language has specific patterns of expressions describing motion events, and JL2’s encoding patterns have similarities and differences with both JL1 and EL1. By focusing on methods of marking semantic components in linguistic forms, we concluded that differences in “thinking-for-speaking” (Slobin 1996) and grammatical structures of a target language lead to considerable difficulties for the L2 learners to express deictic information naturally. Keywords: typological and grammatical differences, motion events, Deixis, L1 influence

1 Introduction Researchers have long recognized that first language (L1) influences second language acquisition (SLA) for better or worse. Potential influence from L1 is decisively different from L1 acquisition. Previous studies have focused on what kind of L1 features affect second language (L2), in what cases L1 influence occurs, and so on (Gass and Selinker 1983; Jarvis 2000; Kellerman 1995; Odlin 1989). Scholars have observed L1 influence in various linguistics subfields, such as phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics. Several studies have indicated when and how L1 influence occurs, as well as what aspects of language acqui-

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sition are concerned. L1 influence has both positive and negative effects, and much attention has been paid to the latter, especially in error analysis research. Many observers have investigated L2 grammatical errors related to L1 influence; however, little research has examined expressions that are grammatically correct but that seem slightly unnatural to native speakers. We can evaluate whether expressions describing events are natural or unnatural by observing tendencies in native speakers’ language use. They choose a suitable expression to describe a particular event from among various expressions. Their linguistic usage patterns, such as using a particular grammatical structure, lexical item, etc., constitute preferred expressions. Many studies have addressed the expressions used in SLA to describe motion events (Berman and Slobin 1994; Brown and Gullberg 2011; Choi and Lantolf 2008; Inagaki 2001; Larrañaga et al. 2012; Negueruela et al. 2004; Slobin 1996; Stam 2006). Most of their frameworks are based on Talmy’s typological classification of motion events, which has been very influential (Talmy 1985, 1991, 2000). A motion event, according to Talmy (1985), is the movement of some entity through space. It includes several components: Motion, Figure (the moving object), Ground (reference object(s) in relation to which the figure moves), Path (the direction of the motion), and Manner (the way the motion is performed). Languages differ in how these components are realized in surface forms. In addition, Talmy suggested that languages can be categorized into two groups on the basis of where they express Path: verb-framed languages (V-languages) and satelliteframed languages (S-languages). V-languages (e.g., Spanish, French, Japanese) encode Path motion in the main verb in a sentence, while S-languages (e.g., German, Russian, English) encode Path in a satellite, that is, “the grammatical category of any constituent other than a noun-phrase or prepositional-phrase complement that is in sister relation to the verb root” (Talmy 2000: 102). Slobin and colleagues used Talmy’s typological framework of lexicalization patterns to research various languages (Berman and Slobin 1994; Slobin 1996, 2000). They examined the production of oral narratives elicited by means of a wordless picture book, the “Frog story” (Mayer 1969). In particular, Berman and Slobin (1994) confirmed and developed Talmy’s framework by examining an extensive range of languages using data from native speakers of all ages. They found that preferred methods of encoding motion events were specific to the typological groups. In addition, Slobin (1996) proposed the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis, which maintains that “each native language has trained its speakers to pay different kinds of attention to events and experiences when talking about them. This training is carried out in childhood and is exceptionally resistant to restructuring in adult second-language acquisition” (p. 89).

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In view of linguistic typology and the thinking-for-speaking hypothesis, researchers have conducted a great deal of SLA research on motion events (Brown and Gullberg 2011; Cadierno and Lund 2004; Choi and Lantolf 2008; Hendriks and Hickmann 2011; Larrañaga et al. 2012; Negueruela et al. 2004; Stam 2006). Most of the research concerns the expressions of motion events by L2 learners whose target and source languages are typologically different. SLA studies of motion events have demonstrated how L2 speakers express semantic components in linguistic form and whether thinking-for-speaking is adapted to a target language or not (Cadierno 2004; Cadierno and Ruiz 2006; Navarro and Nicoladis 2005). However, previous studies seem to be disposed towards specific target languages. Germanic languages like English (as a representative of S-languages) and Romance languages like Spanish (as V-languages) have been well researched. Little research, however, has investigated Japanese, our target language (Brown and Gullberg 2011; Inagaki 2001). Linguists cannot always classify a language easily as either an S-language or V-language. Japanese has language-specific patterns for encoding deictic information. Most previous studies did not pay attention to deictic information, which we term “Deixis”, as semantic components of motion separated from the Path component. Deixis is deictic Path in relation to the position of the speaker, that is, “direction toward the speaker” and “direction away from the speaker”. Talmy (1985, 2000) and most previous studies treated Deixis as a Path component with non-deictic path. However, some studies pointed out that directionality is a unique characteristic of some languages, unlike non-deictic path (Koga et al. 2008; Matsumoto forthcoming; Pavlenko 2010). In particular, Koga et al. (2008), which compared a parallel-corpus data of four languages (Japanese, English, German, Russian), revealed that Japanese reserves the main verb slot for deictic information that, although not obligatory, is frequently encoded. In addition, the data indicated that Japanese frequently encodes deictic information in combined verb forms like complex predicates that are special Japanese grammatical forms (see Section 2). When we take into account these studies of Japanese, which has not been studied well as a V-language, we can note that Deixis is regarded as one of the semantic components of motion events comparable to Manner and Path, and the grammatical difference to realize semantic components in surface forms between source and target languages. The current study address Japanese motion expressions, a topic that few SLA researchers have explored, and probes the possibility of the influence of typological and grammatical differences on expressions of self-agentive motion¹ by L1 1 In this study, we address only self-agentive motions in which the moving object (i.e., a human being or animal) moves somewhere using his or her body with the intent to do so.

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English learners of L2 Japanese. Expressions of motion events show the typological differences between English and Japanese from the point of view of lexicalization and thinking-for-speaking (Talmy 1985, 2000; Slobin 1996). We demonstrate how and how often L1 English learners of L2 Japanese map semantic components of motion onto linguistic forms by comparing the tendencies of native Japanese and English speakers. Especially, we focus on deictic information separated from Path components, which previous studies did not focus on in L2 acquisition. The structure of this study is as follows: Section 2 provides expressions of motion events in English and Japanese. We clarify the similarities and differences in the lexicalization patterns in the description of motion events. Section 3 shows what we want to reveal in our study and describes the experiment procedure. Section 4 shows the results, and Section 5 discusses how typological and grammatical differences between a source and target languages affect L2 acquisition. Section 6 ends with a summary of the study and a discussion of directions for future research.

2 Expressions of motion events in English and Japanese Talmy, Slobin, and other researchers analyze expressions of motion events in terms of which components (mainly Path and Manner) are realized in surface forms and how ways of encoding differ across languages. English, as exemplified in (1a), marks Manner in the main verb and Path in a satellite such as a preposition. On the other hand, Japanese, as in (1b), conflates motion and path in verbs. That is to say, English as an S-language and Japanese as a V-language are typologically different. (1)

a. John ran into the room. b. John-ga kakeaside John-NOM run(ADV)

heya-ni hait-ta.² room-to enter-PST

This typological framework seems reasonable; however, there are many ways of encoding the same motion event. For example, English speakers can also use (2a) 2 The abbreviations used in the examples are as follows: ACC = accusative case marker, ADV = adverbial, CONJ = conjunctive particle, GEN = genitive case marker, NOM = nominative case marker, PST = past tense, SG = singular, TOP = topic marker. Items in the head position (i.e., main verbs) are underlined.

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to describe for event of (1), as a V-language does, with Path encoded in the main verb. Similarly, Japanese permits (2b), which, like S-languages, encodes Manner in the main verb, though there are restrictions on the combination of Manner verbs with directional prepositional phrases. (2) a. John entered the room running. b. John-ga heya-ni hasit-ta. John-NOM room-to run-PST In this study, we will take a close look at the expressions of motion events in Japanese and English. To this end, we use the terms by Matsumoto (forthcoming), namely, “head path coding” vs. “head-external path coding” languages as an alternative to the V- and S-languages, respectively, wherever applicable. This characterization enables us to offer a more precise description than the distinction of “satellite” vs. “verb” (cf. Matsumoto 2003: 408) as Japanese has a variety of means of expressing a semantic component of motion events that appear at different syntactic positions. Following this consideration, we assume that the head position is occupied by the main verb or main verb root, and head-external positions (outside the head position) are occupied by elements such as the nonfinite verb of compound forms, adverbials, and adnominals. In the first place, we will examine the Japanese expressions in detail. There are various methods of mapping the semantic components of motion events onto surface forms using verbs, adverbs, locational nouns (e.g., naka ‘inside’, soto ‘outside’), and postpositional particles (e.g., ni ‘to’, kara ‘from’). Verbs are not only expressed by simple main verbs (e.g., aruku ‘walk’, deru ‘exit’) and subordinate forms (e.g., hasiri-nagara, ‘with running’, hasit-te ‘running’), but also by combined forms such as compound verbs (e.g., kake-agaru ‘run up’, hasiri-saru ‘run away’) and complex predicates (e.g., hasit-te iku ‘go running’, oyoi-de wataru ‘swim across’). It is important to determine which element is the head in a verbal complex. In this study, we make it a rule to treat the last verb in compound verbs and complex predicates as the head position in view of the righthand-head rule. As an example, the complex predicate hasit-te noboru ‘run up’ consists of a Path verb (noboru ‘ascend’) that is the head and a Manner verb (hasit-te ‘running’) that is a non-head element. In terms of the description of self-agentive motion events, Japanese is a head path coding language; this means it typically codes Path in the main verb, as underlined in (1b). Additionally, Japanese has specific features in mapping semantic components onto surface forms. First, Manner may not be expressed at all, or when expressed, it is frequently placed in non-head positions of combined forms or subordinate clause. For example, the manner of motion ‘run’ is

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marked in adverbs like in (1b), subordinate forms like in (3a), and the non-head position of complex predicates like in (3b). However, it cannot be expressed in the head position of complex predicates combined with Path verbs; see (3c). Like the compound verb in (4), Manner is frequently expressed in the first member of combined forms, that is, head-external positions. (3) a. John-wa hasit-te heya-ni John-TOP run-CONJ room-to b. John-wa heya-ni hasit-te John-TOP room-to run-CONJ c. *John-wa heya-ni hait-te John-TOP room-to enter-CONJ ‘John ran into the room.’

hait-ta. enter-PST hait-ta. enter-PST hasit-ta. run-PST

(4) John-wa kaidan-o kake-agat-ta John-TOP stairs-ACC run-ascend-PST ‘John ran up the stairs.’ However, Manner can also be marked in the simple main verb as in (2b), though there is a constraint depending on the types of manner-of-motion verbs with goal phrases, as shown by the ungrammaticality of (5). (5) *John-ga heya-ni arui-ta. John-NOM room-to walk-PST ‘John walked into the room.’ Second, sentences can map Path in many ways. For this, specific characters appear in a unique way together with various morphosyntactic devices. Path is conflated with motion in head positions and also marked in head-external positions such as postposition phrases (6a), like a locational noun and postpositional particle (6b). Path components are mapped in several forms and several times in the sentence. According to Sinha and Kuteva (1995), a single semantic component can be expressed by more than surface forms. With regard to Path components in particular, Brown and Gullberg (2011) pointed out that Japanese speakers stacked significantly more Path expressions per clause than English speakers. (6) a. John-wa John-TOP

heya-ni room-to

hait-ta. enter-PST

Deictic expressions in L2 Japanese   

b. John-wa heya-no-naka-ni John-TOP room-GEN-inside-to ‘John entered the room.’

   281

hait-ta. enter-PST

Path can be expressed in the head position without constraints in co-occurrence with Manner in a complex predicate, like (3b). However, when the motion event includes deictic information, the head slot is reserved for a deictic verb, as in (7a). Path cannot hold the head position of a complex predicate like (7b). Furthermore, it is not possible for Path to be expressed in the main verb and deictic information to be expressed in a head-external position such as in the directional phrase watasino-hooni ‘towards me’ in (7c). What these examples demonstrate is that deictic information used to describe motion events in Japanese deserves careful attention. (7) a. John-wa heya-ni hait-te ki-ta. John-TOP room-to enter-CONJ come-PST b. *John-wa heya-ni ki-te hait-ta. John-TOP room-to come-CONJ enter-PST c. *John-wa watasi-no-hooni heya-ni hait-ta. John-TOP 1SG-GEN-toward room-to enter-PST ‘John came into the room.’ Third, this study considers Deixis to be a language-specific feature of Japanese and regards it as one semantic component of motion events by separating it from Path. Japanese speakers prefer to express Deixis as a head using not only simple verbs (e.g., iku/kuru ‘go/come’) like (8a), but also complex predicates (e.g., V-te iku/V-te kuru ‘go V-ing/come V-ing’) like (8b). (8) a. John-wa kooen-ni it-ta. John-TOP park-to go-PST ‘John went to the park.’ b. John-wa heya-kara de-te John-TOP room-from exit-CONJ ‘John came out of the room.’

ki-ta. come-PST

In a complex predicate, the head position, that is, the final verb, is reserved for Deixis. A combination of Path+Deixis components in one motion event, for example, hait-te kuru ‘come entering’ is allowed, but *ki-te hairu ‘enter coming’ is not allowed, as shown in (7b). Besides, Manner+Deixis is expressed in hasit-te kuru ‘come running’, and *ki-te hasiru ‘run coming’ is not allowed. In addition, for motion events including Manner, Path, and Deixis in combined forms, Deixis

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almost always occupies the head position, as in (9). From these examples, we can conclude that Deixis has priority over Manner and Path in the competition for head position. (9) John-ga heya-ni hasit-te hait-te ki-ta. John-NOM room-to run-CONJ enter-CONJ come-PST ‘John came running into the room.’ Japanese also express Deixis in the head-external position, for example, in adverbs such as kotira ‘here’ in (10a) and prepositional phrases such as watasino-hooni ‘towards me’ or watasi-kara-hanarete ‘away from me’ in (10b, 10c). What is important in expressing deictic information in the head-external position is to place a deictic verb in the head position simultaneously for natural expressions. (10) a. Onnanohito-ga kotira-ni ki-ta. Woman-NOM here-to come-PST ‘A woman came here.’ b. Onnanohito-ga watasi-no-hooni arui-te Woman-NOM 1SG-GEN-toward walk-CONJ ‘A woman walked to/towards me.’ c. Onnanohito-ga watasi-kara-hanarete it-ta. Woman-NOM 1SG-from-away go-PST ‘A woman went away from me.’

ki-ta. come-PST

In the second place, we will account for English motion expressions. English has forms for the semantic components of motion such as verbs, adverbs, prepositions, and particles. The English canonical pattern conflates motion and manner in the main verb, and Path is expressed by particles that accompany the verb (e.g., up, out) and prepositional phrases (e.g., into the room). Therefore, typologically, English is categorized as an S-language and head-external path coding language. However, Path verbs (e.g., enter, climb) and Deictic verbs (e.g., go, come) can also achieve the head position. That is, there is a competition as to which component occupies the head position. Actually, English speakers favor more verbs of motion encoding Manner in the main verb as S-language-specific patterns (Berman and Slobin 1994; Slobin 1996; Talmy 1985). Deixis, it is rarely expressed in a participle (??John ran coming.) while Manner can be expressed by a participle (e.g., John came running.) and deictic information is expressed by adverbs (e.g., here, there) and by prepositional phrases (e.g., towards me, away from me) except for verbs. A comparison of the lexicalization patterns of English and Japanese shows that English expresses motion events using the typical S-language structure, while

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Japanese has not only a V-language pattern but also contains the original feature of mostly expressing deictic information in the head position rather than other Path components (Koga et.al. 2008). Besides, Japanese uses a complex structure to encode the semantic components of motion events, but English does not have the same linguistic means. Therefore, it should be expected that L1 English speakers of L2 Japanese face difficulties caused by typological and grammatical differences in their source and target language. They have to learn a new way of thinking-for-speaking and new linguistic methods of realizing semantic components in surface forms because of the Japanese language-specific way of describing motion events. In this way, it must be more difficult for L1 English speakers to learn Japanese than to learn target languages not only in the same typological group, like Danish or Polish, but also in a different group, like Spanish or Italian. In this study, based on the hypothesis that the thinking-for-speaking perspective of L1 has an influence on L2 descriptions of motion events, we probe the question of what is an L1 influence and how it appears on surface forms. We examine the expression of self-agentive motion events by L1 English speakers of L2 Japanese, comparing with their source and target languages. Considering L1 influence, we could predict that their L2 Japanese expressions encode Manner in the main verb, do not have complex predicates, and express less Deixis. In contrast, there is also a possibility that they adapt to the different linguistic typological group, and therefore, we would see various expressions with complex predicates of compound verbs showing Deixis in L2 Japanese descriptions. L2 learners could observe the thinking-for-speaking perspective of the target language and reconstruct their perspective accordingly. There is a possibility that L2 learners acquire not only the linguistic ability but also thinking-for-speaking perspective of the target language.

3 Research design and methodology 3.1 Method The data for this research were elicited using video stimuli from a collaborative research project of the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Japanese and Typology of Linguistic Expressions for Motion Events: A Crosslinguistic Experimental Study with a Focus on Deixis (Matsumoto, Yo, project leader). The research participants watched 52 clips of various motion events including not only self-agentive motions but also caused and visual motions. They were asked to imagine themselves in each video clip and to describe what they see immedi-

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ately afterwards. We tape-recorded their utterances and subsequently transcribed them for analysis. The process of data coding was based on the specific criterion for comparison of various languages as described in Section 3.3.

3.2 Participants Three groups of participants took part in the study: native speakers of Japanese (JL1), native speakers of English (EL1) and L1 English speakers of L2 Japanese at an intermediate proficiency level (JL2). There were 12 native Japanese speakers (8 female and 4 male undergraduate students, all in their 20s) from two universities in the western and central areas of Japan. The native English speakers consisted of 23 graduate and undergraduate students from several universities in the United States (12 female and 11 male students, all in their 20s).³ The third group, JL2, consisted of seven learners of L2 Japanese (6 female and 1 male foreign student, all in their 20s) from two universities in the western and middle areas of Japan. All were native English speakers from the United States, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada studying Japanese as their L2.⁴

3.3 Materials and data analysis We chose the data of 27 video clips of motion events that each included a combination of one of three manners (WALK, RUN, SKIP), three paths (TO, INTO, UP), and three deictic directions (TOWARD S (speaker), AWAY FROM S, NEUTRAL). The TOpath had a bicycle as its Ground, the INTO-path had a pavilion, and the UP-path had stairs. The clips combined each type of manner, path, and deictic information. For example, clip (A) was a combination of RUN-manner, INTO-path, and the direction of away from the speaker (AWAY FROM S). It showed a man running into the pavilion away from the camera (as the speaker). For the combination WALKmanner, TO-path, and NEUTRAL direction, clip (B) showed a woman walking on the road to the bicycle, and the viewpoint was from a neutral position, like in (B). Clip (C), which consisted of SKIP-manner, UP-path, and TOWARD S, showed a man skipping up the stairs from the bottom to the top, where the camera (speaker) is.

3 EL1 data were collected from our collaborative research project (Akita, Kimi, and Mano, Miho were in charge of the English-language research). 4 Most of them had achieved an N2 grade on the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) or similar ability.

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(a) /RUN×INTO×AWAY FROM S/ ⁵

(b) /WALK×TO×NEUTRAL/

(c) /SKIP×UP×TOWARD S/ Fig. 1: Examples of video clips from the experiment

5 The symbol / / indicates the meaning of the situation. For example, /TO/ means the situation including components of the TO-path.

