日本語の"省略性"について

概要

論文の詳細を見る
One remarkable charateristic of Japanese expressions is said to be ambiguity, caused by grammatical components of sentences being omitted. Many components certainly tend to be omitted when there is mutual knowledge between interlocutors who are involved in the situation in which the expressions occur. In this respect, the Japanese language relies more upon the situation to convey meaning than does the English language, which is more structually self-sufficient. This paper deals with the reasons why elliptical sentences are noticeable in Japanese from a view-point of pragmatics. Elliptical expressions in Japanese may appear ambiguous and illogical when superficially compared with equivalent English structures, but the ambiguity turns out to be logical and explicit when such expressions are interpreted based upon the functional characteristics of Japanese. Japanese is a topic-comment language while English is a subject-predicate language. Many structures in Japanese are not construed as combinations of subjects with predicates. They primarily form relationships between topic and comment rather than subject and predicate. An understanding of the distinct linguistic functions between Japanese and English enables us to figure out elliptical expressions in Japanese as unambiguous.
沖縄国際大学の論文
2003-03-31