On the context-dependent pragmatic strategies of Japanese self-diminutive shift

Authors

  • Osamu Sawada

Abstract

In Japanese, the phonological shift from [s] to [t?] triggers an implicature that “a speaker is uttering like a baby” and, depending on context, it can further induce the speaker’s emotion of (i) solidarity or (ii) emotional dependence. I argue that the Japanese diminutive shift shifts the speaker’s degree of maturity to the bottom at the level of conventional implicature (CI) and that the speaker’s emotion is determined by to whom the sentence is uttered. If the addressee is an adult, the diminutive shift triggers an emotion of dependency, while if the addressee is a baby, the diminutive shift triggers an emotion of solidarity. This paper shows that there is a type, “interpersonal expressive,” whose emotive meanings are dependent on the hearer.

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How to Cite

Sawada, O. (2019). On the context-dependent pragmatic strategies of Japanese self-diminutive shift. Proceedings of Sinn Und Bedeutung, 18, 377–395. Retrieved from https://ojs.ub.uni-konstanz.de/sub/index.php/sub/article/view/323