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At the beginning of the experiment, we explained to the participants that they would watch movie clips showing actions or motion of various persons or objects. We asked them to imagine that the people in the movies were their friends and that they were right there in the movie scene, watching the event happen. After each clip, they gave an oral description of what they had seen. In the analysis of these descriptions, we counted how many times each semantic component of motion events (Manner, Path, Deixis) was expressed. We tagged each description with the components it encoded and marked it as the head position or not (head-external position). We found that the participants used various types of expressions, and these expressions did not always realize all three components. Moreover, there was variation in terms of which components appeared in the head position. We will give examples to demonstrate the findings. To describe clip (A), which was combination of /RUN×INTO×AWAY FROM S/, the participants used expressions such as (11). (11a) expresses Deixis in the head position, with Manner and two Paths in head-external positions as the adverb, postposition, and non-head position of a complex predicate. Example (11b) shows Path in the head position and Path and Manner in the head-external positions, while the deictic component is ignored. (11) a. Otokonohito-ga kakeaside kyuukeisyo-ni hait-te it-ta. Man-NOM run(ADV) pavilion-to enter-CONJ go-PST Manner Path Path Deixis b. Otokonohito-ga hasit-te kyuukeisyo-ni hait-ta Man-NOM run-CONJ pavilion-to enter-PST Manner Path Path ‘A man ran into the pavilion.’ Beyond that, for clip (B), which is a combination of /WALK×TO×NEUTRAL/, we can find the pattern that Manner is coded in the head while Path is in the headexternal position (12a). Surprisingly, Japanese sometimes shows Deixis in sentences like (12b); nevertheless, the situation has no deictic information. (12) a. Onnanohito-ga Woman-NOM

zitensya-no-tokoro-made bicycle-GEN-place-till Path b. Onnanohito-ga zitensya-no-tokoro-ni Woman-NOM bicycle-GEN-place-to Path ‘A woman walked to the bicycle.’

arui-ta. walk-PST Manner arui-te it-ta. walk-CONJ go-PST Manner Deixis

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For clip (C), which is a combination of /SKIP×UP×TOWARD S/, Deixis is expressed in the head position, while Manner and Path are expressed in the head-external position (13a). In (13b), Deixis is expressed two times, in the head and head-external position. (13) a. Otokonohito-ga sukippude kaidan-o nobot-te ki-ta. Man-NOM skip(ADV) stairs-ACC ascend-CONJ come-PST Manner Path Deixis b. Otokonohito-ga sukippusi-nagara watasi-no-hooni Man-NOM skip-CONJ 1SG-GEN-toward Manner Deixis kaidan-o nobot-te ki-ta. stairs-ACC ascend-CONJ come-PST Path Deixis ‘A man came up the stairs skipping.’

4 Results The participants’ expressions differed in terms of which components were in the head position and how often each component was expressed in a sentence. Consequently, we analyzed the Japanese data from JL1 and JL2, and English data from EL1.

4.1 Overall tendencies of the three groups Firstly, we examine the overall frequency with which the semantic components (Manner, Path, Deixis) are encoded in a sentence. The results show which components each group expresses in surface forms frequently and whether the tendency of JL2 is similar to the target or source language. Fig. 2 indicates how frequently Manner, Path, and Deixis are expressed per clip, regardless of the linguistic forms. We counted each component in sentences like (11)–(13) and calculated the average number of appearances of each component.

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Mean number

1,5 Manner

1

Path

0,5

Deixis

0 JL1

JL2

EL1

Fig. 2: Mean number of expressions of Manner/Path/Deixis per clip for native Japanese speakers (JL1), L1 English learners of L2 Japanese (JL2), and native English speakers (EL1)

Before analyzing the data, we should account for the finding that Path was more frequently encoded than the other two components in all three groups, showing more than one instance (JL1: 1.35, JL2: 1.08, EL1: 1.1). As we mentioned in Section 2, Path especially tends to be coded multiple times. In the data, we often observed descriptions expressing two or three Paths in one sentence, as in (6). Having multiple Path expressions in one sentence was a common pattern, especially in Japanese. Therefore, in our results, the mean number of instances of Path encoding was higher than those of other components. In order to investigate the features of utterances by the three groups, we conducted statistical analysis using a chi-square test. This revealed a significant difference between the groups (χ2 = 100.79, p < .001). A residual analysis showed that Deixis was encoded significantly more frequently by JL1 (adjusted standardized residual = 8.53, p < .001), and the mean score of Manner was significantly higher in EL1 (adjusted standardized residual = 6.75, p < .001). These findings show that native Japanese speakers frequently express Deixis, while native English speakers frequently express Manner (JL1: Manner 0.84, Deixis 1.1, EL1: Manner 0.97, Deixis 0.44). This result ascertains the difference in expressing semantic components in surface forms between the two languages; that is, English speakers tend to express Manner, and Japanese speakers tend to express Deixis.

4.2 Lexicalization pattern of the head position Secondly, we examine which semantic components occupy the head position. Based on the data, we can probe the typological tendencies of each language. In accordance with previous studies, we can predict that JL1 will exhibit the tendencies of V-languages (i.e., head path coding) and EL1 will demonstrate the tendencies of S-languages (i.e., head-external path coding). Moreover, given

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that L1 thinking-for-speaking remains in L2 production, called the L1 influence, we predict that there will be a difference between JL1 and JL2 because Japanese and English are categorized into different typological groups. Fig. 3 indicates the ratio of expressing semantic components in the head position (i.e., main verb root).

JL1

Manner Path

JL2

Deixis

EL1

Other 0%

20%

40%

60%

80% 100%

Fig. 3: Ratio of each semantic component in the head position in JL1, JL2, and EL1⁶

One of the notable features of JL1’s oral production is the predominant usage rate of Deixis (88.9 %). Adopting Talmy’s typological framework, which includes Deixis in Path components, we see that JL1 almost always encoded Path in the general meaning in the head position (Deixis 88.9 % + Path 9.9 % = 98.8 %). Namely, Japanese as spoken by JL1 is doubtless a V-language in Talmy’s framework. Besides, the English utterances by EL1 also show the typical S-language tendency of expressing Manner most frequently in the head position (87.4 %). We can find a typological difference between Japanese and English on the lexicalization of the head position, as previous studies pointed out. However, what is important for this study is that we divided Path into deictic and non-deictic components. By focusing on Deixis, we revealed the specific lexicalization pattern of native Japanese speakers, that is, their outstanding preference for expressing Deixis. From the analyses above (Figs. 2 and 3), we can conclude that the production pattern of JL1 is characterized by expressing Deixis and that of EL1 is characterized by expressing Manner. Thus, we can ascertain a typological difference between English and Japanese. As for JL2, especially in Fig. 3, JL2 production patterns take a middle position between the target language (Japanese of JL1) and the source language (English of EL1) and are affected by them. It is quite likely that the ratio of expressing Manner in JL2 (37.6 %) is affected by L1 given that there is very little

6 “Other” in Fig. 3 means cases in which the main verb was not encoded by a semantic component of motion.

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use of manner verbs in JL1 (1.2 %). On the other hand, JL2 encoded Deixis (33.3 %) with a higher ratio than EL1 (5.8 %). We can predict that JL2 has similarities and differences with L1 English and L2 Japanese concerning with Manner and Deixis. Next, we scrutinize the tendency of mentioning the subcategories of manner and deictic components in order to verify the similarities and differences between the three groups in more detail.

4.3 Frequency of expressing Manner The results of analysis indicate that Japanese learners (JL2) express Manner in their description of motion events more frequently than native speakers (JL1). In our experiments, we set up three types of Manner, WALK, SKIP, and RUN. Fig. 4 compares the mentioning rates between the three groups of participants in order to investigate whether there is any difference between the types of manner they express. % 100 JL1 JL2

50

EL1 0 /WLK/

/RUN/

/SKP/

Fig. 4: Types of Manner and mentioning rates in JL1, JL2, and EL1

Fig. 4 shows how each Manner component is mentioned in each clip including particular Manner scenes, regardless of linguistic forms. For example, /WLK/ means the nine clips covering the walking scenes. The results show how these types of manner are expressed in each clip. In the case of double specification of Manner, like /SKP/ (14), we counted these cases as a single instance, regardless of the linguistic forms and numbers per clip, and in this manner obtained each mentioning rate. (14) Tomodati-ga Friend-NOM

pyonpyon sukippusi-nagara nobot-te ki-ta. skip(ADV) skip-CONJ ascend-CONJ come-PST Manner Manner Path Deixis ‘A friend skipped up (the stairs).’

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As Fig. 4 indicates, the English utterances of EL1 show the typical tendency of S-languages, i.e., mentioning the Manner component (/WLK/: 85.5 %, /RUN/: 98.1 %, /SKP/: 98.1 %). To some extent, the percentage of expression is lower for /WLK/ than others in this group; however, it is higher than the percentage JL1 (45.4 %) and JL2 (47.6 %). We can see almost identical mentioning rates between JL1 and JL2 concerning Manner. While /RUN/ (JL1: 97.2 %, JL2: 87.3 %) and / SKP/ (JL1: 95.4 %, JL2: 85.7 %) are mentioned frequently in the descriptions of each scene, the percentage of utterances that mention /WLK/ is less than 50 %. In Section 2, we stated that head path coding languages like Japanese may not express Manner at all, or express it in the head-external positions. Concerning walking-manner only, it seems that the Japanese utterances by JL1 and JL2 follow the first rule of V-languages; that is, they ignore Manner components.

4.4 Frequency of expressing Deixis Fig. 3 shows that almost all JL1 encoded Deixis in the head position (88.9 %). On the other hand, the tendency of JL2 encoding Deixis shows intermediate position (33.3 %) more than EL1 (5.8 %) but less than JL1. Now we examine the differences between Deixis types in terms of whether all types behave similarly or not. In our experiments, we set up three types of Deixis, TOWARD S (the speaker), AWAY FROM S, and NEUTRAL. Fig. 5 shows how often the participants in each group expressed Deixis per clip, including particular Deixis scenes regardless of linguistic forms.

% 100

JL1 JL2

50

EL1 0 /TWD/

/AWY/

/NEU/

Fig. 5: Types of Deixis and mentioning rates in JL1, JL2, and EL1

We see from Fig. 5 that JL1 always expressed Deixis in situations concerning deictic information (/TWD/: 100 %, /AWY/: 93.5 %). They even expressed it in neutral situations (/NEU/:75.9 %), at a slightly lower rate. Because NEUTRAL means the scene does not concern the position of the speaker, there is basically

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no need to encode Deixis. However, JL1 expressed deictic information, as in (15) and (16). Example (15) is a description of the scene of /WALK×UP×NEUTRAL/, and (16) of the scene of /SKIP×INTO×NEUTRAL/. (15) Tomodati-ga kaidan-o nobot-te Friend-NOM stairs-ACC ascend-CONJ ‘A friend went up the stairs.’

it-ta. go-PST.

(16) Tomodati-ga kyuukeisyo-no-naka-ni sukippusi-te ki-ta. Friend-NOM pavilion-GEN-inside-to skip-CONJ come-PST ‘A friend skipped into the pavilion.’ We cannot explain exactly what function determined the choice of the andative iku ‘go’ or venitive kuru ‘come’ in participants’ responses to the neutral scene. At least we can consider the possibility that native Japanese speakers conceptualize Deixis actively, that is, Japanese-specific thinking-for-speaking. By comparing the mentioning rates of the three groups, we find that JL2 and EL1 also expressed Deixis in /TWD/ (JL2: 85.7 %, EL1: 85.0 %). On the other hand, the mentioning rates in /AWY/ and /NEU/ showed the differences from JL1. In the scene of Away from the speaker, JL2 expressed Deixis 44.4 % of the time, and EL1 did in 30.4 % of their utterances, while the percentage for JL1 was 93.5 %. In the neutral scene, these numbers were 30.2 % for JL2 and 11.6 % for EL1, compared to 75.9 % for JL1. From these comparisons, we can find the differences between JL1 and JL2 at the point of encoding Deixis. The tendency of encoding Deixis is certainly similar for JL2 and EL1. From these results, we may say that L1 thinkingfor-speaking remains in JL2’s language use concerning the mentioning of Deixis.

4.5 Sentence structure describing motion events Lastly, we analyze what sentence structures are used in the description of motion events concerning event integration. Although most previous studies addressed encoding in the head position, researchers have paid little attention to headexternal positions. The semantic components of motion events are encoded in various head-external positions using elements such as adverbs, prepositions, participles, and so on. How the components are encoded in the head-external position decides what sentence structure (which and how many clauses) is used. We categorized the sentence structure of all descriptions in the data into four types based on how the speakers encoded the semantic components of the motion events. The first group included one semantic component encoded in

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the main verb and others in head-external positions in a single clause, like (17a) in Japanese and (17b) in English. We call this sentence structure . The second group consisted of Japanese-encoded semantic components in non-head positions of complex predicates, like in (18a), and compound verbs, like in (18b). We call this . English sentences like “He came running into the room” belong to this pattern. The third group included one component encoded in the main verb and others in the subordinate clause, like (19). We call this . English sentence likes “He came up the stairs running” belong to this pattern. Finally, the fourth group included all other cases, most of which involved coordination, such as in “My friend skipped into the pavilion and came towards me”. We call this pattern . (17) a. Tomodati-ga kakeaside kyuukeisyo-ni hait-ta. Friend-NOM run(ADV) pavilion-to enter-PST b. My friend ran into the pavilion. (18) a. Tomodati-ga kaidan-o hasit-te nobot-ta. Friend-NOM stairs-ACC run-CONJ ascend-PST b. Tomodati-ga kaidan-o kake-agat-ta. Friend-NOM pavilion-to run-ascend-PST ‘My friend ran up the stairs.’ (19) a. Tomodati-ga hasit-te kyuukeisyo-ni hait-ta. Friend-NOM run-CONJ pavilion-to enter-PST ‘My friend ran into the pavilion.’ From this categorization, we can see the typological differences because these lexicalization patterns are connected to the typological framework. That is, S-languages like English can encode some semantic components of motion events within one clause using adverbials or adnominals. On the other hand, V-languages like Japanese require more complex syntactic structures such as subordinate clauses in order to express Manner components. Besides, Japanese has unique grammatical means like complex predicates in the sentence structure . Fig. 6 shows the usage ratio of different types of sentence structures used in the description of motion events through a comparison of the three groups.

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Main V only

JL1

Main Cl with NonH V

JL2

Main + SUB Cl Other

EL1 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Fig. 6: Percentage of use of sentence structure patterns in JL1, JL2, and EL1

The results show the fundamentally different tendencies among the three groups. Especially, the L1 utterances have a different pattern: that is, EL1 follows the pattern (94.9 %), while JL1 most frequently follows the pattern (84.0 %). We can find EL1’s patterns are very typical event integration patterns. For JL1, the results show combined forms like complex predicates and compound verbs are the favorite sentence structure patterns for motion description. JL2 have a tendency similar to EL1, that is, the patterns (68.6 %). This suggests the possibility that the patterns used by JL2 are influenced by the L1 structure pattern. However, the proportion of is higher than EL1 (JL2: 18.9 %, EL1: 4.0 %). It seems that JL2 use complex predicates that have Japanese-specific grammatical structures, but much less frequently than JL1. Sentence structure patterns relate to the method of event integration, and the patterns are influenced by L1. Notably, the fact that JL2 basically do not use complex predicates in the sentence structure to describe motion events correlates with the infrequent usage of deictic expressions: JL1 express deixis in the main verb about 24 times and JL2, 9 times per person. In each usage, JL1 used complex predicates about 80 % of the time, while JL2 used them about 50 % of the time, showing that there is a clear difference between the JL1 and the JL2 pattern

5 Discussion In this section, we summarize the characteristics of utterances by L1 English learners of L2 Japanese (JL2) and discuss the pedagogical implications. In regard to the characteristics of utterances by L2 learners, first of all, we can point out that the sentences are shorter and show semantic components less frequently than utterances by the other two groups. Fig. 2 shows that all the mean scores of JL2 (Manner: 0.77, Path: 1.08, Deixis: 0.66) are lower than those of JL1 (Manner:

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0.84, Path: 1.35, Deixis: 1.10). This means that JL2 did not encode semantic components onto surface forms in the same way as JL1. Schmiedtova et al. (2011) mentioned that even native speakers do not put into words everything they perceive, and consequently, what is selected for verbalization does not completely reflect all that the speaker has perceived with respect to a given situation. Especially for intermediate L2 learners, we can easily imagine that, although various reasons may be possible, the lack of Japanese linguistic ability seems to be the most influential factor behind the sentence shortage. This is not because they do not select semantic components to be expressed but because they were restricted in their expression morphologically and syntactically. It is difficult for L2 learners to describe motion events orally if they do not have enough knowledge of the target language. We assumed that, although the JL2 in this study had an intermediate level of proficiency, their sentences were often short not because they did not recognize the semantic components of motion events. Some previous studies demonstrated that advanced L2 learners can follow the target language typology (Hendricks and Hickmann 2011; Navarro and Nicoladis 2005). From the point of view of Japanese education, these reasons should be clarified by comparing the language performance of intermediate and advanced JL2 in further research. Second, the results of mentioning rates for JL1, JL2, and EL1 show that JL2 tends to be affected by L1 in mentioning Deixis (Fig. 5), and the tendency of JL2 is to express Manner, especially in describing WALK scenes (Fig. 4). However, we found JL2-specific features concerning the methods of expressing these components by analyzing their sentences in detail. As for the encoding of Manner in descriptions of walking scenes, we find a similarity between JL1 and JL2, and we may say that there is no L1 influence because EL1 has higher mentioning rates of WALK. We can consider that JL2 learned the Japanese patterns  – that is, thinking-for-speaking  – of the kind of Manner that should or should not be mentioned. However, by scrutinizing the descriptions of our data, we found that there are differences between JL1 and JL2 in terms of how they expressed Manner in linguistic forms. Almost always, JL1 expressed Manner in the head-external position, that is, the first verb in a complex predicate like hasit-te hait-ta ‘entered running’ in (3b) or a compound verb like kake-agat-ta ‘went up running’ in (4). On the other hand, JL2 expressed Manner in the main verb using a single form like (20). This means that although JL2 seem to learn what kind of Manner is mentioned, they do not understand how to use linguistic forms in the same way as JL1. (20) Tomodati-ga zitensya-made arui-ta. Friend-NOM bicycle-till walk-PST ‘A friend walked to the bicycle.’

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It is important that using manner verbs in their single form as the main verb is sometimes ungrammatical in Japanese, as mentioned in Section 2. In the data of our experiment, example (20), which uses a single manner verb, is correct in Japanese; however, example (21) is ungrammatical as an appropriate description for each scene, and some JL2 participants used these expressions. Inagaki (2001) demonstrated that L1 English learners of L2 Japanese tend to admit the grammatically incorrect expressions of co-occurring manner verbs with a goal phrase because English allows it. Our findings show that Manner expressions of JL2 are affected by L1 in the same way, even though the mentioning rate is the same as for JL1. (21) *Tomodati-ga kyuukeisyo-ni arui-ta. Friend-NOM pavilion-to walk-PST ‘A friend walked into the pavilion.’ (in the case including INTO meaning) Furthermore, we can identify the characteristics JL2’s methods of expressing Deixis. We pointed out the difference in mentioning rates for Deixis between JL1 and JL2. As with Manner encoding, the means of expressing Deixis is also different between JL1 and JL2. JL1 encode Deixis in the head position. In contrast, JL2 encode Deixis in the head-external position, as in directional phrases like (22) uttered to describe the scene of /RUN×TO×TOWAD S/. (22) *Tomodati-wa watasi-no-hooni hasit-ta. Friend-TOP 1SG-GEN-toward run-PST. ‘A friend ran towards me.’ Incidentally, only three members out of 12 in the JL1 group used the head-external Deixis phrase. Besides, the frequency of usage was very low and this phrase always co-occurs with a deictic verb in the head position, like in (23). These multiple specifications are also used in JL2; however, a single main verb is used with these phrases, like (24). These sentences hardly appear in the JL1 data. (23) Tomodati-wa watasi-no-menomae-ni hasit-te Friend-TOP 1SG-GEN-front-to run-CONJ ‘A friend came running to me.’ (24) Tomodati-ga watasi-no-mae-ni Friend-NOM 1SG-GEN-front-to ‘A friend came to me.’

ki-ta. come-PST

ki-ta. come-PST

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A closer examination of the expression of Deixis in the head position using single or compound forms indicates another difference between JL1 and JL2. Recall that while JL1 typically used the final verb in complex predicates to encode Deixis, JL2 basically did not use complex predicates in the sentence structure to describe motion events (Fig. 6). This difference shows that not all JL2 have internalized how Japanese typically expresses deictic component of motion event descriptions: i.e. most JL2 have not fully acquired a new way of thinking-for-speaking or a new way of mapping a semantic component onto a linguistic means to express a motion event. Lastly, we would like to point out the possibility of errors by L2 learners. Our data showed that JL2 express Deixis incorrectly in the head-external position, as in (22). These co-occurrences of head-external Deixis and head Manner are ungrammatical in Japanese. We could not determine whether these errors resulted from L1 influence or not. However, pedagogically, we can caution that L2 speakers should include deictic information in the head using complex predicates, as native Japanese speakers do. This instruction would be beneficial to prevent misuse expressing Manner and Deixis. Previous studies noted what semantic components, especially Manner or Path, are encoded in the head. To further this line of research, it is worth noticing how speakers express these components using different forms. According to Slobin (2000), speakers appeal to different grammatical means to express a given concept. From the results of JL2 in Fig. 6, their utterances are affected by both the source and target languages. They seem to struggle to express semantic components of motion events with different grammatical means that used in the target language and to be tied to the means of the source language. When considering the linguistic typology of motion events for SLA, we should compare the source and target languages in order to note the differences not only between typological groups but also in the grammatical means used to express motion events.

