JPN 4850 Structure of Japanese

Fall 2012
Section 008A MWF 7 period (1:55-2:45 pm) Mat 108
Sakai site: http://lss.at.ufl.edu/
Instructor:
Office:
Phone:
Email:
Office hours:

Ann Wehmeyer
Associate Professor, Japanese and Linguistics
320 Pugh
th
273-2961
Sengai Gibon, Signs of the Universe, 19 c
awehmeye@ufl.edu
T 7th period, W 5th period, R 4th period & by appointment

Course prerequisites: JPN 1131 or permission of instructor. Previous study of linguistics will be a plus but is not
required.
Course objectives:
The goals of this course are to learn to understand and to analyze the structure of Japanese with the tools of
linguistics. We will focus on areas that are distinctive in terms of structural properties, and areas of Japanese that
pose challenges to linguistic analysis in terms of theory. Upon completion of the course, you will be able to
describe and analyze Japanese from the following perspectives:

Writing system: history and complexities

Phonetics: the sounds of Japanese, and distinctive properties such as vowel devoicing
Phonology: accent and sound structure
Morphology: how affixation and compounding form words
Syntax: word order, configuration, complex structures, anaphora
Semantics: word meaning, information structure
Pragmatics: honorifics

In addition, a recurrent focus in the course will be to investigate the ways in which emotion is expressed in
Japanese. Emotion is an area of emerging research focus across many disciplines, including neuroscience,
psychology, anthropology, religion, linguistics, and animal science. Key to all is language. This focus will examine
the ways in which emotion is expressed through the lexicon, sentence final particles, mimetics, and grammatical
patterns of Japanese. Readings and discussions in this area will enhance your ability to:

Interpret utterances beyond their literal or surface meaning

Express emotion in Japanese in ways that are socially acceptable
Taking Japanese as a case in point, deepen your understanding of the ways in which it is possible to
express emotions in human language
Imagine the capability that might be required to approach the complexity of communication of
emotion in new technologies

Course materials:
Maynard, Senko K. 2005. Expressive Japanese: A Reference Guide for Sharing Emotion and Empathy. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press. 0-8248-2889-5. This textbook is available at the UF Book Store in Reitz Union.
Tsujimura, Natsuko. 2007. An Introduction to Japanese Linguistics, Second Edition. Malden, Massachusetts:
Blackwell. ISBN 978-1-4051-1065-5. This textbook is available at the UF Book Store in Reitz Union.

Course Reserves: Selected journal articles and book chapters in online reserves at UF library, indicated by CR in
the Daily Schedule. Go to http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/, and click on Course Reserves. After logging in, you will see a
menu of courses in which you are currently enrolled. Open JPN 4850/LIN 6571, and select the desired reading for
viewing or printing.
Policies and Expectations:
a.

The Honor Code: We, the members of the University of Florida community, pledge to hold ourselves and
our peers to the highest standards of honesty and integrity. On all work submitted for credit by students
at the university, the following pledge is either required or implied: "On my honor, I have neither given nor
received unauthorized aid in doing this assignment." All sources of information, including print, digital,
and verbal, must be acknowledged. Verbatim materials must be indicated as such with quotations marks,
and cited.

b.

Special Accommodations: Please let me know about any concerns regarding submission of assignments,
testing, or other class requirements. You are welcome to visit during office hours, catch me after class,
phone, or email. Students requesting classroom accommodation must first register with the Dean of
Students Office. The Dean of Students Office will provide documentation to the student who must then
provide this documentation to the Instructor when requesting accommodation.

c.

Attendance and Participation: Class sessions will combine lectures, discussions, media, and presentations.
Your attendance and active participation is essential to the success of the course, and to your grade.

d.

Preparation and Assignments:

a.
b.
c.

Read the assigned texts carefully ahead of time, and be prepared to discuss them on the date
that they appear in the Daily Schedule.
Exercises should be prepared ahead of time as you complete the readings, and should be
submitted to the instructor at the end of class on the date that they appear in the schedule.
Other assignments, as indicated on the Daily Schedule, are to be submitted to Assignments in the
Sakai course site and are due on the date indicated in the Daily Schedule/Assignments. Late
submissions will be assessed a penalty of one-half letter grade for each day beyond the deadline.

e.

Make-up Exams: Prior notification to awehmeye@ufl.edu, or 273-2961, and written documentation of

illness or family emergency is required. Consult with instructor to schedule the make-up exam.

f.

GEN ED
a.

This course counts as Social and Behavioral Sciences (S) and International (N).

Course Requirements and Exams

1.

