Main 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'.
Table of contents:
- Preface
- Part I: Wa in narrative and expository discourse
- The use of wa as a cohesion marker in Japanese oral narratives
- Thematization as a staging device in the Japanese narrative
- Thematization, assumed familiarity, staging, and syntactic binding in Japanese
- Identifiability, scope-setting, and the particle wa
- A study of the so-called topic wa in passages from Tolstoi, Lawrenceand Faulkner (of course, inJapanese translation)
- Part II: Wa and other syntactic phenomena
- The role of wa in negation
- Wa and the WH phrase
- Part III: Historical perspectives on wa
- Functions of the theme marker wa from synchronic and diachronic perspectives
- Wa in diachronic perspective
- Part IV: Pragmatic perspectives on wa
- How relevant is a functional notion of communicative orientation to ga and wa?
- Abbreveations
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'.
Table of contents:
- Preface
- Part I: Wa in narrative and expository discourse
- The use of wa as a cohesion marker in Japanese oral narratives
- Thematization as a staging device in the Japanese narrative
- Thematization, assumed familiarity, staging, and syntactic binding in Japanese
- Identifiability, scope-setting, and the particle wa
- A study of the so-called topic wa in passages from Tolstoi, Lawrenceand Faulkner (of course, inJapanese translation)
- Part II: Wa and other syntactic phenomena
- The role of wa in negation
- Wa and the WH phrase
- Part III: Historical perspectives on wa
- Functions of the theme marker wa from synchronic and diachronic perspectives
- Wa in diachronic perspective
- Part IV: Pragmatic perspectives on wa
- How relevant is a functional notion of communicative orientation to ga and wa?
- Abbreveations