6 Conclusion In this study, we investigated tendencies in L2 learners’ descriptions of motion events by comparing the target and source languages. First, by virtue of clarifying the tendencies of L1 Japanese speakers’ usage of motion expressions, we shed light on what the natural expressions are for native speakers and what this indicates about their thinking-for-speaking. Secondly, by comparing with L1 and L2 tendencies of usage and finding similarities and differences, we clarified how L2 learners acquire natural expressions and how L1 features affect SLA.

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We investigated the expression of motion events by L1 English learners of L2 Japanese (JL2) in comparison with not only native Japanese speakers (JL1), but also native English speakers (EL1). JL1 and JL2 demonstrated different tendencies in expressing Manner, Path, and Deixis. Focusing on frequencies and the way of encoding semantic components, we found differences in terms of which linguistic forms speakers chose. From the discussion of our results, we concluded JL2 keep the middle position between L1 and L2; that is, JL2 acquire the thinking-forspeaking of the target language in a way but are still affected by the thinking-forspeaking of the source language. However, when we addressed Deixis especially and analyzed sentence structure in detail, we were able to identify the original features of JL2 as they related to the speakers learning the grammatical expressions. By dividing Path components into deictic and non-deictic components, we can see a difference in the lexicalization pattern of the head position between JL1 and JL2. This finding provides valuable details, revealing not only that native Japanese speakers have an outstanding preference for expressing Deixis of all the Path components in the main verb, but also that L1 English speakers of L2 Japanese do not acquire specific Japanese tendencies in expressing motion events. Kondo and Himeno (2012) pointed out Japanese subjective construal preference reflects linguistic expressions, including deictic verb usage. L2 learners of Japanese acquiring motion expressions need to pay attention to Japanese-specific event construal conceptualization. When we consider motion expressions in SLA, it is worth paying attention to the typological and grammatical differences between the source and target languages, focusing on language-specific features.

References Berman, Ruth A. & Dan I. Slobin. 1994. Relating events in narrative: A crosslinguistic developmental study. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Brown, Amanda & Marianne Gullberg. 2011. Bidirectional cross-linguistic influence in event conceptualization? Expressions of Path among Japanese learners of English. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 14(1). 79–94. Cadierno, Teresa. 2004. Expressing motion events in a second language: A cognitive typological perspective. In Michel Achard & Susanne Niemeier (eds.), Cognitive linguistics, second language acquisition, and foreign language teaching, 13–49. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Cadierno, Teresa & Karen Lund. 2004. Cognitive linguistics and second language acquisirion: Motion events in a typological framework. In Bill VanPatten, Jessica Williams, Susanne Rott and Mark Overstreed (eds.), Form-meaning connections in second language acquisition, 139–154. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Cadierno, Teresa & Lucas Ruiz. 2006. Motion events in Spanish L2 acquisition. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 4. 183–216. Choi, Soojung & James P. Lantolf. 2008. The representation and embodiment of meaning in L2 communication: Motion events in the speech and gesture of advanced L2 Korean and L2 English speakers. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 30(2). 191–224. Gass, Susan & Larry Selinker (eds.). 1983. Language transfer and language learning. Amsterdam: John Benjamines. Hendriks, Henriette & Maya Hickmann. 2011. Expressing voluntary motion in a second language: English learners of French. In Vivian Cook & Benedetta Bassetti (eds.), Language and bilingual cognition. 315–339. Inagaki, Shunji. 2001. Motion verbs with goal PPs in the L2 acquisition of English and Japanese. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 23. 153–170. Jarvis, Scott. 2000. Methodological rigor in the study of transfer: Identifying L1 influence in the interlanguage lexicon. Language Learning 50(2). 245–309. Kellerman, Eric. 1995. Crosslinguistic influence: Transfer to nowhere? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 15. 125–150. Koga, Hiroaki, Yukia Koloskova, Makiko Mizuno & Yoko Aoki. 2008. Expressions of spatial motion events in English, German, and Russian: With special reference to Japanese. In Christine Lamarre, Toshio Ohori & Takahiro Morita (eds.), Typological Studies of the Linguistic Expression of Motion Events. VolumeII A Contrastive Study of Japanese, French, English, Russian, German and Chinese: Norwegian Wood, 13–44. 21st Century COE Program Center for Evolutionary Cognitive Sciences at the University of Tokyo. Kondo, Atsuko & Tomoko Himeno. 2012. Nihongo bunpo no ronten 43 [The point at issue of Japanese grammar]. Tokyo: Kenkyusha. Larrañaga, Pilar, Jeanine Treffers-Daller, Françoise Tidball & Mari-carmen Gil Ortega. 2012. L1 transfer in the acquisition of manner and path in Spanish by native speakers of English. The International Journal of Bilingualism 16(1). 117–138. Matsumoto, Yo. 2003 [2011]. Typologies of lexicalization patterns and event integration: Clarifications and Reformulations. In Shuji Chiba et al. (eds.). Empirical and Theoretical Investigations into Language: A Festschrift for Masaru Kajita. 403–418. Tokyo: Kaitakusha. Matsumoto, Yo (ed.). forthcoming. Idohyogen no Ruikeiron [Typology of linguistic expressions for motion event]. Tokyo: Kurosio. Mayer, Mercer. 1969. Frog, where are you? New York: Dial Press. Navarro, Samuel & Elena Nicoladis. 2005. Describing motion events in adult L2 Spanish narratives. In David Eddington (ed.), Selected Proceedings of the 6th Conference on the Acquisition of Spanish and Portuuese as First and Second Languages, 102–107. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project. Negueruela, Eduardo, James P. Lantolf, Stefanie R. Jordan & Jaime Gelabert. 2004. The “private function” of gesture in second language speaking activity: A study of motion verbs and gesturing in English and Spanish. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14(1). 113–147. Odlin, Terence. 1989. Language transfer: Cross-linguistic influence in language learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pavlenko, Aneta. 2010. Verbs of motion in L1 Russian of Russian-English bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 13(1). 49–62.

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Schmiedtova, Barbara, Christiane von Stuterheim & Mary Carroll. 2011. Language-specific patterns in event construal of advanced second language speakers. In Aneta Pavlenko (ed.), Thinking and speaking in two languages, 29–65. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Sinha, Chris & Tania Kuteva. 1995. Distributed spatial semantics. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 18. 167–199. Slobin, Dan I. 1996. From ‘thought and language’ to ‘thinking of speaking’. In John J. Gumperz & Stephen C. Levinson (eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity, 70–96. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Slobin, Dan I. 2000. Verbalized events: A dynamic approach to linguistic relativity and determinism. In Susanne Niemeier & René Dirven (eds.), Evidence for linguistic relativity, 107–138. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Stam, Gale. 2006. Thinking for speaking about motion: L1 and L2 speech and gesture. International Review of Applied Linguistics 44(2), 145–171. Talmy, Leonard. 1985. Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms. In Timothy Shopen (ed.), Language typology and syntactic description, Vol.3: Grammatical categories and the lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Talmy, Leonard. 1991. Path to realization. Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 17, 480–519. Berkeley Linguistics Society, University of California, Berkeley. Talmy, Leonard. 2000. Toward a cognitive semantics. Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.

Yoshihiko Ikegami

12 Subject-object contrast (shukakutairitsu) and subject-object merger (shukaku-gouitsu) in “thinking for speaking”¹: A typology of the speaker’s preferred stances of construal across languages and its implications for language teaching Abstract: The speaker of a language is known to have the ability of construing one and the same situation in a number of alternate ways and of making different senses of it. It is also known that being faced with the same situation, the speaker of one language may prefer to construe it in one way, while the speaker of a different language tends to construe it in another way. The present paper addresses this question specifically in regard to the speaker’s preference between the “subject-object contrast” type of construing stance and the “subject-object merger” type of construing stance. I am going to argue that the “subject-object merger” type of construal is the Japanese speaker’s favorite way of construing and encoding a situation, in contrast to the “subject-object contrast” type of construal seemingly preferred by speakers of English (and, for that matter, of Western languages in general). I suggest that rather than trying to let the students learn “grammatical rules” by heart, the emphasis should be shifted to trying to let them learn by experiencing the cognitive stances preferably taken by the speakers of the target language in construing and encoding a situation linguistically. Keywords: construal, ego-centric, subject-object contrast/merger, zero-encoding, homology

1 “Thinking for speaking” is a term used by Slobin (1996: 76): “…the expression of experience in linguistic terms constitutes thinking for speaking – a special form of thought that is mobilized for communication.” This notion actually refers to the same cognitive process called “construal” in cognitive linguistics, i.e., “cognitive processing of one’s experience with a view to encoding it in language”.

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1 The dual role of the speaker of language The speaker of language is not simply a person who utters sentences but also – and more importantly – a person who makes sense of a situation to be encoded in a way most relevant to her purposes at the moment of speaking. The essential importance of this active role played by the speaker is fully recognized in cognitive linguistics and the term “construal” is applied to the process. In other words, the speaker is not merely a “speaking subject” in the narrowest sense of the word (i.e., one who simply gets complete sentences generated by grammar and utters them), but a “cognizing subject”, who “construes” the situation to be encoded by: [a] distinguishing those relevant features of the situation worth encoding from those to be safely ignored, [b] choosing an appropriate perspective from which those relevant features are to be encoded, and [c] finding out “symbolic” (i.e., meaningful) forms in grammar and lexicon which closely match the cognitive images she has made of the situation.

2 The universalistic/relativistic aspects of the construing process As a cognizing subject, the speaker of language is known to manifest both universalistic and relativistic aspects. On the one hand, the speaker of language has an ability to construe one and the same situation in a number of alternate ways. For example, one and the same situation can be encoded either in active voice or in passive voice, or in terms of a transitive verb or of an intransitive verb. This is the universalistic aspect. On the other hand, we also know that being faced with one and the same situation, the speaker of one language may prefer to construe it in one way, while the speaker of another language may prefer to construe it in another way. For example, referring to a room with two windows, the English speaker will prefer to say, “This room has two windows”, while the Japanese speaker will say something like Kono heya ni wa hutatu no mado ga aru or more idiomatically, with “quantifier floating”, Kono heya ni wa mado ga hutatu aru ‘In this room are two windows’ – which exemplifies the well-known contrast between “HAVE-language” and “BE-language”. Or referring to someone who lost his life in the war, the English speaker says “He was killed in the war”, while the Japanese speaker will say, Kare wa sensoo de sinda ‘He died in (the) war’. The contrast here is between “transitive in the passive” vs. “intransitive”, the former implying some sort of intervention of an agent, while the latter leaving it out of account. Similarly, referring to the heat which makes the speaker feel languid, the English

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speaker says, “The heat makes me feel languid”, while the Japanese speaker will say something like Atukute, (karada ga) darui ‘Being hot, (I) feel languid’. This pair of examples, taken from Chamberlain (1891), exemplifies a contrast in construal between “causative” and “non-causative” (or “spontaneity”).²

3 “Subjective construal” and “objective construal” in cognitive linguistics In the following part of this paper, I propose to concentrate on just one particular case of the relativistic aspect of the construing process, namely the speaker’s two contrasting stances, called “subjective construal” and “objective construal”. These contrasting stances are illustrated by Langacker (1990) in terms of examples (1) and (2) below: (1)

Vanessa is sitting across the table from me.

(2) Vanessa is sitting across the table. Example (1) will be uttered by the speaker when, for example, commenting on a photo in which she and Vanessa are shown sitting across the table from each other. The speaker, as a perceiving/cognizing subject, is detached from the object of her viewing/cognizing (i.e., the photo). Thus the subject and the object are maximally contrasted. We have here “subject-object contrast”. This is objective construal. Example (2) will be uttered by the speaker when she finds Vanessa sitting across the same table opposite her. The speaker, as a perceiving/cognizing subject, is embedded in the same scene in which the object of her viewing/ cognizing (i.e., Vanessa) is embedded. The subject and the object are thus integrated in one and the same situation rather than contrasted with each other. This is subjective construal. Note that the speaker is explicitly encoded in (1), but not in (2). In (1) the speaker sees herself as well as Vanessa (as they both are shown on the photo); hence the speaker duly encodes herself as well as Vanessa in her utterance. In (2), by contrast, the speaker sees Vanessa sitting across the table, but not herself (being located at the vantage point of observation); hence she is not encoded.

2 Chamberlain (1891: 246) refers to the Japanese difficulty of using “neuter nouns with transitive verbs” and brands it as a “negative quality” of the language.

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4 “Subjective construal” and “objective construal” reinterpreted 4.1 Reinterpreted in terms of “subject-object merger” and “subject-object contrast” I suggest that the contrast between the two types of construal will be made clearer by being defined in terms of “subject-object merger” and “subject-object contrast”, two notions familiar in traditional Asian philosophies. This will also help to avoid the highly confusing ambiguity of the term “subjective”. Here are the revised versions of the definitions of “subjective construal” and “objective construal”, rephrased in terms of “subject-object merger” and “subject-object contrast”: (3) a. Subjective construal: The speaker is located within the very same situation she is to construe and construes it as it is perceivable to her. Even if she is not located within the situation she is to construe, she may mentally displace herself into the situation she is to construe and construes it as it would be perceivable to her. The speaker, who construes the situation, is embedded in the very same situation she is to construe and her stance here is characterizable as “subject-object merger”. b. Objective construal: the speaker is located outside the situation she is to construe and construes it as it is perceivable to her. Even if she is embedded in the very same situation she is to construe, she may mentally displace herself outside the situation she is to construe, leaving, however, her counterpart behind – in other words, the speaker undergoes a self-split here, herself stepping out of the situation but at the same time, leaving her counterpart behind in the situation. The speaker, who construes the situation, is detached from the situation she is to construe and her stance here is characterizable as “subject-object contrast”. The speakers of different languages may differ in their preferential choice between subjective and objective construal. For the Japanese speaker, linguistic encoding in terms of subjective construal is apparently a “fashion of speaking”³ 3 Cf. Whorf (1956: 158): “They [“fashions of speaking”] do not depend so much upon any one system (e.g., tense, or nouns) within the grammar as upon the ways of analyzing and reporting experience which have become fixed in the language as integrated fashions of speaking and which cut across the typical grammatical classifications, so that such a “fashion” may include

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(Whorf 1956, cf. Ikegami 2008), while the English speaker (or for that matter, the speakers of Western languages in general) prefers encoding in terms of objective construal.

4.2 Zero encoding vs. explicit encoding of the speaker Notice that in subjective construal, the speaker is located (or locates herself through self-projection) within the situation to be construed. She sees around her but she does not see herself, because she stands at the vantage point of observation (i.e., the origin of the coordinates). She herself is not within the scope of her observation and hence she may not be explicitly (i.e., linguistically) encoded (Ikegami 2007). In objective construal, by contrast, the speaker is located (or locates herself by undergoing a mental self-split) outside the situation to be construed. She sees her counterpart left behind in the situation to be construed and hence she may encode herself explicitly (i.e., linguistically). Here are some further examples showing how one and the same situation is preferentially construed objectively by the English/German speaker and subjectively by the Japanese speaker: (4) [being lost and asking the way] a. English: Where am I? b. Japanese: Koko wa doko desuka?

‘What place is this?’

The Japanese speaker construes the situation as she is embedded in the situation (her stance being “subject-object merger”), while the English speaker undergoes a self-split mentally, herself stepping out of the situation and observing the situation from outside (her stance being “subject-object contrast”). From outside, she perceives her mental counterpart left embedded in the situation. Hence she encodes herself in terms of “I”. Consider Fig. 1 below:

lexical, morphological, syntactic, and otherwise systemically diverse means coordinated in a certain frame of consistency.”

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EGO’s counterpart EGO (as speaking subject) (as spoken-of object) Displaced out of the environLeft in the environment and observed ment by the displaced EGO English Where am I? [Subject-Object Contrast]

EGO (as speaking subject) Embedded in the environment Japanese Koko wa doko desu ka? ‘What place is this?’ [Subject-Object Merger]

Fig. 1: Images of zero encoding vs. explicit encoding of the speaker

The same account applies to (5) as to (4). (5) [the speaker reporting to someone by mobile phone that the room she is in is empty] a. German: Es ist niemand da ausser mir. ‘Nobody is here except me.’ b. Japanese: (Koko ni wa) dare mo imasen. ‘Nobody is (here).’ The Japanese speaker looks around but does not perceive herself (who is located at the vantage point of observation); hence herself is not encoded. The German speaker may, in contrast, mentally choose to step out of the situation and observe it from outside. She then perceives her counterpart embedded in the situation and encodes it duly. (6) [going outside and noticing the moon shining] a. English: Going out, I saw the moon shining. b. Japanese: Soto e deruto, tuki ga kagayaite ita. (Lit: ‘Going out, the moon was shining.’) Opting for subjective (or “subject-object merger” type of) construal results here in what Uehara (1998) calls “perceiver-less sentences”, who refers, for example, to the English sentence, I saw a big lady standing there rendered as Hutotta obasan

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ga ita no, (‘[A] fat lady was standing there’) in a Japanese translation (cf. also Ikegami 2008: 238), or in what is popularly called “dangling participial construction” which, in traditional grammar, was branded as a grammatical mistake. In her analysis of the corpus data, however, Hayase (2009), quoting from the British National Corpus examples like Approaching Helgoland the weather was obviously unsuitable…. and Leaving the grassland behind, the terrain became more barren with cliffs and rocks…, beautifully demonstrates that the dangling participial construction is not at all something aberrant; in fact, it arises quite naturally whenever the English speaker indulges in subjective construal – a non-canonical construing stance for the speaker of English.

5 Problems in translation Translation naturally offers a number of interesting cases of discrepancy arising from the different construing stances opted for by the author and the translator. Let me discuss the initial sentence of the novel, Snow Country, by Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972), the winner of the 1968 Nobel Prize for literature and its four translations in Western languages: (7) [0] Kokkyoo no nagai tonneru o nukeru boundary GEN long tunnel ‘path’ marker pass.through to yukiguni de atta. and/when snow-country ‘location’ marker was (Lit. ‘[I] passed through [the] long boundary-tunnel, and [I] was in / [there] was [the] snow country.’) [1] The train came out of the long tunnel into the snow country. (E. Seidensticker, 1957) [2] Als der Zug aus dem langen Grenztunnel herauskroch, lag das Schneeland vor ihm weit ausgebreitet. (‘As the train crawled out of the long boundary-tunnel, there lay before it the snow country wide extended.’) (O. Benl, 1968) [3] Jenseits des langen Tunnels erschien das Schneeland. (‘Beyond the long tunnel emerged the snow country.’) (T. Cheung, 2004) [4] Un long tunnel entre les deux régions et voici qu’on était dans le pays de neige. (‘A long tunnel between the two regions and then one was in the snow country.’) (B. Fujimori, 1960)

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The scene to be linguistically encoded here is the following: “The train, on which the hero of the novel was travelling, passed through the long tunnel which lay across the county-boundary and came out to the snow-covered land.” Why is it that translations [1] and [2] encode the train, while translations [3] and [4] do not? (The Japanese sentence in the original does not mention the train.) The translators of [3] and [4] as well as the author of the original work describe the scenes as observed by the protagonist travelling on the train, who sees the successive scenes that fly past outside the window of his train but sees neither himself nor his train. The stance here is subjective construal. The translators of [1] and [2], in contrast, locate themselves outside the train at a point considerably removed from the travelling train and describe the scenes as they would appear to them. Their stance is objective construal. As I hear, there are more than a dozen translations of the work in Chinese, of which some have the sentence in question in subjective construal and others in objective construal. I am told that placed at the beginning of the novel, a Chinese translation in objective construal will sound more natural than one in subjective construal. Similar comments are also heard from Korean speakers about the Korean translation of the work. Apparently, however, Korean speakers are more tolerant toward a translation in subjective construal and in fact, the earliest Korean translation does not mention the train in the initial sentence of the work. A Thai translation does mention the train. I am told, however, that the Thai translation is from the English translation and not from the Japanese original.⁴ Incidentally, it is worth pointing out that Kawabata himself was in fact fully aware of the kind of the two contrasting stances of construal we have been discussing in the present paper. In an essay with the title, ‘Shinshin Sakka no Shinkeiko Kaisetsu’ [Comments on the New Trends among the Recent Newly Emerging Authors] (1924), Kawabata has the following to say: There are only three ways of seeing this lily, and only three kinds of feeling when one’s attention is drawn to the lily: Am I within the lily? Is the lily within me? Or do the lily and I exist independently of each other? These questions are some of the problems in a philosophical theory of perception and consciousness the details of which I shall not discuss here. Rather, I should like to ponder these matters, simplifying somewhat, from the viewpoint of literary expression. If I describe the lily and myself as though they existed independently of each other, that would be to use a naturalistic style of writing. That represents the

4 Here are some illustrative examples of the translations in Chinese, Korean and Thai: [5] 穿出长长的国境隧道就是雪国了。（待桁、1981 Shanghai） [6] 穿過縣界漫長的隧道就是雪鄕。（蕭羽文、1988 Taipei） [7] 도의경계에걸친기다란터널을빠져나오자 눈마을이었다. (金宇烈 1968) [8] (Wattana Oattanapong 2002)

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old principle of objectivity. We could say that this is the principle that has determined every form of literary expression to this day. However, the power residing within the subject is no longer content with this. I am within the lily. The lily is within me. These two sentences are ultimately indistinct. The fundamental aim of the neo-subjectivist approach is to express things through just such feelings. The most remarkable example of this approach is German expressionism. (Ikegami 2008: 239)

Kawabata talks about a choice between “I am inside the lily” (or equivalently, “The lily is inside me”) and “I and the lily are separated from each other.” What he opts for is the former stance (which represents “subject-object merger”).

