The Japanese Particle yo in Declaratives: Relevance, Priority, and Blaming

  • David Y. Oshima
Conference paper
Part of the Lecture Notes in Computer Science book series (LNCS, volume 7258)

Abstract

This paper presents a novel analysis of two central uses – Davis’ (2011) “guide to action” and “correction” uses – of the Japanese discourse particle yo occurring in declarative clauses. Yo with a rising contour instructs to update the modal base for priority modality relativized to the hearer, thereby indicating that the propositional content is relevant to what the hearer should and may do. Yo with a non-rising contour has a function to indicate that the hearer should have recognized the propositional content beforehand. The two uses of yo share the property of being concerned with the hearer’s duties.

Keywords

Common Ground Modal Base Propositional Content Epistemic Modality Clause Type 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • David Y. Oshima
    • 1
  1. 1.GSIDNagoya UniversityJapan

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