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Japanese imperative constructions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 June 2016

Gary D. Prideaux
Gary D. Prideaux*
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
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Extract

Modern colloquial Japanese exhibits within its grammatical system several types of imperative constructions which, on the surface, seem quite diverse. Examples of some imperatives are

All of these imperatives may be glossed as “close the window,” with various differences in style noted in parentheses. In each of the constructions above, both ‘window’ and o, the direct object marker, remain unchanged, while the shape of the verb ‘close’ as well as the presence of other morphemes such as ