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Pragmatics of Japanese: Perspectives on grammar, interaction and culture
Edited by Mutsuko Endo Hudson, Yoshiko Matsumoto and Junko Mori
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 285] 2018
► pp. 17–48

Chapter 1
Reason-coding in Japanese

A Multiple Grammar perspective

| University of California, Los Angeles
| University of California, Los Angeles

This chapter examines how reasons are expressed in Japanese discourse, employing the Multiple Grammar (MG) Model proposed by Iwasaki (2015) as a theoretical foundation. It shows how the model can explain different ways in which reasons are expressed in conversation and newspaper editorials. This research is different from most previous works in that it starts with the function of reason coding rather than forms such as kara and node. In conversations, reasons are coded flexibly by employing mechanisms suited for on-line production while in editorials they are expressed using complex structures such as embedding with complement and relative clauses, made possible because there is almost no time constraint.

Keywords: reason-coding, Multiple Grammar Model, spoken grammar, written grammar, Japanese, pragmatics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Multiple Grammar model
  • 3.Grammatical resources for reason-coding
  • 4.Data
  • 5.Grammatical resources for reason-coding in conversation and editorials
    • 5.1Conversation
      • 5.1.1 Kara
      • 5.1.2 Shi
      • 5.1.3 Tame and node/nde
      • 5.1.4 Dakara
    • 5.2Editorials
      • 5.2.1 Kara
      • 5.2.2 Shi
      • 5.2.3 Tame and node
      • 5.2.4 Dakara
      • 5.2.5 Relative clause
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Appendix
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 16 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.285.01kaw
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