The discourse functions of the modal auxiliaries wake da and no da in Japanese

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The discourse functions of the modal auxiliaries wake da and no da in Japanese Xiangdong Liu

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Contents Acknowledgement List o f abbreviations A note on the use o f Japanese words 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 Aims o f the present study 1.2 Concepts of auxiliary and modal auxiliary 1.3 The concept of modality 1.4 Some aspects of SFG that have inspired this study 1.5 Data sources for this study 1.6 Method and extent of this study 1.7 Key findings of this study

xi xii xiii

1 4 5 6 7 9 12

2 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON THE TWO JAPANESE MODAL AUXILIARIES IN QUESTION: WAKE DA AND NO DA 2.1 The structures o f the modal auxiliaries wake da and no da 2.1.1 The ‘formal noun’ wake and its origin 2.1.2 The ‘nominalizing particle’ no and its origin 2.1.3 From a combination to a single unit 2.2 Previous analyses on the meanings and functions o f wake da and no da 2.2.1 Wake da 2.2.1.1 The affirmative forms o f wake da 2.2.1.2 The negative forms o f wake da 2.2.1.3 The interrogative forms of wake da 2.2.2 No da 2.2.2.1 Main approaches to the affirmative forms o f no da 2.2.2.1.1 Syntactic and semantic approaches to the meanings and uses o f the affirmative forms o f no da 2.2.2.1.2 Problems with the descriptions summarized above 2.2.2.1.3 Other approaches to the affirmative uses of no da 22.2.2 The negative forms o f no da 2.2.2.3 The interrogative forms o f no da 2.2.2.3.1 Previous investigations on the meanings o f no ka 2.2.2.3.2 Previous claims regarding the speaker’s attitude in questions involving no ka 2.3 Previous analyses o f the similarities and differences between wake da and no da 2.3.1 Comparisons between the affirmative forms of wake da and no da 2.3.1.1 The similarity between wake da and no da claimed by previous research 2.3.1.2 The necessity o f further investigation 2.3.2 Comparisons between wake dewanai and no dewanai 2.3.3 Comparisons between wake ka and no ka 2.4 Major issues emerging from the literature review

44 46 47 49 50

3 INVESTIGATION OF THE AFFIRMATIVE FORMS OF WAKE DA AND NO DA 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Differences between this study and previous studies o f wake da and no da

53 53 53

15 15 16 17 19 20 20 20 25 27 28 28 29 33 35 38 38 39 40 43 44

viii 3.3

3.4 3.5

3.6 3.7 3.8

The concepts of lexical relations and lexical cohesive chains 3.3.1 Categories o f lexical relations 3.3.2 Length and strength of lexical chains Data and procedures o f analysis o f this chapter Lexical chains and lexical items in ‘X wake da' and ‘X no da' 3.5.1 Lexical items in ‘X wake da' 3.5.1.1 ‘X wake da 'and existing lexical chains 3.5.1.2 ‘X wake da'and new lexical items 3.5.2 Lexical items in ‘X no da' 3.5.2.1 ‘X no J a ’and new lexical items 3.5.2.2 ‘X no da'and existing lexical chains 3.5.2.2.1 ‘X no da' and ends of lexical chains 3.5.2.2.2Existing lexical items and new information A further confirmation about the findings Comparisons between ‘X wake da' and ‘X no da' Conclusion

4 INVESTIGATION OF THE NEGATIVE FORMS OF WAKE DA AND NO DA 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Some basic viewpoints of this study 4.2.1 Effecting scope of a negation: a shared feature o f the two constructions 4.2.2 The two simultaneous functions of the negative forms 4.2.3 Epistemic modality vs. deontic modality 4.3 No dewanai as a carrier o f deontic modality 4.3.1 Co-occurrence with an overt indicator of deontic modality 4.3.2 Negation of an undesirable action controllable by the subject 4.4 Differences between wake dewanai and no dewanai as carriers o f epistemic modality 4.4.1 Lexical items in ‘X wake dewanai' and ‘X no dewanai’ and lexical chains 4.4.2 Degree or extent o f the negation 4.4.3 Negation o f an uncontrollable state vs. negation of a controllable action 4.4.4 Relationship between ‘X wake dewanai' or ‘X no dewanai' and the other parts o f the text 4.5 Conclusion 5 INVESTIGATION OF THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE INTERROGATIVE FORMS OF WAKE DA AND NO DA 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Claims o f previous studies and the basic view o f this study 5.3 A striking difference between the use of wake da and no da 5.4 Differences between wake ka and no ka revealed by WH- interrogatives 5.4.1 Type of WH- interrogatives used in questions ending with wake ka 5.4.2 Types o f WH- interrogatives used in questions ending with no ka 5.5 Meanings and discourse functions o f wake ka and no ka 5.5.1 Analysis of questions involving wake ka 5.5.1.1 Wake ka in WH- questions 5.5.1.2 Wake ka in yes/no questions

54 54 58 58 60 61 64 73 84 87 100 100 101 106 111 114

115 115 116 116 117 118 119 120 122 126 126 128 131 134 138

141 141 141 143 145 146 147 151 152 152 154

IX

5.5.1.3 Summary o f the section Analysis of questions involving no ka 5.5.2.1 No ka in WH- questions 5.5.2.1.1 ‘Why X no ka’ in conversations in novels 5.5.2.1.2 ‘Why X no ka’’ observed in newspaper editorials 5.5.2.1.3 Other ‘WH- no /ca’sentenccs in newspaper editorials 5.5.2.2 No ka in yes/no questions 5.5.2.2.1 No ka in yes/no questions observed in conversations 5.5.2.2.1.1 Questioning Proposition X 5.5.2.2.1.2 Seeking new information 5.5.2.2.1.3 Asking rhetoricalquestions 5.5.2.2.2 No ka in yes/no questions observed in newspaper editorials 5.5.2.3 Summary of the section Significant differences between the discourse functions of wake ka and no ka Conclusion 5.5.2

5.6 5.7

158 159 159 160 162 164 166 167 167 173 176 177 180 181 184

6 CONCLUSION 6.1 Summary o f the main chapters 6.2 Research questions and findings of this study 6.3 Implications o f this study 6.4 Limitation of this study and suggestion for further studies

185 185 187 189 190

List of References Data References Appendices

192 200 202

XI

ACKNOWLEGEMENTS

I am indebted to many people who have provided so much help and support during my research. I would like first to express my heartfelt gratitude to Dr Nerida Jarkey, for her deeply insightful comments, and constant encouragement. She has painstakingly read everything I wrote during the past years, and always offering inspirational advice. I also wish to thank the following colleagues for commenting on my analysis and discussing my research with me: Professor Polly Szatrowski, Professor Harumi Noda, and Dr Mie Tsunoda, I would like to also extend my most sincere gratitude to Dr Mami Iwashita, Ms Kazumi Ishii, and many other cordial friends and colleagues, who have always stood by me, and warmly supported me to overcome every hardship and struggle. I would like especially express my deepest thanks to my parents for their unparalleled understanding and support. I pray from my heart for the repose o f the soul of my mother, a dedicated researcher and my model, who cared about my research and my well-being until the last minutes of her life. Last, but by no means least, my greatest gratitude goes to my husband, Rong-Yu Qiao, who has been always supportive and considerate. Without his love, care, support and understanding, I would not have been able to complete my research. I was granted Staff Development Leave in 2004 by my employer, the University of Western Sydney. This leave gave me valuable time to conduct my study.

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ABL

ablative

PAST past

ACC accusative

PLU

plural

AUX auxiliary

PNF

pre-nominal form

BNF

beneficiary

POL

polite form

CAUS causative

PRF

prefix

COL

PRO

progressive

CON conditional

PTN

potential

CONJ conjectural form

PVF

pre-verbal form

COP

QP

question particle

DAT dative

QNP

quasi-nominal particle

DESIDdesired

RES

result

FML

formal form

SFG

Systemic Functional Grammar

GEN

genitive

SFP

sentence final particle

HM

hearsay marker

TM

theme marker

HON honorific

TOP

topic marker

IMP

TOPH topic highlighter

colloquial form

copular

imperative

1NSTR instrumental particle

VCF

verbal connective form

LOC

locative

VOL

volitional form of a verb

NEG

negative #

pragmatically odd sentence

NOM nominative NML nominalizer ONMT onomatopoeic PART particle PASS passive

Xlll

A NOTE ON THE USE OF JAPANESE WORDS Japanese words are presented in this thesis in italics, and the Hepburn romanization system of Japanese is used, with the exception that long vowels are written double rather than with the macron, i.e. oo replacing o. When the Kunrei system is used in an original source, it is here transformed into the Hepburn system.

1

1

INTRODUCTION

1.1

Aims of the present study

The aims o f this study are to investigate the discourse functions of two common modal auxiliaries in Japanese - wake da and no da - in written discourse, and to find out the essential differences between them. The findings o f this study will contribute to the understanding of the meanings and functions o f Japanese modal auxiliaries in general. In addition, through an exploration of the meanings and functions o f these two modal auxiliaries in particular, the findings of this study will also contribute to an understanding of some of the ways in which a Japanese writer’s own voice and perspective can actually carry over an entire text, and how the writer constructs an argument throughout a text. Finally, the findings o f this study can also be applied to the teaching and learning o f Japanese as a second language. They can be used to help very advanced second language learners o f Japanese to understand and use Japanese in a subtle and sophisticated way. The modals wake da and no da are used very often in both written and spoken discourse in present-day Japanese. This study investigates their uses in written discourse, and does not include spoken discourse in its focus. This is mainly for two reasons. First, it seems that both of these modal auxiliaries are currently undergoing a process of grammaticalization (Refer to section 1.6 and Chapter 2 for more details). Examples found in written discourse present more widely accepted general usages, and are less likely to be affected by the personal preference of the individual, compared to those in spoken discourse. Secondly, written and spoken discourse have different characteristics in terms of, for instance, number of participants, interaction between the participants, development of argument, and so forth. Therefore, investigations of written and spoken discourse require quite different approaches. In a study of this kind, which adopts new strategies in the investigation o f these auxiliaries, it is important not to attempt to cover too much new ground, but rather to ensure a thorough coverage and a clear focus. For these reasons only written forms are investigated in this book. There are four other modal auxiliaries in the Japanese language that have a similar structure. They are hazu da, koto da, tokoro da, and mono da. Expressions of this group are all carriers of modality. They are all used to convey something about the speaker’s or the writer’s attitude toward the proposition presented. It is for this reason that they are labeled ‘modal auxiliaries’ in previous studies (Refer to section 1.2 for the definition o f ‘modal auxiliary’). In this group, wake da and no da, the two examined in this study, seem to be the most problematic ones in terms of meaning and function.

2 Wake da and no da share some common syntactic and semantic features, and have been claimed by many researchers to be able to replace one another on many occasions (Mikami, 1953:235; Tanaka, 1964:184; Teramura, 1984:271; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:198, 200, 201; Makino & Tsutsui, 1995:573, etc.). There have been a multitude o f studies on each o f the two expressions, with many studies o f wake da referring to no da, and vice versa. Although previous studies provide a wealth o f information on the uses and meanings of the two expressions, they have shown serious limitations and problems. First o f all, the majority of previous works are carried out at the level o f the sentence or paragraph, and the discourse functions o f the two at text level have been given little attention. Secondly, while descriptions of their similarities and o f the possibilities o f interchange are quite common among researchers, the distinctive characteristics and functions of each o f the two modal auxiliaries have not been thoroughly investigated, nor clearly described. Thirdly, comparisons between the two auxiliaries have mainly involved hypothetical situations. They rely on the scholars’ subjective judgments regarding whether or not one expression can be replaced by the other, and so the investigations lack objectivity. Finally, many researchers characterize the basic functions of these two very complicated expressions simply as ‘asking or giving explanations’ (Alfonso, 1966; Okuda, 1990, 1992; etc.), or define them as ‘conveying explanatory modality’ (Teramura, 1984; Masuoka, 1991; H. Noda1, 2003; etc.), even though ‘explanation’ is just one aspect o f their uses. This simplicity in definitions causes ambiguity and confusion. Due to these limitations and problems of previous studies, and due to the complexity of their uses, this study has elected to focus on wake da and no da, rather than on the entire group of Japanese modal auxiliaries, for analysis. It differs from previous studies o f these two auxiliaries in four main ways. First of all, this study argues that it is not adequate to simply conclude that these two modal auxiliaries are in many cases interchangeable. Although they may well be interchangeable when considered at the level of a single sentence, when we consider the broader context, we can see that one is more or less suitable than the other. Their functions need to be investigated in the context of units larger than just an isolated sentence or even a paragraph. We must investigate, at the discourse level, how and for what purposes the language items are used, and how they function as links in the discourse.

1Two of the researchers, whose work I refer to in the current study, have the same family name: Noda. They are Harumi Noda and Mari Noda. To avoid confusion, initials are included in the text for all references to a work by a researcher named Noda, as in the List of References. It also should be mentioned that Koganemaru is the maiden name of Harumi Noda, and, therefore, Koganemaru’s claims are, in fact, Harumi Noda’s.

3 Secondly, this study also holds that, when comparing language items, we must find out not only how the items are similar to each other, but also how they are different from each other. In fact, in order to reveal the distinctive characteristics and functions o f each language item, it is essential to investigate the fundamental differences between the items being compared. Thirdly, to avoid subjectivity, analysis of data needs to be done by referring to objective linguistic features, rather than to the researcher’s own understanding or interpretation o f the meanings of the tokens in a hypothetical situation. This study is a data-based empirical study, and investigates authentic texts, especially texts in which both of the two auxiliaries are used. Instead of talking about whether or not one modal auxiliary in an example might be replaced with the other in a hypothetical context and based on the researcher’s subjective assumption, this study attempts to investigate how a writer actually uses the two auxiliaries in different ways for different purposes, and how they function differently in the texts examined. Finally, this study does not regard summary expressions such as ‘explanatory modal auxiliaries’ or ‘asking or giving explanations’ as sufficient to describe the discourse functions of wake da and no da. It holds that the information expressed by a sentence involving wake da or no da (including their variants) is more than simply an explanation. Attempting to define the meanings and functions o f the two modal auxiliaries with similar or even the same terms will inevitably lead to circularity and confusion. Oversimplifying the complicated functions o f the two modals will also prevent us from capturing their true natures. To make up for the deficiencies of previous studies and to avoid circular arguments, we need to break down the characterizations o f the two constructions into components, so that we can clearly see what it is that makes the two similar, and what makes them distinct from one another. Recognising this fact we pose the following four research questions: (1) What is the underlying nature of each o f the two expressions, and how do their underlying natures differ despite their superficial similarities? (2) For what purposes are wake da and no da used? What do the modal auxiliaries wake da and no da tell us about the attitude o f the writer to the information conveyed by a proposition within their scope? (3) What is the status o f information that falls under the scope o f wake da or no dal Is it retrievable from the text or is it new information? (4) When one of these auxiliaries is used, how does the sentence relate to the rest of the text? And how is this relationship recognized?

4 1.2

Concepts of auxiliary and modal auxiliary

The English term ‘auxiliary’ is generally used to refer to ‘forms bearing both morphological and positional resemblance to verbs and occurring with a “main verb” but not independently (except perhaps in environments where a verb has apparently been elided)’ (Steele, 1994:284). This English term - ‘auxiliary verb’ - is translated into Japanese as jodooshi. However, auxiliaries (Jodooshi) in Japanese are different from the set o f words referred to as auxiliaries in English Expressions that are called ‘auxiliaries’ (jodooshi) in Japanese show great variety, both morphologically and syntactically. Some o f them are more like suffixes attaching to a certain inflectional form of a verbal (e.g. -reru/-rareru, which is used to form a verb’s passive, potential, or honorific forms), while others are more like a word themselves but never used independently (e.g. mitai ‘looks like’). In addition, in terms of inflection, Japanese auxiliaries vary considerably, and include those inflecting like verbs (e.g. -reru/rareru), like adjectives (e.g. rashii, ‘It seems; I am told that’), those with extremely limited inflection (e.g. soo da ‘evidently’, which has no separate past or negative form, but does have a polite form) and so on. Moreover, what are called auxiliaries in Japanese are used after different forms of different parts of speech in the language. For instance, while -reru/rareru co-occurs with a verb root, mitai (‘looks like’) can co-occur with a noun, the plain form of a verb or adjective o f any tense or any polarity. Due to different opinions regarding key syntactic and semantic features, there has been a variety of responses from Japanese grammarians to the question ‘what types of words should be regarded as auxiliaries’ (Sakata, 1982a: 142). What has been generally agreed is that an auxiliary in Japanese has the following features: (1) it cannot be used independently, but always co-occurs with (an)other word(s); (2) it functions to supplement the meanings of the word with which it co-occurs, or to indicate the subjective judgment of the speaker or the writer; and (3) it has conjugated forms. (Nagano, 1980:523). Even this definition still needs further elaboration, as not all the expressions generally included in the category o f auxiliaries do, in fact, have the full range o f conjugated forms. This applies to soo da (‘evidently’), which never conjugates to form a negative or past tense. This study is not really concerned with part of speech classification. Having recognized the problems of the definition of auxiliary in Japanese, this study simply uses the term ‘auxiliary’ to refer to wake da and no da, the two constructions in question, as they do fulfill all three criteria referred to above: they are always preceded by other words, and are never used independently; they express the speaker’s or the writer’s attitude towards the proposition; and

5 they have negative and past inflections. It is because o f the presence of the copula that these constructions inflect. While wake da consists o f the copula da preceded by wake, a so-called ‘formal noun’ (keishiki meishi), no da consists of the copula da preceded by no, a nominalizer. However, the meaning that each construction conveys is not simply the meaning of the ‘formal noun’ (or the nominalizer, in the case of no da) plus the copula. The two components in each construction always occur together and function as a unified entity when expressing the attitude of the speaker or the writer. (See section 2.1 in Chapter 2 for details about the structures o f the two constructions.) According to the definition o f auxiliary and the nature of wake da and no da introduced above, following the suggestions o f Nagano (1953) and Teramura (1984), this study regards the two constructions wake da and no da, as well as other similar constructions, such as hazu da (expectation + COP), koto da (matter + COP), tokoro da (place + COP) and mono da (thing + COP), as auxiliaries. Regardless o f which part of speech we view them as belonging to, it has become a shared understanding among Japanese linguists in recent years that constructions of this group are devices of modality (Masuoka, 1989; Nitta & Masuoka, 1989; Masuoka, 1991; Johnson, 1999; H. Noda, 2002; etc.). Based on this common understanding, this study follows the suggestion of Teramura (1984) and labels wake da and no da, as well as the other members in the group, as ‘modal auxiliaries’ - auxiliaries expressing modality.

1.3

The concept of modality

By the term ‘modality’, this study refers to a general concept suggested by many researchers: the opinion or attitude of the speaker or the writer towards the proposition or towards the situation that the proposition describes (Lyons, 1977:452; Halliday, 1994a:75, 89; Frawley, 1992:386; etc.). This is also a common opinion held among Japanese scholars regarding the notion of modality, which is translated into Japanese as hanashite no shin-teki taido (‘the psychological attitude o f the speaker’) (e.g. Teramura, 1978:97; H. Noda, 1989:131; H. Noda, 1997; Johnson, 1999:146; Miyazaki, Adachi, Noda, & Takanashi, 2002:2; etc.). This study deems modality a semantic issue that is different from ‘mood’, a grammatical or morphosyntactic category, following previous studies such as Frawley (1992:386). Some early studies do not distinguish modality and mood (e.g. Palmer, 1986, cited in Frawley, 1992:386). On the other hand, some other scholars do make the distinction, but use the terms ‘sentence mood’ and ‘verbal mood’ (Kiefer, 1994:2516) to refer to the semantic and the morphosyntactic categories respectively. However, the so-called ‘sentence mood’ - similar

6 to what is here called ‘modality’ - is not an issue that can be satisfactorily accounted for entirely within a sentence. For instance, one cannot determine the meaning and function of the English modal auxiliary ‘must’ in a sentence like ‘John must come’, without referring to the context. The same applies to wake da and no da, the two Japanese modal auxiliaries in question in this study. Based on this recognition, this study holds that issues related to modality need to be viewed as semantic issues and must be discussed at the level of the text. There have been several suggestions regarding the subcategories o f modality. This study follows Frawley’s suggestion, and identifies three main types of modality: negative modality, epistemic modality, and deontic modality. While negative modality deals with negative, epistemic modality is about possibility and degrees of certainty, and deontic modality deals with necessity, obligation (Frawley, 1992:384-390), and similar categories related to the Actor (Foley & Van Valin, 1984:28-32). This study also adopts Lyons’s subtypes o f epistemic modality: objective epistemic modality and subjective epistemic modality. According to Lyons, with an objectively modalized utterance, the speaker is ‘committed to the factuality of the information that he is giving to the addressee: he is performing an act o f telling’. On the other hand, subjectively modalized sentences are ‘statements of opinion, or hearsay, or tentative inference, rather than statements o f fact’ (Lyons, 1977:799). This suggestion regarding objective and subjective epistemic modality is crucial for investigating the discourse functions of and the differences between wake da and no da (discussed in detail in Chapters 3, 4, and 5). In short, this study regards modality as a concept referring to the speaker or the writer’s opinion or attitude towards the proposition or the situation that the proposition describes. It is a semantic issue that needs to be investigated at text level. The main types of modality are negation, epistemic modality, and deontic modality. The two subtypes of epistemic modality are objective epistemic modality and subjective epistemic modality.

