YasukuniTakano AHistoricalPerspectiveontheStudyofT'GaTTand"wa"inJapanese:PartI

AHistoricalPerspectiveontheStudyofT'GaTTand"wa"inJapanese: PartI

YasukuniTakano

Thepresentpaperisdivided intotwoparts

^,

^Ⅱ,

and"Notes"topartII,"ListofAbbreviationsrTand"References"are providedattheendofPartⅡ.

0.Introduction

lnquisitive minds have challenged to accounting for the II †I

mysteriousfunctionsofthetwoparticles ga andHwa一一inJapanese fora long timeandanumberof interestingprinciplesunderlying thesetwoparticleshavebeenproposedtoattainadequatelinguistic descriptions for the basic sentence structures of the Japanese

language.

Today, mostof theprinciplesunderlying these twoparticles arebelievedtobeplausibleandviableintheframeworksofmodern

linguisticanalysis.

Inthispaper

,

,

Inordertoaccomplishthisgoal,Iwouldliketostructure the

22 ^{A HistoricalPerspective on the Study of ''GaHa nd ●‑wa''in Japanese:Pa r t I}

present paper in the following way. First, the whole space in section 1 will be used for the purpose of recapitulating the proposedprinciples.

In section 2, I wish to discuss how the basic sentence structuresofJapanesethatcontainthesetwoparticlesshouldbe analyzedintermsofamodularlinguisticapproachthatthisauthor stronglybelievestoberealistic.

Insection3, Iwouldliketoshowanumberofexamplesthat thepreviouslyproposedprinciplescannotadequatelydealwith,and

JJ 血 itissuggestedinthislastsectionthatahypothesison ga and

‑'wa'' proposed by this author is universally attractive

,

,l '

,

,

TurkishandMongolian.

1.ProposedPrinciplesUnderlying‑'Ga"and"wa■‑

Seriousresearchforthemysteriousfunctionsof"ga"and"wa"

hasalwaysbeenconductedbyanumberofJapaneselinguists

,

YoshioYamada(1938)

,

,

,

,

1.I.OldInformationandNewInformation(I)aizaburoMatsushita･.1930) Chronologically,thefirstandtheoldestprincipleonthetwo particles‑'ga"and‑'waHwasproposedbyMatsushita(1930).Hisprinciple is devised to differentiate the two uses of ‑'ga‑al nd 一一wa"with recoursetotwoterminologies,namely, ''shin‑joohoo(neuinformation)I‑and Hkyuu‑joohoo(oldinformation)･"

Thesetwoterminologiesareintendedtodifferentiatethetwo particlesinthefollowingmanners.First

,

,

,

(1)Mukashimukashi aru tokoro niojiisanto obaasan蓬生 Onceuponatimecertainvillageinoldmanandwoman NJ

sunde‑i‑mashita･ Ojiisan｣塑̲ yama nishibawo karini, live‑PROG‑PAST Oldman0‑I mountaintowood OBJgather

obaasan ⊥聖二 kawa ni sentakuni iki‑mashita. oldwoman 0‑I riverto wash to go‑PAST

Once upon a time,there lived an old man and an old woman in a LUillage. The old man went to the mountain for gathering woodandtheol^dwomanwenttotheriverforua∫bing(clothes)･

Note that the firstoccurrenceof gA 瓜a marking thesubject phrase "ojiisan toobaasan(anoldmanandanoldwoman)" issaid to carrynewinformationsincethisphraseappearsforthefirsttime inthediscoursecontext,while'tojiisan(tbeoldman)1'and''obaasan

(tbeoldwoman),''bothofwhicharemarkedby I‑wa,T'appearforthe second time in the discourse contextsand thereforeare said to carryoldinformationtothebearerorthereader.

II ThisprincipledevisedfordistinguishingthetwousesofT'ga and

24 ^{A His tori}

^{c a}

^{u d}

^d

‑'wa‑Iintermsofnewandoldinformationinexampleslike(1)above has widely been accepted and supported by a number of Japanese

linguists.

Kuno (1973, 1978), for instance, reports some developments along thesame linewith theprincipleofnewandold information proposedbyMatsushita.Ohno(1975

,

(known)" for new information and ''michi (unAnoun)" for old

†† I information and reports further developments concerning ga一for

"kichi(known)''andI‑wa川forH^{michi(unknown) .‑I}

1.2.SyntacticScopeoftheSubjectPhraseinaSubordinateClause (YoshioYamada:1938)

Yamada(1936)tried toexplain the twousesof'■ga‑Iand "wan intermsofsyntacticscopeofthesubjectphrase inasubordinate clauseforagivencomplexsentence (thatconsistsofasubordinate clause and amain clause). That is, if the syntactic scope ofa subject phrase in a given complex sentence extends only to the subordinateclause (andnotto themainclause)

^,

JJ

phrase in question ismarked by the particle ga.Hon the other hand, ifthesyntacticscopeofthesubjectphraseextendsoverto themain clause crossing the subordinateclause, then the subject phrase in the subordinate clause ismarked by theparticle ‑'wa."

Thus,observethefollowingexamples.

(2)a･Tako 登堅 nemuru tOki,emonoga katsudooshi‑hajime‑ru･ OctopusSUIu sleep when game SUBJactivate‑start‑PRES.

Wbenoctopu∫esgoto∫leep,game∫∫tartactivating･

b.Tako 選整 nemuru tOki^,kuraiana ni hai‑ru. OctopusTOP sleep when dark holeintoge卜PRES

Whntheoctopu∫eJgOtO∫leep,(they)getintodaru oleS･