Group Projects: Everyone will participate in one of the following Group Projects that will involve the
selection and analysis of data for presentation to the class. Sign up for a group in Sign Up on the Sakai
elearning site. One copy of the media for the Group Presentation must be submitted to Assignments in
elearning.
Affixation 1. Identify a productive affix in Japanese, and explain its meaning and process of word
formation with selected examples from Japanese. Refer to Tsujimura for processes of word formation.
Clear selection of affix with instructor.

2.

Affixation 2. Identify a productive affix in Japanese, and explain its meaning and process of word
formation with selected examples from Japanese. Refer to Tsujimura for processes of word formation.
Clear selection of affix with instructor.
Lexicon 1. Identify a set of nouns, verbs, or adjectives to compare and contrast with the similar set in
English. Ideally, this will be a set of words that do not share a one-to-one meaning equivalence with
the English counterpart set. Clear selection with instructor.
Lexicon 2. Identify a set of nouns, verbs, or adjectives to compare and contrast with the similar set in
English. Ideally, this will be a set of words that do not share a one-to-one meaning equivalence with
the English counterpart set. Clear selection with instructor.
Youth Slang (rykgo, wakamono-kotoba, shingo). Identify some contemporary neologisms that are
current among young people, and analyze for form and meaning.
Regional Dialect. Select a regional dialect, and outline its distinctive patterns of sound and/or
grammar to present to the class.
Expression of Emotion 1. Select a clip or segment from an anime, film or manga that illustrates use of
some of the lexical items or patterns presented in the readings assigned for this date.
Expression of Emotion 2. Select a clip or segment from an anime, film or manga that illustrates use of
some of the lexical items or patterns presented in the readings assigned for this date.
Expression of Emotion 3. Select a clip or segment from an anime, film or manga that illustrates use of
some of the lexical items or patterns presented in the readings assigned for this date.
Expression of Emotion 4. Select a clip or segment from an anime, film or manga that illustrates use of
some of the lexical items or patterns presented in the readings assigned for this date.

Exams
a.
b.

Exam 1, in class, M 10/01/12.

Exam 2, take-home due 12/12/12. Submit to Assignments in elearning by 12 pm in MS Word or
PDF format.

Grades:
Attendance and
participation
Exercises
Group presentation
Exam 1
Exam 2
Total

10%
15%
25%
25%
25%
100%

Grading scale: A (93-100), A- (90-92), B+ (87-89), B (83-86), B- (80-82), C+ (77-79), C (73-76), C- (70-72), D+
(67-69), D (63-66), D- (60-62), E (60 and below)

DAILY SCHEDULE
Date
Week 1
W
08/22/12

Topic

Assigned Readings

Introduction to course

F
08/24/12
Week 2

Phonetics

Frellesvig (2010), Writing, in A History of the

Japanese Language, p. 11-25. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. CR
Tsujimura, Chapter 2: Phonetics, p. 5-19.

Exercises

Exercises 1-4, p.
20-21, Tsujimura

M
08/27/12
W
08/29/12

Distinctive sounds and

alternations
Rendaku; Accent

Tsujimura, Chapter 3: Phonology, p. 22-50.

F
08/31/12

Accent under
suffixation

Week 3
M
09/03/12
W
09/05/12

Tsujimura, Chapter 3: Phonology, p. 50-81.

Tsujimura, Chapter 3: Phonology, p. 82-84.

Kawahara and Kao (2012), The productivity of a
root-initial accenting suffix, [-zu]: Judgment
studies. Nat Lang Linguist Theory 30:3, 837-857.
CR

Labor Day Holiday

Mimetics, Loanwords

F
09/07/12
Week 4
M
09/10/12
W
09/12/12

Exercise 9, p. 110,
Tsujimura
Exercises 3, p. 108;
8, 10, 11, p. 109111, Tsujimura

Tsujimura, Chapter 3: Phonology, p. 85-91.

It and Mester (1999), The Phonological
Lexicon, selection, p. 62-71, in The Handbook of
Japanese Linguistics, p. 62-71. Malden, Mass:
Blackwell. CR
Irwin (2011), Introduction to Loanwords in
Japanese, p. 1-21. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
CR
Tsujimura, Chapter 3: Phonology, p. 92-104.

Fast speech, Clipping,

Accent revisited

Lexical categories;
Word formation
Transitivity;
Nominalization

Tsujimura, Chapter 4: Morphology, p. 114-143.

Tsujimura, Chapter 4: Morphology, p. 143-159.

Exercises 1, p. 107108; 13, 14, p. 112113, Tsujimura

F
09/14/12

Compounds

Tsujimura, Chapter 4: Morphology, p. 160-198.

Exercise 5, p.
203, Tsujimura
Affix 1, Group
presentation
Exercise 1, 2,
3, 4, 6, p. 201204, Tsujimura
Affix 2, Group
presentation

Week 5
M
09/17/12

Syntactic constituents,
Phrase structures

Tsujimura, Chapter 5: Syntax, p. 206-224.

