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Modality, Modariti and Predication — the Story of Modality in Japan

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Japanese Modality

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Abstract

Since the 1990s, publications on Japanese modality, especially those written in Japanese and published in Japan, abound. There are more than a dozen book publications alone with ‘modality’ (modariti) in their title, in addition to countless papers and articles. Although it is difficult to provide exact numbers for comparison, it can hardly be doubted that this has been the most popular research topic in Japanese linguistics for the past 15 years. However, this surge of research interest seems to come out of nowhere. Until the mid-1980s, very little had been written on ‘modality’. The two most influential reference volumes on Japanese linguistics of the time, the Research Dictionary of National Language Studies (Satō 1977) and the Great Dictionary of National Language Studies (Kokugo Gakkai, 1980) do not even have an entry for either ‘modality’ or ‘mood’.

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  1. Heiko Narrog
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Japan and Korea School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK

    Barbara Pizziconi (Senior Lecturer in Applied Japanese Linguistics) & Mika Kizu (Senior Lecturer in Applied Japanese Linguistics) & 

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© 2009 Heiko Narrog

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Narrog, H. (2009). Modality, Modariti and Predication — the Story of Modality in Japan. In: Pizziconi, B., Kizu, M. (eds) Japanese Modality. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230245754_2

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