1.4

Some aspects of SFC that have inspired this study

Although not limited to its terminology or paradigm, this study benefits from the basic views of Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) towards text and text analysis. In particular, it adopts the SFG concepts of lexical cohesion and lexical cohesive chains. SFG is a functional and semantic, rather than formal and syntactic, approach. It takes the text rather than the sentence as its object, and focuses on the usage rather than grammaticality of language (Halliday, 1994b:4505). It claims that language use is always purposeful, and is sensitive to context. Therefore, the meanings o f a grammatical unit can only

7 be identified though the context of the message (Eggins, 1994; Butt, Fahey, Spinks, & Yallop, 1998:73,122). Many works using SFG are based on investigations o f authentic data, rather than made-up examples. This rationale and approach motivated the research questions mentioned in section 1.1, and the decision to investigate the discourse functions of the two modal auxiliaries in question at text level by referring to the original contexts, with authentic texts as data. SFG views text as a semantic unity, which shows texture, i.e., cohesion within a text. It claims that texture is provided by cohesive relations between the parts of a text, of which the main kinds are: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction, and lexical cohesion. Among these, lexical cohesion is realized by the selection o f vocabulary, including repeating the same word or using general nouns, synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy, and collocation (Halliday & Hassan, 1976, 1985; Eggins, 1994). When investigating lexical cohesion in texts, linguists using SFG often use diagrams to illustrate the sequential occurrence o f all lexical items that contribute to cohesion in the text. This type o f diagram serves to illustrate what are referred to as lexical chains. This study has found that the concepts o f lexical cohesion and lexical chains are especially useful for confirming and illustrating the relationship between a sentence in which wake da or no da occurs and the other parts of the text. Lexical chains provide strong objective evidence for the discussions o f the discourse functions o f and the differences between the two modal auxiliaries in question. This strong objective evidence gives the current study significance in terms o f making up the deficiencies of previous studies regarding these auxiliaries'1. (This issue is discussed more fully in Chapter 3).

1.5

Data sources for this study

The primary data examined for this study are editorials selected randomly from the electronic versions of Japanese newspapers during the period 1996 to 2001. There are four main reasons for choosing newspaper editorials as the primary data source.

21investigated a number of issues that were viewed as potentially relevant in the pilot study, including ‘topic continuity’, an approach suggested by Givon, and ‘thematic development patterns’, a concept suggested by SFG. These issues were not pursued in the main investigation, because it was found that both ‘topic continuity’ and ‘thematic development patterns’ are not useful in finding out the distinctive characteristics of the two target expressions wake da and no da. Having failed to achieve the aim of the study by examining topic or theme, 1extended my view from the topic or the theme to the entire example sentences. That is, I started to analyse all the lexical items of the example sentences, and investigated how each of them is related to the other parts of the text. This approach, as introduced above, is found very useful. It reveals clearly different tendencies in the use of wake da and those of no da. Refer to section 1.6 for more details of the pilot study.

8 First of all, this study investigates the discourse functions of the two Japanese modal auxiliaries in question at text level by referring to the original contexts. Because the characteristics of text structure and the choice of lexicon vary considerably from genre to genre, it is essential to investigate texts o f the same genre. 1 made the decision to do a thorough, in depth investigation of a single genre in keeping with the methodological commitment to consider examples of the target structures with reference to their full context. The alternative strategy o f attempting to analyze data from a wide range of genres could only have been adopted at the expense of this commitment. Secondly, in comparison with speaking, uses in a written text are likely to be more carefully chosen, and therefore are expected to reflect the current generally accepted usage, rather than usages popular in a particular social group only, or usages that may be at an early stage of grammaticalization, but not yet fully accepted in the standard language. Thirdly, editorials in Japanese newspapers are normally about 1200 characters in length. Using newspaper editorials makes the tasks relatively more convenient than using longer texts when analyzing the lexical chains of an entire text and presenting the chains for the purpose of discussion. The fourth reason for choosing newspaper editorials as the primary data source is related to the characteristics o f the modal auxiliaries themselves. That is, they are constructions used to express the writer’s attitude towards a statement; such constructions would be expected to occur with particular frequency in texts like newspaper editorials, in which the writer expresses a certain point o f view and attempts to influence the opinion o f the reader. Based on the above understandings, the investigations of this study have been based mainly on newspaper editorials. They are collected from the electronic versions of the Japanese newspapers Asahi Shinbun, Yomiuri Shinbun, and Nihon Keizai Shinbun. In the body o f this text, these sources are indicated as ‘A------ ’, ‘Y------ ’, and ‘N ------ ’ respectively with each example. ‘------’ is a 6 digit number indicating the date of the newspaper in which the example is observed, e.g. ‘A960522’ refers to the editorial from the Asahi Shinbun on 22 May 1996. Full details of each data source are given in the Data References. Approximately four hundred electronic texts o f editorials were searched. One hundred and eighty of them contain (an) example(s) o f the target forms. Among these texts, twenty-four texts contain examples of both the two auxiliaries wake da and no da used in the one text. The numbers o f examples used for the analyses o f each form in this thesis are: wake da: 50; wake dewanai: 71; wake ka: 41; no da: 48; no dewanai: 58; and no ka: 41. These figures are also given in the introductory part of the section where each form is discussed.

9 Since the interrogative use o f wake da is not observed at all in the newspaper editorials of this data source, some additional texts are examined only when discussing the interrogative use of wake da, and comparing it with the interrogative use of no da. The additional texts include one Japanese language textbook for Japanese high school students which comprises texts of various genres by different authors, four novels, and sixteen online novels. The average number of characters per page in the textbook is 6903, and the length o f each text in the textbook is between 2 to 9 pages, equal to 1,380 to 6,210 Japanese characters. The lengths o f the four novels are about 179,088, 187,680, 218,484, and 315,044 Japanese characters respectively4. The lengths o f the online novels, on the other hand, are counted as between 79,000 to 182,012 Japanese characters by the ‘Word Count’ function of MS Word. The primary data and the additional texts are listed in the Data References.

1.6

Method and extent of this study

When collecting and analyzing data, I took the following four steps. First, 1 searched the electronic versions o f the Japanese newspapers on the internet, and read the printed texts, marking every use o f the modal auxiliaries in question. Secondly, grouping the examples according to their actual forms (i.e. affirmative, negative, or interrogative), 1 made a list of examples of each group. Thirdly, I carefully read the entire text containing (an) example(s) of the target forms, and did a pilot study of the meanings and functions of each example. Fourthly, 1omitted from consideration those aspects found, by the pilot study, not very useful to achieve the aims of this study, and investigated more closely the aspects that were found to be most meaningful, with a focus on the texts in which both the two auxiliaries are observed. The pilot study was undertaken from various angles, investigating issues such as what sort of conjunctives are used before and after the target sentence; whether the use of the auxiliaries is related to topic continuity of the text; whether the use of the auxiliaries is related to the use of topic marker wa or nominative case marker ga; whether the use o f the auxiliaries is related to the thematic development patterns of the texts; how the argument is unfolded and constructed; what kind of information is conveyed in the target sentence; whether the

31counted the number of characters per full line and the number of lines per standard page (i.e. containing no tables, charts, etc.), and then multiplied these two figures and worked out the average characters per page. 4The four novels are 276, 287, 306, and 452 pages in length respectively. 1counted the number of characters per full line and the number of lines per full page of three randomly selected pages in each novel, and worked out the number of characters per page by multiplying these two figures for each novel. Then I multiplied them by the numbers of pages and worked out the total characters.

10 information expressed in the sentence is retrievable from the earlier part of the text; how the lexical items in the sentence relate to the other lexical items in the text; and so on. The pilot examination found that conjunctives, topic continuity, choice between the topic marker wa and nominative ga, and thematic development patterns o f the texts were not particularly useful in finding out the distinctive characteristics of the two expressions wake da and no da. Therefore, they were excluded when investigating the expressions closely. Examples were investigated closely from four main angles: (1) the nature of the modality they express, e.g. deontic or epistemic modality, subjective or objective modality; (2) the attitudes o f the writers they indicate; (3) the status of information conveyed by the constructions; and (4) the way they relate to the other parts of the text. In the course of investigation and discussion of the examples, I often went back to the entire texts to confirm the argument from different perspectives, taking care to always follow the principle o f this study: investigations must be conducted at the text level, and always with reference to the original context of each example. As mentioned earlier, this study adopts the method o f examining lexical cohesive chains when investigating the relation each example has with the other parts o f the text. In addition, it was found that information about the controllability of an action or event with respect to the subject of the proposition embedded in the sentence ending with wake da or no da also provides us with a useful tool to distinguish the different characteristics o f the two modal auxiliaries in question. Although this study focuses on the functions of wake da and no da, this does not mean that the syntactic forms of the expressions are to be ignored. On the contrary, this study deems that the functions of language are recognized through both fonn and context. The data have revealed a striking difference between the two expressions in terms of form. While almost all possible syntactic forms o f no da have been observed in the genre of newspaper editorials, those of wake da are rather limited. More strikingly, the interrogative form o f wake da is not observed at all in the editorials in this data. This study holds that differences between wake da and no da in tenns of form should not be dismissed simply as formal variation. They could be important signals o f more fundamental differences related to function. Therefore, investigating the various forms closely may provide us with effective clues to discover the fundamental differences between the auxiliaries in terms o f their basic meanings and discourse functions. Based on the above view, this study investigates the discourse functions o f wake da and no da by examining their affirmative, negative, and interrogative uses in turn in the following chapters. Investigations o f the interrogative foims o f the two constructions involve examples

11 collected from conversations in novels, due to the fact that wake da does not occur in the interrogative in the newspaper editorials. To compare the two at the same level in terms of formality and stage of grammaticalization, instances of no and wake that are used by female characters in the same way as a sentence final particle (Matsumura, 1971:652-653; H. Noda, 1993 )5 are not included; these two items are only considered when the copula da (or its polite form desu) or the question particle ka is attached. Japanese words in examples are presented in this thesis in italics, and the Hepburn romanisation system of Japanese is used, with the exception that long vowels are written double rather than with the macron, i.e. oo replacing o (Kindaichi, Hayashi, & Shibata, 1988:350). When the Kunrei system is used in an original source, it is here transformed into the Hepburn system. Proper nouns are romanised with the first letter capitalised (e.g., Tookyoo ‘Tokyo’; Gaimashoo ‘Ministry o f Foreign Affairs’). When the romanised transcription may cause confusion in reading and understanding an example involving syllabic ‘n ’ followed by a vowel, an apostrophe is used to indicate the beginning o f the vowel-initial syllable (e.g., an'i ni sanseisuru ‘easily agree’ vs. ani ni sanseisuru ‘agree with my brother’). In transcribing the Japanese examples into the romanised version in this study, expressions are h eated as a word and separated from others by spaces when both the following

5Many researchers has suggested that, when no is attached to a proposition at the end of a sentence, it should be regarded as a sentence final particle (e.g. Matsumura, 1971:652-653). Even Harumi Noda (1993), who asserts that no of this type is a variant of the modal auxiliary no da, has to admit that these two expressions are different in many cases in terms of both syntax and function. There are also disparities in age, region, and among individuals in using no and no da. (H. Noda, 1993). The relation between the wake that is used as a sentence final particle and the modal auxiliary wake da is very similar to that of no and no da. Although not attempting to investigate this issue closely, this study did observe some meaningful evidence of grammatical izaiton, and regional and individual variations in the uses of both wake da and wake. For instance, at a very early stage of this study, I searched novels by Natsume Soseki (1867-1916) in CD-ROM Shincho Bunko no 100 Satsu (‘CD-ROM 100 Paperback Books of Shinchosha’) to see how many examples can be expected to occur, and whether novels could be used as the main data source. However, only 7 examples of wake da and 4 examples of its negative form wake dewanai were observed. The use of wake as a sentence final particle was not found at all. In contrast, many examples of wake da are observed in the additional data used for this study, the four novels published between 1984 and 1996. It is very likely that one of the reasons for the limited use of wake da, and for the fact that wake did not appear at all in Natsume Soseki’s novels, is that the modal auxiliary wake da was still in a very early stage of its grammaticalization from a purely referential noun to a functional auxiliary, and the sentence final particle wake may not have even been derived from its origin. This study also observed a difference between different writers in using wake as a sentence final particle. While ‘X wake?' is not observed in Sasazawa’s (1930-2002) text (Sasazawa 1984), it is observed several times in a novel by Akagawa (1948 -) published in 1993 and one by Yuikawa (1955- ) published in 1996. These observations agree with Suzuki’s findings regarding the stages of grammaticalization of wake from a lexical noun to a sentence final particle (Suzuki, 1998). Based on these facts, this study does not include wake and no that function as a sentence final particles in conversation.

12 two criteria are fulfilled: (1) the expression is listed as a single entry in Koojien Japanese dictionary (Shinmura, 1999); and (2) the expression consists of bound morphemes only or is a compound of ‘derivational morpheme + expression o f a single entry’ or o f ‘expression of a single entry + derivational morpheme’. For instance, both If® M W

shokugyooteki

(‘occupational’) and I® M M A shokugyoofujin (‘career women’) are listed in Koojien as subordinate entries under

shokugyoo (‘occupation’). While teki (f-J is a derivational

morpheme, functioning to change a noun into an adjective, and cannot be used independently, fujin M X (‘women’) is an independent noun. Thus, fH ilftl shokugyooteki (‘occupational’) is treated as one word in this study and transcribed as shokugyoo-teki, while W k M M X (‘career women’) is treated as two words - shokugyoo fujin. As in shokugyoo-teki, hyphens are used in compound-nouns or compound-adjectives in this study to indicate the juncture between a derivational morpheme and the other component o f the compound. This determination of ‘words’ may not be ideal for all purposes, and in fact, it has been a difficult task for researchers to reach a consensus view on what should be regarded as ‘words’ in Japanese (e.g., Martin, 1988:16-17). However, defining ‘word’ is not an aim of the current study. Having noticed the problem in separating expressions originally written without spaces in Japanese, this study simply set up the criteria mentioned above for romanised transcription to facilitate the discussion of the examples. English glosses are given for most o f the examples, but not in the case o f relatively long examples, when the meaning o f each constituent of the sentences is less important than the meaning conveyed by the paragraph as a whole. A dot is used to separate the words in the English gloss, when a single Japanese word is translated into two or more English words. For example, the Japanese word tomin (‘citizens of Tokyo’) is glossed as ‘citizens.of.Tokyo’.

1.7

Key findings of this study

Analyzing authentic data at the text level with reference to linguistic features as objective clues, this study has found the following four fundamental differences between these two so-called 'interchangeable' modal auxiliaries. First o f all, although some syntactic features and logical relations between the sentences involved make the two modal auxiliaries superficially similar, they are carriers of different types of modality. While wake da conveys more objective epistemic modality, with which the writer performs an act of telling about a fact, no da conveys more subjective epistemic modality, which functions to show the writer’s own voice. In addition, no da sometimes also

13 conveys deontic modality6. Secondly, and closely related to the first point, the two auxiliaries express different attitudes of writers. While wake da is used to imply that the writer is committed to an objective truth or fact, no da is used to mean that the proposition is the writer’s own subjective view o f the issue being discussed, or that the writer has something to say about the proposition. Thirdly, the status of information carried in sentences involving wake da and no da also reveals a difference between the two constructions. Information expressed with wake da is retrievable from the context or by common sense, while information expressed with no da can be completely new to the reader. Finally, these two auxiliaries show a clear tendency in terms o f the ways they relate to the rest of the text. When wake da is used, the sentence is related to the rest o f the text retrospectively. On the contrary, when no da is used, the sentence relates to the rest of the text both retrospectively and prospectively. This study claims that the differences mentioned above are by no means separate from each other. They are interlinked and function simultaneously. The complicated functions and uses of the two modal auxiliaries being investigated - wake da and no da - must not be oversimplified. We need to recognize the fact that the choice between these two constructions is the result of the interaction of many factors. It is largely related to how willing the writer is to let his/her own voice be heard in the discourse. The more objective the modality, the more known information is contained in the proposition, the stronger the writer’s will to suppress his/her voice, or the more retrospective the proposition is, the more likely it is for wake da, rather than no da, to be used. Given the complexity and multiplicity o f the factors involved, it is unreasonable to expect a clear-cut borderline between the two. This is precisely the reason why interchangeability is observed, especially when the full context is not taken into consideration. These key findings have gone beyond the limitations o f previous studies (mentioned in section 1.1), and confirmed the basic views of this study (claimed in the same section). That is, it is not adequate to simply conclude, as some scholars suggest, that wake da and no da are in many cases interchangeable; rather, one is more or less suitable than the other in each context. Furthennore, summary expressions such as ‘explanatory modal auxiliaries’ or ‘asking or giving explanations’ are not sufficient to describe the discourse functions o f these two modal auxiliaries. The information expressed by a sentence involving wake da or no da (including their variants) is more than an explanation. It involves the writer’s attitude towards the 11Refer to section 1.3 for definition of modality.

information conveyed in the proposition, as well as the status o f the information (given or new), and the way the sentences involving the auxiliaries relate to the rest o f the text.

15

2

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE ON THE TWO JAPANESE MODAL AUXILIARIES IN QUESTION: WAKE DA AND NO DA

There have been numerous studies on the Japanese modal auxiliaries, especially on no da, and it would be almost impossible to introduce every one o f them here. This chapter, therefore, will focus on and outline some of the most representative and influential works and those most directly related to the aims of this study. As mentioned in Chapter 1, the aims of this study are to investigate the discourse functions o f the two modal auxiliaries wake da and no da, said to be interchangeable on many occasions, and to find out the essential differences between them. Since an investigation o f the function of an expression cannot be conducted without referring to the grammatical features and meanings of that expression, previous studies of the structures and meanings of the affirmative, interrogative, and negative uses of wake da and no da will be reviewed first (sections 2.1 and 2.2). This will be followed by the review of the literature regarding their functions and similarities (section 2.3). Through this review of previous works, the need for this study, and its context and starting point, will be made clear (section 2.4).

2.1

The structures of the modal auxiliaries wake da and no da

It has recently become a widely accepted notion that wake da and no da, as well as the four similar constructions - koto da, mono da, tokoro da, hazu da - are unitary elements, referred to as ‘compound auxiliaries’ (e.g. Nagano, 1953:103-105), ‘extended predicate’ (e.g. Jorden with Noda, 1987:178, 242), or modal auxiliaries expressing the attitude of the speaker or the writer (e.g. Teramura, 1984). This analysis is far from new, but was not widely accepted until the early 1980s. Until then, this group o f constructions was more generally regarded as involving a combination o f a ‘formal noun’ (keishiki meishi)1 and the copula da, or, in the

1Apart from ‘formal noun’ (keishiki meishi), a range of other terms have been used as well, for instance, ‘postadnominals’ (suggested by Martin, 1975, 1988:664), ‘dependent noun’ (Makino & Tsutsui, 1995:17, 134), ‘nominalizer’ (used among transformational grammarians), and so on. These terms, however, have not been used as commonly as the term ‘formal noun’ among Japanese grammarians and linguists.