W
09/19/12
F
09/21/12

Configurationality and
scrambling; Classifiers
Anaphora, Reflexives,
Honorific marking

Tsujimura, Chapter 5: Syntax, p. 224-254.

Tsujimura, Chapter 5: Syntax, p. 254-273.

Exercises 7, 8, p.
338-339,
Tsujimura

Passives and causatives

Tsujimura, Chapter 5: Syntax, p. 273-301.

Exercise 9, p. 339,
Tsujimura

Noun-modifying clauses

Week 6
M
09/24/12
W
09/26/12

Exercises 2-4, p.
335-336,
Tsujimura

Tsujimura, Chapter 5: Syntax, p. 301-307.

Takara (2012), The weight of head nouns in
noun-modifying constructions in conversational
Japanese. Studies in Language 36:1, 33-72. CR

F
09/28/12
Week 7
M
10/01/12
W
10/03/12

Unaccusativity, Light
verbs

Tsujimura, Chapter 5: Syntax, p. 307-328.

Exam

Exam 1, on all materials 08/23/12 09/28/12

F
10/05/12

Functional structure of
emotion in humans and
animals
Postposing and
emotion

Adolphs and Heberlein (2002), Emotion, in

Encyclopedia of the Human Brain, Vol. 2, p. 181-191.
Amsterdam; Boston: Academic Press. CR
Ono (2006), An emotively motivated post-predicate
constituent in a strict predicate final language:
Emotion and grammar meet in Japanese everyday
talk, in Emotive Communication in Japanese, p. 139154. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CR

Week 8
M
10/08/12

Meaningbasic
concepts; Metaphor

Tsujimura, Chapter 6: Semantics, p. 340-349.

Matsuki (1995), Metaphors of Anger in
Japanese, in Language and the Cognitive
Construal of the World, p. 137-151. Berlin:
Mouton de Gruyter. CR
Hasada (2002), Body part terms and emotion in
Japanese. Pragmatics & Cognition 10:1/2, 107-128.
CR
Tsujimura, Chapter 6: Semantics, p. 348-360.
Ishiyama (2012), The diachronic relationship
between demonstratives and first/second person
pronouns. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 13:1,
50-71. CR

Exercise 5, p. 419,
Tsujimura

Tsujimura, Chapter 6: Semantics, p. 360-363.

Hasada (1998), Sound symbolic emotion words
in Japanese, in Speaking of Emotions:
Conceptualization and Expression, p. 83-98.
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Akita (2010), An embodied semantic analysis of
psychological mimetics in Japanese. Linguistics 48:6,
1195-1220.
Tsujimura, Chapter 6: Semantics, p. 364-397.

Lexicon 1, Group
presentation

W
10/10/12

Metaphor and emotion

F
10/12/12

Deixis, Pronouns

Week 9
M
10/15/12

Mimetics

W
10/17/12

Mimetics

F
10/19/12
Week 10
M
10/22/12

Tense and Aspect

Syntax-semantics
interface

Tsujimura, Chapter 6: Semantics, p. 397-415.

W
10/24/12
F
10/26/12
Week 11
M
10/29/12

Language and culture

Maynard, Chapters 1 & 2, p. 1-36.

Regional and social

variation

Tsujimura, Chapter 7: Language Variation, p.422-443.

Addressee honorifics

Okamoto (2011), The use and interpretation of

addressee honorifics and plain forms in Japanese:

Exercise 1, p. 333334, Tsujimura

Exercise 6, p. 419420, Tsujimura

Exercise 7, p.
420, Tsujimura
Lexicon 2,
Group
presentation
Youth slang, Group
presentation
Dialect, Group
presentation

W
10/31/12

Referent honorifics

F
11/02/12

Quotation

Week 12
M
11/05/12
W
11/07/12

F
11/09/12
Week 13
M
11/12/12
W
11/14/12

Evidentials

Intimacy and distance

Diversity, multiplicity, and ambiguity. Journal of

Pragmatics 43:15, 3673-3688. CR
Shibamoto-Smith (2011), Honorifics, politeness,
and power in Japanese political debate. Journal of
Pragmatics 43:15, 3707-3719. CR
Ikeda (2009), Quotation patterns in Japanese political
discourse. Toronto Working Papers in Linguistics, 34,
1-9. CR
Asano-Cavanaugh (2010), Semantic analysis of
evidential markers in Japanese. Functions of
Language 17:2, 153-180. CR
Maynard, Chapter 3, p. 37-43.
Suzuki (2006), Surprise and disapproval: On how
societal views of the outside correlate with
linguistic expressions, in Emotive
Communication in Japanese, p. 155-171.
Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Homecoming, classes suspended.

