On the Functional Differences between the Discourse Particles Ne and Yone in Japanese.

PACLIC 28 !442 On the Functional Differences between the Discourse Particles Ne and Yone in Japanese David Y. Oshima Department of International Communication, Nagoya University Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Japan 464-8601 davidyo@nagoya-u.jp Abstract The Japanese discourse particles (sentence- final particles) ne and yone both have the functions that can be roughly characterized as the ⟨shared information⟩ use and the ⟨call for confirmation⟩ use. In the literature, an ad- equate descriptive analysis has not been ob- tained as to how the choice between the two particles is made. This paper aims to clarify discourse conditions under which ne and yone can be felicitously used. 1 Introduction The Japanese discourse particles (also called sentence-final particles) ne and yone each have a variety of functions, and both have the functions that can be roughly characterized as the ⟨shared information⟩ (SI) use and the ⟨call for confirmation⟩ (CFC) use. The semantic effect of ne/yone in their SI use is comparable to that of English reversed po- larity tag interrogatives1 with a falling tone (e.g. He was here, wasn’t he↘); that is, it conveys that S (the speaker) assumes that H (the hearer) has been aware that the propositional content (e.g., Ito’s having been sullen in (1)) holds. The semantic effect of ne/yone in their CFC use is comparable to that of English re- versed polarity tag interrogatives with a rising tone (e.g. He was here, wasn’t he↗); that is, it serves to form a polar question with expectation of the posi- tive answer (e.g., “Yes, I am Arai.” in (2)).2 1See Huddleston and Pullum (2002:891–895) for a general description of English tag interrogatives. 2The abbreviations used in glosses are: Acc = accusative, Attr = attributive, Ben = benefactive auxiliary, Cl = classifier, (1) Ito-san, I.-Suffix saikin recently nanka somehow kigen mood warui-{ne/yone}. bad.Prs-{ne/yone} ‘Ito has been kind of sullen these days, hasn’t he↘’ (shared information) (2) Sumimasen, excuse.me Arai-san A.-Suffix desu-{ne/yone}? Cop.Prs.Plt-{ne/yone} ‘Excuse me, you are Mr. Arai, right?’ (call for confirmation) Some scholars treat yone as a sequence of the two discourse particles yo and ne.3 I treat it as a single particle, however, based on the consideration that it is hard to compositionally derive the functions of yone from those of yo and ne. It should also be noted that, under the “sequence-of-two-particles” analysis, the different intonational properties of ne and yone cannot be easily explained (see Section 2). In the existing literature (e.g., Takubo and Kin- sui 1997, Miyazaki et al. 2002, Izuhara 2003, Ni- hongo Kijutsu Bunpo Kenkyukai 2003, Ohso 2005, McCready 2009), a satisfactory description has not been obtained as to how the choice between the two particles is made. This paper aims to clarify dis- course conditions under which ne and yone can be felicitously used. Section 2 illustrates, as a prelim- inary, intonational contrasts between the two parti- Cond = conditional, Cop = copula, Dat = dative, DAux = dis- course auxiliary, DP = discourse particle, Gen = genitive, Ger = gerund, Hon = honorific, Imp = imperative, …

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