16 case of no da, a combination of the ‘nominalizing particle’ (jun-tai joshi)1 no and the copula. The definitions of these two terms ‘formal noun’ (keishiki meishi) and ‘nominalizing particle’ (jun-tai joshi) are introduced in sections 2.1.1 and 2.1.2, along with the original, referential meanings and the derived non-referential meanings of wake and no claimed by previous studies.

2.1.1

The ‘formal noun' wake and its origin

‘Formal noun’ (keishiki meishi) is a concept proposed by Matsushita (1928), as a separate class from ‘real nouns’ (hon-meishi). He calls nouns such as hana (‘flower’), tsuki (‘moon’), nihon (‘Japan’), hooritsu (‘law’), and so on, ‘real nouns’, as they express ‘substantial’, referential meanings. On the contrary, he defines what he calls ‘formal nouns’ as nouns that are nominal in form only, but do not have a ‘substantial’ meaning23 (Matsushita, 1928:223225, 241) (presumably close to what is described in this study as ‘fully referential’ meaning). As with many of the other so-called ‘formal nouns’ (e.g. koto (‘thing’), mono (‘item’), tokoro (‘place’), hazu (‘reason’), etc.) wake is also used as a ‘real noun’, in Matsushita’s terms, with referential meaning in the modem Japanese language. According to Morita (1980), wake (|R), originally written 5)Tt, was the nominal form of the verb wakeru ( j j b j jS) (Morita, 1980:523), which means ‘to distinguish’, ‘to divide’, ‘to arbitrate’, and ‘to open a path’ (Shinmura, 1999). The nominal form wake came to mean ‘making a judgment about something, or the content o f the judgment’ (Shoogaku Tosho Gengo Kenkyuujo, 1986:2514). The notion that one will find the truth about a fact, or the grounds for that fact by separating that fact out from the complexity o f the situation in which it occurs resulted in new referential meanings o f wake such as ‘reason’ (riyuu), ‘meaning’ (imi), ‘grounds’ (konkyo), ‘circumstance’, ‘case’, and ‘affairs’ (jijoo). (Morita, 1980:523-527;

2 While Matsushita (1928) categorizes no as a ‘formal noun’ (keishiki meishi), the majority of later studies have taken up Hashimoto’s term ‘nominalizing particle’ (jun-tai joshi). See sections 2.1.land 2.1.2 for details. 3 The Japanese term Matsushita used is jisshitsu-teki igi ‘substantial meaning’. Although Matsushita’s definition has been cited or adopted by some other Japanese researchers (e.g. Nagano 1953, Saji 1993), the term he uses may not be an adequate one. Having said that ‘formal nouns’ do not have ‘substantial meaning’, Matsushita also said that the ‘formal nouns’ have very subtle (bimyoo na) meanings (Matsushita, 1928:241). He further claimed that, for example, hazu indicates a natural consequence, no indicates a particular item/thing among others, and so on (Matsushita, 1961:24). His own explanation shows that ‘formal nouns’ do have some ‘substantial’ meanings, although their meanings are less referential than when they function as ordinary nouns. Therefore, this study suggests that a ‘formal noun’ expresses a ‘less referential’ or ‘non-referential’ meaning, which is dependent on the context, as a result of grammaticalization from its original meaning.

17 Shinmura, 1999). In Example 2-1, wake is used as a ‘real noun’ with one o f these referential meanings. Example 2-1

Soho

wake

o

that

reason ACC

kikasete

kudasai.

hear-CAUS-VCF

please45

(Please let me hear the reason for that.)' (Morita, 1980:524; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:533)

In contrast to Example 2-1, wake in Example 2-2 cannot be interpreted as literally having any of the referential meanings presented above, although it still retains the syntactic features of a noun. Example 2-2

Ashita

shiken desu

tomorrow exam COP

ka. Jaa

konban

isogashii wake

QP then

tonight

busy

desu

ne.

wake COP-POL6 SFP

(Do you have an exam tomorrow? Then, you must be busy tonight.)7 (Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:531) This non-referential use of wake is an example o f its use as a so-called ‘formal noun’ in combination with desu, the non-past polite form of the copula da, or what is now analysed as its use as a modal auxiliary.

2.1.2

The ‘nominalizing particle’ no and Its origin

No is first referred to as a jun-tai joshi (‘nominalizing particle’) by Hashimoto (cited in Sakuma, 1936:46, without mention of the year of the work). Some scholars suggest that the

4All glosses and English translations in this thesis are by the current writer, unless indicated otherwise. 5The English translation of this example is cited from Makino & Tsutsui (1989:533). 6The term ‘polite fonn (POL)’ used in this study is a translation of Japanese terminology teinei go, referring to the-masu form of verbals. It is different from the ‘formal form (FML)’, another term used in this study to refer to forms that only occur in formal spoken or written discourse but not in daily conversation or informal writing. The polite form is used in a context in which there is a particular addressee to whom the speaker/writer wishes to show politeness. The formal form, on the other hand, simply indicates the formal nature of the text itself, and has no relation to a particular addressee. For instance, the copula da may occur as desu, its ‘polite form’, in a polite conversation with an acquaintance, as dearu, its ‘formal plain form’, in a formal text, and as dearimasu, the - masu form of dearu (‘formal polite form’), in a formal speech delivered to an audience. 7The English translation of this example is cited from Makino & Tsutsui (1989:531).

18 no which Hashimoto labels jun-tai joshi includes three different uses: (1) no as a genitive particle with the item being possessed omitted (as in Example 2-3); (2) no as a pronoun (as in Example 2-4); and (3) no as a nominalizer (as in Example 2-5) (Matsumura, 1971:651-652; Saji, 1993:6). Among the three uses of no, the meaning of the third one is the least referential. E xam ple 2-3

Kore wa

watashi no

dewanai.

This TOP

I

COP-NEG

(This is not [an item] of mine.) E xam ple 2-4

Asoko

de

hon

over.there LOC book

o

yondeiru

ACC

read-PRO

no

wa dare

desu

ka?

TOP who COP-POL

QP

(Who is the one reading a book over there?) E xam ple 2-5

Jiko

ga

atta

no

accident NOM there.is-PAST

o

shitteimasu.

ACC

know-PRO

(I know that there was an accident.) Hashimoto’s term jun-tai joshi (‘nominalizing particle’) has been taken up in the majority of later studies (Mikami, 1953; Nagano, 1953; Saji, 1969; Teramura, 1984; H. Noda, 1997; etc.), and the usage associated with the term has been narrowed to the third type - the nominalizer no - only (Saji, 1993:6-7). This non-referential use o f no came to be regarded as the first component of the combination o f the ‘nominalizing particle’ and the copula da, as shown in Example 2-6. E xam p le 2-6

Kyoo

wa

nanimo

today

TOP nothing

kaenai.

O-kane

ga

nai

no da.

buy-PTN-NEG

money

NOM have-NEG no da

(I can’t buy anything today. I don’t have [any] money no da.) One can see clearly that the no in the combination with da in Example 2-6 is different from all the other three uses presented in examples 2-3 to 2-5. Similar to the case o f wake in combination with da, introduced in Example 2-2, the meaning of no da is not simply the sum o f the two components no and da. This combination is nowadays analysed as the modal auxiliary no da.

19 2.1.3

From a combination to a single unit

Although the idea was not initially widely accepted, some scholars recognised at a fairly early stage that when a ‘formal noun’ or a ‘nominalizing particle’ is combined with the copula da, what is formed is not simply a combination, but a single unit (Otsuki, 1916:461; Mikami, 1953; Nagano, 1953; Matsushita, 1961; etc.). Research on constructions o f this kind, which consist of a nominal and the copula da, has been lead by studies on no da, perhaps because it is the one in the group used most extensively in both written and spoken discourse. It was first suggested by Otsuki that no da is ‘one word’ (Otsuki, 1916; cited in Mikami, 1953:28 and Tanomura, 1990:179). This idea is taken further by later scholars. For instance, Mikami (1953:28, 234-235) claims that the two components of no da must be regarded as one single verbal (jun-yoogen). Nagano (1953) proposed that no da should be regarded as a ‘compound auxiliary’ (fukugoo jodooshi) (Nagano, 1953:103-105; Tanaka, 1964:182). About two decades later, Okutsu (Okutsu, 1974:48) regarded not only no da but also some other constructions involving ‘formal noun + da ’, such as koto da and mono da, as single ‘sentence-ending particles’ (bunmatsu-shi). Fie claims that these ‘sentence-ending particles’ function to add subjectivity (shukansei) to the clause in which they occur. A further step forward in the understanding of the nature of constructions of this type is made by Teramura (1984), who points out clearly, for the first time, that these constructions function to convey modality. Teramura investigated more ‘formal noun + da’ constructions, including the three mentioned in Okutsu 1974 (i.e. no da, koto da, and mono da), as well as tokoro da, hazu da, and wake da. He regarded these constructions as auxiliaries, and further claimed that they are ‘modal auxiliaries’, as they express the speaker’s or writer’s attitude towards the preceding proposition (Teramura, 1984). This proposal has been accepted by many researchers, and it has become a common opinion that koto da, mono da, tokoro da, hazu da, and the two being investigated in this study, wake da and no da, function as auxiliaries carrying modality (Nitta, 1989; Masuoka, 1991; Saji, 1991a; H. Noda, 1997, 2002, 2003; etc.). This analysis of these constructions as ‘modal auxiliaries’ provides the current study with a basis for viewing wake da and no da, the two constructions in question. However, many questions remain unanswered. Although there is a general consensus among researchers that this group of constructions function as auxiliaries conveying modality, interpretations of what kind of modality they carry still vary. For example, while some regard wake da and no da as auxiliaries expressing explanatory modality (setsumei no muudo) (Teramura, 1984; H.

20 Noda, 1997), some others deem their functions to be similar to an auxiliary that indicates a judgement (handan) (Nagano, 1953; Moriyama, 1989; Nitta, 1989; Saji, 1993:14). Details of these opinions are to be introduced in section 2.2 below.

2.2

Previous analyses on the meanings and functions of wake da and no da.

The majority o f the previous studies on wake da and no da have been carried out at the sentence level (Martin, 1975; Morita & Matsuki, 1989; Saji, 1991b; Makino & Tsutsui, 1995; etc.), or at the paragraph level (Teramura, 1984; Okuda, 1992; Liu, 1996). In the early years, studies of this type of modal auxiliary focused mainly on how a ‘formal noun’ or ‘nominalizing particle’ adds meaning to the preceding clause, or what kind o f meaning or nuance it conveys. Furthermore, research has looked primarily at the affirmative forms of the constructions; their interrogative and negative forms have been given little attention so far, although they are as important as the affirmative forms for reaching an overall and thorough understanding o f the functions of the constructions. Some o f the main approaches and views on these three forms (i.e. affirmative, interrogative, and negative) of the two modal auxiliaries investigated in this study are outlined in the following two sections.

2.2.1

Wake da

2.2.1.1

The affirmative forms of wake da

The affirmative forms o f wake da (wake da (plain form), wake dearu (formal plain form)8, and their polite variants wake desu and wake dearimasu) are normally translated into English as ‘It is the case that ‘It means that

‘as you know’, ‘The fact is that

‘That’s why

‘no wonder

‘The truth o f the matter is that - ’,

‘naturally

etc. (Alfonso, 1966:1027-

1029; Martin, 1975:734; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:531, Makino & Tsutsui, 1995:570). Approaches to this construction fall into two main types: (1) syntactic and semantic approaches to its usages and meanings; and (2) discourse analysis of its discourse functions. The former has been the mainstream, while the latter only started in mid 1990s and has not been pursued in much depth to date. As mentioned in section 2.1, wake da has been regarded by many Japanese grammarians as a ‘compound auxiliary’ (e.g. Nagano, 1953; Tanaka, 1964:182), or as a modal auxiliary (e.g. Teramura, 1984). Furthermore, there has been a common understanding among 8 Refer to Footnote 6 under Example 2-2 for the difference between ‘polite form’ and ‘formal form’.

21 researchers regarding the basic usages and meanings of wake da. That is, a sentence involving wake da is used to express a natural result, a logical consequence (toozen no kiketsu / kekka). or a natural trend o f development (nariyuki) (Tanaka, 1964; Morita, 1980:523-526; Sakata, 1982a; Teramura, 1984:274-277, 285; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:196; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:531; etc.), and it is associated with the explanatory attitude of the speaker (Tanaka, 1964; Alfonso, 1966:1027; Martin, 1975:734; Teramura, 1984:261; Okuda, 1992; Suzuki, 1998; H. Noda, 1997, 2002, 2003; etc.). Having this common understanding of the basic uses and functions o f wake da, it is still not an easy task to elucidate its exact function in each authentic example. Classifications and descriptions of the use o f wake da that have been suggested by researchers, for this reason, vary from each other. To show both the achievements and the shortcomings of previous studies, some of the main claims regarding the uses of wake da are introduced below, with one example for each use cited from previous work. It needs to be noted that, in many of the original works cited, examples tend to be simply lined up under the label o f a subgroup, without any detailed explanation or discussion. For this reason, these examples are presented below only to help the reader to understand the meaning of the label o f each subgroup suggested by previous studies. (1)

The first use o f wake da claimed by previous studies is that it expresses a natural

result, a logical consequence (toozen no kiketsu / k e k k a f or a natural trend of development (nariyuki) (Alfonso, 1966:1027-1028; Morita, 1980:523-526; Sakata, 1982b; Teramura, 1984:273-277; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:196; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:531; Okuda, 1992:195; Liu, 1996; etc.). For instance, according to Teramura (1984:274), in using wake da in Example 2-7 in the description o f the relative positions of a group of people, the writer indicates that the fact that ‘Kikuko is opposite Shingo’ is a logical consequence of the already mentioned facts: (1) Shingo is facing east, (2) Kazuko is facing south, (3) Shuuichi is facing north, and (4) Kikuko is facing west. Example 2-79

9The logical relation between the clause ending with wake da and the clause(s) or the sentence(s) preceding it is often symbolized as ‘P—>Q wake da ’ in previous works (e.g. Teramura, 1984; Malsuoka, 1987,1993). The letter ‘P’ is used to refer to the premise or the condition, and ‘Q’ to refer to the logical consequence or result. This kind of symbolization has also been used in many previous works on no da (e.g. Matsuoka, 1987, 1993; H. Noda, 1997). This study, however, does not adopt this method, as it attempts to reduce the meaning of natural language to the patterns of symbolic logic, and so is not useful when trying to explicate the actual meanings and functions of the modal auxiliaries being examined.

22 Shingo wa higashi muki ni suwaru. Sono hidari gawa ni, Kazuko wa minami muki ni suwaiii. Shingo no migi ga Shuuichi de, kita muki dearu. Kikuko wa nishi muki da kara, Shingo to mukaiatteiru wake da. (Teramura, 1984:274) (Shingo is sitting there facing east. Kazuko is sitting on his left, facing south. On the right o f Shingo is Shuichi, facing north. Kikuko is facing west, and so she is opposite Shingo wake da.)

The second use of wake da claimed by previous studies is that it is used to

(2)

paraphrase a fact or to indicate that a fact known to the speaker can be interpreted in another way (Alfonso, 1966:1029; Teramura, 1984:278-279; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:197; Okuda, 1992:169-199; Liu, 1996; etc.). Below is an example given by Teramura (1984). Some researchers claim that this use of wake da ‘can be replaced easily with no da ’ (e.g. Okuda, 1992:196-200). E xam ple 2-8

Hakaku no tei-ryookin de Nyuuyooku-Rondon111 kan o tobu ...... sukai torein no ichiban ki ga nijuuroku-nichi yoru, Nyuuyooku no Kenedi kokusai kuukoo o tobitatta. Katamichi unchin wa yaku nimanhassen-en de, tasha no rokuwarigobu-biki. Beikoku to ooshuu to no aida ga mata chikazuita wake da ga, kore wa beiei kookuu gyookai no danpingu gassen no hajimari demoaru. (Teramura, 1984:280) (The first flight of the Sky Train, a special low-price flight flying between New York and London, took off from Kennedy Airport, New York at night on the 26th. The price of a one-way ticket is 28,000 Yen, which is 65% lower than other airlines. The flight has shortened the distance between America and Europe wake da, but, at the same time, it is the start of the dumping war between the aviation industries of America and B ritain.) According to Teramura’s explanation, in this example, the proposition that is followed by wake da (‘the flight has shortened the distance between America and Europe’) is a special meaning or sense of the aforementioned fact - ‘a special low-price flight service between10

10 The hyphen between Nuuyooku (‘New York’) and Rondon (‘London’) was used in the original Japanese text. It is different from the other hyphens in the romanised transcriptions in this text in that it does not indicate an affix.

23 New York and London has been started’. We might think of this usage that Teramura describes as similar to that o f the expression ‘that is to say ... ’ in English.

(3) The third usage of wake da claimed by previous studies is that it is used to present a fact known to the hearer as an introduction to a new discussion (Sakata, 1982b; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:198; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:570; Okuda, 1992; Makino & Tsutsui, 1995; Liu, 1996; etc.). This usage o f wake da is also claimed by some researchers to be able to be replaced with no da (e.g. Morita & Matsuki, 1989:198, 201). Example 2-9

Ni-ji

no

two.o’clock GEN ni

wa

PART TOP

shinkansen ni

noru

bullet-train PART take

oosaka Osaka

wake da kara, wake da

go-ji

because five.o’clock

ni

tsuku

deshoo.

PART

arrive

COP-CONJ-POL

(Because [I] am taking the two o ’clock bullet train wake da. [I] should arrive at Osaka at five o’clock.) (Morita & Matsuki, 1989:198)

(4) The fourth usage of wake da previously claimed is that is it used to express that, learning the truth, the speaker is convinced that the present state or situation is a natural or logical result of that truth (Tanaka, 1964; Alfonso, 1966:1028; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:198). Example 2-10

Akanai

wake desu.

Kagi

open-NEG wake da-POL key

ga

chigatteiru no desu

NOM wrong

kara.

no da-POL because

(No wonder it doesn’t open. It’s because I’ve got a wrong key.) (Morita & Matsuki, 1989:198)

(5) The fifth use of wake da claimed by previous studies is that it serves to emphasize infonnation which the hearer might not know (Makino & Tsutsui, 1995:570). Example 2-11

Ima de

koso

now PART TOPH

chikyuu

ga

marui koto

wa

earth

NOM round NML TOP

kodomo

demo

children even

24 shitteiru

ga, Koronbusu izen

know-PRO but Columbus taira

da

to

flat

COP

HM

wa

daremo ga

before TOP

omotteita

chikyuu

everyone NOM earth

wa TOP

wake dau.

think-PRO-PAST

(Today, even children know that the earth is round, but the truth of the matter is that, before Columbus, everybody thought that it was flat.)12 (Makino & Tsutsui, 1995:571) Makino and Tsutsui claim that the wake da in this sentence ‘could be rephrased as’ no da, and the difference between the two expressions is that no da gives less emphasis to the fact represented by the sentence.

(6)

The sixth main claim about wake da to be introduced here is from an approach

involving discourse study, in which wake da is viewed as a ‘modality marker’ which indicates that the speaker is consciously playing the role of a ‘story-teller’. It is used when the speaker intends to explain some information as an ‘insider’ to the listener, who does not know the information. This is a general view of wake da, claimed applicable to all the usages o f wake da mentioned above, and even to those regarded as irregular by other studies (Kitagawa, 1995). To facilitate the comparison with no da later in this chapter, the main claims by previous studies introduced above are summarised below in Figure 2-1. F igure 2-1 A su m m a ry o f affirm ativ e uses o f wake da claim ed by p rev io u s studies

By syntactic/semantic approaches: (1) Expressing a natural result, a logical consequence (toozen no kiketsu / kekka), or a natural trend o f development (nariyuki). (2) Paraphrasing a fact or indicating that a fact known to the speaker can be interpreted in another way. Interchangeable with no da. (3) Presenting a fact known to the hearer as an introduction to a new discussion. Interchangeable with no da. (4) Expressing that, learning the truth, the speaker is convinced that the present state or fact is a natural or logical result.1 11 Emphasis added by the current writer.

25 (5) Emphasizing information which the hearer might not know. Interchangeable with no da. By discourse analysis: (6) Indicating that the speaker is consciously playing the role of a ‘story-teller’ as an ‘insider’.

