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Dissertation Abstract: The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Japanese Addressee-Honorific Markers

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Abstract

This dissertation is a case study of filling the gap between the two disciplines about human inference systems: theoretical linguistics and statistics. The main linguistic instance examined in this study is honorificity, in particular honorificity encoded by the Japanese addressee-honorific marker (AHM) -mas. Its linguistic properties and its effect on our inference are given a systematic explanation, in such a way that the traditions of statistics and theoretical linguistics are both maximally respected. For the morphosyntax, -mas is distributed in an unexpected position. It is proposed that this is due to an agreement. For the inference, the dynamicity is modeled as a Bayesian update, and the trigger of the update is the denotation amenable to the proposal of the previous linguistic literature.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Osaka University, 1-8 Machikaneyama-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan

    Akitaka Yamada

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  1. Akitaka Yamada
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Correspondence to Akitaka Yamada.

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Yamada, A. Dissertation Abstract: The Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics of Japanese Addressee-Honorific Markers. Künstl Intell 35, 385–389 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13218-021-00717-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13218-021-00717-7

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