What L2 Learners’ Processing Strategy Reveals about the Modal System in Japanese: A Cue-based Analytical Perspective

What L2 Learners’ Processing Strategy Reveals about the Modal System in Japanese: A Cue-based Analytical Perspective* Mizuho Tamaji and Kaoru Horie Takamatsu University, Tohoku University tamaji@takamatsu-u.ac.jp, khorie@mail.tains. tohoku.ac.jp. Abstract. Japanese does not exhibit deontic-epistemic polysemy which is recognized among typologically different languages. Hence, in Japanese linguistics, it has been debated which of the two types of modality is more prototypical. This study brings Chinese learner’s acquisition data of Japanese modality to bear on the question of which of the two types of modality is more prototypical, using the Competition Model (Bates and MacWhinney 1981). The Competition Model notion of ‘cues’ as processing strategy adopted by learners reveals the continuity/discontinuity between these two modality domains. Keywords: prototype, the Competition Model, cues, processing strategy 1. Introduction It is cross-linguistically not uncommon for a single modal marker to represent both deontic modality (the conditioning factors being external to the relevant individual) (Palmer 2001: 9) and epistemic modality (speakers’ judgments about the factual status of the proposition) (ibid: 8), as in English should. This phenomenon is defined as polysemy (Traugott & Dasher 2002: 9). The deontic-epistemic polysemy is considered as a typologically prevalent tendency (Bybee et. al. 1994). Unlike this cross-linguistic tendency, deontic modality and epistemic modality are generally encoded by two distinctive modal markers in Japanese. This raises an intriguing question as to whether deontic is more prototypical than epistemic modality, or vice versa, or neither is. The aim of this study is to analogize the relationship between deontic modal markers and epistemic modal markers in Japanese based on the data of Chinese speakers’ L2 acquisition. 2. Deontic-epistemic polysemy in cognitive linguistics and grammaticalization * Thanks are due to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism. The usual disclaimer applies. This study was supported in part by a grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (#19520349). Copyright 2007 by Mizuho Tamaji and Kaoru Horie 471 The phenomenon of polysemy between deontic and epistemic modalities is observable among typologically different languages, therefore this phenomenon is considered as a cross-linguistically prevalent tendency. There are two main approaches which propose to account for the deontic-epistemic polysemy prevalent across languages, i.e. (I) the polysemic approach and (II) the monosemic approach. 2.1.The polysemic approach According to recent studies of cognitive linguistics (Sweetser 1990) and of grammaticalization (Bybee et al. 1994, Traugott and Dasher 2002), the deontic-epistemic modality results from the cognitive-diachronic process whereby epistemic modal meaning derives from deontic epistemic modal meaning rather than vice versa. For example, Sweetser (1990) explains this process as in (1). (1) John must be at home right now. The sentence (1) can be interpreted in two ways: (i) John is obliged to be at home (deontic usage of must) and (ii) the circumstance compels the speaker to judge that John is at home (epistemic usage of must). Deontic usage implies that the force-dynamics in a real world imposed by the speaker and/or other several actors compels the subject (or others) to perform a certain action. Epistemic usage suggests that …

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