Veterans Day, classes suspended.

Post-positions,
sentence-final particles
and appeal
Basic emotions

Maynard, Chapter 13, p. 286-315.

F
Maynard, Chapters 4 & 5, p. 47-103.
Emotion 1, Group
11/16/12
presentation
Week 14
M
Evaluating, responding
Maynard, Chapters 6 & 7, p. 104-151.
Emotion 2, Group
11/19/12 emotionally
presentation
W
Intense emotions, Love Maynard, Chapters 8 & 9, p. 152-208.
11/21/12 and emotion
F
Thanksgiving Holiday, classes suspended.
11/23/12
Week 15
M
Conflict, Self-revelation Maynard, Chapters 10 & 11, p. 209-258.
Emotion 3, Group
11/26/12
presentation
W
Co-construction of
Maynard, Chapters 12 & 14, p. 259-285; 320-340.
11/28/12 emotion
F
Facilitating interaction
Maynard, Chapter 15, p. 341-365.
Emotion 4, Group
11/30/12
presentation
Week 16
M
Assertiveness, sarcasm
Maynard, Chapter 16, p. 366-402.
12/03/12
W
Exam 2
Exam 2 is a take-home exam, to be distributed in class
12/05/12
LIN 6571 Research paper findings presentations
Finals week
W
Submit your exam to Assignments in elearning by 12:00 pm. Use MS Word or PDF formats only, please.
12/12/12

Basic References in Japanese Linguistics

You should refer to MARTIN for any aspect of Japanese language, FRELLESVIG or MILLER for any aspect of
history of the Japanese language, and ALFONSO for any information about basic Japanese grammar or
sentence patterns. Consult KUNO (1973), SHIBATANI (1990), and IWASAKI (2002) on key issues in Japanese
linguistics. For recent treatments of key points of theory as they relate to Japanese, consult TSUJIMURA (1999)
and MIYAGAWA and SAITO (2008). For Japanese phonology, consult VANCE (1987).
Alfonso, Anthony. 1966. Japanese Language Patterns: A Structural Approach. Tokyo: Sophia University. 2
Volumes.
Clark, Paul H. 2009. The Kokugo Revolution: Education, Identity and Language Policy in Imperial Japan.
Berkeley, California: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley.
Frellesvig, Bjarke. 2010. A History of the Japanese Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Iwasaki Shoichi. 2002. Japanese. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Kuno Susumu. 1973. The Structure of the Japanese Language. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Lurie, David B. 2011. Realms of Literacy: Early Japan and the History of Writing. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard
University East Asia Center.
Martin, Samuel. 1975. A Reference Grammar of Japanese. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Miller, Roy Andrew. 1967. The Japanese Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Miyagawa, Shigeru and Mamoru Saito, eds. 2008. The Oxford Handbook of Japanese Linguistics. Oxford/New York:
Oxford University Press.
Shibatani Masayoshi. 1990. The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tsujimura Natsuko, ed. 1999. The Handbook of Japanese Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
Vance, Timothy J. 1987. An Introduction to Japanese Phonology. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Dictionaries
Haig, John H. 1997. The New Nelson Japanese English Character Dictionary, Based on the Classic Edition by Andrew
N. Nelson. Rutland, VT/Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle.
Iwanami shoten jiten henshbu. 1992. Gyakubiki Kjien (Reverse Look-Up Kojien). Tokyo: Iwanami
shoten.
Kakehi, Hisao; Tamori, Ikuhiro, and Shourup, Lawrence. 1996. Dictionary of Iconic Expressions in Japanese.
Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Masuda, Koh, editor-in-chief. Kenkyushas New Japanese-English Dictionary. Tokyo: Kenkyusha.
Ono, Susumu and Masando Hamanishi. 1981. Ruigo shin jiten (Dictionary of Synonyms). Tokyo:
Kadokawa.

Spahn, Mark and Wolfgang Hadamistzky. 1996. The Kanji Dictionary. Boston/Rutland/Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.
Tian Zhongkui, Shoji Izuhara and Jin Xiangshun, eds. 1998. Ruigigo tsukaiwake jiten
(Dictionary of Synonym Differentiation). Tokyo: Kenkyusha.
Yamaguchi, Nakami. 2003. Kurashi no kotoba: Gion, gitaigo jiten. Kdansha.
Dialect Atlases
Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyjo, comps. Nihon gengo chizu (Linguistic Atlas of Japan). Tokyo: Kokuritsu
Kokugo Kenkyj, 1981-1985, 6 volumes.
Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyjo, comps. Hgen bunp zenkoku chizu (Grammar Atlas of Japanese
Dialects).Tokyo: kurash Insatsukyoku. 1989- (3 volumes).