6 Subjective and objective construal in decoding The terms, “subjective construal” and “objective construal” are applied primarily to the speaker’s encoding process. We must not forget, however, that they are also applicable to the speaker’s decoding process, i.e., in the role of the hearer/ reader, as well. In encoding, the subjectively oriented speaker mentally displaces herself onto the scene she is going to encode and construes it as if she herself were directly involved in what was going on in the scene. In decoding, the subjectively oriented speaker mentally displaces herself into the situation being described in the text, identifying herself with the author of the text or the protagonist of the story, as the case may be, and construes the situation as if she were directly involved in it, or possibly, as the author or the protagonist in question is presumed to be construing it. The objectively oriented speaker, by contrast, will tend to have a detached outlook on what is being described in the text, keeping herself distanced from the textual world. Thus we may have different reader-responses to one and the same text. Below are given four English translations together with the original haiku piece in Japanese by Basho (which, incidentally, is one of the best-known and most celebrated pieces of haiku in Japan), taken from Sato (1983): (8) [0] Huruike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto. (Basho). [Lit. ‘Old pond, frog jumping in, sound of water.’] [1] The quiet pond A frog leaps in The sound of the water. (E. Seidensticker)

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[2] The ancient pond A frog leaps in The sound of the water. (D. Keene) [3] Into the calm old lake A frog with flying leap goes plop! The peaceful hush to break. (W. J. Porter) [4] A lonely pond in age-old stillness sleeps … Apart, unstirred by sound or motion … till Suddenly into it a lithe frog leaps. (C. H. Page) [1] and [2], the translations by two well-known American scholars of Japanese studies, are fairly closely literal, while [3] and [4] contain quite a few words which are not found in the original. American students, on being presented with translations like [1] and [2], are often reported to respond by saying “So what?” and “What of it?”. Japanese students, on the other hand, will certainly respond to a piece like [3] by saying, “This is mere paraphrase” and characterize [4] as an “excessively decorated rhetorical version”. Now, haiku is a literary genre in which the reader’s active participation in interpretative work is presupposed (cf. the notion of “reader responsibility” to be discussed in Section 8). On reading a haiku piece like (8)-[0] – subjectively construed, and, therefore, implicitly suggesting the invisible presence of the author on the scene – the Japanese reader will mentally displace herself onto the scene being described and start asking herself, “This is the scene on which the author composed the piece. Am I being moved as much as, or in the same way as, the author of the original text? If so, I am at one with the great master, sharing a great moment in his life,” and so forth. Through mental operations such as self-projection and empathy, Japanese speakers certainly seem to be markedly disposed to subjective construal (a type of construal, characterized by “subject-object merger”), both in encoding and in decoding. Most schoolchildren, aged around 10–15, on being asked “Where do you imagine yourself to be, when you read the initial sentence of the novel, Yukiguni (Snow Country)?” will answer, “I imagine myself sitting in the train, looking out of the window.” And some even add, “Sitting on the right/left side of the train, by the window” (Michiyo Moriya, personal communication)!

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7 Homology between linguistic encoding and pictorial encoding In the Japanese tradition, perspective in painting is known to have not normally been practiced until its introduction from the West in the 18th century. Objects of the same size were painted in the same size irrespective of whether they were located near or far from the painter, their distances from the painter being suggested by cloud-like patterns intervening between objects in the neighborhood and objects in the distance. This implies that the painter was not located in one fixed position but mentally hopped around so that he always found himself in the neighborhood of (or in other words, embedded in the same situation as) the objects of his painting.⁵ Notice that what happens here in painting is parallel to the frequent use of non-past forms by Japanese speakers in talking about past events. They quite readily mentally displace themselves into the past and talk about past events as if they themselves were witnessing them on the spot. Below is given a direct English translation of a piece of text in Japanese. Double underlined verbs are in past tense and single underlined verbs are in present tense in the original Japanese text (Ikegami 1991). Thus the grasshopper became a guest at the ants’ nest. The winter for that year was a delightful one for the ants, too. It is as if a juke box had been installed. Whenever a request is made, the grasshopper plays the tune on his violin for the ants. The grasshopper, being an artist, has no lack of inspiration. While looking around the ants’ storing places, he found out that the long stored food deep in the hole had yeasted and turned into alcohol. He says to the ants, “It’ll be a pity if you just let it alone. Why don’t you taste it?” The ants, hesitantly tasting it and then being quite pleased, appreciate the taste of alcohol. When they have songs and alcohol, dancing comes naturally to them. This is more delightful than hard work. During this year’s hibernating period, the spiritual tradition of this ant family crumbled down completely.

5 Rakuchu-rakugai-zu [Pictures on a pair of folding screens of the areas in and around the capital, Kyoto], owned by Yonezawa City Uesugi Museum, Japan. Note that the floats of Gion festival and the roofs of buildings in the distance are painted in approximately the same size as those in the neighborhood. The picture on the right, printed with permission of Uesugi Museum, shows the third and the left-half of the second folds or “fans” of the right-side folding screen depicting the eastern part of Kyoto.

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Thus in spatial as well as temporal dimension, Japanese speakers do quite easily displace themselves, mentally jumping over the distances (whether spatial or temporal) that separate them from the objects of their perception and achieving the state of “subject-object merger”. We have here a beautiful case of “homology”.⁶ The homological behavior observable across linguistic and pictorial encoding can very well be taken as a significant index which shows how deeply the “subject-object merger” type of construing stance is rooted in the cultural tradition of Japan.

8 Implications for foreign language teaching Implications of the foregoing account of the cognitive linguistic perspectives on language should be clear enough. One crucial point to be suggested is that in teaching the use of a linguistic form, either a lexical or a grammatical unit, the emphasis should be shifted from trying to enumerate the features of the situations in which the linguistic form in question is supposed to be used in appropriate ways to explaining the cognitive processes which the speaker undergoes when using the linguistic form in question appropriately. It should be noted that this is in line with the cognitive linguistic thesis that the focus should be laid on the “subjective” activity of the speaker when being engaged in “construing” the situation to be verbalized rather than on trying to “objectively” characterize the situation in which the verbalized form is used. (Cf. Ikegami and Moriya, eds. 2009.) A simple concrete example will be in order. Consider how to explain the use of the sentence-final phrase -noda in Japanese to learners of Japanese who are not native speakers of Japanese. On superficial appearance, the semantic effect of using -noda, as in the Japanese sentence, Ame ga hutta-noda (literally, ‘Rain fell-noda’), uttered by the speaker on noticing that the road is wet, is quite similar

6 Cf. Titzmann(1977: 152): Homologie = Relation der Äquivalenz zwischen (mindestens) zwei (mindestens) zweistelligen Relationen, die jeweils beliebige Terme derselben oder verschiedener Klassen verknüpfen. In einem Objektbereich A verhält sich also ein Term a zu einem Term b wie in einem Bereich B ein Term c zu einem d. A und B können semantisch wesentlich verschiedenen Klassen angehören, müssen es aber nicht. Wir schreiben eine Homologie als a : b : : c : d. (Homology = Equivalence relation between (at least) two (at least) two-term relations. The related terms can be either of the same or different classes. In an area A, a term a is related to a term b, just as a term c is related to a term d in an area B. A and B may semantically belong to different classes; this is not obligatory, however. A homology can be represented as a : b :: c : d.) See also Ikegami (2009).

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to that of using the construction “it is that …”, as exemplified by an English sentence like It is not that I love Caesar less but that I love Rome more. In this English sentence, the sentence-initial it refers to the assassination of Caesar conducted by the speaker (Brutus) and the that-clause offers the reason for motivation of the speaker for the atrocious act. It is well-known, however, that there is a marked difference between the speakers of English and of Japanese in the frequency in use of their respective ways of expression. The -noda sentence is very common with Japanese speakers, so much so that it can be called a “fashion of speaking” for them. In textbooks on Japanese, the use of -noda, or its polite variant, -nodesu, is normally described under semantic rubrics like the following: (9) a. SETSUMEI (explanation): MONOLOGIC: [noticing that the road is wet] Ame ga hutta-noda. (‘It rained-noda’) DIALOGIC: [making an excuse for being late] Densya ga okureta-nodesu. (‘The train was delayed-nodesu.’) b. TSUYOI DANTEI (strong assertion): MONOLOGIC: [encouraging oneself] Ore wa tuyoi-noda! (‘I am strongnoda’) DIALOGIC: [facing a defeated opponent] Ore wa tuyoi-noda-zo! (‘Now you see how strong I am!’) c. MEIREI (order): MONOLOGIC/DIALOGIC: [telling oneself/someone that one/someone should confess] Sassato hakuzyoosuru-noda! (‘Come on, own up-noda!’) d. KAISOU/KANTAN (reminiscence/exclamation): MONOLOGIC: Onna wa uttaeru yoo ni watasi o mitumeru-nodat-ta. (‘The woman looked at me in appeal-noda’). The listing of rubrics above is by no means exhaustive, but even such an imperfect listing will suffice to show that a description of the “meanings” of -noda like this will not be of much help to the learners of Japanese as a foreign language. The descriptive rubrics employed are simply so indeterminate that the learners will find it impossible to apply them properly in decoding and much less in encoding. What can we say then about the use of the term -noda in Japanese if we turn our attention to the Japanese speaker’s behavior, or more precisely, to the cognitive processes which the Japanese speaker undergoes, when she opts to use -noda? First of all, the native speakers of Japanese will agree in saying that the “prototypical” use of the term -noda is the one exemplified under the rubric (a) SETSUMEI (explanation). The cognitive process which the speaker under-

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goes before uttering the sentence, Ame ga hutta-noda (‘It rained -noda’) can be described as follows: (i) The speaker notices that the road is wet – something which the speaker finds unexpected, or “mirative”, if I may use a technical term in linguistic typology. (ii) The speaker wonders why it is that the road is wet. (iii) The speaker hypothesizes that the road is wet because it rained. (iv) The speaker concludes that it rained. Notice, incidentally, that the cognitive process described above is exactly parallel to the notion of “abduction” described by Peirce, “where we find some very curious circumstances, which would be explained by the supposition that it was a case of a certain general rule, and thereupon adopts that supposition” (Peirce 1931–58: 2, 624). Peirce’s well-known example is an account of his experience in Turkey: … as I was walking up to the house which I was to visit, I met a man on horseback, surrounded by four horsemen holding a canopy over his head [curious circumstances]. […] As the governor of the province was the only personage I could think of who would be so greatly honored [the general rule], I inferred that that was he [the conclusion]. It is easy to see that offering an account of the cognitive process of the speaker will be far more helpful to the students than simply offering them semantic rubrics like “explanation”, “strong assertion” and “order”. It tells the students how the speaker construes the situation when she purports to verbalize it in terms of -noda and concomitantly what kind of situation it is which the speaker is supposed to verbalize in terms of -noda. One may then proceed to account for “derivative” uses by telling the students how these are mentally associated by the speaker with the prototypical use. Thus in the prototypical use (9a), the general rule applied by the speaker is not supposed to be infallible. But in certain cases, especially in dialogic situations, the speaker may want to behave rhetorically – that is, she may pose as if the general rule she applies was an infallible one, thereby forcing the conclusion on her interlocutor. The pragmatic effect which ensues will be “strong assertion”. A strong assertion, when escalated further, will effectively become an “order”. The same pedagogical stance will also prove effective when taking care of what is popularly called “frequent omission of the grammatical subject” in Japanese. It is, of course, not the case that Japanese speakers “freely” omit the subject. On the other hand, it will not at all help the students of Japanese as a foreign language, either, simply to tell them that Japanese speakers omit the subject whenever it is supposed to be recoverable by the interlocutors. The first step in dealing with this age-old question from the speaker’s point of view is to realize that the essence of the question lies not in the omission of the subject but in the

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omission of the term for the speaker. A peculiar position in which the speaker is when she construes a situation for the purpose of linguistic encoding is that she normally poses herself at the vantage point – she is the subject (“sujet parlant”), and not the object, of her construing activity and hence she herself may naturally be exempted from being construed and verbalized. Consider human optical activities. A person can see and look around her but can neither see nor look at herself whole without the aid of a mirror or something like it. We see thus that there is indeed a very natural sense in which the speaker is not verbally encoded in natural utterance, namely in a monologue (in which the speaker does not intend communication, hence not presupposing any interlocutor) of the type in which the speaker talks about what she herself perceives and cognizes. Coming close to this type of monologue will be the writing in the diary. Japanese writers will have absolutely no scruples about not explicitly encoding themselves in their diaries – in fact, referring to themselves repeatedly will be taken as a sign of the writers’ inordinate willingness to be conspicuous. English writers can also omit referring explicitly to themselves, but they have no scruples, either, about using the first-person pronoun, as the text of a large number of English diaries testifies. I would like to add to the last point that this is not simply a matter of constraint imposed by English grammar, as is often claimed. It rather derives from the type of construal favored by English speakers, i.e., the “subject-object contrast” type of construal as we have discussed. In prototypical monologue, as we have already noted, the speaker has a good reason for not being motivated to encode herself linguistically (or equivalently, for encoding herself as “zero”). The only plausible case in which the speaker feels it necessary to mention herself linguistically is one in which the speaker wants to refer to herself in contrast to others, i.e., “me and not others”. In such cases, even a Japanese speaker may very well opt for explicitly encoding herself. Otherwise, she remains quite comfortable with the zero encoding of herself. In a dialogue, however, especially in a serious one, the situation changes drastically. For communicating successfully, the speaker finds it necessary to specify in each case who it is that her statement concerns. Under these circumstances, the explicit encoding of the speaker in distinction to the hearer or of the hearer in distinction to the speaker or of either of them in distinction to other non-interlocutors will be highly desirable. Some exceptional behaviors, however, will be tolerated in conversation conducted tête-à-tête where the interlocutors can unambiguously identify each other. Zero-encoding of the speaker as in Hope to see you again is an example. In Thank you!, the zero-encoding is already fully conventionalized. Cases like these are usually accounted for in terms of the two interlocutors sharing one and the same context. This is true, but what we have here may also simply be that English speakers are indulging in the same natural propensity as is

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found much more commonly with Japanese speakers. In these cases, the replaced word is uniquely recoverable and the term “omission” can most appropriately be applied to them. Zero-encoding of the second-person pronoun in imperative sentences also belongs here; it is highly conventionalized in English. Note that the speaker of German, a cognate language, often behaves differently in all these cases; Ich danke Ihnen, for example, is heard much more frequently than I thank you and in imperative sentences, the second-person pronoun Sie is regularly used, as in Sprechen Sie lauter, in contrast to Speak louder as in English. Apart from imperative sentences, zero-encoding of the hearer is quite frequently observed in the speaker’s utterances in Japanese, as in Sore mita? (lit. ‘Saw it?’ meaning ‘Did you see it?’) and Doo omou? (lit. ‘How think?’ meaning ‘What do you think (about it)?’). Part of the motivation for speaking in grammatically informal ways here will no doubt be the presence of the hearer in the same context, but there is one more important point that must be noted about the Japanese speaker’s “elliptical” ways of speaking – namely “empathy”. As we have already noted, Japanese speakers are quite happy with not explicitly encoding themselves in their utterances because they are “cognizing subjects” and not part of the objects for their cognizing. They then quite naturally (but, at the same time, quite ego-centrically) assume that their hearers feel and behave in the same way and their linguistic habit of not explicitly encoding the self is transferred and extended to cover their hearers as well. One may still wonder, nevertheless, if such an ego-centric stance on the part of the speaker will not cause confusion in the conversational exchange. In fact, there is one more factor involved here which works to help the conversational exchange to be going. This is the “hearer responsibility” stance on the part of the hearer, which is supposed to complement the speaker’s ego-centric stance. By the term, “hearer responsibility” here, I refer to the discussion of the notion of “listener/writer responsibility” in Hinds (1987: 143): I suggest a typology that is based on speaker and / or writer responsibility as opposed to listener and / or reader responsibility. What this means is that in some languages, such as English, the person primarily responsible for effective communication is the speaker, while in other languages, such as Japanese, the person primarily responsible for effective communication is the listener. […] I take as a starting point the position that English speakers, by and large, charge the writer, or speaker, with the responsibility to make clear and wellorganized statements. If there is a breakdown in communication, for instance, it is because the speaker / writer has not been clear enough, not because the listener / reader has not exerted enough effort in an attempt to understand. […] In Japan, perhaps in Korea, and certainly in Ancient China, there is a different way of looking at the communication process. In Japan, it is the responsibility of the listener (or reader) to understand what it is that the speaker or author had intended to say.

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I may add that the “hearer-responsibility” stance of Japanese speakers is symbolically signalled by their frequent use of nodding (called “aizuchi” and discussed by LoCastro (1987)). Some final words. If it is indeed the case that language started with spontaneous ejaculation of vocal sounds and the awareness of the possibility of using those sounds as means of communication arose much later, we may surmise that monological use preceded dialogical use in the evolution of human language. Measured on such an evolutionary scale, languages placed lower on the scale will be found more subjectively and more ego-centrically oriented (because they are supposed to serve the purposes of the speaker only). As languages develop into, and establish themselves as authentic means of communication, they necessarily undergo a number of changes to adapt themselves to the newly emerged purposes for which they are employed. They have to cast off their subjective, ego-centric characters and turn themselves into something intersubjectively available. The final goal will then be something institutionalized – something objectively definable. Languages will then be alienated from the ego-centric orientations with which they were once markedly characterized. I would like to conclude this final section by suggesting that the “subject-object merger” type of construal, discussed in the earlier sections of the present paper and characterized as a “fashion of speaking” for Japanese speakers, is, in fact, a remnant of an earlier phase in the evolutionary history of human language. In other words, Japanese can be characterized, in contrast to English, for example, as a language which is fairly backward on the evolutionary way to being a full-fledged means of communication. One may wonder if this is due to the geographically relative isolation of the race in an island country. (Notice, however, that the same geographical condition applies to English as well with a very different result.) All this is a topic for further research.