These main claims o f previous studies do provide rich information and ideas about the uses and meanings of the affirmative forms o f wake da. This study especially considers the first two points to be useful, and builds on them. However, in spite of their value, previous studies have a number of inherent problems. Isolating examples from their original contexts, many of these studies have tried to explain each example by relying on the scholar’s own understanding, but have neglected objective linguistic clues, and have overlooked the fundamental characteristics o f the construction on which all the uses stand. For this reason, their claims are inconsistent and confusing, and some o f them are even contradictory to each other. There has not been a tenable argument elucidating why wake da can sometimes be used to present information known to the listener (the third claim in the figure above), and, at others, used to emphasize information unknown to the listener (see the fifth and sixth claims in Figure 2-1). Furthermore, by simply claiming that wake da is ‘interchangeable’ with no da in some situations, without sufficiently examining why and how, previous studies have left another question unanswered. Some major studies have compared wake da with no da and will be introduced in section 2.3, after we have looked at the negative and interrogative forms o f wake da. The importance of investigating the discourse functions of the auxiliaries, which is the aim o f this study, will also be mentioned again in the same section.

2.2.1.2 The negative forms of wake da There are three negative patterns involving the word wake in Japanese. They are: wake dewanai, wake ni wa ilcanai, and wake ga/wa nai. While in some previous works all three are regarded as the negative forms o f the modal auxiliary wake da (e.g. Teramura, 1984:272), or discussed together without clear differentiation (e.g. Martin, 1975:734), this study agrees with the view of Makino & Tsutsui (1995:573) and regards only wake dewanai as the negative form of the modal auxiliary wake da. The other two, wake ni wa ikanai (‘[someone] cannot12 12The English translation of this example is cited from Makino and Tsutsui 1995:571.

26 ~ ’) and wake ga/wa nai (‘There is no reason to

are neither formally nor functionally

negatives of wake da. They are idiomatic constructions, with a much simpler usage than wake dewanai, and so are not included in the investigation in this study. Wake dewanai, the negative form o f wake da, is formed by changing the copula da in wake da to its negative form dewanai. It is normally translated into English as ‘I don’t mean that

‘It does not mean that

‘It is not true that

‘It is not the case that

and so on

(Jorden, 1963:246; Martin, 1975:734; Makino & Tsutsui, 1995:574). It is said to be used to ‘deny what is implied either in the previous statement or in the following statement’ (Makino & Tsutsui, 1995:577-578). The process in the speaker’s mind when using wake dewanai has been described as this: the speaker thinks that his/her listeners) may interpret a piece of known information incorrectly, and so uses wake dewanai to negate the anticipated incorrect interpretation or inference (Teramura, 1984:287; H. Noda, 1992). This usage is illustrated in the examples cited below. E xam ple 2-12

Benizake wa nihon de wa torenai......... Nihon de wa torenai to kaita ga, zero to iu wake dewanai. Ichiban toreta toshi wa saru [shoowa] yonjuuroku-nen no 4535-hiki. (Teramura 1984:286) (Red salmon cannot be caught in Japan.

... Though I wrote ‘cannot be caught in

Japan’, it doesn’t mean that [the catch of red salmon in Japan] is zero. The largest catch was 4,535 in the year 1971.) In this example, the proposition being negated with wake dewanai is zero (‘[the catch o f red salmon in Japan] is zero’), which is a possible inference by the reader from the previous statement nihon de wa torenai (‘it cannot be caught in Japan’). As in the case o f its affirmative form, wake dewanai has also been compared with no dewanai, the negative form o f no da, by some researchers (H. Noda, 1992, 1997; Kudo, 1997; etc.). However, the comparisons have been far from thorough, and many questions still remain unanswered. The two negative constructions, wake dewanai and no dewanai, have even been mentioned together in some previous works without differentiation, as if they are exactly the same (e.g. Mizutani, 1984). For this reason, the current study deems further investigation necessary. Details o f the previous studies on the similarity and differences between the negative forms of wake da and no da are discussed in section 2.3.2.

27 2.2.1.3 The interrogative forms of wake da Wake ka, the interrogative form o f wake da, and its polite variant wake desu ka, have been given very little attention in the research so far. Except for being briefly referred to, in only one or two lines, as being used to ask for explanation o f the meaning o f what the speaker has just heard (Kuno, 1973:225; Martin, 1975:734), the only research on the interrogative use of wake da that has been found is a very small section in the work o f H. Noda (2002:255-257). H. Noda regards both wake ka and ‘wakeT as interrogative fonns of the modal auxiliary wake da, although the latter is regarded as a sentence final particle in other studies, including the current one13. Comparing wake {ka) with no {ka), H. Noda claims two points about wake {ka). Firstly, wake ka is used to confirm the meaning o f what the listener has mentioned, with an implication that the speaker inferred the meaning by logical thinking; secondly, when a question involving wake {ka) is about the listener’s action or attention, the question is apt to have a nuance o f criticism or blame, and, even if the speaker is not calling the listener to account, normally the question involving wake ka cannot be in the polite form. H. Noda’s first point is consistent with the earlier work o f Kuno (1973) and Martin (1975), and is consistent with the findings o f the current study (see section 5.5.1). However, her second point is on ‘w ake?’. Although this is not a target form of this study, it is worth mentioning that her claim may need some modification for two reasons. First, the nuance of criticism or blame is neither an inherent characteristic o f the modal auxiliary wake da nor a feature distinguishing wake ka from no ka. Even H. Noda’s own example suggests that the nuance of blame is conveyed by the context14. Secondly, examples of wake desu ka, a polite fonn of wake ka, have, in fact, been observed in the data examined for this study (see Chapter 5 for details).

13Refer to section 1.6 in Chapter 1 for more details regarding sentence final particles. 14H. Noda (2002:255) gives this example to support her claims. ‘Gakuhi wa doo naru no? Haratteiruno wa dare?’ Uiition.fee TOP how became pay-PRO NML TOP who ‘Okane no kolo o iu wake? Ara soo, jaa halaraile kaesu wa yo.......’ money GEN thingACCsay Oh really well work-VCF return SFP SFP (‘What about the tuition fee no? Who’s paying [for you]?’ ‘Are you talking about money wake? Dear me! Is that so? I’ll work and pay you back.........’) Apparently, this is a quarrel between a parent and a child. Both the speakers are criticising or blaming the other, and the first speaker used no, while the other used wake.

28 Apparently, H. Noda’s comment cannot be generalized as it is based on her own subjective feelings about a particular example, rather than on observations of a range of authentic examples in their actual contexts. This has been a common problem with the work of many researchers in this field. Another point that needs mentioning is that H. Noda’s descriptions of wake ka are very similar to those of no ka given by previous studies (refer to section 2.2.2.3). Therefore, they are not sufficient to determine the distinguishing features of the two constructions. The comparison will be discussed in section 2.3.3. Having examined earlier treatments of the various forms o f wake da - affirmative, negative and interrogative - let us now turn to the question of the dominant ways in which no da and its variants have been dealt with in the literature to date.

2.2.2

No da

Unlike wake, no never functions as an independent noun in present-day Japanese (recall Example 2-3 to Example 2-6). If we use the notion o f ‘degree of abstractness’, then no certainly rates the highest on this criterion among all the ‘formal nouns’. As a result, no da is the most widely used, as well as the most ‘problematic’, among the modal auxiliaries o f this type, and, therefore, has attracted more attention from Japanese linguists than any o f the others in the group. There have been almost countless attempts to deal with no da, in a wide variety of ways. Some representative studies on the affirmative, interrogative, and negative forms of no da are introduced in turn in the following sections.

2.2.2.1

Main approaches to the affirmative forms of no da

As mentioned in section 2.1, while some researchers have regarded no da as a combination of the ‘formal noun’ or ‘nominalizing particle’ no and the copula da (Sakuma, 1936; Kuno, 1973; Martin, 1975; Yamaguchi, 1979; etc.), more and more researchers have come to consider the construction as a single functional item or an auxiliary (Mikami, 1953; Nagano, 1953; Okutsu, 1974; Teramura, 1984; Morita & Matsuki, 1989; H. Noda, 1997; etc.). Despite the different views on the structure of the no da construction, investigating its meanings by analysing examples at sentence level has been the main approach. From the mid 1980s, although still in a minority, some works have broadened their horizons to the paragraph level (e.g. Teramura, 1984; Okuda, 1990), and investigations at the level of

29 discourse on both written and spoken data have also begun (e.g. McGloin, 1984; Iwasaki, 1985; Maynard, 1992). The approaches to no da in previous studies fall mainly into two types. One is to clarify the meaning that each sentence ending with no da conveys, and the other is to view no da as a device of modality and try to distinguish how the use of no da depends on the speaker’s attitude toward the proposition embedded in a sentence ending with no da. The former approach constitutes the mainstream, while the latter is employed by some relatively recent researchers in and around the 1980s, and so has been fairly limited. Claims made by the researchers adopting these two types of approaches are introduced in summary in the following two sections.

2.2.2.1.1 Syntactic and semantic approaches to the meanings and uses of the affirmative forms of no da The affirmative forms o f no da (no da (plain form), no dearu (formal plain form), and their polite forms no desu and no dearimasu) are translated into English as ‘it is that case that

‘the fact is that

‘the reason is that

‘that is to say,

‘it is the

you see’, and so on

(Kuno, 1973:223; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:325; etc.). It has been most commonly claimed that no da is used to express an explanation (Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuujo, 1951:172; Alfonso, 1966:405; Saji, 1972:16-17; Kuno, 1973:223-225; McGloin, 1980; Teramura, 1984; Jorden with Noda, 1987:178; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989; Morita & Matsuki, 1989; Okuda, 1990; Masuoka, 1991; H. Noda, 1997; etc.), and that the issue or point being explained exists either in the text or in the extra-linguistic situation (Mikami, 1953:239, Alfonso, 1966:405-406; Yamaguchi, 1979:227, 229; Iwasaki, 1985:129; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:236; etc.). Various types of explanation have been proposed in previous work. These include, for instance, explaining a fact or issue by presenting its logical consequence or result; its premise or reason; its meaning or details; its summary; its background; and so on (Alfonso, 1966:405; Morita & Matsuki, 1989; Okuda, 1990; Masuoka, 1991; H. Noda, 1997; etc.). These claims are incredibly confusing and inconsistent. With various terms and criteria for categorization used, they often overlap or are even contradictory in many cases. To introduce the major understandings as well as the major problems of previous studies, some of the main types of claims concerning the use of no da are presented below. As mentioned, they do tend to be quite unclear. An example o f each type of use is cited from previous works, for the purpose of helping the reader to gain some understanding of each one.

30

(1) The first commonly claimed usage of no da is that it is used to explain the premise or the reason(s) for a fact or situation that is being discussed. This usage of no da has been put forward by almost all those researchers who claim that no da can be used to give an explanation. Some of these researchers are introduced in the introductory paragraph of this section (e.g. Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuujo,

1951:172; Mikami,

1953:242; Alfonso,

1966:405; Kuno, 1973:226; Katamura, 1981:272; Kuramochi, 1982; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:199; Okuda, 1990:185, 196; etc.). This description is given to the usage o f no da illustrated in the following example. E xam ple 2-13

...... Sono that

shunkan, ito ga

putsun

moment line NOM ONMT

sakana datta

no desu.

fish

no da-POL

COP-PAST

to

kiremashita.

PART break-PAST

Zuibun

ookii

pretty

big

(Just then, the line snapped. It was a pretty big fish no da.) (Morita & Matsuki, 1989:189) It is claimed that, in Example 2-13, the sentence ending with no da presents the reason (‘It was a pretty big fish’) to explain the incident expressed in the sentence before (‘the line snapped’). This use o f no da, however, is interpreted by some researchers as an expression of ‘judgement’: something is judged to be the case from the fact or phenomenon mentioned in the preceding text (Yamaguchi, 1979; Oyano, 1981). That is to say, ‘It was a pretty big fish’ is the writer/speaker’s judgment based on the fact that ‘the line snapped’ (i.e. ‘It must have been a pretty big fish’).

(2) The second commonly claimed usage o f no da is that it is used to assert a result or a logical consequence o f a fact or situation that is being discussed (Kuramochi, 1982:389; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:199; Okuda, 1990:198; Masuoka, 1991:144-145; etc.). An example given as an illustration of this use o f no da is given below. E xam ple 2-14

Taifuu

ga

chikazuiteiru

kara,

tenki

ga

guzutsuiteiru

typhoon NOM approach-PRO because weather NOM be.unsettled

31 no desu. no da-POL (A typhoon is coming. So the weather is unsettled no da.) (Kuramochi, 1982:389) This use of no da is regarded as different from (1), introduced above, in terms of the logical relationship between the proposition presented with no da and the preceding sentence(s). In the case of (1), the proposition presented with no da is the reason for what has been mentioned in the preceding sentence(s), while in the case of (2), the proposition presented with no da is a logical consequence (kiketsu / hitsuzentekina ketsuron) or result caused by what has been mentioned earlier in the text.

(3) The third commonly claimed usage o f no da is that it is used to explain the meaning of what has just been mentioned by summarising (Okuda, 1990:192, 196, 210; H. Noda, 1997:77, 96; etc.). An example given by H. Noda is cited below. Example 2-15

‘Obachan wa koo itteiru. Arasotteiru futari noyoko o toorisugita ato, hantai shasen o torakku ga surechigatte itta. Soshite, haigo de kurakushon. Tsuzukete kyuu bureiki. Furikaette mini to, torakku no mae ni otoko wa taore, onna wa tatazundeita. Tsumari, ii desu ka, obachan wa kono jiken no shunkan wa miteinai n desu. ’ (‘Auntie said that, after she had passed by the two who were quarrelling, a truck from the opposite direction had passed her. Then she heard a horn behind her, and then the noise o f the brake. When she turned back, she saw the man lying in front of the truck, and the woman standing there. In other words .. .okay?... it’s just that auntie did not see the moment when the accident happened.’) (H. Noda, 1997:77) In this example, no da is claimed to be used to explain the substance o f what has been said before. The proposition to which no da is attached (‘Auntie did not see the moment when the accident happened’) clarifies and summarises what the entire preceding sentences mean.

(4) The fourth commonly claimed usage of no da is that it is used to explain the meaning of what has just been mentioned by giving details (Okuda, 1990:192; H. Noda, 1997:97-98; etc.).

32 E xam ple 2-16

....... Kono hito wa ...... itsumo jibun o osaeteiru hito datta. Okori mo yokuboo mo fuman mo yashin mo, nanimokamo osaeteiru hito na no da. (This guy was a person who always suppressed himself. That is to sav. he suppressed his anger, his desire, his grievances, his ambition, everything.) (Okuda, 1990:192) According to Okuda, in this example, the no da sentence gives details about the precise ways in which ‘this guy ... always suppressed him self.

(5) The fifth commonly claimed usage of no da is that it is used to present background information for what is to be discussed (McGloin, 1980:136-137; Kuramochi, 1982; McGloin, 1984:256; Iwasaki, 1985:129; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:200; etc.). E xam ple 2-17

Kondo, tonari no heya ni ryuugakusei ga hikkoshite kita n desu yo. Nihongo ga hanasenai no ka to omottara, totemo joozu deshita. (An overseas student moved in next door recently no da. I thought maybe he didn’t speak Japanese, but his Japanese was very good.) (Kuramochi, 1982) In this example, n desu, a colloquial polite form of no da, is attached to the proposition ‘an overseas student has moved in’, which is regarded as a piece o f background information on what is going to be talked about in the following sentences. Morita and Matsuki (1989) claim that this use of no da is similar to wake da (refer to the third usage of wake da summarized in section 2.2.1.1), and that the two auxiliaries can be replaced by one another in this type o f example.

(6) The sixth commonly claimed usage of no da is that it is used to emphasise the proposition expressed with no da (Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuujo, 1951; Alfonso, 1966; Martin, 1975:852; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:201; etc.). The following are two examples. E xam ple 2-18

Hontooni

wakaranai

no desu.

really

understand-NEG

no da-POL

33 (I really don’t understand at all.)15 (Alfonso, 1966:412) Example 2-19

Koko

o

dete

iku

n da!

here

ACC

go-out-VCF

go

no da-COL

(Get out of here!) (Morita & Matsuki, 1989:202) In Example 2-18, it is said that no da is used to emphasis the fact ‘I really don’t understand’. On the other hand, in Example 2-19, no da is claimed to be used to emphasise not a statement, as in the first example, but a direction (Martin, 1975:853), and ‘since the speaker’s will to persuade the listener is very strong, it sounds like an order’16 (Morita & Matsuki, 1989:201). This type of use is also regarded as ‘instruction’ (kvooji) (H. Noda, 1997:127). It is actually not very helpful to discuss the uses of no da in examples 2-18 and 2-19 together, as this overlooks the fact that two different types o f modality are involved. This problem is discussed in more detail in section 2.2.2.1.2.

The examples given above illustrate some of the main claims about the meanings and uses of the modal auxiliary no da. To make the points clear, and to make it easier to compare with wake da later, the usages introduced above are summarised in the figure below. Figure 2-2 A su m m ary o f affirm ativ e usages o f no da claim ed by p rev io u s studies

(1) Expressing the premise o f or the reason(s) for a fact or situation that is being discussed; (2) Explaining a result or a logical consequence of a fact or situation that is being discussed; (3) Explaining the meaning of what has just been mentioned by summarising; (4) Explaining the meaning of what has just been mentioned by giving details; (5) Presenting background information for discussion; (6) Emphasising the proposition expressed with no da.

2.2.2.1.2

Problems with the descriptions summarized above

15The English translation of this sentence is cited from Alfonso, 1966:412. 16My translation.

34 Presented one by one with examples like those above, people will generally have no hesitation in accepting these descriptions o f the meanings of no da. However, questions arise when one considers all the usages and descriptions together. For instance, comparing Example 2-13 with Example 2-14, one can see clearly that, although both the no da sentences function to show a causal relation to the preceding sentence, their roles are just the opposite of one another. While the former presents the reason, the latter expresses the consequence. Similarly, the roles of the no da sentences in Example 2-15 (explanation of meaning by summarising) and Example 2-16 (explanation o f meaning by giving details) are opposite as well. That is, while the relationship between the explained and the explaining sentences is a reasoning process in Example 2-15, it is a deductive one in Example 2-16. In other words, the proposition ending with no da in Example 2-15 presents a conclusion based on all the aforementioned facts, and the proposition ending with no da in Example 2-16 presents several less general aspects o f the person being discussed based on his more general character previously mentioned. In the absence o f any further conditions and restrictions, these descriptions o f no da give the impression that one can use no da practically anywhere one wants to. Certainly, this is not the case. What, then, are the rules or restrictions? This question has not yet been satisfactorily answered by any of the multitude o f researchers who have investigated this construction. Furthermore, various terms used to explain the functions of no da have also caused problems. For example, as noted earlier, while many researchers regard uses like Example 2-13 as ‘explaining reason(s)’, some others describe them as expressing ‘judgement’ (e.g. Yamaguchi, 1979; Oyano, 1981). Besides these, there have been many other descriptions, such as expressing ‘contrast’ (Martin, 1975:851; McGloin, 1980:135; etc.), ‘regret’ (e.g. Mikami, 1953; Okuda, 1990; H. Noda, 1997:89), ‘reservation’ (e.g. Mikami, 1953), and so on. To at least some extent, these differences in description can be attributed to the fact that researchers have been relying on their own subjective understandings rather than the context or structure o f the text. Therefore, there have been a great variety of answers to questions, such as, (a) what does no da explain? and (b) in which part o f an explanation is no da used? In addition to the lack of reference to context, there has been also lack o f consideration about the nature o f the different types o f modality involved (i.e. epistemic modality and deontic modality). This problem is obvious in the suggestions regarding the so-called

35 emphatic function of no da and the examples given. Recall that while epistemic modality is related to possibility, necessity, inference, belief, report, opinion, commitment, speculation, evidence, certainty, deontic modality is related to orders, rights, willingness, duty, exhortation, permission, requirements, and ability (Frawley, 1992: 407, 419). The sentence Koko o dete iku n da (‘Get out o f here!’) (Example 2-19) functions as an order. Modality carried in this sentence, therefore, belongs to the category of deontic modality, and is different from all the other uses of no da mentioned above, which involve epistemic modality. Therefore, putting Example 2-18 and Example 2-19 under the same label - ‘emphasis’ inevitably causes problems. Finally, these various descriptions also show that it is inappropriate to use the word ‘explanatory’ to limit the characteristics of no da, as has often been done. This modal auxiliary functions much more widely than simply providing explanation.

