Sense-based low-degree modifiers in Japanese and English: their relations to experience, evaluation, and emotions

IF 1.1 1区 文学 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS Linguistics and Philosophy Pub Date : 2024-08-30 DOI:10.1007/s10988-023-09404-2
Osamu Sawada
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Abstract

This study investigates the meanings of the Japanese low-degree modifiers kasukani ‘faintly’ and honokani ‘approx. faintly’ and the English low-degree modifier faintly. I argue that, unlike typical low-degree modifiers such as sukoshi ‘a bit’ in Japanese and a bit in English, they are sense-based in that they not only semantically denote a small degree but also convey that the judge (typically the speaker) measures the degree of predicates based on their own sense (the senses of sight, smell, taste, etc.) at the level of conventional implicature (CI) (e.g., Grice (in: Cole, Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and semantics iii: speech acts, Academic Press, New York, 1975), Potts (The logic of conventional implicatures, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005), McCready (Semant Pragmat 3:1–57, 2010. https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.3.8, Sawada (Pragmatic aspects of scalar modifiers. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2010), Gutzmann (Empir Issues Syntax Semant 8:123–141, 2011)). I will also show that there are variations among the sense-based low-degree modifiers with regard to (i) the kind of sense, (ii) the presence/absence of positive evaluativity, and (iii) the possibility of direct measurement of emotion and will explain the variations in relation to the CI component. A unique feature of sense-based low-degree modifiers is that they can indirectly measure the degree of non-sense-based predicates (e.g., emotion) through sense (e.g., perception). I show that the proposed analysis can also explain the indirect measurement in a unified way. This paper shows that like predicates of personal taste such as tasty (e.g., Pearson (J Semant 30(1):103–154, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffs001), Ninan (Proc Semant Linguist Theory, 24:290–304, 2014. https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v24i0.2413), Willer & Kennedy (Inquiry, 1–37, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2020.1850338)), sense-based low-degree modifiers trigger acquaintance inference. The difference between them is that, unlike predicates of personal taste, sense-based low-degree modifiers co-occur with gradable predicates and their experiential components signal the manner/way in which the degree of the predicate in question is measured.

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日语和英语中基于感官的低度修饰语:它们与经验、评价和情感的关系
本研究调查了日语低度修饰语 kasukani "微弱地 "和 honokani "大约微弱地 "以及英语低度修饰语 faintly 的含义。我认为,与典型的低度修饰词(如日语中的 sukoshi "一点 "和英语中的 a bit "有点")不同,它们是基于感觉的,因为它们不仅在语义上表示很小的程度,而且还传达出判断者(通常是说话者)根据自己的感觉(视觉、嗅觉、味觉等)在常规蕴涵(CI)的层面上衡量谓词的程度(例如,Grice (in., Cole, Morgan (Eds.):科尔、摩根(编),《语法和语义学 iii:言语行为》,学术出版社,纽约,1975 年),波茨(《常规蕴涵的逻辑》,牛津大学出版社,牛津,2005 年),麦克雷迪(《语义学语用》3:1-57,2010 年。https://doi.org/10.3765/sp.3.8,泽田(《标量修饰语的语用方面》。Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2010),Gutzmann(Empir Issues Syntax Semant 8:123-141, 2011)。我还将说明,基于感觉的低度修饰语在以下方面存在差异:(i) 感觉的种类,(ii) 有/无积极评价性,以及 (iii) 能否直接测量情感,并将结合 CI 成分解释这些差异。基于感性的低度修饰词的一个独特之处在于,它们可以通过感性(如知觉)间接测量非基于感性的谓词(如情感)的程度。我的研究表明,所提出的分析方法也能以统一的方式解释间接测量。本文表明,与tasty等个人品味谓词(如Pearson (J Semant 30(1):103-154, 2013. https://doi.org/10.1093/jos/ffs001), Ninan (Proc Semant Linguist Theory, 24:290-304, 2014. https://doi.org/10.3765/salt.v24i0.2413), Willer & Kennedy (Inquiry, 1-37, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2020.1850338))一样,基于感官的低度修饰词也会触发熟人推理。它们之间的区别在于,与个人品味谓词不同,基于感官的低度修饰词与可分级谓词同时出现,其经验成分是衡量相关谓词程度的方式/途径的信号。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
2.60
自引率
9.10%
发文量
26
期刊介绍: Linguistics and Philosophy focuses on issues related to structure and meaning in natural language, as addressed in the semantics, philosophy of language, pragmatics and related disciplines, in particular the following areas: philosophical theories of meaning and truth, reference, description, entailment, presupposition, implicatures, context-dependence, and speech actslinguistic theories of semantic interpretation in relation to syntactic structure and prosody, of discourse structure, lexcial semantics and semantic changepsycholinguistic theories of semantic interpretation and issues of the processing and acquisition of natural language, and the relation of semantic interpretation to other cognitive facultiesmathematical and logical properties of natural language and general aspects of computational linguisticsphilosophical questions raised by linguistics as a science: linguistics methodology, properties of linguistic theories and frameworks, and the relation of linguistics to other fields of inquiryContributions may be in the form of articles, replies, or review articles. Linguistics and Philosophy is indexed in the ISI/Social Science Citation Index.
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