References Chamberlain, Basil H. 1891. Things Japanese, 2nd ed. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner. Hayase, Naoko. 2009. Kensuibunshikobun o doki zukeru ‘uchi’ no shiten [The ‘internal’ viewpoint which motivates the use of the dangling participial construction]. In Atsuro Tsubouchi, Naoko Hayase & Naoaki Wada (eds.), Uchi to Soto no Gengogaku [Linguistics of ‘inside’ and ‘outside’], 63–97. Tokyo: Kaitakusha. Hinds, John. 1987. Reader versus writer responsibility. In U. Connor & R. B. Kaplan, (eds.), Writing across languages: analysis of L2 texts, 141–152. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 1984. Kigoron eno Shotai [Invitation to Semiotics]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

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Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 1991. Transitivity and tense variation in narrative text. In Werner Bahner, Joachim Schildt, & Dieter Viehweger (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Linguistics Vol. 3. 2136–2139. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 2005. Indices of a subjectivity-prominent language: between cognitive linguistics and linguistic typology. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 3. 132–164. Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 2007. Subjectivity, ego-orientation and subject-object merger: A cognitive account of the zero-encoding of the grammatical subject in Japanese. In Yoshihiko Ikegami et al. (eds.), Japanese linguistics: European chapter, 19–25. Tokyo: Kurosio. Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 2008. Subjective Construal as a “fashion of speaking” in Japanese. In María de los Ángeles Gómes González, J. Lachlan Mackenzie & Elsa M. González Álvarez (eds.), Current trends in contrastive linguistics: Functional and contrastive perspective, 227–250. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 2009. Jinbungaku kenkyu ni okeru sagyo kasetsu toshite no ‘sodosei’ [‘Homology’ as working hypothesis in cultural studies]. Eibungaku Kenkyu: Shibu Togo Go [Studies in English Literature: Regional Branches Combined Issue] 2. 93–107. Ikegami, Yoshihiko and Michiyo Moriya (eds.). 2009. Shizenna Nihongo o Oshieru Tameni – Ninchigengogaku o Fumaete [Teaching natural Japanese – A cognitive linguistic approach] Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo. Ikegami, Yoshihiko. 2011. Nihongowasha ni okeru ‘konomareru iimawashi’ toshiteno ‘shukanteki haaku’ [‘Subjective construal’ as a ‘fashion of speaking’ for the Japanese speaker], Jinkochino Gakkaishi [Journal of the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence] 26(4). 317–322. Kawabata, Yasunari. 1999 [1924]. Shinshinsakka no shinkeikoo kaisetsu [Comments on some new trends in newly emerging authors]. In Kawabata Yasunari Zenshu [Collected works of Kawabata Yasunari], 30, 172–183. Tokyo: Shinchosha. Langacker, Ronald W. 1990. Subjectification. Cognitive Linguistics 1. 5–38. LoCastro, V. 1987. Aizuchi: A Japanese conversational routine. In L. E. Smith (ed.), Discourse across Culture, New York: Prentice-Hall. Peirce, Charles S. 1931–1958. Collected papers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sato, Hiroaki. 1983. One hundred frogs: From renga to haiku to English. Boston: Weatherill. Slobin, Dan I. 1996. From “thought and language” to “thinking for speaking”. In John J. Gumpers and Steven C. Levinson (eds.), Rethinking linguistic relativity, 70–96. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P. Titzmann, Manfred. 1977. Structurale Textanalyse. München: Wilhelm Fink. Uehara, Satoru. 1998. Pronoun drop and perspective in Japanese. Japanese/Korean Linguistics 7. 26–43. Whorf, Benjamin L. 1956[1939]. The relation of habitual thought and behavior to language. In John. B. Carroll (ed.), Language, thought and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf, 134–159. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Part III: Current state and future directions of cognitive-functional-linguistics-informed L2 studies

Shingo Imai

13 A survey of work published in Japan at the dawn of the new millennium Abstract: This chapter surveys the literature published in Japan between 1999 and 2013 that applies cognitive linguistics to Japanese as a second/foreign language (L2) acquisition and pedagogy. It finds that a variety of work emerges during the period: while those dealing with polysemy are dominant, some adopt the usage-based approach, subjective construal, joint attention, and metaphor. Research on polysemy suggests (i) the prototype is acquired earlier than less prototypical senses; (ii) abstract image schemata facilitate acquisition of polysemous words. Studies adopting the usage-based approach show that adult L2 learners go through not only bottom-up but also top-down acquisition process. Research on subjective construal and joint attention claims natural Japanese expressions are essential as instructional input. Work on metaphorical competence indicates that acquisition of metaphors is a key factor to master a language. The chapter also reviews development of dictionaries and textbooks that draws on cognitive linguistics. The survey suggests cognitive linguistics is a promising framework able to contribute to both L2 Japanese acquisition research and pedagogy. Yet application of the findings in L2 Japanese acquisition research to pedagogy is limited, calling for more empirical studies investigating the appropriateness and effectiveness of applying cognitive linguistics to L2 Japanese acquisition and teaching. Keywords: polysemy, prototype, schema, usage-based approach, subjective construal

1 Introduction Since around the turn of the 21st century, insights from cognitive linguistics have been applied to different fields of study, including second and foreign language (henceforth L2) acquisition and teaching. In Japan, Yamanashi (1999) is one of the first to note the interdisciplinary nature of cognitive linguistics and its applicability to Japanese language acquisition and teaching. Through a series of works, Yamanashi (1999, 2001, 2004) emphasizes the positive impact cognitive linguistics may have on L2 Japanese acquisition research and teaching. It is now common to find cognitive linguistics being applied to L2 Japanese research and teaching.

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The chapter surveys 51 publications on cognitive linguistics-applied L2 research, all of which were published in Japan between 1999 and 2013 and written in Japanese except for one in English (Masuda 2013). To the best of my knowledge, they are representative of the work published during the period. Through this survey, the chapter (i) provides a comprehensive view of the current state of applied cognitive linguistics research in Japanese, and (ii) disseminates information which may not be readily available to researchers and educators in English speaking countries because they are written in Japanese or unsearchable through the databases available outside Japan (see Appendix for the list). Fig. 1 provides an overview of the work surveyed in this chapter; it shows the chronological distribution categorized according to the cognitive linguistics concept or approach each work adopts: polysemy, the usage-based approach, subjective construal, joint attention, and metaphor.

No. of publications (Total number of publications: 53**)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Polysemy (39)

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 (2)* (2) (1) (4) (1) (2) (7) (7) (6) (11) (4) (2) (0) (1) (3) 2

2

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1

2

5

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9

3

1

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1

Usage-based (2)

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Subj. constr. (6) Joint attention (2) Metaphor (4)

0

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2

2

Note *: The number in parentheses indicates the total number of publications for the year or concept/approach. **: The actual count of publications is 51; two works are counted twice because they concern with two concepts. Cited works not relevant to cognitive linguistics are excluded. Fig. 1: Chronological distributions of work

As Fig. 1 shows, cognitive linguistics-applied L2 research and application to pedagogy first appeared in Japan at the end of the 20th century. This coincided with the publication of a two-volume-book entitled Applied Cognitive Linguistics (Pütz,

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et al. 2001). Cognitive linguistics-applied L2 research and application to pedagogy soon became internationally recognized. Fig. 1 shows a gradual increase of publications in the early 2000s with a peak year in 2008: although there is a gap in 2011 and the number of publications remains limited, work has been continuously published since 1999. Fig. 1 also shows which theoretical concepts/approaches are most frequently referenced. Earlier publications concentrate on polysemy, whereas more recent ones deal with other concepts as well, such as subjective construal and joint attention. As the figure suggests, work dealing with polysemy is by far the most frequently referenced (39/53 = 74 %) compared to the rest (14 [4 [metaphor] + 6 [subjective construal] + 2 [joint attention] + 2 [usage-based]]/53 = 26 %). How and to what extent these concepts/approaches are applied to L2 Japanese varies from work to work: some authors focus on L2 Japanese classroom activities (e.g., Sugimura 1999; Matsuda 2001) or L2 acquisition research and teaching applying cognitive linguistic concepts (e.g., Moriyama 2006, 2008b), while others discuss the creation of textbooks (Peng and Moriya 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007) or learners’ dictionaries (Arakawa 2011; Imai 2011; Moriyama 2012a). The remainder of this chapter highlights the major contributions of these works and is organized as follows. The first five sections summarize work centered on certain cognitive linguistics concept/approaches in L2 research: polysemy (Section 2), usage-based (Section 3), subjective construal (Section 4), joint attention (Section 5), and metaphor (Section 6). Section 7 introduces dictionaries and textbooks drawing on cognitive linguistic concepts and L2 research findings. Section 8 contains concluding remarks.

2 Polysemy Works dealing with polysemy can be divided into three major groups, which I call the prototype approach (Section 2.1), single schema approach (Section 2.2), and combined approach (Section 2.3). While all naturally assume the presence of multiple senses for a polysemous word or grammatical/grammaticalized item, they differ in how such polysemy should be dealt with or taught. The prototype approach focuses on the identification and the treatment of the central sense (prototype) and extended senses, whereas the single schema approach posits a single abstracted schema that covers all senses of the polysemous word or item. The former usually does not specify how the meaning should be represented but if it does, it is implied that each sense should be represented by a distinct image schema. The third approach, the combined approach, is a combination of the

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other two: it draws on the idea of prototype and also offers an account adopting a single abstracted schema.

2.1 Prototype approach In the prototype approach, a meaning of an item is postulated to create a semantic network of multiple senses. The most basic or regular sense is considered the prototype (or the element occupying the center of the semantic network), and those diverging from the prototypical sense are considered elements constituting the periphery (cf. Brugman 1981; Lakoff 1987; Taylor 2005). Mainstream research on L2 Japanese typically compares the differences between L1 and L2 speakers in how they use or interpret a particular item. Researchers generally agree that learners acquire the prototype first and the peripheral elements later. Some work suggests instruction should reflect this order. Specific items examined vary from grammatical or grammaticalized items: i.e., particles (Moriyama 2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2008a, 2008b; Kabata 2005; Tohyama 2006, 2008; Sugimura 1999, 2002, 2005), temporal phrases (Ozeki 2003), aspectual expressions (Sheu 2000; Sugaya 2002b, 2004), and passives (Ogawa and Ando 1999), to particular lexical items or expressions: i.e., verbs and verbal suffixes or components of compound verbs (Matsuda 2000, 2002; Sugaya 2002a), modal adverbs (Wang 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010), and request-related expressions (Tohyama 2006, 2008).¹

2.1.1 Grammatical items: particles Particles have attracted the attention of a number of researchers. For example, Kabata (2005) studies acquisition of ni. She collected data by asking L1-English speaking learners to make stories based on two sets of sequential illustrations. Her analysis shows concrete usages such as spatial and temporal are easily learned, whereas abstract usages are learned with more difficulty. In addition, a series of work by Moriyama looks at acquisition of a variety of particles. In one instance, Moriyama (2005a, b) draws on data on L2 Japanese learners to investigate acquisition order of polysemous senses of particle de, counting the frequency of correct 1 Work by Imai, Moriyama, & Arakawa (2010) and Mizukuchi (2008) belongs to the prototype approach and single schema approach respectively. As they both deal with dictionary making, instead of introducing them in Section 2.1, they are introduced in Section 7, designated as a section dealing with dictionary making.

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uses of de by learners of different proficiency levels whose first languages are Chinese, Korean, and English. The order of acquisition is place > instrument > manner > cause > time, irrespective of the first language. Moriyama claims this acquisition order can be explained by the notion of prototype. The acquisition progresses from the prototypical usage to extended usages: i.e., from concrete to abstract, from objective to subjective, and from literal to metaphorical. He also maintains the acquisition order found with Japanese de shares a universal order of acquisition: i.e., from prototype to non-prototype. More recently, Moriyama (2008a, b, c, d) has studied the prototype effect in L2 acquisition. First, he asks native speakers of Japanese to categorize different senses of particles. Participants receive several cards with a sentence (containing a particle) and are requested to put the cards into groups by judging the similarity and dissimilarity of the different senses of the particle. The resulting data are analyzed by multi-dimensional scaling, producing categorized mapping of different senses of the particle; he considers these to be semantic categories reflecting the mental lexicon of native speakers. His results show the particle wo has four senses: i.e., accusative, place, situation and time; the particle ni also has four senses i.e., goal, counterpart of action, location of existence and experiencer; and the particle de has five senses: i.e., place, instrument, manner, cause and time (cf. Moriyama 2005a,b). Next, Moriyama identifies the prototypes based on high frequency, easiness of recall, earliness of acquisition, and early appearance diachronically. Accusative for wo, goal for ni, and place for de are identified as the respective prototypes. When he compares the prototypicality of each particle with learners’ data, he discovers the prototypical senses are learned earlier than non-prototypical senses, corroborating the results of his earlier work. Beyond the universal acquisition order based on prototype, other factors, such as the semantics of particles and cognitive factors, are argued to influence the acquisition order of particles. Moriyama (2005c) examines the acquisition order of several particles based on data on L1 Korean learners of L2 Japanese and finds: (i) topic wa is acquired earlier than subject ga, which reflects the idea of universal topic prominence (e.g., Givón 1995); (ii) there is a strong chance that the acquisition of particles is influenced by the semantic relation between the particles and the verb that co-occur within the same clause; (iii) there are two types of errors in the learners’ uses of particles: i.e., those influenced by the L1 (e.g., the transfer of schemata and the category of the structures of learners’ L1) and those attributed to non-L1 factors (e.g., over-generalization of categories, misuse of similar but inappropriate categories, and low cognitive prominence of functional words). Tohyama (2006, 2008) also examines acquisition order of the particle wa. When she reviews work on wa, she finds researchers suggest topic wa is learned

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earlier than contrastive wa. She offers an account of why topic wa is more prototypical and easier to learn than contrastive wa, drawing on the Cognitive Pragmatics and Current Discourse Space model (Yamanashi 2001, 2004), which uses focus structure to represent the function of discourse. It turns out that contrastive wa has a more complex focus structure than topic wa. Based on this, Tohyama argues the complex focus structure of contrastive wa renders it less prototypical, thereby making it more difficult to acquire. Sugimura’s (1999, 2002, 2005) work on particles focuses on pedagogy. He claims introducing the concept of prototypes is effective when teaching particles to learners, as learners are otherwise forced to memorize different semantic roles associated with a particle rather disjunctively every time a new semantic role is introduced (e.g., particle ni indicating the place; ni indicating the target). In turn, Sugimura (1999) proposes the introduction of a new meaning (i.e., a new semantic role) in association with the prototype, highlighting the similarity or relatedness between the new meaning and the prototypical meaning. Arguably, the association method helps reduce learners’ memory load, helping them acquire the new meaning with more ease. Sugimura’s work uses an image schema like that in Fig. 2 to represent a particular sense of a given particle.

ni

Fig. 2: Image of the prototype sense of ni (Sugimura 2005: 51)

Fig. 2 shows an image schema for the prototype sense of ni which is intended to capture the idea that ni marks the target (goal) of a unidirectional movement, which the speaker recognizes as a point.²

2 To be clear, as each sense, prototype or its extension is associated with a distinct image schema, Sugimura’s work is grouped under the prototype approach, rather than the single schema approach which posits an image schema abstracted from all the senses, both the prototype and the extended senses.

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2.1.2 Grammatical items: temporal and aspectual expressions Ozeki (2003) describes a longitudinal study of acquisition of temporal phrases -toki ‘when’ and itu ‘when’ by a Russian native speaker. First, Ozeki tries to identify the prototype the learner creates as an interlanguage by examining the usage in the utterance of the learner. She claims the prototype schema of -toki is habitual action in the past, based on forms and the meaning produced by the learner at the early stages of learning. She also argues that prototypical usage is learned earlier than less prototypical usage: At the early stages the learner mostly used the incorrect variant itsu, and gradually utterances with the correct variant -toki increased. The results show that the replacement of the incorrect variant itsu by the correct one -toki occurred from the prototypical to peripheral instances. (Ozeki 2003: 89)

As for aspect marker -teiru, some claim L2 Japanese learners acquire the progressive sense (yielded by combining an activity verb with -teiru) earlier and with more ease than the resultative state sense (yielded by combining an achievement verb with -teiru) as predicted by the Aspect Hypothesis (Shirai and Kurono 1998). Interestingly, this order is compatible with the prediction of prototypicality: namely, the progress sense is more prototypical than the resultative state sense; therefore, the former is acquired earlier than the latter (Andreson and Shirai 1994, Sugaya 2004). When Sheu (2000) investigates acquisition order of Chinese, Korean, and English learners of Japanese in Oral Proficiency Interview speech data, she discovers progress sense is learned first, while the order of acquisition of other senses is essentially the same, regardless of the native languages of the learners. In her view, prototypicality accounts for the acquisition order of the sense of -teiru. Sugaya (2004), who reviews several works on Japanese -teiru with respect to the Aspect Hypothesis, finds two (Sugaya 2002b; Ishida 2004) contain results running counter to the prototype-based acquisition order account. For her part, Ishida (2004) reports learners among her students use the resultative sense more accurately than the progressive, the habitual, and the perfect sense. She posits the following possible reasons for the reversed acquisition order: the timing of exposure (through textbook instruction, the students learned the resultative sense few months earlier than the progressive sense); the amount of input (the students were exposed to more resultative usages than progressive usages); chunk learning (the students may have learned some resultative usage as a chunk introduced as formulaic expressions in the textbook, such as sun-de iru ‘to live’, mot-te iru ‘to have’, and sit-te iru ‘to know’).

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2.1.3 Verbs meaning come and go Sugaya (2002a) investigates how learners use iku ‘to go’/kuru ‘to come’ and -teiku ‘will become’/-tekuru ‘have become’ in an L2 learners’ corpus, following Hasegawa’s (1993) definitions of prototype usages and claims learners first acquire the prototypical usage of iku/kuru, namely, physical motion of human (e.g., uti ni kuru ‘to come to my home’), followed by less prototypical or abstract usages (e.g., pin to kuru ‘to ring the bell/to realize’). The same applies to -teiku/-tekuru. Learners use these complex verbal forms in the physical sense of motion first (e.g., tabete iku ‘to eat and go’), before adding less prototypical metaphorical senses (e.g., ikite iku ‘to go through life’).

2.1.4 Passive Ogawa and Ando (1999) study the order of teaching the passive in Japanese. They consider the passive with an affected animate noun marked by ga nominative as the prototype as in (1a), and the passive with an inanimate noun marked by ga nominative as its extended usage as in (1b). (1)

a. Seito ga sensee ni okorareta. student NOM teacher by got.yelled ‘A student got yelled at by the teacher.’ b. Boohuu keehoo ga dasareta. storm warning NOM issued ‘Storm warning was issued.’

Ogawa and Ando (1999) suggest introducing the prototype at the intermediate level and extended usages at the advanced level.

2.1.5 Lexical items: verbs and compound verbs Matsuda (2000) uses a free production method to identify the prototypical usage of a verb, waru ‘to break/divide’, by native speakers of Japanese and L2 Japanese learners of L1 Chinese and L1 Korean speakers, comparing how such prototypical usages differ among the speakers. The results show many native speakers of Japanese produce sentences with the sense of breaking as in sara wo waru ‘to break a plate’, while learners, both Chinese and Korean, produce sentences with the sense of dividing as in suika wo waru ‘to cut a watermelon’. Matsuda attributes

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the difference to the frequency of the learners’ exposure to examples in textbooks and dictionaries wherein the basic meaning of waru is described as dividing. When Matsuda (2002) continues her research investigating how advanced learners acquire the sense of a compound verb with -komu (cf. Section 2.2), she identifies four major senses: (i) the sense of entering (tobi-komu ‘to jump into’), (ii) deeply seated (ume-komu ‘to plant firmly’), (iii) remaining in the state (damari-komu ‘to keep silence’), and (iv) a condition obtained from a repeated action (hasiri-komu ‘to run many times’). Learners (even advanced learners) perform rather poorly overall, although they display some knowledge of these senses. Therefore, she suggests using an image schema to highlight the different senses of -komu depending on the combinatory types with the first verbal element of the compound verb.

2.1.6 Lexical items: modal adverbs Wang (2006, 2007, 2008, 2010) examines L2 acquisition of modal adverbs by L1 Chinese speakers, noticing that even advanced learners often make errors. She compares Japanese adverbs and their Chinese equivalents (e.g., Japanese adverbs kitto ‘surely’ and kanarazu ‘inevitably’, and their Chinese equivalent yiding), analyzing the frequency of uses of different types of senses in texts. She also conducts free production experiments with native speakers of both Chinese and Japanese to identify the prototypes in their L1. She detects slight differences in the prototypes in two languages and suggests L2 learners make errors because they transfer their L1 Chinese prototype to L2 Japanese upon construing the meaning of the Japanese modal adverbs, without realizing that the prototype differs from one language to the other. Wang says learning correct prototypes requires reorganization of the category system which, in turn, involves reorganization of the category members, schemata, prototypes, and the semantic structures. In her view, such reorganization must be supported by explicit instructions because learners may have difficulty detecting or may not even notice the subtle semantic differences of words between the two languages.

2.1.7 Items beyond lexical level: request-related expressions Tohyama (2006, 2008) reviews literature on the acquisition order of requestrelated expressions. According to her, previous research shows learners acquire expressions of reason, gratitude and preamble at an early stage, followed by those of apology and requesting makers but the expressions of conditioning

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and guarantee are learned at a later stage. To account for this acquisition order, Tohyama draws on concepts from Cognitive Pragmatics (Yamanashi 2001, 2004). According to the theory, when speakers make a request, the utterances are made in the following order: (i) preamble comes first to give the hearer some time to get ready to listen to the speaker; (ii) the speaker mentions the reason for the request and explains the situation; (iii) the speaker makes the request; (iv) once the request is accepted, the speaker expresses gratitude. This flow is proposed as the prototype of discourse patterns of requesting. Finally, the fact that learners acquire the expressions of reason, gratitude and preamble at an early stage is compatible with the idea that learners first acquire the prototype.