2.2.2.1.3 Other approaches to the affirmative uses of no da While tending to focus on the details of each individual example of the affirmative use o f no da, some scholars have also tried to make more general comments on this construction. Without sound theoretical basis, claims made by scholars at the earlier stages tend to be extremely vague and lack credibility. For example, some assert that the basic function o f no da is to ‘objectify’ (kyakutai-ka, kyakkan-ka) the situation or the speaker/writer’s judgement that is being expressed (e.g. Hayashi, 1964, cited in H. Noda, 1997:15; Saji, 1972 reprinted in Saji, 199la:219; Oyano, 1981:228; Moriyama, 1989:86). This view is, however, opposed later by others, who argue that no da is used to express the ‘subjective’ (shukan-teki na) view of the speakcr/writer (e.g. Moriyama, 1989:87; Masuoka, 1991:144-145; Kunihiro, 1992:19-20; H. Noda, 1997:21). Guided by new linguistic theories, from about the 1980s, some researchers started to apply methods of discourse analysis (e.g. McGloin, 1980, 1984; Iwasaki, 1985;) cognitive and pragmatic approaches (Maynard, 1992), and sociolinguistic approaches (M. Noda, 2004) to investigations of no da. Since these applications have only started comparatively recently, there have not been as many studies of this type as in the area o f syntactic and semantic approaches. Some early work that should be mentioned is that carried out by McGloin (1980, 1984). She made the first attempt, at least according to the literature examined for this study, to investigate the discourse functions o f no da from a more general point o f view - the nature

of the information conveyed with no da - rather than becoming immersed in the details of the uses of the construction. In this sense, her work deserves to be recognised. McGloin claims that the basic function o f no da is to present some information as ‘known information’, although, she says that the information presented with no da is not necessarily a fact that the speaker and the listener both actually do know. By using no da, the speaker presents a piece of information, which is known only to her/himself or known only to the listener, ‘as i f it were a piece of ‘shared information’, familiar to both the speaker and the listener (McGloin, 1984:255). Giving no further explanation, McGloin claims that all the various meanings o f no da stem from this basic function. Part of this claim is very hard to understand, as people will generally ask ‘how can the speaker present something at all if it is known only to the listener?’ Although McGloin’s suggestion has been supported since by some other researchers (e.g. Makino, 1999), it still fails to address some fundamental problems. Firstly, the term ‘known information’ does not have an objective definition. It sounds as if whether or not a piece o f information is ‘known’ or ‘shared’ depends totally on the speaker’s own attitude, as if one can use no da to present any type of information as long as s/he wants to portray it as if it were known. Secondly, as in other studies, McGloin’s argument is not based on an investigation of the context in which no da appears, and does not take any objective features into account. Another well known work on the discourse functions o f no da is carried out by Maynard (1992). Investigating the cognitive and pragmatic messages that no da conveys, Maynard claims three kinds of cognitive process of the speaker involved in use o f no da: (1) objectification of the issue through nominalization with no; (2) personalization of the speaker’s view and attitude through the copula da; (3) situationally and interactionally appropriate information organization through the topic-comment structure. (Maynard, 1992) Unlike many earlier studies, Maynard defines the use of no da from multiple perspectives, rather than from a single perspective. This is an important step forward in the study of no da, which appears to have such a wide range o f meanings and usages. This approach to definition also gives confidence to the current study regarding the claim made in the Introduction: we must break down the characterizations o f no da and wake da into components, rather than trying to define them with a single, simple label. Maynard’s work, however, also has some limitations. The first and second points she makes, regarding objectification and personalization, are not new ideas, but a modification of

37 what has been claimed by other researchers (e.g. Hayashi, 1964; Saji, 1972 reprinted in Saji, 1991a:219; Oyano, 1981:228; etc.). A third work on no da worth mentioning here is a sociolinguistic study conducted by M. Noda (2004). In her work, M. Noda regards no da as a ‘relation maintenance strategy’ used to avoid harm to the social relationship between the speaker and the listener when the speaker expresses his/her disagreement with the listener. She claims that, when functioning as a relation maintenance strategy, no da occurs in two syntactic fonns: (1) no da followed by a conjunctive meaning ‘but’, such as ga, kedo, keredo, and keredomo; and (2) no da preceded by the word omou (‘[I] think’). M. Noda’s work takes a new angle that had not been considered previously. However, it a very narrow topic dealing only with the two particular forms involving no da mentioned above. In spite o f the value of this new approach, it seems that M. Noda has overlooked the important fact that the function o f ‘relation maintenance’ is at least to a considerable extent brought by the conjunctives meaning ‘but’ and the verb omou (‘[I] think’), rather than no da itself. Although M. Noda did consider the fundamental function of no da itself, her claims do not show a significant step forward in relation to previous studies. She generalises the functions of no da as the ‘re-framing’ function and the ‘re-characterization’ function. Unlike the latter, the former is a psychological concept, which may be useful for a psycholinguistic or sociolinguistic approach but does not directly contribute to the investigation o f the current study. M. Noda defines the latter (i.e., the ‘re-characterization’) function of no da as to ‘characterize the situation from the point of view o f the speaker’, and to ‘make reference to a specific situation that is assumed to be recognizable by the hearer’. ‘The characterization is given in order to explain, clarify, contradict, elaborate, or simply rephrase another characterization, which is contextually or socially assumed. In this sense, it is a re­ characterization’ (M. Noda, 2004:101-103). This1re-characterization’ function suggested by M. Noda shares the problems of McGloin’s work, discussed earlier. In addition, her claim regarding the purpose of ‘re­ characterization’ also fails to go beyond the idea that no da is used to give an explanation. As introduced above, previous studies of the affirmative forms o f no da from different linguistic perspectives have done much to broaden the intellectual horizon o f the current study. At the same time, however, they have also shown limitations, and cannot answer to the basic research questions raised in the introduction to this study.

38 22.1.1

The negative forms of no da

No dewanai, the negative form of no da, and its polite and colloquial variants (e.g. no dewaarimasen, n(o) janai), have received only very limited attention from researchers. This study has found only two journal articles and two book sections on investigations of no dewanai. They are H. Noda, 1992, 1997, 2002, and Dai 2000. H. Noda (1992 and 2002), to be reviewed in detail in section 2.3 when discussing previous studies on the similarity and differences between no da and wake da, compares no dewanai with wake dewanai, rather than examining no dewanai alone. Apart from the two researchers mentioned above, all the others have simply mentioned no dewanai in one or two sentences while discussing the affirmative form of no da. Opinions on no dewanai diverge on one very basic issue: the function of the construction. While some studies consider that the function of no dewanai is to extend or widen the scope of a negation from the predicate to other part of the sentence (Takubo, 1985; Horikawa, 1990; Koganemaru17 1990; H. Noda, 1992, 1997, 2002), others claim that such a view is not correct (Masuoka, 1991:64-65; Dai, 2000:215), and that the basic function of the negative form of no da is to ‘exclude a possible choice’ (Dai, 2000). The limited literature and disagreement among researchers on the basic issues involved indicate that no dewanai needs further investigation.

2.2.2.3 The interrogative forms of no da No ka, the interrogative form o f no da, and its formal, polite, and colloquial variants (e.g. no dearu ka, no desu ka, n desu ka), like its affirmative counterparts, has a range o f uses, and so has been a controversial issue for researchers. Descriptions and assertions by researchers regarding the interrogative forms o f no da are basically related to their views on its affirmative forms, and, therefore, fall into two main kinds as well. That is, (1) syntactic and semantic investigations on the meanings of no ka\ and (2) other approaches (e.g. discourse analysis, pragmatic studies) to the functions o f no ka. This section reviews some o f the main claims made in previous research, with a focus on those most relevant to the current study.

17

Now Harumi Noda.

39 2.2.2.3.1 Previous investigations on the meanings of no ka A common opinion on no ka from the semantic viewpoint is that it used to ask for explanation. It has also been claimed by some researchers that, in many cases, no ka expresses a nuance of surprise, blame, or doubt, when the question is regarding an action of the listener (e.g. Kuramochi, 1982:389; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:202; Tanomura, 1990:66). There have been also claims focusing on no ka in WH-questions, that is, it is ‘stressing shared information, relates the specific question o f who, which one, where, or when to something already known by speaker and addressee’ (Jorden with M. Noda, 1988:171-172). Researchers who describe the fundamental use o f no da as giving an explanation claim that the fundamental use o f its interrogative equivalent, no ka, is to ask for the hearer’s explanation, and that the explanation is related to what the speaker has heard or observed. (Alfonso, 1966:405; Saji, 1972:18; Kuno, 1973:225, 232; Teramura, 1984:310; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989, 325-326; etc.). It is claimed that the nature o f the explanation requested in questions with no ka could be a cause or reason which is hidden behind a fact and has caused that fact as a logical consequence (Kuramochi, 1982:389; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:202; Tanomura, 1990:54, 64). The explanation could also be one concerning the purpose or details of what the speaker has heard or seen (Tanomura, 1990:64). One of the examples given is cited below. Example 2-20

Kaoiro

ga

warui desu

complexion

NOM bad

COP

ne. Byooki na SFP sick

no desu ka?ls

COP-PNF no ka-POL

‘You don’t look well. Is the explanation for your not looking well that you are sick?’ (Kuno, 1973:225) A literal translation of this example could be ‘Your complexion is bad (i.e. pale). Are you sick Ino ka]'?' The free translation that Kuno provides indicates that the proposition ‘you are sick’ in the question is regarded as an explanation inferred by the speaker from what s/he has observed (i.e. ‘your complexion is pale’).

Example 2-21 cited below is an example given to demonstrate the claim regarding the nuance of surprise, blame, or doubt said to be expressed with no ka.18

18This example and its English translation are cited from Kuno (1973:225), and the glosses and the emphasis are by the current writer.

E xam ple 2-21

Ova, bocchan wa koko ni irassharu n desu ka. Maa o-meshimono o dainashi ni asobashite nani o nasutte irassharu n desu nee. Dooshite mala konna kitanai tokoro de bakari oasobininaru n deshoo. (Oh dear, young master, you are here no Aa-COL-POL. Oh, you spoiled the food. What are you doing no da-COL-POL? Why are you playing in such a dirty place again no tfa-COL-VOL-POL.) (Morita & Matsuki, 1989:202) Both the two examples and the claims about each of them seem credible, if we look at each isolated sentence only. It is indeed true that, in Example 2-20, ‘you are sick’, the clause presented with no ka, is presumably the reason hidden behind the fact that ‘your complexion is pale’. It is also true that, in Example 2-21, no ka does express the speaker’s surprise and blame when she found the ‘young master’ and saw him spoiling the food and playing in a dirty place. However, the questions arise: Is the speaker always asking for an explanation by using no kal Why is the reason for the situation already presented with no ka in Example 2-20, but not in Example 2-21? Is the speaker of Example 2-20 also surprised by or blaming the listener for what s/he has observed? Is there anything in common between these two examples? The studies introduced above, which regard the fundamental function o f no ka as ‘to ask for explanation’, do not give any satisfactory answers to these questions.

2.2.2.3.2 Previous claims regarding the speaker's attitude in questions involving no ka Finding limitations in previous studies, from the 1980s some researchers started to develop new approaches to no ka from the points o f view o f discourse analysis, pragmatics, and so on. These comparatively new approaches are still being developed, and there are, as yet, no a commonly agreed conclusions. Some of these studies that are directly related to this one are reviewed below. The first work to be introduced is that o f McGloin (1980). McGloin discusses the interrogative form no ka in her early work on no da (see section 2.2.2.1.3). She argues that it is not the case that the basic function o f no ka is ‘to ask for the hearer’s explanation’ (McGloin, 1980:126). This assertion agrees with and encourages a basic view o f the current study. McGloin regards the basic function of no ka as ‘to indicate that the speaker assumes a certain event or state to be true’ (McGloin, 1980:126), an assertion which she later refined (McGloin, 1984). The refined assertion can be paraphrased like this:

41 Based on

some known

information, for instance, some visual

information (shikaku-teki na joohoo) or general knowledge (ippan-teki chishiki) or something that has been mentioned earlier in the discourse, the speaker assumes that proposition X in ‘X no k a ’ is a fact. Using no ka, s/he confirms with the listener whether the assumption is correct or not. It goes without saying that this is a more general claim regarding no ka than claims regarding the meanings of no ka that are introduced in the previous section (2.2.2.3.1), and covers a wider range of its use. However, as pointed out by some researchers (e.g. Aoki, 1996; Ohso, 1983; Tanomura, 1990), McGloin’s claim also has some drawbacks. For instance, it is not always the case that a speaker assumes the proposition X in ‘X no ka’ to be true. In fact, in some cases, a speaker may assume that X is not true, as in the example presented below. Example 2-22

Hontooni kore

wa

honmono

na

no ka?

really

TOP

real.thing

COP-PNF

no ka

this

(Is this really the real thing no ka?) (Tanomura, 1990:67; also cited in Aoki, 1996:3) When saying a sentence like this, it is clear that the speaker believes that the proposition embedded in this question - kore wa honmono da (‘it is the real thing’) —is, in fact, not true. This brings us to the second work to be reviewed - the work of Aoki (1996), which contributes to solving this problem. Applying the concept of the ‘confirmation value’ 19 of the speaker’s assumption, Aoki argues that the basic function of no ka is to confirm an assumption of the speaker. In his terms, the purpose of using no ka is to seek a clue from the listener to improve the speaker’s ‘confirmation value’ of an assumption, and the speaker believes that the listener can provide such a clue (Aoki, 1996:11-12). He claims that a speaker’s assumption can be either positive or negative, and it could be derived by deduction from his/her perceptions (chikaku), decoding of language in the context (gengo kaidoku), or from assumptions already stored in his/her memory (Aoki, 1996:13). Using Aoki’s ideas, the examples discussed earlier (examples 2-20 and 2-22) can be well explained. The speaker o f Example 2-20 holds the assumption ‘you are sick’, and the 19The concept of ‘confirmation value’, according to Aoki, is borrowed from Sperber & Wilson (1986:75-83). It refers to the degree to which a person is sure about his/her assumptions regarding a (Footnotes continued on the next page.)

42 speaker of Example 2-22 holds the assumption ‘this is not a real one’. While one of them is positive and the other negative, they share a common nature: both the speakers think that the ‘confirmation value’ of his/her assumption is insufficient, and they believe that their listeners can help them in improving the ‘confirmation value’. Although useful to explain some examples in spoken context, Aoki’s suggestion cannot be generalized to all uses of no ka. For example, it cannot be applied when a speaker uses no ka to raise a concern or to ask a rhetorical question without expecting confirmation from the listener. In addition, when comparing no ka with wake ka, Aoki’s suggestion seems also not to be sufficient to address the difference between the two. In fact, it has been shown by Ohso (1983), regarding the ‘interchangeability’ of no ka and wake ka, that defining the function o f no ka as confirming an assumption of the speaker cannot serve to distinguish the 20

two expressions . Another claim regarding no ka that should be mentioned at least briefly, simply because it is very well known, is that o f H. Noda (1997). Corresponding to her view on the other forms of no da (refer to section 2.2.2.2), H. Noda divides no ka into two main kinds as well. That is, (1) those that function only to extend the scope o f a question; and (2) those that carry modality (H. Noda, 1997:117-134). However, H. Noda herself seems confused with her classification, which is the main selling point of her work, that is, no ka functioning only to extend the scope and no ka functioning to carry modality. She mentions that, in yes/no questions and alternative questions, the two types of no ka overlap in some examples (H. Noda, 1997:128). She also mentions that, in WH- questions, no ka always functions to extend the scope and, at the same time, it also functions as a carrier o f modality (H. Noda, 1997:129). H. Noda’s own confusion, in fact, supports the view of the current study, that these two functions of no ka should not be treated as evidence o f two completely separate kinds. From the review o f the literature on no ka, the interrogative form o f no da, one can see that, although researchers have made progress in the study o f this construction and have proposed some useful ideas, they can hardly be said to have been able to persuade or agree with each other yet. In addition, some definitions or descriptions given to no ka are too general, and can be applied to other types o f questions, including those ending with wake ka, proposition or fact. It is a continuum, rather than a black-and-white choice between ‘true’ or ‘false’ (Aoki, 1996:8-9).

43 the interrogative form of wake da.

Further investigation is needed in order to expose the

discourse functions of this expression no ka, and the fundamental differences it has from its counterpart wake ka. Now, that we have discussed previous claims regarding the various forms of no da — affirmative, negative and interrogative - let us outline the similarities and differences between these two modal auxiliaries claimed previously.

2.3

Previous analyses of the similarities and differences between wake da and no da

The similarities between wake da and no da in all the three forms examined in this study (i.e. affmnative, interrogative, and negative) have been widely commented on, and have attracted attention from many researchers. Many studies on wake da have referred to no da, and vice versa. It has been claimed by many researchers that these two modal auxiliaries can replace each other in some situations (Mikami, 1953:235; Martin, 1975:733; Ohso, 1983; Mizutani, 1984; Matsuoka, 1987; Morita & Matsuki, 1989; Okuda, 1992; Makino & Tsutsui, 1995:573; Okabc, 1994; etc.). Some even say ‘what can be expressed with WAKE can also be expressed with NO’ (e.g. Alfonso, 1966:1027). All these claims are based on the syntactic, the semantic, or the logical features of the modal auxiliaries in question. For instance, some syntactic studies (e.g. Teramura, 1984) assert that wake da and no da can replace one another, as a sentence will be still grammatically acceptable with the replacement. On the other hand, some other studies believe that the reason that wake da and no da are ‘interchangeable’ is that the logical relationship between a sentence involving wake da and its preceding or following sentence(s) is similar to the logical relationship between a sentence involving no da and its preceding or following sentence(s). That is, both wake da and no da could be used to explain the result of or the reason for what is mentioned in the adjacent sentence or sentences (Okuda, 1990, 1992). This section reviews some representative literature on the similarities and differences between the affirmative, interrogative, and negative forms of wake da and no da.

20 Ohso mentions that no ka can be replaced by wake ka, when it is used to confirm an assumption of the speaker. (Ohso, 1983:72).

44

2.3.1

Comparisons between the affirmative forms of wake da and no da

Two issues are to be discussed in this section - firstly, why wake da and no da are claimed to be so similar, and even interchangeable; and secondly, why further investigation is needed.

2.3.1.1

The similarity between wake da and no da claimed by previous research

In order to compare and see why the uses o f the two modal auxiliaries are claimed to be so similar, Figure 2-1 A summary o f affirmative uses of wake da claimed by previous studies presented in 2.2.1.1 and Figure 2-2 A summary o f affirmative usages o f no da claimed by previous studies presented in section 2.2.2.1.1 are combined in the table below. The original order in the figures has been rearranged in the table, to make the similarities or differences easier to see. T ab ic 2-1 A com parison o f wake da an d no da

wake da

no da (1) Explaining the premise or the reason(s) for a fact or situation that is being discussed (e.g. Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyuujo, 1951:172; Mikami, 1953:242; Alfonso, 1966:405; Kuno, 1973:226; Katamura, 1981:272; Kuramochi, 1982; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:199; Okuda, 1990:185, 196; etc.).

A (1) Expressing a natural result, a logical

(2) Expressing a result or a logical

consequence (toozen no kiketsu / kekka),

consequence of a fact that is being

or a natural trend of development

discussed (Kuramochi, 1982:389; Morita

(nariyuki) (Alfonso, 1966:1027-1028;

& Matsuki, 1989:199; Okuda, 1990:198;

Morita, 1980:523-526; Sakata, 1982b;

Masuoka, 1991:144-145; etc.).

Teramura, 1984:273-277; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:196; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:531; Okuda, 1992:195; Liu, 1996; etc.).

B (2) Paraphrasing a fact or to indicate that

(3) Explaining meaning of what has just

a fact known to the speaker can be

been mentioned by summarising (Okuda,

interpreted in another way (Alfonso,

1990:192, 196,210; H. Noda, 1997:77,

1966:1029; Teramura, 1984:278-279;

96; etc.).

Morita & Matsuki, 1989:197; Okuda, 1992:169-199; Liu, 1996; etc.).

(4) Explaining meaning o f what has just

‘Interchangeable’ with no da (Okuda,

been mentioned by giving details

1992:196-200).

(Okuda, 1990:192; H. Noda, 1997:97-98; etc.).

