CONCESSIVE CONNECTORS IN JAPANESE

Abstract

Tis paper uses corpus data in an attempt at a combined description of three concessive connectors in contemporary Japanese - (sore)demo; nimokakawarazu; noni. Concessives are interpreted as markers of a contradiction to expectations arising out of an interfering counterforce – thus, cancelling a presupposed “normal consequence of events”. Te three markers, viewed in the specifc paradigm characteristic of the Japanese connectors, are analyzed in respect to their semantic and discourse functions. Tese signal procedural meanings relevant to the construal of the contradicting situations or states of affairs, parameters of the communicative situation. Te main thrust of the present work lies in the application of Russian-based methods of linguistic analysis to the Japanese material. In this way we are able to pick some (presumably universal) pragmasemantic features for discursive connectors, including scale of contradiction, involvement of the speaker, assessiveness, and text orientation. In fact, the three connectors appear to portray roughly three distinct linguistic attitudes to a challenge that a discovered contradiction is – mentalist (correct one’s position to fnd a solution), normative (conserve status quo, forestall conflict), and emotional (manipulate, appealing to one’s subjective state).