2.1.8 Summary and remaining issues of the prototype approach As the literature reviewed in this section makes clear, while learners readily acquire the prototypical and concrete senses, they have difficulty acquiring the extended senses, which tend to be abstract and metaphorical (cf. Section 7). Further, results of various studies indicate that learners, even with fairly high proficiency in Japanese, have difficulty in acquiring the native-like semantic network with polysemous senses of a word or multiple functions of a grammatical item which comprises both the prototype and its extended senses. This general finding seems reasonable and straightforward. However, there are at least two unresolved issues. First, Ishida’s (2004) report on acquisition order of the aspectual meaning of teiru (i.e., resultative first, progressive second) suggests the order of the instruction in the classroom and in the textbook is compatible with the usage-based view (i.e., L2 learners’ acquisition is guided by the amount and the type of the exposure to usages), but incompatible with the Aspect Hypothesis or prototypicality. The question is to account for this contradiction. A second issue concerns the amount of exposure: if prototypes are acquired through exposure to massive numbers of exemplars as the usage-based approach postulates, it is unclear how learners at an early stage with a limited exposure to examples can construct prototypes. More work is required to resolve these issues.

2.2 The single schema approach The single schema approach, which posits a single abstracted schema to account for polysemy, is adopted by Matsuda and her collaborator Shiraishi (Matsuda 2001, 2004, 2006; Matsuda and Shiraishi 2006a, 2006b, 2007, 2008) in their anal-

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ysis of the meanings of verbs and compound verbs, and by Moriyama (2008e) in his proposition of Japanese Cognitive Grammar. Essentially, Matsuda (and Shiraishi) argue that teaching a single core image schema which is presumably postulated by the Japanese native speakers can help learners internalize the meaning of the word and also understand the different senses of the target word as well as related words such as synonyms. For instance, Matsuda (2001, 2004) examines the meaning of -komu ‘-into’, the second member (V2) of a compound verb (e.g., ue-komu ‘to implant’, tobi-komu ‘to jump into’). Fig. 3 gives the proposed core image schema.

domain X domain Y [α]

[β]

Fig. 3: Core image of -komu (Matsuda 2004: 162)

In Fig. 3, arrow [α] represents entering domain X. Arrow [β] is an image of entering domain Y, from which it is hard for an entity to get out. Following Tanaka (1990), Matsuda (2004) explains foregrounding (or backgrounding) different parts of the image makes it possible to account for the different senses of -komu. For instance, in the case of tobi-komu ‘to jump into’ used in a phrase like puuru ni tobi-komu ‘to dive into a swimming pool’, it is posited that the arrow [α] in Fig. 3 is foregrounded (syootenka ‘focused/foregrounded’), resulting in the image in Fig. 4.

Domain X Domain Y [α]

[β]

focused

Fig. 4: Image of -komu (Matsuda 2004: 164)

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Furthermore, this core schema is merged with the core image schema of tobi‘jumping’, the first member (V1) of compound verbs, represented in Fig. 5, to ultimately obtain Fig. 6, a superimposition of Fig. 4 and Fig. 5, representing the meaning of the compound verb tobi-komu ‘to jump into (a swimming pool)’.

Fig. 5: Image of tobu ‘to jump’ (Matsuda 2004: 164)

Domain X (Water of a pool)

Fig. 6: Image of tobi-komu ‘to jump into (a pool)’ (Matsuda 2004: 164)

A parallel operation is posited to account for extended senses. Fig. 7 shows an instance of the same compound tobi-komu ‘to jump into’ used to express a fictive motion concerning vision conveyed in (2). (2) Huukee ga me ni tobikondekita.³ scenery NOM eye to jumped.into ‘(lit.) The scenery came into one’s eyes’. These images are intentionally kept abstract to cover several different senses (both concrete and abstract): e.g., both Fig. 6 and Fig. 7 have a circle, but the former represents a physical area of the swimming pool whereas the latter represents a perceptual, less tangible region.

3 The abbreviations used in the examples are as follows: ACC = accusative, NOM = nominative, TOP = topic, Q = question.

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me ‘eye’ (visual sense)

Fig. 7: Image of tobi-komu (Matsuda 2004: 165)

Though many claim a unified account of polysemy can be obtained by foregrounding and backgrounding part of the abstracted image schema, its effectiveness for pedagogical purposes or indeed how such an operation can be implemented remains a topic for future research. Another author adopting the single schema approach is Moriyama (2008e) who uses image schemata following Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar but modifies them for an instructional purpose. He discusses the polysemy of give and receive expressions, go and come expressions, passives, particles, tense and aspect, modality, voice, and complex sentences, positing an abstract schema for each item. For instance, the two illustrations in Fig. 8 represent the image schema for ga and wa that appear in a sentence like (3). (3) a. Watasi ga I NOM ‘I eat fish.’ b. Watasi wa I TOP ‘I eat fish.’

sakana fish

wo taberu. ACC eat

sakana wo taberu. fish ACC eat

(a) Image of ga (b) Image of wa Fig. 8: Image of ga (a) and wa (b) (Moriyama 2008e: 189)

Compared to theoretically correct images, the images shown here are simplified for pedagogical purposes; even so, they are not self-explanatory. Although Moriyama clarifies what each building block means, such as a circle, square, and arrows, it is unclear how these images can help learners comprehend the

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differences between ga and wa. Furthermore, Moriyama (2008e) uses different degrees of abstraction and elaboration in capturing the senses of a polysemous item. Future work must determine how much elaboration should be used in representing a meaning on the one hand, and how much elaboration is needed for an instruction to be effective, or for acquisition to take place, on the other. While several questions remain unanswered, Moriyama’s images based on Cognitive Grammar are the most elaborate ones proposed for Japanese teaching.

2.3 Combined approach Some researchers adopt both the prototype approach and the single schema approach (Oka 2007; Moriyama 2006, 2008c, 2008d; Masuda 2013). Oka (2007) suggests an effective way to introduce case particles. For instance, he argues ni has “directional characteristics (of a cognitive agent or a nominativemarked agent) towards a noun marked by ni” and this commonality can capture the two apparently contradictory senses of ni, source and goal, as well as the other various senses of ni. Oka proposes an abstract image schema for the directional characteristics, essentially the same as proposed in Sugimura (2002, 2005) (cf. Fig. 2). Moriyama (2006, 2008d) suggests three steps for helping learners acquire the polysemous senses of case particles. The first is to present the prototype, as it is the central sense of all polysemous senses and is concrete, frequently used, and arguably easily learned. The second step is to show the single abstracted image schema to explain other senses, while the third is to show a radial network of all the senses. These steps, suggested to supplement the regular instructions, employ top-down instruction. Moriyama notes some top-down instruction is useful in adult L2 acquisition, even though L2 acquisition is a bottom-up process in nature.⁴ Lastly, Masuda (2013) conducts an empirical study to examine the effectiveness of teaching particles to two experimental groups: a cognitive linguisticsbased instruction group and a control group. The participants in the former receive the meanings of particles of ni and de, example sentences of those particles, image schemata, semantic networks, and prototypical uses; those in the latter receive only the meanings of particles and the example sentences. The posttests show no effect on learning the prototypical usages in the group receiv4 Moriyama (2008d) includes a super-schema (Langacker 1999), a more abstracted schema extracted from some schemata. It may be too abstract for learners to interpret concrete senses symbolized by a super-schema (cf. Sugimura 2002).

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ing cognitive linguistics-based instruction, but they indicate a positive effect on learning less prototypical usages and meanings. Masuda (2013) suggests less than ideal aspects of the research design may have inhibited the positive effects on the prototypical usages from emerging. Masuda’s (2013) work is one of the earliest empirical studies to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive linguistics-based instruction. Although the impact of cognitive linguistics-based instruction is not as strong as expected, the results still imply the application of cognitive linguistics to L2 is effective. More detailed studies are required to confirm the range and the amount of the effectiveness and appropriateness. While Masuda (2013) applies image schemata, semantic network, and prototype simultaneously in her experiment, it is not known if all devices are equally effective or if there is a difference among them. To sum up, both abstracted image schemata and prototypes may play an important role in the pedagogical explanation of polysemy. Combining the two approaches has the merits of both: the concreteness of the prototype approach and a unified account of the single schema approach. That said, it inherits the downsides of both: the complexity of the former and the abstractness of the latter. Future research should determine to what extent and at what stage abstracted image schemata and prototypes should be used in instruction.

3 Usage-based approach This section reviews how the usage-based approach explains the order and patterns of acquisition by L2 learners. It looks at Noda et al. (2001) who propose the unit formation strategy and adjunction strategy as interlanguage to explain unexpected patterns produced by learners, which do not follow the rules in prescriptive grammar. Moriyama (2009, 2012b) reinterprets these patterns by referring to the notion of pivot schemata proposed by Tomasello (2003). Noda et al. (2001) propose unit formation strategy for L2 acquisition. Japanese has a three-way system in demonstratives. In anaphoric usages, a- ‘that’ is used to refer to a referent about which both the speaker and the addressee know or share information, while so- ‘that’ refers to a referent that either the speaker or the addressee knows, and ko- ‘this’ is used to add vividness in the description of the speaker, as if s/he could see the referent in the real scene, in front of the speaker. Noda et al. show L2 learners do not follow the rules described above; they create their own patterns as an interlanguage, using a- with concreate words such as hito ‘person’ and sensee ‘teacher’, and so- with abstract words such as koto ‘thing’ and kanji ‘feeling’. Noda et al. argues learners acquire those patterns

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as units. The same applies to the distinction between case particles ni and de. Ni indicates the location of existence as in (4), while de indicates the location of action as in (5), among other meanings of polysemous ni and de. (4) Tukue no ue ni hon ga aru. desk of up at book NOM exist ‘There is a book on the desk.’ (5) kooen de asobu. park at play ‘to play in a park.’ Again, the data of L2 learners indicate they ignore the above rule and use ni with a positional word such as naka ‘in’ and mae ‘front’, and de with the name of a place and a noun indicating a building, which suggests learners are using those patterns as units. According to Moriyama (2009, 2012b), adult L2 acquisition in Japanese can be explained, albeit cautiously, by partially following the acquisition order proposed by Tomasello (2003), shown in (6): (6) holophrases (one words) > two word combinations > pivot schemata > item-based constructions > abstract constructions. To focus on pivot schemata (cf. Tomasello 2003), Moriyama (2009) argues patterns such as ano hito ‘that person’, sono koto ‘that thing’, ue ni ‘on’ and Tokyo de ‘at Tokyo’ are not units, as Noda et al. (2001) claim, but pivot schemata, whereby learners analyze a phrase into the pivot and the slot as in: ano (pivot) + hito (slot, concrete noun), sono (pivot) + slot (abstract noun), slot (positional noun) + ni, and slot (place/building) + de. Moriyama also argues the notion of pivot schemata can account for learners’ erroneous utterances such as those in (7a) and (8a): (7) a. *Taberu, deki-masu ka. eat can-POLITE Q (intended) ‘Can I eat (it)?’ b. Taber-are-masu ka. eat-can-POLITE Q ‘Can I eat (it)?’

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(8) a. *Kaki-masu, kudasai. write-POLITE give.me (intended) ‘Please write (it).’ b. Kaite-kudasai. write-please.do ‘Please write (it).’ Noda et al. (2001) claim such errors are associated with learners’ adjunction strategy whereby those at earlier stages, who have not fully acquired the forms and functions, tend to resort to adding a fixed sequence, thus producing an infelicitous utterance. For example, a fixed form dekimasuka is added to the verb taberu ‘eat’ in (7a) without conjugating the verb correctly as in (7b), or a fixed form kudasai is added to the verb to indicate the requesting function in (8a), without changing the verb form as in the correct counterpart in (8b). Contrary to Noda et al. (2001), Moriyama (2009) claims the forms in (7a) and (8a) are instances of the pivot schemata: i.e., slot + dekiru (pivot) and slot + kudasai (pivot) respectively. He adds that these patterns produced by these learners are taken as evidence that L2 adult learner also employ bottom-up acquisition processes just like L1 learners as these pivot schemata or patterns are never taught in the classroom. Turning to item-based constructions, which rely on syntactic cues such as word order and case particles, Moriyama (2012b) reports an example of different acquisition patterns between a child L1 and adult L2 as follows: (9) a. *yootien ni korobu kindergarten at fall (intended) ‘to fall to the ground at a kindergarten’ b. yootien de korobu kindergarten at fall ‘to fall to the ground at a kindergarten’ (10) a. *hanabatake wo deru flower.field ACC exit (intended) ‘to come out to the field of flowers’ b. hanabatake ni deru flower.field to exit ‘to come out to the field of flowers’ (9a) is an example of an error made by a child, with the intended correct counterpart given in (9b). Moriyama considers the child acquires the pivot schema of

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yootien + ni (i.e., noun + case particle) and combines it with the verb korobu ‘to fall’ to form an item-based construction. (10a) shows an error produced by an L2 adult, with the intended correct phrase given in (10b).⁵ The error in (10a) suggests the learner acquires wo + deru (i.e., case particle + verb) as a pivot schema, then combines it with a noun hanabatake ‘field of flowers’ to create an item-based construction. Moriyama concludes that L1 child learners of Japanese produce pivot schemata with noun + case particle, while L2 adult learners produce pivot schemata with both noun + case particle, and case particle + verb patterns. To reiterate, the acquisition order in the usage-based approach in L1 acquisition (Tomasello 2003) is argued to be applicable to L2 adult acquisition as well. It is also suggested that L2 learners go through not only top-down processes through conscious learning, but also bottom-up processes like L1 acquisition.

4 Subjective construal When a speaker faces a situation and describes it, s/he construes or interprets the situation and expresses her/his construal or interpretation in language. According to Ikegami (2000), English speakers prefer objective construal, while Japanese speakers prefer subjective construal. Ikegami (2008: 231) defines object construal and subject construal as follows: Objective construal: the conceptualizer is outside the scene s/he is to construe and construes it as it is perceived to her/him. Even if the conceptualizer is on the scene s/he is to construe, s/he may mentally displace her-/himself outside the scene s/he is to construe and construe[s] it as it would be perceived by her/him. Subjective construal: the conceptualizer is on the very scene s/he is to construe and construes the scene as it is perceivable to her/him. Even if the conceptualizer is not on the scene s/he is to construe, s/he may mentally project her-/himself onto the scene s/he is to construe and construes it as it would be perceived by her/him.

The concept of subjective construal can be applied to L2 Japanese research/pedagogy in three ways: the first is to provide an explanatory tool for a particular meaning (Moriyama 2007), the second is to analyze narratives of L2 learners in terms of the concept (Okugawa 2007), and the third is to develop teaching materials (Kondo and Himeno 2007; Yokota 2009).

5 (10a) can be a correct phrase in a different context.

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Moriyama (2007) combines Ikegami’s idea of subjective construal with Langackerian image schemata to explain the meaning and usage of different expressions. For example, Fig. 9-(a) and Fig. 9-(b) are intended to capture the difference between the English sentence (11) and its Japanese counterpart (12), both of which depict an event wherein the speaker perceives Mt. Fuji.

I (Spk)

mountain

mountain

I (Cognizer)

I

(a) Representation for English sentence (11) (b) Representation for Japanese sentence (12) Fig. 9: Realization of I in English and Japanese, adapted from Moriyama (2007: 4)

(11) I see Mt. Fuji over there. (12) Asoko ni huzisan ga there at Mt.Fuji NOM ‘(lit.) Mt. Fuji is seen there.’

mieru. visible

The English sentence (11) contains I, which is doubly represented in Fig. 9-(a): I as the speaker and I as the cognizer, who objectively describes the scene. By contrast, the Japanese counterpart (12) lacks I. Though I is present in Fig. 9-(b), the speaker and the cognizer are merged as a single entity; further, since the merged entity is realized at the scene of the portrayal, I (cognizer/speaker) is out of sight of the speaker him/herself; therefore, it is unexpressed within the sentence (12). Moriyama (2007) goes on to discuss more differences between English and Japanese, including verbs of giving. For example, to portray a scene of a transfer of an object such as a book between a giver and a receiver, English uses only one verb, give (I gave John a book ; John gave me a book), but Japanese uses two distinct verbs, ageru ‘give’ (Watasi ga Jon ni hon o ageta ‘I gave John a book’) and kureru ‘give’ (Jon ga watasi ni hon wo kureta ‘John gave me a book’), each of

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which designates the direction of the transfer with respect to the speaker: kureru is toward the speaker, ageru is away from the speaker (or being neutral, namely, between third persons). The question is why such a difference exists between the two languages. Moriyama (2007) proposes a few principles to account for the meaning of the donatory verbs in Japanese. One is the principle of meaning-form congruency, stated in (13). (13) Meaning-form congruency: The same meanings are grouped into the same category and labeled with the same form, while different meanings are grouped into different categories and labeled with different forms. According to this principle, there should be a distinct word if the two events depicted belong to a different category. Moriyama (2007) uses this principle to account for the difference between English and Japanese give, illustrated in Fig. 10.

I

I

I

I

(a’) ageru ‘give’ (b’) kureru ‘give’ (a) give (b) give Fig. 10: Give in English ((a), (b)) and Japanese ((a’), (b’)) (adapted from Moriyama 2007: 5)

As in Fig. 9, in the English cases (Fig. 10-(a), Fig. 10-(b)), the cognizer I is located out of the scene, perceiving the target scene objectively, whereas in the Japanese cases (Fig. 10-(a’), Fig. 10-(b’)), the merged I (cognizer/speaker) is in the scene of the portrayal, perceiving the scene subjectively. English uses only one verb, Moriyama says, because the event of the object transfer is exactly the same from the perspective of the I (cognizer) except the object moves from I (speaker) to the receiver in (a) but from the giver to I (speaker) in (b), and this symmetricity is not regarded as constituting a difference in meaning. Therefore, both can be covered by one verb give following (13). However, in Japanese, I (cognizer/speaker) is in the scene, with the object perceived as moving away from the cognizer in (a’) and toward the cognizer in (b’); therefore, the two transfers are considered distinct which, in turn, requires two distinct verbs, following (13). Moriyama’s account, inspired by Ikegami’s distinction of subjective vs. objective construal, seems to clarify some of the differences between English and Japanese. That said, his explanation tends to be highly theory-oriented. Although

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Moriyama (2007) suggests his subjective-construal based account can be applied to classroom instructions and included in teaching materials, a substantial adjustment may be required before such a practical application can be instantiated. The second group of research on subjective construal features Okugawa (2007), who examines narratives produced by L1-Chinese-L2-Japanese learners (20 intermediate and 20 advanced learners). She compares their narratives with those produced by native speakers to find that while native speakers use a strategy (i) to mark the discourse-new participant by ga and (ii) to indicate the viewpoint is placed onto the protagonist throughout the story, the learners (i) mostly fail to indicate the discourse-new participant by using ga; (ii) even advanced learners have difficulty indicating the viewpoint is consistently placed onto the protagonist. Okugawa concludes native speakers portray a scene by applying the subjective construal (i.e., prototypical Japanese narratives), whereas learners apply the objective construal, failing to produce the prototype of the Japanese narrative style. Okugawa suggests using materials such as pictures and video clips to teach the difference between subjective and objective construal, but she does not provide the materials. The third group of studies on subjective construal focuses on pedagogy. Kondo and Himeno (2007, 2008), for instance, examine Japanese language textbooks published in Japan and China; they note that many sentences used therein, exemplified in (14), deviate from natural Japanese sentences reflecting subjective construal, thus rendering the materials inappropriate for Japanese language instruction. (14) a. ?Watasi wa Rahimu desu. Watasi wa Mareesia-zin desu. I TOP Rahim be. I TOP Malaysia-person be ‘I am Rahim. I am a Malaysian.’ b. Watasi wa kamera ga hosii desu. I TOP camera NOM want be ‘I want a camera.’ c. ?Tanaka-san wa sinsetuni nihonryoori no Tanaka-Miss TOP kindly Japanese.food of tukurikata wo watasi ni setumee simasita. how.to.make ACC I to explanation did ‘Miss Tanaka kindly explained to me how to cook Japanese food.’ (14a) is awkward because the speaker watasi ‘I’ is realized in the sentence. A natural Japanese sentence will not include watasi ‘I’ if a viewpoint with a subjective construal is adopted. (14b) is also awkward because it realizes the speaker

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as the subject, and this should be omitted with a psychological predicate like hosii ‘want’; finally, (14c) is infelicitous because the scene involves a transfer of a favor which should be expressed by dropping the speaker, watasi ni and using a donatory predicate -te kueru ‘give (benefit)’ to be compatible with the subjective construal style whereby the scene is perceived from the viewpoint of the speaker (cf. Fig. 10-(b’)). Similar points are raised in Ikegami and Moriya (2009). In their view, Japanese instructional materials should contain natural sentences that realize the subjective construal, as in the textbooks edited by Peng and Moriya (2004–2007). These authors (Kondo and Himeno 2007; Ikegami and Moriya 2009) as well as Yokota (2009) recommend instructional materials should use illustrations or pictures to facilitate acquisition of natural sentences compatible with the subjective construal. For instance, Yokota (2009) suggests using an example sentence that accompanies a picture as instantiated in (15) and Fig. 11. (15) Biiru wo tuide kuremasita. beer ACC pour gave ‘(He) poured beer (for me).’

