This thesis examines a set of three utterance particles—ge3, laak3, and lo1—in Hong Kong Cantonese in terms of evidentiality, epistemic modality, and mirativity. Cantonese utterance particles have long been studied; however, close investigation of evidentiality and mirativity on a small set of particles is relatively rare. Previous accounts claim that ge3 and laak3 convey certainty. On the other hand, linguists also claim that the use of the utterance particle lo1 assumes a high level of knowledge from a hearer. This thesis has two main purposes: to untangle the differences between the utterance particles ge3 and laak3 in terms of epistemic modality and evidentiality and to reveal the mirative meanings of the utterance particle lo1. I postulate that the utterance particle ge3 conveys both epistemic modality and evidentiality. For epistemic modality, ge3 concerns a speaker’s knowledge. The evidential meaning—access to prior knowledge—is realized through implicature. This pragmatic reading is highly context dependent. In contrast, the utterance particle laak3 conveys only epistemic modality which concerns a state of affairs and signifies a change of state. Lastly, this study also reveals that the utterance particle lo1 has mirative values of sudden realization and counterexpectation under certain conversational contexts.

One of the distinctive features of Japanese is the presence of discourse particles. The only way to truly resolve what these particles mean and how they are used is to examine them in use and to study the entire system of many particles. In order to add to the attempt to do this by providing more data for the study of particles, this exploratory study examines a large corpus of naturally occurring telephone conversations in the online CallFriend Japanese corpus and conversations taken from the Japanese TV drama "HERO." This analysis of both naturally occurring and scripted data will lead to further understanding both of actual patterns of particle use by real speakers and the language ideology that informs the usage of language created for a specific purpose. The results suggest that using this method of analysis shows a great deal not only about how particles are used in discourse strategies and in showing a speaker's affective commitment to the conversation but about the semantics involved in their use.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(文学) / 甲第20108号 / 文博第733号 / 新制||文||642(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院文学研究科行動文化学専攻 / (主査)准教授 千田 俊太郎, 教授 吉田 和彦, 教授 吉田 豊, 教授 ｴﾘｯｸ･ﾏｸﾚﾃﾞｨ / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Letters / Kyoto University / DFAM

This study investigates how seven Chinese sentence-final particles (SFP le, ne1, ma, ne2, ba1, ba2 and a; hereafter SFP) and their features are represented in English speakers’ L2 Chinese. In this research, SFPs are analysed as heads instantiating different positions in the CP domain (Paul 2009, 2014, 2015), which are head-final, and in particular, they are considered to carry semantic, syntactic and discourse features. As there is no SFP in English, the features on Chinese SFPs are realised by a variety of syntactic means. Through a proficiency test and six experimental tasks, data from 76 participants (including 18 Chinese native speakers, 20 low-intermediate learners, 20 high-intermediate learners and 18 advanced learners) were collected. Results show that English-speaking L2 learners can easily establish the basic syntactic structure of Chinese SFPs and successfully acquire the features attached to SFPs ma, ba1 and a. However, they have significant difficulty in acquiring the features attached to SFPs le, ne1, ne2 and ba2. In general, syntactic features on Chinese SFPs are intact in L2 grammars, whereas semantic features (i.e. syntax-semantics interfaces) are very vulnerable. In addition, it is found that not all discourse features (syntax-discourse interfaces) are problematic. Findings indicate that both L1 grammar (i.e. L1 transfer) and L2 input (frequency, saliency and complexity) play important roles in affecting learners’ acquisition of the features attached to Chinese SFPs. In particular, learners seem to transfer all feature sets from their L1 English. Semantic features that have been transferred from their L1 English but that are neither confirmed nor disconfirmed by the Chinese input have become dormant in the L2 Chinese, which complements the Dormant Feature Hypothesis (Yuan 2014). Furthermore, the homomorphous SFPs which exhibit a ‘one-to-many’ form-meaning connection are believed to complicate learners’ recognition and acquisition of relevant features on SFPs. It is also demonstrated that the mapping of a feature across CP domains (i.e. from a two-CP structure to a one-CP structure) can be problematic and difficult. The discourse feature needs to be reassembled in L2 grammars, which advances the arguments of the Feature Reassembly Hypothesis (Lardiere 2008, 2009a,b).

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