Modality and the Japanese Language: Volume 44 (Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies) - Hardcover

Yuki Johnson (author)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1929280181 ISBN 13: 9781929280186

Publisher: University of Michigan Press, 2003

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author

Yuki Johnson received her Ph.D. in Japanese linguistics from the University of Minnesota. She served many years as Director of the Japanese Language Program at the University of Michigan and then at the University of British Columbia, and is now an Associate Professor of Japanese Linguistics at the University of Toronto.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Michigan Press
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1929280181
• ISBN 13: 9781929280186
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296