Fig. 11: Picture without the speaker (Yokota 2009: 8)⁶

(15) is another example involving a transfer of a favor whereby the speaker benefits from receiving the drink poured into his/her glass. The natural way of expressing this scene is to omit watasi ‘I’ from the sentence, as depicted in the accompanying picture in Fig. 11.

6 This picture is reproduced with the author’s permission.

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Much work is needed to evaluate how the concept of subjective construal can be best utilized or implemented in L2 applied acquisition studies. In particular, it is first necessary to determine what factors come into play when learners try to acquire the concept of subjective construal: e.g. whether negative transfer from L1 affects the acquisition.

5 Joint attention Joint attention is another factor affecting the naturalness of a sentence as an expression of Japanese. This refers to the shared attention between the speaker and the addressee and serves as the basis of intersubjective expressions which, in turn, are intended to convey shared information between the speaker and addressee. Some authors say Japanese textbooks lack consideration of joint attention and include many unnatural examples (Kondo and Himeno 2008; Ikegami and Moriya 2009). These authors emphasize the importance of introducing examples compatible with the mode of joint attention reflecting intersubjectivity. Use of zero-marked nominal referents (i.e., lacking the particle ga nominative and wo accusative), predication with -noda/-ndesu ‘it is that…’ and inclusion of sentenceending particles such as yo and ne, are illustrative of this point. According to Kondo and Himeno (2008) and Ikegami and Moriya (2009), zero-marking of nominal referents, sometimes treated as the omission of particles in the literature and reference books, serves to direct the hearer’s attention to the referent. Example (16), which has no particle, sounds natural, but the addition of wa, a topic marker, to kore ‘this’ renders the sentence unnatural. (16) Lii desu. Yorosiku onegai simasu. Kore Ø (?wa) meesi desu. Lee am nice please do this (TOP) name.card is ‘I am Lee. Nice to meet you. This is my name card.’ (Ikegami and Moriya 2009: 124) The zero-marked form invites the hearer to direct his/her attention to the item pointed at but the topic-marked form fails to perform the function. Another example of joint attention is a speaker’s use of -noda/-ndesu (cf. Ikegami, this volume). Arguably, the form prompts the listener’s joint attention, guiding him/her to notice the presence of another situation related to but distinct from the present situation. For instance, (17) conveys the excuse of being late.

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(17) Kaisya ni okureta no wa office at late NOMINALIZER TOP totyuu de ziko ga atta-ndesu. on.the.way at accident NOM happen-NODA ‘I was late at the office; that is because there was an accident on the way.’ (Kondo and Himeno 2008: 302) By adding -ndesu at the end of the sentence, the speaker guides the hearer to direct his/her attention to the occurrence of an accident (another situation) which is the cause of the present situation (being late). Another example is the use of the sentence-ending particles yo and ne. The former is used to direct the hearer’s attention to what the speaker is currently paying attention to, whereas the latter is used to direct the attention of both the speaker and the listener to the same referent. All these forms are frequently reported as the source of a learner’s errors. For example, learners apparently tend to add unnecessary particles such as wo accusative as exemplified in (18). (18) ?Tyotto kore wo mite. for.a.while this ACC look ‘Hey, look at this.’ (Kondo and Himeno 2008: 301) The concept of joint-attention has recently been introduced to L2 acquisition research and pedagogy, with a view to providing a practical guide to learners rather than serving as a prescriptive grammar. Research should continue, as the concept of joint-attention can shed light on the naturalness of Japanese expressions.

6 Metaphor Since Lakoff and Johnson (1980), metaphors have been acknowledged as a fundamental mechanism in language rather than simply a rhetorical device. Metaphors constitute an important part of knowledge that L2 language learners should acquire to be competent language communicators. Some L2 work in Japan deals with teaching metaphors. Oka (2005) argues learning metaphors can enrich learners’ vocabulary and suggests various types of materials to teach them. Meanwhile, Ono (2005) reports on the introduction of how to define a word and how to use metaphor, metonymy, color terms, polysemous words, synesthesia, and

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onomatopoeia. According to Ono, students express positive interest, especially in onomatopoeia, metaphor, and metonymy. More recent work by Zhong (2013a, 2013b) represents inspirational L2 acquisition research. It draws on the idea of metaphorical competence (Danesei 1992, 1995), or the ability to understand and use metaphorical expressions of the target language. To be more specific, to master a language, learners must become fluent in encoding a concept in linguistic forms: i.e., they must not only acquire the conceptual system of the target language, but they must also learn to understand specific form-meaning relationships reflecting the conceptual system (Danesei 1992, 1995). According to Zhong (2013a, 2013b), research on metaphorical competence mostly deals with L2-English learners with no cases involving L2-Japanese learners. In an attempt to fill this gap, Zhong (2013a, 2013b) examines the metaphorical competence of advanced L1-Chinese speakers of L2-Japanese. Zhong (2013a, 2013b) experiments with a test to evaluate the metaphorical competence of the learners; the test consists of both felicitous and infelicitous metaphorical expressions in Japanese such as (19) and (20) respectively. (19) Handan ga amai. decision NOM sweet ‘(One’s) decision is too optimistic.’ (20) ??Boku wa byooki ni  I TOP sickness to ‘(Int.) I became sick.’

otita. fell

In the experiment, participants were asked to rate the acceptability of each item and write the meanings of the metaphor in Chinese. To evaluate their production ability, they were also asked to create sentences using a metaphorical expression. Results showed even advanced learners have difficulty mastering some types of metaphors. Examples (21)–(23) are illustrative of this point. (21) gakusyu-naiyo wo syooka dekinai learning-content ACC digest cannot ‘cannot understand the learning content’ (22) Sakki itta koto wo waruku before said thing ACC badly ‘Don’t take my words ill.’

tor-anaide take-not

kudasai please

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(23) Watasi wa syusyoo no zokutoo ni gimon ga aru. I TOP prime.minister of keep.pitching at question NOM exist ‘I have a question about (his) continuance in premiership.’ (21) contains a word syooka ‘digest’, which can be metaphorically construed as ‘comprehension’ in both Chinese and Japanese; (22) contains a verb tor- ‘take/ catch’, which can mean ‘understand’ in Japanese but cannot in Chinese (In Chinese, the word for ‘grab’ is used to mean ‘understand’). This means the two languages share the same conceptual metaphor, UNDERSTANDING IS CATCHING in (22) even if the two languages use different verbs to express the idea based on this conceptual metaphor. The two languages do not share the conceptual metaphor LIFE IS A BASEBALL GAME. Accordingly, zokutoo ‘continue to pitch’ can mean ‘continue to work’ in Japanese in (23) but not in Chinese. Based on the parallel pattern between Japanese and Chinese, it can be predicted that the learners will perform well when the conceptual metaphor is matched between the two languages as in (21) and (22), but they will not perform well where the two languages do not share the metaphor as in (23). Some results were as expected; others came as a surprise. Zhong found participants performed well with the (21)-type metaphors, thus conforming to the prediction, but their performances in (22) and (23) did not conform. It was expected participants would perform most poorly with the (23)-type metaphors, as the source and the target languages do not match on the conceptual metaphor. But this was not the case. In fact, they performed slightly worse with the (22)type metaphor than the (23)-type. Zhong attributes this unexpected result to the deficiency of the experimental design, suggesting a need for a more sophisticated experimental design that accurately measures the L2 learners’ metaphorical competence.⁷ Though the work may contain some drawbacks in the experimental design, Zhong’s investigation of metaphorical competence is a valuable pioneer work in the field of Japanese L2 acquisition research on metaphor.

7 Dictionary and textbook There have been some attempts to develop dictionaries and textbooks working within the framework of cognitive linguistics: (i) E-Gate English Japanese Diction-

7 It appears controlling the influence from the orthographic representation, i.e., kanji (Chinese characters) is a key factor.

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ary (Tanaka, Takeda and Kawade. 2003), (ii) Learner’s Dictionary of Multi-sense Japanese Words (Arakawa 2011; Imai 2011; Moriyama 2012a), (iii) Handbook of Usage of Japanese Basic Verbs for JFL Learners (Pardeshi et al. 2014) and (iv) Sogo Nichigo vols.1 to 4 (Peng and Moriya 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007). The E-Gate English Japanese Dictionary (Tanaka, Takeda and Kawade 2003) is for learners of English; accordingly, it incorporates cognitive semantics to explain the meaning of a word. Mizukuchi (2006), who reviews this dictionary, says it uses core meanings and core images. According to her, the latter are equivalent to schemata (Langacker 1999), abstract meanings detached from contexts but common to all polysemous senses. Mizukuchi (2006) comments that while applying the idea of cores to a learner’s dictionary may be effective to show the differences among the synonymous senses, the cores are so abstract that they will hardly be understood by the learners using the dictionary.⁸ A Learner’s Dictionary of Multi-sense Japanese Words comprises a series of dictionaries, each of which treats different lexical categories; nouns (Arakawa 2011), adjectives and adverbs (Imai 2011), and verbs (Moriyama 2012a). They are the realization of a project by Imai, Moriyama, and Arakawa (2010), aiming (i) to help intermediate and advanced learners understand the nature of polysemous words, i.e. as the extensions of a concrete sense, (ii) to explain the basic sense first and the extended senses second, and (iii) to use images that are not too abstract for use in instruction. These dictionaries are corpus-based and adhere to the tenets of cognitive linguistics (Imai 2012). In Fig. 12, the senses of a word are presented as a network with the basic sense at the left most side. The figure presents the cognitively prototypical sense first, with their derived senses following; the order is intended to facilitate the understanding of the derivational paths (cf. Imai 2012). The information provided for each word is rich, but for this very reason, the dictionary contains only a small numbers of entries.

8 Mizukuchi (2008) proposes the following points should be considered to compile a learner’s dictionary from a cognitive linguistics point of view. A list of translations in a hierarchical structure to indicate semantic extensions should be shown so learners can grasp a whole picture at a glance. Abundant example sentences must be included so learners are able to understand usages. Example sentences must be chosen from the corpus as much as possible. Explanations for viewpoint and typical errors must be included to stimulate a top-down process of learning. Mizukuchi (2008) also claims prototypes rather than schemata should be used in a learner’s dictionary because learners first learn prototypes.

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Fig. 12: A learner’s dictionary of multi-sense Japanese words (Imai 2011: 10)

Handbook of Usage of Japanese Basic Verbs for JFL Learners (Pardeshi, et al. 2014) (accessible at: http://verbhandbook.ninjal.ac.jp/) is a web-based verb usage handbook for advanced learners and teachers (Pardeshi et al. 2012). The handbook describes polysemous verbs in extraordinary detail, including cognitive mechanisms underlying semantic extensions and semantic relationships among the various senses, using both the prototype and the single schema approach. It provides image schemata which represent the core, i.e., the shared sense by various senses of the verb, and a semantic network of those extended senses. The handbook proffers abundant examples from corpora, edited to suit the needs of learners: some have audio accompaniment; others feature illustrations or videos. A series of Japanese textbooks, Sougou Nichigo vols.1 to 4, is published in China (Peng and Moriya 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007). This pioneer work applies the

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research findings of cognitive linguistics to textbooks: i.e., providing natural sentences in model conversations which follow the claim that Japanese takes a subjective construal viewpoint (e.g., Ikegami 2008). Developments of teaching and learning materials based on cognitive linguistics remain in their infancy. No empirical study has compared the effectiveness or appropriateness of the materials with those of traditional materials or instructions, with the notable exception of Masuda (2013) (cf. Section 2.3). A wider application of insights from cognitive linguistics to teaching and learning materials is called for.

8 Conclusion This chapter summarizes major work published in Japan between1999 and 2013 and finds that while cognitive linguistics has a wide range of research topics, to date, only some have been adopted to investigate L2 Japanese acquisition. Plausible topics for future research include force dynamics, verb-framing and satellite-framing of motion expressions, iconicity, action chain, mental space theory, Construction Grammar, among others. While surprisingly few findings from cognitive linguistics-oriented L2 adult acquisition research have been applied to pedagogy and developing teaching and learning materials, there is an active and promising application in the development of textbooks and dictionaries to account for polysemy. More work is certainly called for in this area. Future studies should contribute to the development of theories and offer a practical basis for cognitive-linguistics-oriented teaching and learning. Also needed are empirical studies examining the validity and effectiveness of teaching and learning materials. Cognitive linguistics is a promising framework that can contribute to both L2 research and L2 pedagogy, as it is an interdisciplinary science investigating the cognition of human beings.

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Appendix List of publications in Fig. 1 Concept/approach

#

Author(s) (year)

Polysemy – the prototype approach

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.

Ogawa & Ando (1999) Sugimura (1999) Matsuda (2000) Sheu (2000) Matsuda (2002) Sugaya (2002a) Sugaya (2002b) Sugimura (2002) Oozeki (2003) Sugaya (2004) Kabata (2005) Moriyama (2005a) Moriyama (2005b) Moriyama (2005c) Sugimaura (2005) Tohyama (2006) Wang (2006) Wang (2007) Mizukuchi (2008) Moriyama (2008b) Moriyama (2008a) Tohyama (2008) Wang (2008) Imai, Moriyama, & Arakawa (2010) Wang (2010)

Polysemy – the single schema approach

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Matsuda (2001) Matsuda (2004) Matsuda (2006) Matsuda & Shiraishi (2006a) Matsuda & Shiraishi (2006b) Mizukuchi (2006) Matsuda & Shiraishi (2007) Matsuda & Shiraishi (2008) Moriyama (2008e)

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Concept/approach

#

Author(s) (year)

Polysemy – the prototype approach and the single schema approach

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Moriyama (2006) Oka (2007) Moriyama (2008c) Moriyama (2008d) Masuda (2013)

Subjective construal

1. 2. 3. 4.

Kondo & Himeno (2007) Moriyama (2007) Okugawa (2007) Yokota (2009)

Subjective construal & Joint attention

1. 2.

Kondo & Himeno (2008) Ikegami & Moriya (2009)

Usage-based

1. 2.

Moriyama (2009) Moriyama (2012)

Metaphor

1. 2. 3. 4.

Oka (2005) Ono (2005) Zhong (2013a) Zhong (2013b)

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References < > indicates main concept(s) used in a reference.

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Kaori Kabata and Kiyoko Toratani

14 Towards better integration of linguistics research, SLA, and pedagogy 1 Contributions of this volume to SLA Taken together, the 12 chapters in this volume show how cognitive-functional linguistics offers a useful theoretical framework for the study of L2 acquisition of Japanese, shedding light on characteristics of L2 acquisition of Japanese, not easily shown within other theoretical linguistic frameworks. This concluding chapter recaptures the volume’s overall contribution to the field of Japanese as a second/foreign language acquisition, examines pedagogical implications, and touches on future direction. What cognitive-functional linguistics can offer SLA research is best articulated by Pederson and Cadierno (2004: 156–157): 1. detailed contrastive analyses of the semantic structure of the learners’ L1 and L2; 2. explanations of how semantic structure is related to general cognitive abilities; 3. a thorough understanding of the role of L1 transfer in the acquisition of a foreign language; 4. satisfying conceptual integration of the structural and social/cultural aspects of L2 acquisition; and 5. unitary pictures of learners’ interlanguage. In what follows, we apply these five paradigms to each chapter, showing how the author takes advantage of a cognitive-functional approach to explore the phenomenon of L2 acquisition of Japanese. Mitsugi (Chapter 6) and Luk (Chapter 8) slot into the first paradigm as they offer “detailed contrastive analyses of the semantic structures of the learners’ L1 and L2, where meaning is understood as encyclopaedic in scope and as subjective, i.e., consisting of a human interpretation of the world” (Pederson and Cadierno 2004: 156). Both deal with how speakers construe or express the relationship between a verb and its semantic argument(s). Mitsugi examines acquisition of relative clauses, looking for different patterns of usage between Japanese natives and learners in the selection of the verb (in terms of transitivity) in the relative clause and the head noun (in terms of animacy). She finds L1 and L2 speakers differ in the choice of verb transitivity and the type of event participants upon

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using grammatical structure of relative clauses, implying that how they profile the target scene differs. Mitsugi notes, “[T]he distribution of Japanese relative clauses cannot be explained adequately by purely structural properties, such as gap positions in subject and object relatives” (this volume) underscoring the appropriateness of adopting a functionally oriented approach in the analysis of relative clauses. Similarly, Luk deals with semantics of verbs, focusing on the relationship between the transitivity and the semantic role of event participants and noting a tendential difference between the L1 and L2 data: namely, Cantonese learners of Japanese fixate their gaze longer than do natives on the person picture in the transitive (vs. intransitive) condition in an eye-tracking experiment. Taken together, these two studies suggest verb semantics focusing on valence and semantic roles is an important area of L2 study; it is also clear that cognitivefunctional linguistics theories represent a viable approach to the topic. The second paradigm, whereby cognitive linguistics can explain how semantic structure is related to general cognitive abilities, is manifested in Abe’s (Chapter 9) and Ikegami’s (Chapter 12) research. Abe shows that speakers’ ability to perceive and conceptualize the force dynamic (FD) relation between the agonist and antagonist underlies the understanding of the meaning and usage of a grammatical marker -te-simau. Abe’s study is one of the few (if, indeed, there are any others) to draw on FD in analyzing polysemy in Japanese. This hints that FD can be extended to analyse other polysemous expressions involving ego’s psychological conflicts, opening up another research agenda to cognitive linguistics (L2 acquisition) specialists. For his part, Ikegami argues our general cognitive abilities to conceive of a situation in a variety of ways can be applied to understand the phenomenon wherein speakers of a particular language group have a preferred way of speaking. Ikegami refines his theory of subject-object contrast and subject-object merger, with implications for L2 Japanese instructions. As these two studies imply, the L2 data that can be appropriately accounted for by drawing on the notion of subjectivity or FD would be more difficult to explain using a purely formal framework. The studies of Motion events by Toratani (Chapter 10) and Yoshinari (Chapter 11) instantiate the third paradigm, in that cognitive linguistics can offer “a more thorough understanding of the role of L1 transfer in the acquisition of a foreign language, given the possibilities of offering cognitively plausible explanations for why L1 structures are or are not transferable into the learners’ L2” (Pederson and Cadierno 2004: 157). Both Toratani and Yoshinari tackle the issue of acquisition of Motion event descriptions, drawing on Talmy’s two-way typology and Slobin’s “Thinking for Speaking” hypothesis, exploring why L1 patterns are (and are not) reflected in the learners’ patterns. Toratani’s L2 frog story narrative data paint a mixed picture, which cannot be explained solely by the L1–L2 differences in

