Cognition, epistemic scale, and functions of the Old Japanese question particle ka

Abstract

This paper first shows how the polysemy of a single question particle ka (self-addressed questions, exclamation, rhetorical questions, wishes, and regrets) in Old Japanese can be accounted for in a unified way, by using Akatsuka's (1985) epistemic scale and speaker attitudes. In addition, this paper points out that there are remarkable similarities between Maynard's (1995) information status and Akatsuka's epistemic scale, and between Maynard's typology of Modern Japanese rhetorical interrogatives (non-information-seeking interrogatives) and that of Old Japanese ka-type questions proposed in this paper. In a broader perspective, this study intends to clarify the concept of doubt, a key concept in interrogatives in both Japanese and Western linguistics. It is argued that doubt represents the various speaker attitudes in the irrealis domain such as negative conviction, surprise, and uncertainty. It is also claimed that what has been referred to as intensity of doubt can be understood as the shift of the speaker attitude on the axis of the epistemic scale.