Abstract
This study focuses on chotto among the adverbs that are interjectionally used and describes the process of how the meaning and function of adverbs has derived from adverbial usage to interjectional usage in case of increased subjectification. (1) Chotto precedes the predication and indicates low degree or small quantity. (2) The acquisition of affective meaning by chotto is probably enabled by contexts in which speaker’s negative feelings or attitude to the addressee. In such uses, it appears to have lost its original meaning, small extent as an adverb. Chotto occurs without a predicate as a response but it is not procedural with interjectional meaning. (3) Chotto is used as an interjection to call someone casually. It occurs in clause-initial position. Moreover, it can stand alone as an utterance. It functions at a discourse expressive level. As addressed above, chotto illustrates increased subjectification; originating in a clause-internal degree modifier (i.e. propositional function), it comes to show the speaker’s emotional involvement as an interjection (i.e. expressive function).
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