Modality and the Japanese language

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Bibliographic Information

Modality and the Japanese language

Yuki Johnson

(Michigan monograph series in Japanese studies, no. 44)

Center for Japanese Studies, University of Michigan, 2003

  • : cloth

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 267-273) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In English, the concept of modality has been the subject of studies crucial to the understanding and functioning of the language. Modality and the Japanese Language is innovative as an English-language text that examines a wide range of grammatical categories in terms of both modal and propositional content - namely, modal auxiliaries, aspectual categories, and conditionals - and reveals a new approach to Japanese modality that relies more centrally on concepts developed in studies of English modality. Johnson finds many practical and theoretical similarities between English and Japanese modal auxiliaries and argues that modality can be thought of as an expression of the degree of a speaker's conviction concerning a proposition's truth or realization in the form of possible/non-actual words. Such a definition provides practical and applicable perspective to the study of Japanese modality: propositions, for example, become objects of that study in the form of conditional sentences and aspectual categories.

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