C

(3) Presenting a fact known to the hearer

(5) Presenting background information

as an introduction to a new discussion

for discussion (McGloin, 1980:136-137;

(Sakata, 1982b; Morita & Matsuki,

Kuramochi, 1982; McGloin, 1984:256;

1989:198; Makino & Tsutsui, 1989:570;

Iwasaki, 1985:129; Morita & Matsuki,

Okuda, 1992; Makino & Tsutsui, 1995;

1989:200; etc.).

Liu, 1996; etc.). ‘Interchangeable’ with no da (e.g. Morita & Matsuki, 1989:198, 201).

D

(5) Emphasizing information which the

(6) Emphasising the proposition

hearer might not know (Makino &

expressed with no da (Kokuritsu Kokugo

Tsutsui, 1995:570).

Kenkyuujo, 1951; Alfonso, 1966;

‘Interchangeable’ with no da (Makino

Martin, 1975:852; Morita & Matsuki,

& Tsutsui, 1995:570).

1989:201; etc.).

(4) Expressing that, learning the truth, the speaker is convinced that the present state or fact is a natural or logical result of that truth (Tanaka, 1964; Alfonso, 1966:1028; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:198). (6) Indicating that the speaker is consciously playing the role o f a ‘story­ teller’ from the viewpoint o f an ‘insider’ (Kitagawa, 1995).

As can be seen from the table above, these two auxiliaries do show some clear similarities, in terms of semantic or logical relations between the preceding sentence(s) and

46 the sentence in which wake da or no da occurs. They are similar in four respects: (A) both of them are claimed to be used to express a result or consequence; (B) both of them are claimed to be used to summarise what the speaker or the writer has been mentioning; (C) both o f them are claimed to be used to present a piece o f known or background information as the introduction o f a discussion; and (D) both o f them are claimed to have an emphatic use. Apart from these four aspects, some researchers have also claimed that wake da could be used in a situation when it is possible to use the first type of no da (i.e. to explain the premise or the reason(s) for a fact or information), and therefore, the two have been claimed to be similar and mutually replaceable in that situation as well (Matsuoka 1987).

2.3.1.2

The necessity of further investigation

Having made these claims regarding the similarities and ‘interchangeabilities’ between wake da and no da, researchers also assert that they are not entirely the same. Some have tried to explain the differences between the two (Matsuoka, 1987; Okuda, 1992; Matsuoka, 1993; Okabe, 1994; H. Noda, 1997; etc.). However, none o f the previous attempts have come up with a persuasive explanation. Because the terms used in previous studies are not given clear or strict definitions, the suggestions regarding differences tend to be extremely vague. Not only that, some of the opinions offered have contradicted one another, or are even internally contradictory. These problems are clearly illustrated below, with Matsuoka’s suggestions given as an example. Arguments that have been made by researchers so far in regard to the differences between wake da and no da are mainly from two angles: (1) whether or not the sentence involving wake da or no da is a judgement o f the speaker; (2) whether or not there is a logical relation between the sentence in which wake da or no da is used and its preceding or succeeding sentence(s). For instance, Matsuoka (1987) suggests that while wake da is used to indicate that the speaker/writer is convinced of (nattoku) the relation between the sentences, no da is used to express the speaker/writer’s ‘judgement’ (handan) about the sentences (Matsuoka, 1987:15). Still using the term ‘judgement’ (handan), Okuda (1992) makes the opposite claim. He says that wake da is used to express a ‘judgement’ (handan) about the logical consequence or meaning of what has been mentioned, while no da is used to ‘explain’ the real nature (honshitsu-teki tokuchoo) o f what has been mentioned in the preceding sentence(s) (Okuda, 1992:196-199). Okuda’s claim is not only contrary to Matsuoka’s, but also, in fact, to his own. It seems that he forgot that, when analysing the uses o f no da in an earlier work (Okuda,

47 1990), he asserted that one of the uses of no da is to express the speaker’s ‘judgement’ (handan) (Okuda, 1990:201-204). The terms ‘explanation’ and ‘judgement’ are two different concepts. Using these two terms to describe one construction without giving any concrete conditions, rules or definitions causes much confusion and many problems. Claims o f previous studies regarding the difference between wake da and no da in tenns of logical relations have been also problematic. An early suggestion is made by Matsuoka (1987). He suggests that while a wake da sentence indicates the causal relation between the sentences clearly, the causality gets ‘looser’ when no da is used (Matsuoka, 1987:15). However, he does not give a clear definition o f what he means by ‘looser’, and how thejudgement is made regarding whether a causal relation is ‘looser’ or ‘tighter’. This sort of unclear description is also observed in H. Noda’s work. H. Noda claims that the use of wake da to indicate a logical consequence is limited, compared with no da, but that no da ‘does not indicate that the proposition is a logical consequence’. (H. Noda, 1997:220). H. Noda’s claim seems to overlook a very important thing. That is, an important job of linguists is not just to point out what a language item does not indicate, but what it does indicate, and what its limitations or restrictions are. The same criticism applies to Okabe’s work as well. Okabe (1994) questions and comments on some previous studies, and argues against what he believes to be inappropriate; however, it is very hard to find what he believes to be appropriate regarding the differences between wake da and no da. From the above discussion, one can see that previous suggestions on the differences between the affirmative forms o f wake da and no da have to be considered tentative at best, and that much further investigation is needed.

2.3.2 Comparisons between wake dewanai and no dewanai The similarity or even ‘interchangeability’ between the negative forms o f wake da and no da (i.e. wake dewanai and no dewanai) has been mentioned by some researchers. However, this issue, as mentioned earlier (sections 2.2.1.2 and 2.2.2.2), has not been investigated sufficiently. For instance, Mizutani (1984) lists both wake dewanai and no dewanai as expressions used to partially negate the proposition embedded in the construction, that is, to negate a reason or purpose o f the event that is expressed by the proposition. She holds that no dewanai, in this case, can be replaced by wake dewanai (Mizutani, 1984). She does not mention at all how these two constructions are different. Comparative investigations dealing

48 with the difference between these negative forms are limited, as far as this study can determine, to the work o f H. Noda (1992, 1997, 2002). H. Noda regards expressing a ‘logical consequence’ (ronri-teki hitsuzen) as the fundamental function of wake da, and, in turn, calls its negative form a ‘negation of inference’ (suiron no hitei) (H. Noda, 2002). She maintains that wake dewanai is used to negate a likely incorrect interpretation or inference, when the speaker thinks his/her listener(s) may interpret a piece of known information incorrectly (H. Noda, 1992). According to H. Noda, the fundamental difference between this and no dewanai is that wake dewanai is used to negate an ‘inferred proposition’ (suiron meidai), whereas no dewanai is used to negate a ‘simple proposition’ (tanjun meidai) (H. Noda, 1992, 1997). Thus, when the information on the basis o f which an inference is made is not given in the earlier text, only wake dewanai is suitable to present the ‘inferred proposition’. On the other hand, when that information is clearly mentioned in the preceding text, then no dewanai could also be chosen. H. Noda’s term ‘inferred proposition’ (suiron meidai) for a proposition negated by wake dewanai, along with the definition she gives to this term, agrees with the findings of the current study, and reflects one o f the basic characteristics of this construction. That is, information conveyed in a proposition under the scope of wake da is retrievable from the context. However, her term ‘simple proposition’ (tanjun meidai) for a proposition negated by no dewanai is not clear, and her claim regarding the contextual conditions of the uses of the construction seems also questionable. Information on which a proposition negated by no dewanai is based is not necessarily clearly mentioned in the preceding text. Counterexamples have been observed in the data for this study (refer section 4.4 in Chapter 4). Apart from these rather detailed problems in her claims, H. Noda’s work has also left many important general questions unanswered, due to three important limitations o f her work. First of all, all H. Noda’s investigations, including the most recent ones, as with many other previous studies on the modal auxiliaries, are based on testing whether or not one token can be replaced by the other, or after replacing one by the other, whether the expression sounds ‘natural’ (shizen), ‘rather unnatural (tashoo fushizen), or ‘unnatural’ (fushizen) (H. Noda, 1997, 2002). These tests seem to rely entirely on her subjective judgement or intuition as a native speaker, and the conclusions are made without fully referring to the actual contexts in which the examples occur. Secondly, discussing the difference between wake dewanai and no dewanai in contexts in which the two are judged to be interchangeable, H. Noda concludes by simply saying that the former conveys a nuance that the proposition being negated is an inference,

49 while the latter does not (H. Noda, 1997:219, 2002:240, 2003:214). As mentioned earlier (section 2.3.2), what is more important to find out is not what a language item does not indicate, but what it does indicate. To capture the fundamental discourse function of the construction no dewanai, we must find out what sort of nuance, or attitude of the speaker, no dernnai conveys, rather than simply asserting that it does not carry the same nuance as its counterpart wake dewanai. A third problem with H. Noda’s work is that, her examples have been discussed in a rather isolated way. The focus has been on discussing each separate case, with no attempt at generalization. For instance, when discussing why, in some situations (e.g. negative imperative, conjecture, etc), only one o f the pair (i.e. no dewanai) is possible, Noda concludes by saying only that these are ‘inherent’ uses (H. Noda, 1992). The important point has been neglected here. That is, these so-called ‘inherent’ uses all express deontic modality, while all the other uses belong to the category o f epistemic modality (See also Chapter 4 for detailed discussion). To sum up, although some pioneering studies have been carried out on the negative forms of no da and wake da and the differences between them, there are far more aspects of the constructions that need investigation, and far more questions that need to be answered.

2.3.3 Comparisons between wake ka and no ka The claims regarding wake ka and no ka made in previous studies share many common expressions, and so indicate that these two forms are similar to each other in a number of ways. For the sake of convenience, some of the claims that have been introduced in sections 2.2.1.3 and 2.2.2.3 are summarised and re-presented in the table below. Tabic 2-2 Sonic m ain claim s on wake ka a n d no ka by p revious studies

Wake ka

No ka

To be used to ask for explanation of

To be used to ask for the hearer’s

meaning of what has just been mentioned

explanation of a cause, reason, purpose,

(Martin, 1975:734).

or details of what speaker has heard or

Or to be used to confirm the meaning of

seen. (Alfonso, 1966:405; Saji, 1972:18;

what the listener has mentioned, with an

Kuno, 1973:225, 232; Kuramochi,

implication that the speaker inferred the

1982:389; Teramura, 1984:310; Makino &

meaning by logical thinking (FI. Noda,

Tsutsui, 1989, 325-326; Morita &

2002:255)

Matsuki, 1989:202; Tanomura, 1990:54,

50 64). etc.). When a question of wake ka is about the

No ka, in many cases, expresses a nuance

listener’s action or attention, the question

of surprise, blame, or doubt, when the

is apt to have a nuance of criticism or

question is regarding an action of the

blame (H. Noda, 2002:255).

listener (e.g. Kuramochi, 1982:389; Morita & Matsuki, 1989:202; Tanomura, 1990:66).

As mentioned in the earlier sections, wake ka and no ka have not received much attention at all from researchers. Literature on wake ka and the differences between it and no ka is especially limited. An exception is Ohso (1983), who claims, though without further discussion, that when the speaker makes an assumption regarding what s/he has heard or observed, and wants to know if this assumption is correct, no ka can be substituted by wake ka (Ohso, 1983:72). The only comparative examination is a very short section in one recent work by H. Noda (2002). As mentioned in section 2.2.1.3, the claims in this study need careful re-examination. One o f the reasons is that, as can be seen from the table above, the definitions given to wake ka do not serve to distinguish it from its counterpart no da. It goes without saying that this issue needs further investigation, especially if we are to attempt to capture the different discourse functions of these two syntactically similar constructions.

2.4

Major issues emerging from the literature review

Having briefly reviewed the considerable body o f literature to date on wake da and no da, four special problems have been brought into relief. First o f all, it is obvious that investigating the functions and meanings, or similarities and differences, o f the two modal auxiliaries in question from a semantic or syntactic viewpoint has reached its limit. Although some researchers (e.g. Teramura, 1984; Okuda, 1990, 1992; and H. Noda 1997 etc) have extended their investigations to the level of the paragraph, their vision has been still confined to the relation between the sentence in which a modal auxiliary in question occurs, and its adjacent sentence(s). For this reason, they still have not been able to put forward tenable arguments about the fundamental function o f each auxiliary and about the relationship between them. Investigation at the text level is imperative.

51 Secondly, when comparing these two modal auxiliaries, which share a number of syntactic and semantic features, many researchers simply stop short at claiming that they are similar to or even interchangeable with each other. The differences between them, which are in fact more important in understanding the real nature of each of the expressions, have been given insufficient attention. In addition, research on the ‘interchangeability’ between the two modal auxiliaries has been conducted mainly by trying to see whether or not an original sample sentence will be still acceptable, or still sound natural, after replacement by the counterpart. No attention has been paid to the fact that replacing one modal auxiliary with another may change the relationship between that sentence and the text, and affect the discourse function o f the sentence in which the modal auxiliary occurs. Therefore, any conclusions about meaning or function obtained in this way may be inappropriate. Justifications such as ‘There is such an expression in real daily conversation’, or ‘the essential meaning does

not

change

after

replacement’

cannot

be

used

as

grounds

for

‘interchangeability’. The entire text must be considered when investigating the function of a modal auxiliary. Thirdly, most of the studies on the meanings, functions and similarities of the modal auxiliaries have been based primarily on the researchers’ introspection, rather than on observation of the structures and uses o f the language itself. This has made some o f the views presented somewhat less objective and therefore less reliable. It has also been the cause of the multifarious claims, which are confusing or even contradictory to each other. To solve this problem, investigations must be based on observing objective linguistic features with reference to their entire context. Finally, many previous studies have not gone beyond the limit of saying that the two modal auxiliaries in question express ‘explanatory mood’, or that they are used to give or ask for ‘explanations’. A common problem in previous studies arises from scholars’ attempts to use similar or even the same terms, such as setsumei (explanation), g e n ’in (cause), riyuu (reason), kiketsu (consequence), handan (judgement), etc., to define the meanings and functions of the tokens. This inevitably leads the definitions into a circularity (Wierzbicka, 1980). To clearly address the functions and the differences between the two modal auxiliaries, we must acknowledge the complexity of their uses, and stop trying to capture their entire meaning and function in single words. To counteract the above weaknesses o f previous studies, this study will investigate wake da and no da at the text level by examining the entire texts in which they occur. The investigation will focus on the basic discourse functions o f each of the two auxiliaries, and the

52 differences between them. To make the argument objective and reliable, this study will be based on investigations of authentic examples, with reference to their original contexts. Linguistic features, such as lexical cohesive chains, an idea adopted from Systemic Functional Grammar, are used as objective clues of the investigation. To avoid circularity in definition and in comparing the two constructions, this study adopts a component approach, analysing meaning and function from a range of different, but related perspectives.

53

3

INVESTIGATION OF THE AFFIRMATIVE FORMS OF WAKE DA AND NO DA

3.1

Introduction

This chapter investigates the discourse functions o f the affirmative uses o f wake da and no da (i.e. ‘X wake da’ and ‘X no da’) in the genre of newspaper editorials. Analysing the examples in their original textual context, and using lexical cohesive chains as an objective clue for the investigation, this study has found four fundamental characteristics o f the uses and discourse functions of the affirmative forms o f the two modal auxiliaries. They are related to: (1) the characters o f lexical items involved in ‘X wake da’ or ‘X no da’ (i.e. whether or not each of them belongs to a lexical chain in the text); (2) the position in which ‘X wake da’ or ‘X no da’ occurs in the discussion o f a particular issue (i.e. whether they start or conclude a lexical chain in the text); (3) the way the construction relates to the rest of the text (i.e. retrospectively or prospectively); and (4) the character of information conveyed in the proposition X (i.e. whether it is an objective fact or a subjective opinion). Details are discussed in later sections, with examples from the data.

3.2

Differences between this study and previous studies of wake da and no da

Literature reviewed in Chapter 2 has shown that the affirmative forms o f the two modal auxiliaries in question are most complicated in terms of meaning and function, compared with their interrogative and negative uses. As mentioned in Chapter 2, although some recent studies have extended their analysis to include consideration o f the sentences adjacent to those in which wake da or no da is used, this aspect o f the analysis tends to be treated in no more than a paragraph or two. In addition, many scholars have tried to compare the two auxiliaries from the viewpoints o f interchangeability or the logical relations between sentences, and have limited their discussion to semantic and syntactic issues. Relying on the researcher’s introspection or interpretation o f isolated sentence(s) ending with wake da or no da, some of the suggestions and claims o f previous studies are quite contradictory. To remedy these problems, the current study examines authentic examples at text level by referring to the original context. It was found, in the course o f pilot examinations, that the discourse functions of the two auxiliaries and the difference between them can only be

54 captured correctly when the authentic examples are examined in their original context (refer to section 1.6, see also chapters 4 and 5). Unlike previous studies, the current study is a data-based empirical study, and investigates authentic texts, especially, where possible, texts in which both o f the target auxiliaries are used. Instead of talking about whether or not one auxiliary in a particular example can be replaced with the other in a hypothetical situation based on the researcher’s subjective assumption, this study attempts to investigate how a writer actually uses the two auxiliaries in different ways for different purposes, and how the two constructions function differently in the same text. To avoid subjectivity, the current study holds that analysis of data needs to be done by referring to objective linguistic features, rather than the researcher’s own understanding or interpretation of the meaning o f an isolated token. It has been found that one o f the crucial factors in finding the basic differences between the discourse functions o f wake da and no da is how they are related to other parts o f the text in which they occur. In order to capture the whole picture o f the structure of a text in which both wake da and no da are observed, and to explore how each proposition embedded in the constructions of ‘X wake d a ' and ‘X no d a ’ functions as a link o f the text, lexical cohesive chains are used as the objective linguistic clue in the investigation in this chapter. This approach is borrowed from Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:274-292; Halliday, 1994a:330-334; Eggins, 1994:101-105).

3.3

The concepts of lexical relations and lexical cohesive chains

When two or more lexical items relate to each other semantically or are expected to occur together in similar lexical environments, they form a lexical chain in a text. A lexical cohesive chain, also referred to as lexical string, is a diagram that illustrates the sequential occurrence of all lexical items in a text that are related to each other either by semantic relations or the likelihood of co-occurrence (Eggins, 1994:103). A lexical item can be a single word (e.g. clinic) or a phrase (e.g. umbilical artery, set up (Eggins, 1994:104), lack o f order (Stotsky, 1983)).

3.3.1 Categories of lexical relations The categories used for the analysis o f lexical relations differ slightly among researchers. An early suggestion is made by Halliday and Hasan (1976). These researchers propose a comprehensive and multi-stratal set o f categories. In their work, Halliday and Hasan claim

55 two main types o f lexical relations: Reiteration and Collocation (or collocational cohesion). Both of these types have sub-classes as summarised in Figure 3-1. Figure3-1

Lexical relations claim ed by lla llid a y an d H asan (1976:274-292)

1. Reiteration: (1) repetition o f the same word (2) synonym or near synonym (3) superordinate (c.g. Jaguar and car) (4) general word (e.g. Alice and the child) 2. Collocation (or collocational cohesion): (1) complementaries (e.g. girl and boy) (2) antonyms (e.g. like and hate) (3) converses (e.g. order and abbey) (4) pairs o f words drawn from the same ordered series (e.g. Monday and Friday) (5) pairs o f words drawn from unordered lexical sets which include those in relations of: a) part to whole (e.g. brake and car), b) part to part (e.g. mouth and chin (vs. head)), c) co-hyponyms (e.g. table and chair (vs. furniture)) (6) Pairs o f words tending to co-occur in similar contexts (e.g. laugh and joke) From Figure 3-1, one can see that four kinds of relations are included in Reiteration: (1) repetition of the same word, (2) synonym or near synonym, (3) superordinate, and (4) general word. In comparison to Reiteration, Collocation, the other main type of lexical relation, is much more complex. The definition given by Halliday and Hasan for Collocation is ‘cohesion that is achieved through the association o f lexical items that regularly co-occur’ (Halliday & Hasan, 1976:284). There are six sub-classes included in Collocation, and, among them, the fifth sub-class consist o f three kinds of relations. The six sub-classes in Collocation are: (1) complementaries; (2) antonyms; (3) converses; (4) pairs of words drawn from the same ordered series; (5) pairs o f words drawn from unordered lexical sets, which include those in relations o f part to whole; part to part; and co-hyponyms; and (6) Pairs of words tending to co-occur in similar contexts.

