Perspectives on Topicalization
The case of Japanese wa
Published on 1. January 1987
Book
Hardback
307 pages
978-0-915027-97-2 (ISBN)
Description
Within the field of Japanese linguistics, few areas have generated as much controversy as the morpheme wa; traditionally described as a marker of old or contrasted information, its function as a discourse marker has also been studied. This work aims to deepen the understanding of wa through careful examination of the particle at both sentence and discourse levels in old Japanese as well as present-day Japanese. Previous studies have concentrated on syntactic analyses of wa. The contributors to this volume challenge the old approach and uncover new properties of wa. The four topics discussed are: wa in Narrative and Expository Discourse; wa and other Syntactic Phenomena; Historical Perspectives on wa and Pragmatic Perspectives on wa.
Reviews / Votes
This volume will appeal to a wide range of linguists, not simply those who study Japanese. It succeeds in raising new questions about the functions of wa, and will stimulate new research. -- The Journal of Asian Studies, Noriko Nagai, Duke UniversityMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Amsterdam/Philadelphia
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 245 mm
Width: 164 mm
Weight
540 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-915027-97-2 (9780915027972)
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Schweitzer Classification
Content
1. Preface; 2. Part I: Wa in narrative and expository discourse; 3. The use of wa as a cohesion marker in Japanese oral narratives (by Clancy, Patricia M.); 4. Thematization as a staging device in the Japanese narrative (by Maynard, Senko K.); 5. Thematization, assumed familiarity, staging, and syntactic binding in Japanese (by Hinds, John); 6. Identifiability, scope-setting, and the particle wa: A study of Japanese spoken expository discourse (by Iwasaki, Shoichi); 7. A study of the so-called topic wa in passages from Tolstoi, Lawrenceand Faulkner (of course, in Japanese translation) (by Kuroda, S.-Y.); 8. Part II: Wa and other syntactic phenomena; 9. The role of wa in negation (by McGloin, Naomi Hanaoka); 10. Wa and the WH phrase (by Miyagawa, Shigeru); 11. Part III: Historical perspectives on wa; 12. Functions of the theme marker wa from synchronic and diachronic perspectives (by Ueno, Noriko Fujii); 13. Wa in diachronic perspective (by Wolf, Charles M. De); 14. Part IV: Pragmatic perspectives on wa; 15. How relevant is a functional notion of communicative orientation to ga and wa? (by Makino, Seiichi); 16. Abbreveations