Japanese Negative Verdictives in the Light of Corpus Data

This paper forms a part of a larger research project in the field of conceptualization and verbal expression of various speech actions (not limited strictly to speech acts) in contemporary Japanese. In particular, to this day the absence of clear basis in linguistical expression of most speech acts has been considered a weakness of Speech Act Theory. One way to bridge this gap is collecting data from available quotation constructions with speech verbs. In contrast with their thematic structure derived from verb surroundings, this method ultimately yields all possible verbalization patterns for given speech actions. The object of the study is quotation constructions headed by a set of speech verbs falling under the category of negative verdictives – Speaker criticizing Addressee (for a reason that is discomforting her and intent on inducing corrective action). The propositional content, as well as sybtactic properties of the quotes add specificity to the Speech event parameters in case of each verb, and confirm principal differentiations between speech verbs as mental concepts (idealizations) of those speech events. Such oppositions in this zone include publicity vs. intimacy, responsibility of the actor and preference of emotional vs. rational impact. Significant overlapping between these categories here signals a natural diffuseness of related concepts and the unity of the type of utterings. The latter is also confirmed in cross-cutting types of propositional content ‘questioning to blame’ or ‘calling names’. Means of linguistic expression for critical utterances show a high frequency of indirect speech acts, predominantly questions and directives. The scope of acceptability of such expressions is posited as coinciding with the scripted concept of linguistic criticism, highlighting areas of it relevant to speech situation and Speaker’s intentions. Quoted material also yields numerous formal indicators (of the speech action type) at several structural layers, categorizeable as illocutionary markers or tokens. These, along with the abovementioned structural models, call for systematic description and codification with a view to a complete dictionary of communication grammar of Japanese (and more languages).

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