56 Some scholars have tried to refine and simplify this multi-stratal and comprehensive set of categories o f lexical relations, and have suggested some new sets of categories. However, the types of lexical relations included in these reanalyses are, in fact, the same, although the classifications and terms that they suggest are different. The differences in terms of classification, and the similarities in terms of content can be seen from the following examples - a later version o f Halliday’s suggestion summarised in Figure 3-2 and Eggins’s categories summarised in Figure 3-3. F ig u re 3-2 Lexical relatio n s claim ed by lla llid a y (1994a:330-334)

1. Repetition 2. Synonymy: (1) with identity of reference: superordinates (e.g. where bird and blackbird are used with identity of reference) (2) without necessary identity o f reference: a. hyponyms or co-hyponyms (where x, y and z are all ‘kinds o f a, and they are used without identity of reference) b. meronyms or co-meronyms (where p, q and r are all ‘parts o f b) (3) opposite:antonymy (e.g. work and asleep) 3. Collocation (co-occurrence tendency) (e.g. smoke and pipe)

In this later work by Halliday, lexical relations are grouped into three main categories: Repetition, Synonymy, and Collocation (Halliday, 1994a:330-334). Among the three, Synonymy, the second category, has three sub-categories: lexical items with identity o f reference; lexical items without identity of reference; and lexical items which are the opposite o f each other. Eggins, on the other hand, regards Taxonomic lexical relations and the Expectancy relation as the two main kinds o f lexical relations (Eggins, 1994:101-103). Both the two main types of lexical relations include several sub-classes, as shown in the figure below. F ig u re 3-3 Lexical relatio n s claim ed by Eggins (1994:101-103)

1. Taxonomic lexical relations

57 (1) Classification: the relationship between a superordinate term and its members, or hyponyms. a) Co-hyponymy (e.g .jaundice and pneumonia vs. illness) b) Class / Sub-class (e.g. illness and jaundice) c) Contrast (e.g. wet and dry) d) Similarity: i ) Synonymy (e.g. clinic and hospital) ii) Repetition (2) Composition: a) mcronymy (e.g. body and arteries) b) co-meronymy (e.g. arteries and veins) 2. Expectancy relation: a predictable relation between a process (verb) and either the doer o f that process, or the one affected by it.

Comparing the claims regarding the categories o f lexical relations introduced above, one can see two points in common. First, all the claims include both semantically related items and collocationally related items (i.e. items that tend to co-occur in similar contexts). Second, in spite of the different labels and different ways o f grouping, the lexica! relations mentioned are the same. They can be summarised as in Figure 3-4. Figure 3-4 A su m m a ry o f types o f lexical relatio n s claim ed by p rev io u s studies

1.

Repetition (e.g. use, using, and used),

2.

Synonymy (e.g. buy and purchase),

3.

Antonymy (e.g. like and hate),

4.

Hyponymy and co-hyponymy (e.g. dog and animal; dog and cat),

5.

Meronymy and co-meronymy (e.g. leg and body; leg and arm), and

6.

Collocation1

The two common points among the previous studies indicate that researchers have reached a consensus on the types of lexical relations, and that the suggestions regarding the types are useful in analysing the structure of a text. Although further studies are still needed, especially about collocational relations (e.g. Stotsky, 1983:483; Morris & Hirst, 1991:28), this should not stop us from applying the claimed types o f lexical relations in our

1Eggins’ ‘expectancy relation’ is considered here a type of Collocation.

58 investigation. Based on this view, the current study regards a lexical item as a link in a lexical chain when its relation with another item or other items falls into one o f the categories introduced above. It should be mentioned that it might be simplistic to pretend that each word belongs to a single lexical chain. One word could be seen as a member of two (or even more) chains for different purposes.

3.3.2 Length and strength of lexical chains It has been pointed out and confirmed by previous studies that lexical chains are an important indicator of the structure o f a text (e.g. Halliday & Hasan, 1985; Morris & Hirst, 1991; Eggins, 1994; etc.). Lexical chains tell us how many different things are being discussed in the text, and the major chains in a text indicate the topic or part o f the topic of the text (Eggins, 1994:103). Whether a chain is a major or strong chain is reflected in its length, density, and the number of repetitions it contains (Morris & Hirst, 1991:32). The end of a lexical chain normally marks the end o f discussion on a topic. Therefore, investigation o f the lexical chains in a text can provide important information on how a text is organised, how each clause functions within the text, and how each item in a clause serves the clause’s function as a link in the chain. Based on the above understandings in regard to lexical chains, when investigating lexical items that occur in sentences involving wake da and no da, as well as examining whether a lexical item forms a link o f a lexical chain, this study also takes into account the length and the density of a chain, and the types o f lexical relations between items in a chain. In addition, the question o f whether lexical items in a sentence involving wake da or no da start or close any lexical chain(s) is examined carefully as well, as this is an important indicator of the discourse functions o f the two auxiliaries.

3.4

Data and procedures of analysis of this chapter

The aim o f this chapter is, as mentioned earlier, to investigate how the affirmative forms of wake da and no da are actually used and how they function in the same text, rather than argue whether one token can be replaced with the other. For this purpose, discussions in this chapter are based on investigations o f sample texts (i.e. newspaper editorials) that contain both the two modal auxiliaries. There are twenty-four sample texts o f this kind found in this corpus. The investigations o f the sample texts involve three steps.

59 The first step is a preparatory step, which investigates how each editorial is organised and how lexical chains are formed in the text, by referring to the categories of lexical relations summarised earlier in this chapter in Figure 3-4 (section 3.3.1). When determining lexical items, in addition to referring to the categories of lexical relations introduced in section 3.3.1, this study also refers the context o f the text2. For instance, the phrase Kokuzeichoo no Ookurashoo kara no bunri (‘the secession of the National Tax Administration Agency from the Ministry o f Finance’) in Example 3-3 (Figure 3-7, Appendix 3) is introduced as one o f the ‘proposals regarding regrouping the government sectors’ (shoo choo saihen an). Separating what is here classified as one ‘lexical item’ into its component phrases or words will lose sight of the original referents, namely, the ‘proposal(s)’. Therefore, these phrases are regarded as one lexical item when analysing this text. In another text, of course, the same string may well be analysed as more than one lexical item, depending on the context.

The second step is to examine closely the relations between the existing chains in the text and the lexical items that occur in each sentence involving wake da or no da. The examination focuses on whether or not these lexical items are new items that fall outside the existing chains, and how they function in the text: If they are new, do they start any new chains? If they are not new, do they conclude an existing chain? The third step of the investigation in this study is to compare the findings regarding the lexical items in sentences involving wake da and no da. To validate the reliability o f the findings, this study also investigated some additional texts, in which only one of the two modal auxiliaries is used. A summary of the analysis of the additional data is presented later in this chapter as confirmation of the findings from the primary data source.

2As mentioned in section 3.3, a lexical item can be a single word (e.g. clinic) or a phrase (e.g. umbilical artery, set up (Eggins, 1994:104), lack o f order (Stotsky, 1983)). These descriptions by previous scholars suggest that there has not been a strict definition of lexical item, and that determinations regarding lexical items depend largely on the contents of the text. Although this could sometimes be problematic and so clearly requires further study, the basic idea of investigating lexical items is still very useful when analysing the discourse structure of a text.

60 3.5

Lexical chains and lexical items in ‘X wake da’ and ‘X no da’

Investigating the data from the point of view o f lexical relations, this study has discovered that, although there is not a clear cut-off point between the two expressions, there are four significant differences between the affirmative forms o f wake da and no da. First, ‘X wake d a ' shows a tendency to contain more lexical items that are related to the existing lexical chains in the texts in which it occurs, while ‘X no da’ tends to contain more new lexical items that fall outside the existing lexical chains. Secondly, ‘X wake da ’ is often used toward the end of a discussion on a particular fact or situation, and the lexical items in the proposition, therefore, often mark the end o f the existing lexical chains. This function o f concluding lexical chains, however, is not observed so often in the case of ‘X no da On the other hand, when it does contain a new lexical item, ‘X wake da ’ normally does not start a new lexical chain. That is, it does not tend to raise a topic to be discussed thereafter in the text. On the contrary, new items introduced by ‘X no da’ are quite likely to start new lexical chains, which present new issues to be discussed, and the new chains are often quite strong in terms of their length and density. Thirdly, although both ‘X wake d a ’ and ‘X no da’ require a premise on which proposition X is based, their relationship with the preceding text is not the same. While the premise o f ‘X wake da ’ has to be retrievable in the preceding sentence(s) or known to the reader as common sense, a proposition presented with no da relies, quite often, on more information than the textual context or simple common sense provides. It is sometimes partially or even completely based on the writer’s knowledge or idea, and, therefore, may contain information that is completely new to readers. This explains why wake da has never been observed in the first sentence in a text in this data, while no da has. Finally, while what is expressed in ‘X wake da ’ is normally information on which the writer’s opinion is based, the proposition X in ‘X no da ’ constitutes the writer’s view itself. In using ‘X wake da

the writer is committed to the fact or the truth, and tells the

reader what has happened or what the truth is. In Lyons’s terms introduced in the Introduction, the construction ‘X wake da ’ conveys more objective epistemic modality. In contrast, expressing the writer’s own opinion, ‘X no d a ’ conveys subjective epistemic modality. Details o f these four differences between the two expressions are discussed in sections 3.5.1 and 3.5.2 with examples from the texts examined.

61 3.5.1

Lexical items in ‘X wake da'

Twenty-five (25) examples o f ‘X wake da ’ are observed in the twenty-four editorials that contain affirmative uses o f both ‘X wake da ’ and ‘X no da The details o f the nature o f the lexical items observed in these examples are presented in the table below. Table 3-1 Lexical item s observed in the exam ples o f ‘X wake da'

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

Source of Example A970902 A970621 A970604 A971212 A960520 A971130 A960429 A960522 A970923 A970213 A97021 1 A970209 A960531 A971225 A970125 N970602 A970428 A970316 A970925 A970410 A970129 A970312 A971105 A970125 A970626

Number of content words 3 8 5 4 5 3 4 2 4 13 4 14 7 8 13 5 12 4 4 7 5 6 7 7 2

Number of new lexical items 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 4 2 3 5 2 5 2 2 4 3 4 5 5 2

Percentage of new lexical items 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 0.00% 15.38% 25% 28.57% 28.57% 37.5% 38.46% 40% 41.67% 50% 50% 57.14% 60% 66.67% 71.43% 71.43% 100%

Number of new chains started

End of existing chain 2 1 1

1 2

1

1 1 1 2 1

1 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1

* The term ‘new lexical item’ is used here to refer to lexical items that fall outside the existing lexical chains in the text in which they occur. ** The term ‘content words’ used here refers to nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and numerals. Conjunctives are not included. One can see from the table above that only eight (8) out of the twenty-five examples of sentences involving wake da (the 18th to the 25th) contain 50% or more new lexical items, while seventeen (17) of them contain less than 50% new lexical items, including as many as nine (9) (the Is' to the 9th) that do not contain new lexical items at all. The table also shows that sentences involving wake da are used more often when concluding an existing lexical chain or chains rather than when starting a new one. This issue regarding the start and the

62 end of the lexical chains is discussed in detail later (sections 3.5.1.1 and 3.5.1.2). Let us first focus on the nature of the lexical items observed in the examples. To give a clear overview of the nature o f ‘X wake d a ’ in terms o f lexical items, the percentage of new lexical items occurring in the example sentences is outlined in Table 3-2. Since it is important to see not only the percentage o f new lexical items in each sentence, but also the percentage of examples that do not contain any new item and those containing only new items, these figures are given in the second bottom row in the table, with no new items on the far left and only new items on the far right. Figures for under and over 50% of new lexical items are also given.

Total

100%

90-99%

80-89%

70-79%

60-69%

50-59%

40-49%

30-39%

20-29%

N ox© O

1-9%

Percentage of new lexical items* in proposition X Number of examples Percentage of examples

10-19%

Table 3-2 New lexical item s in ‘X wake da’

9

0

1

3

2

2

3

2

2

0

0

1

25

36%

0%

4%

12%

8%

8%

12%

8%

8%

0%

0%

4%

100

36%

32% 68%

28%

4%

32%

* The term ‘new lexical item’ is used here to refer to lexical items that fall outside the existing lexical chains in the text in which they occur.

One can see from Table 3-2 that nine (9) out of the twenty-five (25) example sentences o f ‘X wake da' do not contain any new lexical items at all. They consist of existing lexical items only. This indicates that these sentences involving wake da are closely tied to the preceding part of the text. These nine examples account for as much as 36% of the total number of the examples, and rank first in terms of the portion of the new lexical items occurring in ‘X wake d a ’. Table 3-2 also shows that quite a large number of the example sentences (32%) contain a higher number o f existing lexical items than new ones. That is, they do contain some new lexical items but the proportion is under 50%, between 1% and 49%. Taken together with those that contain no new lexical items, we can see that 68% o f the ‘X wake da’ examples have more existing lexical items than new ones. There is one example containing new lexical items only, but this should not be taken as evidence to go against the claim made here regarding the use o f ‘X wake da ’ in terms of

63 its relation with lexical items. The present study does not intend to assert that the rule for using the construction ‘X wake da ’ is always to repeat existing lexical items. Instead, this study holds that the fact that there are some examples (just one example or 4% in this data set) that seem to go against the trend and consist of new lexical items only cannot stop us from claiming a clear tendency in the use o f this construction. Since language use is not an issue of ‘black and white’, it is improper, in many cases, to expect a clear-cut rule when investigating a language item. The contrast of 32% versus 68% is strong enough to prove the tendency: the typical use o f ‘X wake da ’ contains more existing lexical items than new ones. This tendency is illustrated clearly when we represent Table 3-2 in the chart below. Chart 3-1 New lexical item s in ‘X wake da ’

* 40 0% 35.0%

Q. E 30.0% C O £ 25.0%

o 20.0% ct

15.0%

f

10.0%

o

5.0%

0)

a! o.o% 0%

1-49%

50-99%

100%

Percentage of new lexical items in proposition X

64 It needs to be mentioned that the trend observed in the twenty-four texts examined, presented in Table 3-2, is not accidental or anomalous. It is also supported by the analysis of the additional sample texts containing ‘X wake da' only (see Section 3.6 for details). The existing and new lexical items observed in the examples of ‘X wake da' are illustrated in the following sections.

3.5.1.1

‘X wake da’ and existing lexical chains

One of the examples o f ‘X wake da' that does not contain any new lexical items that fall outside existing lexical chains is observed in Text A970604 (Appendix 1). The lexical chains in Text A970604 are illustrated in Figure 3-5. In the figure, every sentence in the data is numbered. The first number shows the number o f the paragraph and the second one indicates that o f the sentence. When a sentence consists of more than one clause, the clauses are given a letter code, ‘a, b, c ’ etc. For instance, 3.2.a means the first clause of the second sentence in the third paragraph. For the sake of convenience, the order in which the lexical items are arranged horizontally in a figure is not necessarily the same as in the original sentence, but is mainly dependent on the original order of the lexical items, as well as their related items, in the other sentences in which they occur. For instance, sentence 11.2 is: 2000-nen

ikoo

year.2000 after ni

osaeru

PART keep

no

haishutsuryoo

o

90-nen

GEN amount.of.discharge ACC year.90 no

ga

NML NOM

mokuhyoo aim

no

suijun

GEN level

da. COP

(The aim is to keep the amount of discharge [of CO 2 ] at the level of the year 1990, after the year 2000.) The word haishutsuryoo (‘amount o f discharge’) occurs after 2000-nen ikoo (‘after the year 2000’) in the text, but the order they appear in Figure 3-5 is the opposite, so that the lexical chains that these two items occur in can be easily seen in the diagram. As shown in Figure 3-5 (page 66 - 71), this editorial contains five main lexical chains and some minor ones. The five main chains are hakusho (‘White Paper’), seifu (‘government’), CO 2 , sakugen (‘reduction’), and taisaku (‘measures’). The sentence ending with wake da is the second sentence o f the fourth paragraph. Below is the entire sentence.

65 Example 3-1

konkai,

seifu

toshite,

this.time government as

hakkiri

to

uchidashita

wake da.

clearly PART announce-PAST

(This time, the government clearly announced [a reduction] [wake da].)

As clearly seen in Figure 3-5, all four lexical items occurring in this sentence are in a lexical chain. Among them, seifu (‘government’) is linked to its major chain by repetition; hakkiri to (‘clearly’) forms a minor chain with a preceding item aimai na (‘vague’) according to the relation of antonymy; and uchidashita (‘announced’) is linked to its minor chain as a synonym. The items in the existing chain, in which uchidashita (‘announced’) falls, are egaiteiru (‘describing’), iwazu (‘does not say’), and iikata o shite kita (‘has been saying so far in [such] a way’). They all convey the same basic meaning o f ‘mentioning orally or in writing’. On the other hand, konkai (‘this time’) is a demonstrative. Functioning as a reference word, a grammatically cohesive device, it also falls within a minor lexical chain with kotoshi (‘this year’), and functions to distinguish the white paper o f the current year from earlier statements o f the government. In this text, konkai (‘this time’) is used to refer to kotoshi (‘this year’), and therefore these two expressions belong to the same chain. Having all of its four components related to existing chains, this example o f ‘X wake da’ simply continues discussion on the same issue as the previous part of the text, and it carries a very limited amount of new information. The point to which the writer tries to attract the readers’ attention is the lexical item hakkiri to (‘clearly’), the item tied to its chain by antonymy, but not the items linked to their chains by repetition or synonymy. This item, hakkiri to (‘clearly’), functions in the sentence as the modifier of the main verb uchidashita (‘announced’), and shows how the white paper of this year is different from earlier statements of the government and why it deserves attention. It can be seen, therefore, that ‘X wake da’ is used here to reiterate an issue, which has been mentioned earlier, in a slightly different or more explicit way. It does not function to raise any new issue for further discussion.

66

Figure 3-5 Lexical chains in Text A970604 1

1.1.b 2.1.

kotoshi this year a

2

3

4 5 co2< o # m m C02 no haishutsuryoo the amount of discharge of C02

am a # kankyoo hakusho environment White Paper

3.1.a

C02 seifu government

3.1 b

4.1.a

Sm a# kankyoo hakusho environment White Paper

a tifif kankyoochoo Environment Agency

4. l.b

4.2

seifu government_____________________________________

^-|B] konkai this time

seifu government

5.1

6.1

7.1

C02

a* hakusho White Paper

gutai-saku concrete plan

8.1 hoohoo method 9.1.a korera no hoosaku these measures 9 .1 b

C02

10.1.a seifu government

67

7

8

2000 'ff-mft

10

9

11

glJM sakugen reduction egaiteiru has described

mm sakugen reduction IfeV'SlAft aimai na vague

It'iZ 'O t hakkiri to clearly

m\ mm

itteiru saying m£>-f iwazu does not say

yokusei • sakugen restraint—reduction

tit iikata o shite kita has been saying so far

mm sakugen reduction

fc uchidashila announced

•

(3 -0 , nkififb u t t o m

t m m * ftib \h L tz .t> tttL )

(Knnkai, seifu toshite hakkiri to sakugen o ucliidashita wake da.) (This time the government clearly announced a reduction [wake da].) mm sakugen reduction m £>-f~ herasu reduce

M5 heru decrease

68

2 6# hakusho White Paper

3

4

5 taisaku measure

seifu government haishutsuryoo amount of discharge

n .3 kotoshi this year

e* hakusho White Paper

taisaku measure

6# hakusho White Paper

taisaku measure

12.1

12.2

13.1

14.1

m m jf Kankyoochoo Environment Agency

15.1

16.1.a

16.1.b

C02

17.1.a

C02O # ! l| C02 no haishutsu discharge of C02

I7.1.b

18.1

6# hakusho White Paper

69

7

8

1990 1990 nen year 1990 2000 2000 nen ikoo after year 2000 90 oo ooo

90-99%

40-49%

4 8.3 % 8.3 %

30-39%

N o'-® O

20-29%

Percentage of new lexical items* in proposition X Number of examples Percentage of examples

10-19%

Table 3-4 New lexical item s in ‘X no da ’

48 100 %

* The term ‘new lexical item’ is used here to refer to lexical items that fall outside the existing lexical chains in the text in which they occur.

