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Paper short abstract:

The phrase "X no-Naka-no X (= X in X)", like "Otoko no-Naka-no Otoko (= man in men) " means not a prototype X but a "desirable" X. By this phenomena, I would like to point out the existence of the "desirability" subjectivity.

Paper long abstract:

I would like to consider the phrase "X no-Naka-no X (= X in X)", like "Otoko no-Naka-no Otoko (= a man in men) ". From the point of view of prototype semantics, each member is not equal in a category, because the sub-category or the individual who has the most features characterizing the relevant category are located in the center of this category, whereas other sub-categories or individuals who have fewer features are forced to be positioned in the border area. For example, sparrows and pigeons are located in the center of the category "bird", but chickens and ostriches are pushed in the periphery. However, "Suzume ha Tori no-Naka-no Tori da (= Sparrows are bird in birds)" is unnatural, whereas "Swans are bird in birds " is quite natural. This indicates that X should not be a ordinary sub-category or an ordinary individual, but an excellent sub-category or an excellent individual. On the other hand, X should not be a negative one, but a positive one. For example, "Dorobou no-Naka-no Dorobou (= thief in thieves) and "Saigai no-Naka-no Saigai (= disaster in disasters)" aren't natural, whereas "Shuusai no-Naka-no Shuusai (= brilliant in brilliants)" is quite natural. However, it is remarkable that, even for negative X, it also becomes natural if you attach a context to honor it. For example, "Arsene Lupin ha Dorobou no-Naka-no Dorobou da (= Arsene Lupin is a thief in thieves)". Everything leads to conclude that "X no-Naka-no X" means not a prototype X but a "desirable" X. I would like to add that X also indicate a desirable X in the English and French phrases, "king of kings", or "rois des rois (= "king of kings")". The research on modality so far has been interested in "probability of an event" indicated for example by auxilary verbs like may, must etc., or by sentence adverbs like perhaps, probably, etc., but, beside this "probability" subjectivity, there is another one that has the same importance : "desirability". There are many phenomena that can be explained by this "desirability" subjectivity hypothesis.

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Paper short abstract:

Quite contrary to the frequently mentioned agglutinating features of Japanese, with relatively easy division of a word into its lexical stem and grammatical content, some morphological phenomena still happen to be misdefined. The omission of nominal modifiers (case drop) is undoubtedly one of them.

Paper long abstract:

Agglutinating features prevail in Japanese. Especially in nominal word units, it does note require elaborate methodology to divide a word into its lexical stem and grammatical content. It is also relatively easy to describe and systematize regular markers of Japanese nominal elements, both in written and in spoken texts and co-texts.

There may be doubts whether nominal phenomena of Japanese shoud be described in terms of declensional paradigm and recognized on the basis of regular morphological patterns (cases). Still, the task of description of a language in terms of regular morphological phenomena is probably not going to be facilitated by recognition of nominal modifiers as optional of virtually non-existent postpositions.

My presentation subject is inspired by a secondary though meaningful remark made by Professor Bjarke Frellevig (2010: 410-411), who states it overtly that: "obligatory marking of all core arguments (subjects and objects) by case particles in written Japanese today is a written language feature [...] It was not a feature of written Japanese before the genbun 'itchi reforms, nor was it ever, or is today, a feature of spoken Japanese, where omission of case particles (case drop) has always been frequent." Apart from unjustified overestimation of the phenomenon of case drop in contemporary Japanese, this remark also seems to severely underestimate the role of nominal element regular marking in classical Japanese.

Japanese nouns, as traditionally neglected parts of speech, do not seem to draw attention of Japanese grammarians, being usually described as non-inflected by the very definition of the taigen supercategory to which they belong. At the same time, neither the communication without nouns, nor with total drop of nominal modifiers seems possible. Also the phenomenon of case drop may and should be described as a systematic feature of Japanese. Some remarks on such approach are going to be presented.

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Paper short abstract:

This study examines ellipsis in Japanese and Korean, focusing on strategies frequently adopted for achieving conciseness. The survey of translated subtitles and newspaper headlines shows that the two languages utilize different strategies in order to meet spatial and temporal constraints.

Paper long abstract:

This study examines strategies frequently adopted in Japanese and Korean texts for achieving conciseness, and investigates how data related to these strategies show differences in structural features between the two languages. In particular, the survey of translated subtitles and newspaper headlines—two types of texts which tend to be shortened—shows that the two languages utilize different strategies in order to meet spatial and temporal constraints (such as word count) and to simultaneously deliver as much information as possible.

We tend to omit elements for efficiency in verbal communication. Production of a maximally informative utterance with minimal effort can involve shortening the utterance, as well as increasing the amount of information per linguistic unit. To this end, we find ellipsis: a universal linguistic behavior observable in both written and spoken utterances involving the omission of certain contextually-evident elements.

In Japanese, one commonly observed tactic in elliptical texts is the complete or partial truncation of predicates. Such predicates which are easily inferable from the retained elements and the established context can potentially be removed in many Japanese subtitle texts. Furthermore, removing certain types of function words from predicates is spatially efficient in that it allows for the elimination of grammatical forms such as tense, modality, aspect, and voice. Predicate truncation can be observed in both subtitles and newspaper headlines in Japanese. In contrast, however, Korean subtitles, rarely display this kind of omission. Much more common is the omission of particles in newspaper headlines. This tendency results in the frequent production of ad hoc, compact word-like structures which can be considered a strategy for the production of Korean headline texts.

These observations lead to the conclusion that these two languages employ different strategies in the production of reduced forms. Japanese frequently makes use of truncated predicates, which are morphologically or syntactically incomplete, by removing verbs or functional elements from predicates. In contrast, Korean shows a tendency toward omitting particles assigned by a predicate and then retaining that predicate. This difference also corroborates the presence of structural differences between the two languages which have been noted in prior contrastive research.