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Talmy’s two-way typology (e.g., use of mimetics). Meanwhile, Yoshinari finds influences of L1 in the performance of learners who fail to acquire the usage of a deictic verb as the main verb, the native’s pattern. Detailed comparisons of L1 and L2 Motion event description data in the future should reveal more about the particular style of language use preferred by speakers of a language. The studies by Ishiyama (Chapter 3) and Akita (Chapter 7) are emblematic of the fourth paradigm, where cognitive linguistics allows “a satisfying conceptual integration of the structural and social/cultural aspects of L2 acquisition, given that many of the constructs [such as schemas and metaphors] are socially and culturally rich” (Pederson and Cadierno 2004: 157). As Ishiyama considers the concept of friendly and respectful politeness, it becomes apparent that a functional framework is more suitable than a formal one as it deals with communication issues, such as the use of verbs of giving used as auxiliaries and consideration according to the social ranking of the speech participants. Akita’s study discusses development of an online multimedia encyclopedia of mimetics, sound-symbolic forms of Japanese, whose meanings are notoriously complex: some are culturespecific, and many are metaphorically extended. A cognitive linguistics theory such as frame semantics which Akita adopts for the development of his dictionary is an ideal apparatus for accounting for the rich semantics of mimetics, as it is capable of encompassing both the holistic aspect of the eventuality and the modal-specific detailed semantic information. Three authors, Shirai (Chapter 2), Nishi (Chapter 4) and Kabata (Chapter 5), successfully show that the framework of cognitive linguistics offers a more unitary picture of the learners’ interlanguage, as predicted in the final paradigm. Shirai argues that in L2 acquisition, input plays a major role in prototype formation, although various other factors are also at play, and projection effects are observed, whereby non-prototypical exemplars help category acquisition. Similarly, Nishi claims L2 learning is fundamentally guided by language use or frequency in input, a phenomenon consistent with a usage-based model of acquisition. Kabata also provides evidence supporting item-based development, citing a study in which the particle ni was first learned with a small set of senses within a fairly restricted semantic environment. Other senses were subsequently learned and used with a wider range of words in a variety of constructions, but de was not associated with any specific collocational patterns, at least at the initial stage of acquisition. In short, these three chapters present empirical evidence of item-based and usage-based language learning, the central tenet of cognitive and functional linguistics. This volume also highlights the importance of use of empirical data and the value of consultation with corpora in SLA research. The former point is underscored by Shirai (Chapter 2). Following the two-stage model (Bybee 2008), Shirai

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suggests varying the degree of token-type frequency in the input structure so that the characteristics of acquisition can be properly examined. This may represent a future direction in the study of L2 acquisition of linguistic categories. The latter point is emphasized by Kabata (Chapter 5) who highlights the importance of using a corpus: the ways learners conceptualize the meaning of particles de and ni can be better understood by carefully examining the correct and incorrect use and the non-use of the particles (e.g., how they are used in a construction or what elements co-occur with them), a reaction to previous research which considers only partial aspects of the data. In fact, several authors in this volume use a corpus, echoing numerous other authors (e.g., Gries 2008; Ellis and Cadierno 2009; Newman, Baayen and Rice 2011; Ellis, O’Donnell and Römer 2014) who argue cognitive-functional-linguisticsinformed SLA research can benefit from consulting corpora, since such a method can shed light on how native speakers and L2 learners use a target item, be it felicitous or infelicitous, thus establishing a valuable starting point of research. Pederson and Cadierno (2004: 156–157) offer a useful theoretical lens through which to see how each author in this volume characterizes different aspects of cognitive-functional linguistics’ contributions to SLA. Collectively, the volume shows that cognitive-functional linguistics represents a promising theoretical framework for the study of L2 acquisition of Japanese. This, however, should not be taken to mean that benefit is unidirectional from cognitive-functional linguistics to SLA. As Pederson and Cadierno (2004: 157) rightly note, the SLA field can benefit from cognitive linguistics (or cognitive-functional linguistics, more broadly construed) as it can serve as the theoretical foundation which allows the researchers to posit testable hypotheses on how L2 learners acquire specific target structures. In addition, cognitive linguistics can benefit from SLA since “empirical data from L2 learners makes it possible to test hypotheses about the linguistic analysis provided by the Cognitive Linguistics framework” (Pederson and Cadierno 2004: 157). The present work represents a good beginning. We hope future studies will show how cognitive-linguistic-based hypotheses can be formulated based on the empirical data from L2 learners documented in the chapters of the present volume.

2 Pedagogical implications The studies in this volume, both individually and collectively, suggest a number of pedagogical implications of adopting cognitive-functional approaches to Japa-

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nese SLA. Each chapter makes specific suggestions on how the particular item under investigation should be introduced: e.g., Luk suggests guiding the learners of L1 Cantonese, a language whose morphology is rather impoverished, to pay more attention to the morphology of Japanese verbs when teaching intransitive verbs; Nishi suggests introducing the aspectual marker -teiru at different stages of the acquisition process, as the aspectual system involving -teiru is complex and its entire system is seldom introduced to learners; Mitsugi and Ishiyama emphasize the importance of introducing the target item (relative clauses for Mitsui and an expression invoking friendly vs. respectful politeness for Ishiyama), while never detaching the item from the naturally occurring context so that the flow of discourse can be well understood or the socio-cultural context of the interlocutors can be made apparent; Akita’s study indicates that when introducing mimetics, the introduction of context or teaching in association with a semantic frame is critical, as many are polysemous and evoke a specific type of eventuality. Specific suggestions aside, a recurring theme runs throughout the volume, namely, using natural Japanese expressions as input or incorporating them into instructions and instructional materials. Exposure to unnatural language might lead to fossilization, a notion introduced by Selinker (1972) to describe a mechanism which “underlines surface linguistic material which speakers will tend to keep in their [Interlanguage] productive performance, no matter what the age of the learner or the amount of instruction he receives in the TL (Target Language)” (Selinker 1972: 229). This point may seem obvious but, in reality, many instructional materials contain unnatural Japanese (Kondoh and Himeno 2007). In addition, despite the general consensus that correct expressions are not necessary natural, teachers sometimes use grammatically correct but unnatural sentences, or they are unable to systematically explain why they are unnatural. As has been suggested, instructional materials should reflect native speakers’ preferred style of speaking, eliminating unnatural expressions, or differently stated, pedagogical materials should include natural Japanese compatible with the notion of subjectivity (e.g., Ikegami, this volume). To reiterate, Japanese prefers a “fashion of speaking” that adopts subjective construal, whereby the cognizer portrays the scene placing her/himself within the very same situation s/he is to construe, characterized as “subjective” or “subject-object merger”-type construal, as opposed to “objective” or “subject-object contrast”-type construal where the cognizer construes the situation detaching her/himself from the situation s/he is to construe, a style preferred by speakers of a language such as English (Ikegami, this volume). This subjective-objective contrast implies learners may have difficulty resetting the construal pattern to the one favoured by Japanese, thereby not producing a Japanese-native-like utterance, or unconsciously producing an utterance

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that conforms to his/her L1 pattern, which is unnatural as a Japanese expression even if it may be grammatically correct. At least two chapters give evidence of this. Toratani reports that in her study, while some Japanese natives adopted a subjective stance to portray a scene with multiple boundary crossings, such an expression was nowhere to be found in the L2 data. These contained only an English-type dynamic portrayal in which a speaker objectively portrays how the protagonist moves, using the third person perspective. Similarly, in Yoshinari’s study, whereas Japanese speakers preferred to include a deictic verb in the head position, especially using a complex predicate as in hasit-te iku ‘go running’ (i.e., Japanese prefers a subjective construal where the cognizer places his/her perspective point at the scene), her L2 learners avoided such complex predicates, offering instead such infelicitous sentences as *watashi-no hoo-ni hasit-ta ‘ran toward me’. Subjectivity is a powerful notion. It is neither item-specific nor a low-level concept associated with a particular grammar or construction. Rather, it constitutes the characteristics of the Japanese language. Yet it is rarely recognized in Japanese pedagogy (cf. Ikegami and Moriya 2009). Accordingly, we repeat a point raised by Ikegami (this volume): in teaching the use of a linguistic form, either a lexical or a grammatical unit, the emphasis should be shifted from trying to enumerate the features of the situations in which the linguistic form in question is supposed to be used in appropriate ways to explaining the cognitive processes which the speaker undergoes when using the linguistic form in question appropriately

As far as we are aware, Japanese pedagogical materials and instructions still dominantly adopt a traditional grammar-centered approach emphasizing “correct”, “grammatical” and “prescriptive” usages. For instance, the most frequently used textbooks across the globe in recent years, such as Genki, Nakama, and Yookoso, adopt a grammar syllabus, lacking an account of subjective construal, even though they may contain situation-based or function-based dialogues. The use of a deictic verb clarifies this point: verb-te-iku ‘te-go’ and verb-te-kuru ‘te-come’ are commonly treated as grammar items introduced typically at the novice-high level, but no cognitive-functional account is given as to how they contribute to creating a natural native-like expression. Nakama 2 explains -te-iku “is used when the direction is away from the current location of the speaker. It can be used when the speaker does something and leaves his/her current location [… or] when the speaker does something in a direction away from where he/she starts” (Hatasa, Hatasa and Makino 2010: 189). This may give a factual description of the complex predicate, but it fails to explain why this complex predicate ought to be used.

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Textbooks and teaching materials should incorporate expressions that reflect subjectivity and explain how such expressions contribute to the naturalness of Japanese (cf. Ikegami, this volume; Ikegami and Moriya 2009), regardless of proficiency level, as subjectivity can be applicable to novice level learners: e.g., Koko-wa doko desu ka ‘Where is this place’ is a natural Japanese expression, as opposed to Watashi wa doko ni imasuka, an unnatural Japanese expression rendered from the direct translation of ‘Where am I?’ (see Ikegami, this volume). Teachers are also encouraged to look beyond grammatical rules and be more mindful about choosing input.

3 Concluding remarks The present volume demonstrates that cognitive-functional linguistics can make important contributions to L2 research and L2 pedagogy. At the same time, as Pedersen and Cadierno note, while research into SLA can benefit from cognitive linguistics, cognitive linguistics research can also benefit from SLA studies (2004: 157). However, a number of gaps must be filled. For example, little, if any, existing work deals with L2-Japanese acquisition of phonology and phonetics based on cognitive-functional theories. Nor is there any work on cognitive linguistic notions, such as iconicity or mental space theory (see Imai, this volume). In addition, researchers come from different geographical regions. A comparison of Imai’s report and the other work in this volume shows research trends differ inside and outside Japan, despite some overlapping areas (e.g., polysemy). Imai reports that some cognitive linguistics notions, such as force dynamics and Motion event, are not covered by studies in Japan (importantly, they appear in this volume); at the same time, some of the significant findings about Japanese are not accessible to non-Japanese researchers. This underscores the importance for researchers inside and outside Japan to collaborate to fill in the differences in theoretical approaches and to share data so that groups with different L1 are studied. Although we have focused on the acquisition of L2 Japanese in the preceding pages, we hope the discussion is applicable to the acquisition of other languages. Moreover, it is our strong hope that the work presented here will contribute to more dynamic interactions among the three fields (cognitive-functional linguistics, SLA, and pedagogy), leading to a better understanding of the phenomenon of L2 acquisition, the development of pedagogical materials and practices, and the advancement of cognitive-functional theories.

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References Bybee, Joan. 2008. Usage-based grammar and second language acquisition. In Peter Robinson & Nick C. Ellis (eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition, 216–236. London: Routledge. Ellis, Nick C. & Teresa Cadierno. 2009. Constructing a second language: Introduction to the special section. Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 7, 111–139. Ellis, Nick. C., Matthew. B. O’Donnell & Ute Römer. 2014. Second language verb-argument constructions are sensitive to form, function, frequency, contingency, and prototypicality. Gries, Stefan. 2008. Corpus-based methods in analysis of second language acquisition data. In Peter Robinson & Nick C. Ellis (eds.), Handbook of cognitive linguistics and second language acquisition, 406–431. New York: Routledge. Hatasa, Yukiko Abe, Kazumi Hatasa, & Seiichi Makino. 2010. Nakama 2, 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Heinle. Kondoh, Atsuko, & Tomoko Himeno. 2007. Sanshoten toshiteno watashi to jiko chushin teki na watashi [The ecological and ego-centric self]. Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Meeting of the Japanese Cognitive Linguistics Association 7. 583–590. Ikegami, Yoshihiko, and Michiyo Moriya. 2009. Shizenna nihongo o oshieru tameni: Ninchigengogaku o Fumaete [Teaching natural Japanese: From a cognitive linguistics perspective]. Tokyo: Hituzi Syobo. Newman, John R. Harald Baayen, & Sally Rice. 2011. Corpus-based studies in language use, language learning, and language documentation. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Pederson, Johan, & Teresa Cadierno. 2004. Construction grammar and second language acquisition: A cognitive understanding of language in a contrastive perspective. In Hans Lauge Hansen (ed.), Disciplines and interdisciplinarity in foreign language studies, 151–168. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. Selinker, Larry. 1972. Interlanguage. IRAL 10(3). 209–231.

Subject index abduction 314 agonist 207–218, 220, 231, 362 animacy 20, 24–25, 113, 115, 118–123, 126–130, 133, 361 antagonist 207–218, 220, 231, 261 Aspect Hypothesis 16–17, 57–60, 327, 330 boundary crossing 6, 237, 239–241, 243–245, 248, 251, 255–258, 260–261, 263–264 Cantonese 5, 24, 27, 169–171, 176–179, 185, 194–196, 362, 365 categorization 3, 13–15, 19–21, 23, 27, 121, 293 causality 5, 203, 205–207, 210, 229, 232, causative (event) 92, 93, 161, 169, 171–172, 174, 194, 303 chunk 100, 104, 107–109, 119, 327, collocation 4, 89–90, 92, 99, 101, 104–105, 108–109, 139, 142, 144, 145, 149–151, 363 complex predicate 6, 246, 261, 263, 277, 279–281, 283, 286, 293–295, 297, 366 construal 6–7, 174, 195, 237, 246, 261, 263–264,298, 301–317, 321–323, 338–343, 349, 351, 365–366 – subjective 6–7, 237, 246, 261, 263–264, 298, 303–305, 307–310, 321–323, 338–339, 341–343, 349, 351, 365–366 – objective 6, 246, 263–264, 303–305, 308–309, 338, 340–341 – ‘subject-object contrast’ type of, see also objective construal 6, 301, 303–306, 315, 362, 365 – ‘subject-object merger’ type of, see also subjective construal 6 301, 304–306, 309–310, 312, 317, 362, 365 corpus 3–5, 7, 17, 24, 33, 35, 45–46, 48, 50, 54, 89–91, 93, 98, 109–110, 113, 115, 118, 119–121, 123–124, 129, 145, 148–149,195, 203, 206, 219–220, 230, 233–234, 277, 307, 328, 347–348, 363–367 cross-linguistic discrepancy 57, 68–69, 71

deictic, see also deixis 6, 37–38, 41, 62–63, 67, 72, 239, 245–246, 248, 258–261, 263–264, 275 277–279, 281–298 deixis, see also deictic 6, 263–264, 275, 277, 281–283, 286–298 discourse function 4, 113, 115, 118, 120, 126, 129–133 ego-centric 301, 316–317 embodiment 3, 13, 17, 19, 23–24 encyclopedia 139–140, 144, 147, 162, 363 entrenchment 2–3, 90, 96, 107–108 expressions of desire 33, 42–43, 50, 52 face 35, 218 fashions of speaking 262, 264, 304, 313, 317, 365 fixation 178, 185, 187–194, 196 force dynamics 2, 5, 203, 206–207, 230, 349, 367 foreground(ing) 38, 244, 331, 333 frame 144–147, 152, 180, 183, 365 frame semantics 2, 5, 139–140, 144–145, 152, 162, 363 frequency 3, 13–15, 17–19, 21–28, 80, 92, 98–99, 103, 106–108, 116, 120, 123, 126, 148, 204, 206, 222, 228–230, 248–249, 258, 287, 290–291, 296, 313, 324–325, 329, 363–364 – profiling 119, 123 – token 13–14, 21–23, 26, 28, 123, 222, 249, 258 – type 3, 13–14, 22–23, 26, 364 giongo/gitaigo 142–143, 159 head position 278–283, 286–289, 291–293, 296–298, 366 hedge (marker) 35, 52, 216, 231 homology 311–312 honorific 33–34, 47–49, 53 iconic, see iconicity iconicity 141–142, 153, 155, 349, 367

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Idealized Cognitive Model 5, 144, 171–173, 193 input 3, 13–15, 18–28, 57, 80–82, 91, 97, 108–109, 131–132, 321, 327, 363–365, 367 – negative 4, 57, 80–82 intransitive 5, 105, 120, 122, 125–129, 132, 169–199, 223, 224, 256, 302, 362, 365 item-based 4, 59, 83, 89–90, 108, 336–338, 363 joint attention 7, 321–323, 343–344, 351 L1 influence 19, 72, 194, 275–276, 283, 289, 295, 297 language-specific feature 281, 298 lexical aspect 4, 17, 24, 57–63, 67–69, 71–72, 79, 82 lexicalization pattern 2, 60, 238–239, 276, 278, 282 media 5, 139–140, 143–144, 147–148, 151–155, 157, 160, 162 metaphor 7, 151, 155, 162, 232, 321–323, 344–346, 351, 363 mimetic 139–163 motion/Motion event 2, 5, 237–240, 242, 246–248, 262–265, 275–279, 281–284, 286, 290, 292–295, 297–298, 362–363, 367 multimedia 4, 139–140, 143–145, 155, 162, 363 native-like knowledge 57, 80–81 onomatopoeia, see also mimetic 143, 254, 345 particle 2, 4, 34, 89–93, 95–99, 102, 105, 107–109, 145, 182, 279–280, 282, 324–326, 333–334, 336–338, 343–344, 363–364 perspective 1, 3, 6, 13–14, 19–20, 27, 38, 40–44, 53, 109, 114, 120, 205–206, 214, 246, 257, 260–262, 283, 302, 311–312, 340, 366

politeness 2, 3, 33, 35–36, 38–45, 47–54, 216, 363 – friendly 33, 36, 39–45, 47, 52–53, 288–289, 293, 298 – respectful 3, 33, 35–36, 39–45, 48, 50, 52–54, 363, 365 polysemy 7, 13–18, 20–21, 146, 203, 206, 209, 232–233, 321–324, 330, 333–336, 344, 347–349, 362, 365, 367 pragmatics 2, 34, 39, 41–42, 44, 46–47, 54, 62, 217–218, 220, 228–22, 275, 314 projection model 14, 20 prototype 3, 13–26, 38, 66, 72, 78, 94, 144, 172, 194–195, 231, 264, 313–315, 321, 323–330, 334–335, 341, 347–348, 363 prototypical, see prototype responsibility – reader- 310 – hearer- 316–317 – listener- 316 relative clause 2–4, 13, 20–21, 24–26, 28, 113–132, 361–362, 365 – a-relative 122, 125, 128–129, 131–132 – s-relative 122, 125–129, 131–132 resultative 2, 61, 69, 71–72, 77, 79–80, 82, 126, 172, 174–175, 193, 195, 327, 330 schema 89, 207–212, 214–216, 218, 231–232, 321, 323–326, 329–339, 347–348, 363 self-agentive motion 277, 279, 283 semantic component 2, 161, 275, 277–283, 286–289, 292–295, 297–298 semantic network 324, 330, 334–335, 348 semantic representation 23, 57, 59–60, 62, 66–67, 71, 77, 79, 81 semantic transfer 15, 60 sound-symbolism 142, 155 speaker, the 33–35, 38–42, 44–49, 51–54, 62, 67, 78, 92, 172, 175, 205, 210–212, 214–219, 224–227, 229–230, 238, 245–246, 261–262, 264, 277, 284, 291–292, 295, 298, 301–307, 309, 312–317, 326, 328, 330, 335, 339–344, 366

Subject index   

subject-object asymmetry 114–115, 118, 124 subjective, see subjectivity subjectivity 2, 147, 162, 205, 228–229, 231, 304, 305, 312, 317, 325, 361–362, 365–367 tense-aspect 3, 13–14, 16, 18–19, 27, 57–59, 80 -te-simau 2, 5, 203–233 thinking for speaking, see also fashions of speaking 2, 5, 237–238, 264, 275–277, 283, 289, 292, 295, 297 transitive 5, 188, 122, 125, 127, 129, 132, 169–174, 176–196, 204, 223–224, 244, 256, 302–303, 362 transitivity 4, 113, 115, 119–122, 126–127, 130, 171–172, 176–178, 193–195, 361–162 translation 6, 60–61, 67, 69, 72, 79, 93, 170, 208, 244, 255, 307–311, 347, 367 two-component theory 58, 61 usage-based 2–4, 7, 13, 54, 57, 80, 83, 89, 113, 115, 118, 120, 131–132, 321–323, 330, 335, 338, 363 – model 89–92, 96, 107–109

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verb – agent-implying intransitive 5, 169, 171, 173–175, 178–182, 185, 193–195 – manner 237, 241, 243–245, 248–252, 256–258, 260–261, 279, 290, 296 – path 6, 237, 241, 244–245, 248–252, 255–258, 260–261, 276, 279–280, 282 – compound 6, 242–243, 252–256, 261, 263–264, 279–280, 283, 293–295, 324, 328–329, 331–332 – of giving 3, 33, 35–36, 39, 45, 53 339, 363 verb transitivity, see transitivity visual-world paradigm 5, 178, 181 website 140–144, 148, 162 zero (encoding) 305–306, 315–316, 343