One can see from Table 3-4 that only 29.2% o f the examples contain more existing lexical items than new ones, while as many as 70.8% o f the examples o f ‘X no da' consist of more than 50% o f new lexical items —those that do not belong to any existing lexical chains in the texts. That is, in most cases, sentences involving no da contain more new lexical items than existing lexical items that fall within existing lexical chains in the text. These figures of lexical items in ‘X no d a ’ are represented in the chart below.

87 Chart 3-2 New lexical item s in ‘X no

(/> 0) Q. E co X d)

4o

70.0%

-62.5%

60.0% 50.0% 40.0%

0 30.0% O) 4(0-» 20 .0 % c

0) a 10 . 0 % 01

CL

20.8% 8.3%

0 .0 % 0%

B

1-49%

50-99%

8.3%

100%

Percentage of new lexical items in proposition X da'

New lexical items and existing lexical items observed in the examples of ‘X no da’ are discussed in sections 3.5.2.2 and 3.5.2.1 respectively. Since presenting new lexical items is a strong tendency in the use o f £X no d a \ new lexical items arc examined first.

3.5.2.1 ‘X no da' and new lexical items An example o f ‘X no da' (sentence number 4.1) observed in Text A970902 (Appendix 3) is a typical one illustrating the characteristics of new lexical items presented with no da. The entire sentence is given below. Example 3-3

88

Daga, sore ni kuwaete, Kokuzeichoo no Ookurashoo kara no bunri mo, gyoosei no kooritsu-ka ya Ookurashoo no kyoodai na kengen no bunsan dake denaku, chihoo bunken no suishin to iu imi demo taisetsu na koto na no da. (However, in addition to that, the secession o f the National Tax Administration Agency from the Ministry o f Finance is also important, not only for making the administration more efficient and for decentralising the great authority of the Ministry of Finance, but also in the sense o f promoting decentralization of authority [in general] [no da].) Among the lexical items in this sentence, the following nine items contribute to the lexical cohesion of the text: 1.

Kokuzeichoo no Ookurashoo kara no bunri (‘the secession of the National Tax Administration Agency from the Ministry o f Finance’)

2.

Ookurashoo (‘the Ministry o f Finance’)

3.

gyoosei (‘administration’)

4.

kooritsu-ka (‘making [it] efficient’)

5.

kyoodai na (‘great’)

6.

kengen (‘authority’)

7.

bunsan (‘decentralising’)

8.

chihoo bunken (‘decentralization o f authority’)

9.

suishin (‘promoting’)

The relationship between these items and their chains can be seen clearly in Figure 3-7 (page 90 - 97). The sentence involving ‘X no da’ being discussed occurs in the fourth paragraph (sentence number 4.1) o f this editorial. Figure 3-7 shows that, apart from the first three, six out o f the nine lexical items in this sentence that contribute to the lexical chains in the text are new items. They are: kooritsu-ka (‘making [it] efficient’), kyoodai na (‘great’), kengen (‘authority’), bunsan (‘decentralising’), chihoo bunken (‘decentralization o f authority’), and suishin (‘promoting’). Each of these six new lexical items starts a new lexical chain. Among them, kooritsu-ka (‘making [it] efficient’) is mentioned three times in the text, and the issue of making the administration o f the government more efficient is discussed across four sentences. The item kengen (‘authority’) starts an even stronger chain containing five

89 repetitions and one hyponymy - ‘authority of inspection’ (sasatsuken). The length of this chain is across thirteen sentences. Apart from these two relatively major chains, the other four items (i.e. kyoodai na ‘great’, bunsan ‘decentralising’, chihoo bunken ‘decentralization of authority’, and suishin ‘promoting’) each start a chain containing two members. One thing that needs to be noticed is that, although each of these four minor chains consists of only two mentions, they are different from the minor chain o f mikata (‘view’) observed in the sentence involving wake da (refer to Example 3-2 discussed in section 3.5.1.2, and Appendix 2). Referring to Appendix 3 and Figure 3-7, one can see that this editorial, in which this example of ‘X no da’ (Example 3-3) is observed, is talking about ‘proposals regarding regrouping the government sector’ (shoochoo saihen-an), especially the plan of ‘the secession of the National Tax Administration Agency from the Ministry of Finance’ (Kokuzeichoo no Ookumshoo kara no bunri). What the writer has been talking about in the text is that, although the Administrative Reform Committee has decided not to separate public finance (zaisei) and banking (kin ’y uu), something must be done to stop the negative effect of the opacity of the administration. Then comes this sentence involving no da: ‘However, in addition to that, the secession o f the National Tax Administration Agency from the Ministry o f Finance is also important, not only for making the administration more efficient and for decentralising the great authority of the Ministry of Finance, but also in the sense of promoting decentralization of authority [in general] no da.' As shown by the context, this sentence is related to the preceding text in a way different from what we have seen in the case of ‘X wake da'. That is, one cannot come to the conclusion that the proposition claims, based on the information provided in the preceding text. The proposition X embedded in this construction ‘X no da' conveys new information, which is the writer’s opinion. Referring to the context, especially the succeeding text, it is obvious that the proposition raises three issues to be discussed in turn, with the six new lexical items. The three issues are described later in the text as the three purposes (nerai) or significance (igij of the plan of the secession o f the National Tax Administration Agency from the Ministry of Finance: (1) making the administration more efficient; (2) decentralising the excessive authority of the Ministry o f Finance; and (3) promoting decentralization of authority in general. These three purposes are discussed in turn in the fifth to tenth, eleventh to fourteenth, and fifteenth to eighteenth paragraphs. The beginning of the discussion of each issue is marked with items dai-ichi no nerai (‘the first purpose’), dai-ni no nerai (‘the second purpose’), and dai-san no igi (‘the third significance’).

90 F igure 3-7 Lexical chains in T ex t A970902

10

shoo choo saihen an

pro p o sals reg ard in g regrouping the governm ent sectors

1.2

S V tifo J z ffig fr

HJB Lfc

K o ku zeich o o no O okurashoo kara no b unri

th e secession o f N T A A from M oF

teianshita

propose-PA ST

2.1.a teiansareta

propose-PA SSPA ST 2. l.b

It® za isei

kin 'yuu seisaku

bunrishinai

finance

B anking po licy

secede-N E G

Mft za isei

kin ’y u u

tim . b unri

ft& gyo o sei

finance

B anking

secession

adm inistration fiiKc

2.2 2.3 3.1

4.1

m w fc o ± m ^ ^ & K okuzeichoo no O okurashoo kara no b u nrii

the secession o f N TA A from M oF

g y o o sei

adm inistration

J z fflt O okurashoo

M oF

z tu c ) jn x .r , M f f l r v x m G f r b m f t m b . m (Daga, so re n i kuw aete, K okuzeichoo no O okurashoo kara no b unri mo, g y o o se i no kooritsu-ka ya

(H ow ever, in addition to that, the secession o f the N ational Tax A dm inistration A gency fo r decentralising th e g reat au thority o f the M inistry o f Finance, 5.1.a

W ffilJ f C hoozeichoo

T axation A gency 5. l.b

* dai-ichi

N erai

f tJ f c g y o o sei

first

purpose

adm inistration

6.1

7.1.a

H f fi/r K okuzeichoo

NTAA 7. l.b

Jichitai SG B *

91

II

12

13

14

15

16

£ § £ L -ti5 U ' jitsu g e n sh ite hoshii

w ant sb to put in practice

WV'sR ookura ka ikaku

iiw ake

reform o f M oF

excuse

O 'M koojitsu

excuse

'M*8. L & Ittf li/i b ft k' jitsu g e n sh in a k ereb a n a ra n a i

m ust put in practice tffill 3*** kooritsuka

kyoodain Cl

kengen

bunsan

make it efficient

great

authori ty

decentralising

36*:4'Wco»|Rfc'it:e * < , A

S


V'

d a i-n ii

n erai

O okurashoo

second

purpose

M oF

gyoom u

w ork

93

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

ga tta isu reb a

com bine-C O N r m choozei

kooritsu-kadekiru

can make it efficient

taxation f f c k £ f & J l5 r t‘5 zeikin o chooshuusuru

collect tax

k u n i no zeikin

N a tio n s’ tax

ch ih o o no zeikin

atsum ete

local tax

collect-V C F

jim u

jo b m m g yoom u

w ork

M JM chihoo-zei

local tax

H it

mm

a *

ken g en

kazei

authority

taxation

m tz M tu t m otasereba

have-C A U S -C O N

-5

makaseru put it in their hands (zeih o o ni m o to zu ite zeikin o atsu m eru gyo o m u n o m i o C hoozeichoo n i m akaseru no d earu .1 (Leave up to th e T axation A gency only the jo b o f collectin g tax abased on the taxation law [no da].)

(SUX GH tT

ft# g yo u ka ku

adm inistrative re fo n n

mm

ftfik

kyoodaina

ken g en

bunsan

great

authority

decentralising

wt&m. sa sa tsu-ken

authority o f inspection

choo sh u u

tantoosasete aw asete

collect

take.charge.ofCAUS p ut to gether jim u

ga tta isu ru

jo b

com bine

94

1

11.2.

2 4

b

5

6

7

8

HfftlT K okuzeichoo

N TA A 11.3.

a

iS $ J r K okuzeichoo

N TA A

1l.3.b O okurashoo

M oF 11.4

12.1

m t

13.1 .a

ch o o zei bum on

hanasu

taxation sector

separate

mmC hoozeichoo

bunrishita

taxation agency

secede-PA ST

13.1 b

13.1.

Jich i-sh o o

Soom ush o o

MHA*

MGA*

C

doku ritsu sei no takai

highly independent £§»€

14.1

14.2.

jic h i kanryoo

O okura kanryoo

B ureaucrats from M H A a

B ureaucrats from M oF

Soom ush o o

M GA* chuu ritsu sei

neutrality 14.2.

b

M Jt

#lvEtt©iSSV'

C hoozeichoo

d o ku ritsu sei n o takai

taxation agency

highly independent doku ritsusaseru

mm

15.1 dai-san

igi

C hoozeichoo

th ird

significance

taxation agency

16.1.a

independent-C A U S

H chihoo jic h ita i

kuni

local SGB

country

16. l.b

16.2

m jy

II

chihoo

kuni

local

country

95

9

10

11

12

13

m

ffiPS

gyoosei administration

kengen authority

14

tfiStcfirfr gyoosei kanchoo administrative agency

mmm gyoosei kikan administrative b o d y

UPS kengen

authority frft'H'J? gyoosei kanchoo administrative agency

soshiki organisation

m h -'m . chihoo bunken decentralization

H f ti sa ish u tsu

g o o k ei

shime.ru

expenditure

sum

account for rtiS b S

mm

so o g a ku

Mm

sum

W SL ze ish u u

chihoozei

account for

tax revenues

local tax

ko o fu zei

h a ibunsareteiru

subsidy M i

allot-P A SS -P R O

hojokin

subsidy

J fc ffS i

sh im eru

«U B suishin

prom otion

96

3

4

mu

5

7 & _h

chihoo

o-ue

local

the top

10

hojokin

subsidy za ise i shishutsu

financial expenses ffg lj'fe hojokin

subsidy 18.1 .b

M Jj chihoo

local 18.1.C

18.2 koofu zei

subsidy 18.3

W M fv C hoozeichoo

taxation agency

* N T A A - T he N ational T ax A d m inistration A gency M oF - T he M inistry o f F inance SG B - self-governing body M HA - M inistry o f H om e A ffairs M G A - M inistry o f G eneral A ffairs

97

13

12

14

15

17

kuni no o-kane

co u n try ’s m oney m udazukai

frittering aw ay

chihoo no o-ka n e

lo cal’s m oney

tsukaim ichi

w ay o f use m udazukai

frittering aw ay haibun hooshiki

way of allotm ent kaikaku

reform

m akasete

put it in th eir hand-V C F

98

As examined above, this example o f ‘X no da’ illustrates the four characteristics of lexical items associated with the affirmative use o f no da. That is, first, the construction ‘X no da’ normally contains more new lexical items than existing ones; secondly, the new items, quite often, present new issues or sub-topics to be discussed later in the text and, therefore, start new lexical chains; thirdly, unlike ‘X wake da’, when ‘X no da’ is used, the sentence does not simply reiterate or paraphrase the same thing that has been mentioned in the preceding sentence or sentences. The information supporting the proposition embedded is not necessarily retrievable from the text; and finally, ‘X no da’ can be used to express a more subjective view o f the writer than ‘X wake d a ’. The proposition can be the writer’s opinion. The first and the second characteristics have been discussed with regard to the example and also presented clearly in Table 3-4 and Figure 3-7. To further confirm the third and fourth characteristics, two more examples are discussed in detail below. The example observed in Text A970626 (Example 3-4) gives support to the claim o f the third characteristic regarding the status o f information, and the example found in Text A970209 (Example 3-5) backs up the claim o f the fourth characteristic regarding the subjectivity associated with ‘X no d a '. E xam ple 3-4

1960-nendai no 1960s ‘Okinawa

Okinawa henkan

GEN Okinawa return o

kaese’

ACC retum-IMP TOP

na

no da

de

utawareta

movement PART sing-PASS-PAST

wa, hondo

Okinawa

COP-PNF

nndoo

no

Japan proper GEN

ningen no

saku

person GEN work

soo da. it.is.said

(It is said that Give me back Okinawa, the song being sung during the Okinawan return movement in the 1960s, was the work of someone from Japan proper [no da].) This example o f ‘X no d a ' is found in Text A970626 (Appendix 4). It is the very first sentence of the text. Therefore, every lexical item in the sentence appears in the text for the first time. Among them, ‘Okinawa’ starts a main chain consisting o f fourteen identical mentions throughout the entire text; the title of the song Okinawa o kaese (‘Give me back Okinawa’) starts a minor chain with one repetition in the next sentence; ‘the Okinawan

99

return movement’ (Okinawa henkan undoo) forms another main chain consisting of seven members that continues till the end o f the text including the phrase ‘the independence dispute of Okinawa’ (Okinawa dokuritsu-ron); and ‘one from Japan proper’ (Hondo no ningen) begins a chain including ‘people of Okinawa’ (Okinawa-jin), ‘residents of Okinawa Prefecture’ (Okinawaken-min), and ‘Japanese’ (nihon-jin) with a total number of eight items in the chain. This example proves that ‘X no da’ can be used in the first sentence of a text. Although it is said that both ‘X no da' and ‘X wake da' are related to a premise, in the case of‘X no da', the premise is not necessarily presented in the preceding text. ‘X no da' can be used to present information that is completely new to the reader. This kind of use, however, is not observed in any o f the examples of ‘X wake da' in this data. Example 3-5

Kinrin

no

neighbourhood GEN

taikoku

Roshia ga

hantaisuru no da

big.country Russia NOM oppose

kara, because

akiramero give.up-IMP (Give up [the idea], because your neighbour, the superpower Russia, opposes [it] [no da].) As mentioned earlier, this is an additional example presented to further confirm the subjectivity associated with the use o f ‘X no da'. This subjectivity has been observed not only in some propositions themselves presented with no da, as in Example 3-3 (Text A970902) discussed earlier, but also in some clauses or sentences adjacent to ‘X no da'. Example 3-5 is found in Text A970209, one of the sample texts discussed in 3.5.1.2 when investigating the affirmative use of wake da. Recalling Figure 3-6, one can see that ‘X no da' occurs as the first sentence in the fourteenth paragraph. Referring to the broader context (see Appendix 2), it is clear that the proposition expressed with no da is simply repeating a fact (i.e., that the superpower Russia opposes the idea) that has already been introduced earlier in the text (sentences 3.2 and 7.1). The imperative expressed in the succeeding clause - ‘give up [the idea]’ (akiramero) - is a highly subjective expression. This kind o f subjective use is not found in the case of ‘X wake da' in this data. These two additional examples further prove that ‘X no da' can be used to express completely new information which is unknown to the reader, and it can be used when the

100 writer expresses a subjective opinion. These are two o f the fundamental differences from ‘X wake da'.

3.5.2.2

‘X no da’ and existing lexical chains

Investigating the data, this study has confirmed three tendencies of the existing lexical items in sentences involving no da. First, they are fewer than the new lexical items in general; secondly, they are less likely to conclude an existing lexical chain compared with those in ‘X wake da’-, and thirdly, they quite often convey new information rather than simply repeating the same or similar information by linking to a chain as a repetition or synonymy. The first tendency has been mentioned in the beginning of section 3.5.2, and illustrated clearly in Table 3-4. This section focuses on the second and the third tendencies.

3.5.2.2.1 ‘X no da' and ends o f lexical chains It needs to be emphasised again that there is not a sharp cut-offline between ‘X no da' and ‘X wake da'. However, the tendencies revealed by the data are clear enough to demonstrate the different natures of the two expressions and their discourse functions. While some lexical items in sentences involving no da turn out to be the last mention in the lexical chain, this does not happen very often. Text A970604 (Appendix 1 and Figure 3-5), one of the sample texts investigated in section 3.5.1.1 when discussing ‘X wake da', contains one example o f ‘X no d a ' of this kind. There are two sentences involving no da in this editorial - sentences 12.2 and 14.1. The two sentences are presented below. E xam ple 3-6

2000-nen o

mae

ni

koodoo keikaku wa

year.2000 ACC before PART sunzen

na

action plan

TOP

hatan failure

no da.

on.the.verge.of COP-PNF (The action plan will be on the verge o f failure [even] before the year 2000 [no da]). E xam ple 3-7

Yoosuruni, narimonoiri

no

koodoo keikaku wa

i n .s h o r t

m a k e .a .g r e a t.to - d o

tsukuri-ppanashi

na

GEN

a c tio n

p la n

TOP

no da.

made.without.following.up COP-PNF (In short, the action plan has made a lot of noise but never been put into practice [no da].) Referring to Appendix 1 and Figure 3-5, one can see that these two examples occur very close to each other in the text. There are only two sentences between them. Both the examples occur in the section about the action plan (koodoo keikaku) announced by the Japanese government to keep the amount of discharge o f CO 2 after 2000 at the same level as in 1990. As shown in Figure 3-5, the lexical item ‘the year 2000’ is the last mention about the year, and so marks the end of the lexical chain. On the other hand, the second example (Example 3-7) does not conclude any lexical chain. Among the forty-eight (48) examples o f ‘X no da', only eleven (11) o f them contain a lexical item which is the last occurrence in its lexical chain. This accounts for only 22.9% of the total examples, and is much lower than the 60% o f such examples o f ‘X wake da'.

3.5.22.2 Existing lexical items and new information Many lexical items occurring in sentences involving no da observed in this data convey new information rather than reiterate or paraphrase what has already been mentioned, even though they are related to existing lexical chains. This shows a notable difference from the examples of ‘X wake da'. Lexical items carrying new information are normally related to the existing lexical chains by relation of hyponymy, co-hyponymy, or collocation in this data. These hyponyms, co-hyponyms, or collocations would not be easy for readers to work out from the given information. Below is an example. Example 3-8

Kanbatsu,

edauchi,

thinning.out

pruning.branches cutting.underbrush and.so.on

ikurin

sagyoo

afforestation work

shitakusakari

ni

hiyoo

ga

PART expense NOM

nado

kakaru

no GEN

no da.

cost

(‘Afforestation works, such as thinning out [trees], pruning branches, cutting underbrush, and so on, cost money [no da].')

102

F ig u re 3-8 Lexical item s in the in tro d u c tio n o f T ext A960429

1.1. a UlIKJfcjiifett Y am a n a sh i-ken D o o s h i-m u ra

su ig e n -rin

Doshi Village, Yamanashi Prefecture

forest for catchment

1.1. b Y o k o h a m a -sh i S u iid o o -k y o k u

Waterworks Bureau of Yokoyama city 2.1

m s a # m u ra

g o ru fu -jo o y u u c h i

s h im in d a n ta i

village

inviting sb to set up a golf course

groups of citizens

2.2.a k en setsu

building 2.2.b

2.3. 2.3.

3.1.a

n m u ra

village a b g o ru fu -jo o k a is e tsu

Y oko h a n a n o shim in-tachi

opening the golf course

citizens of Yokohama

n m u ra

village 3.1 .b lilSJlft

H i#

Y a m a n a sh i-ken

sa n r in

Yamanashi Prefecture

mountains and forests /k ii#

3.2

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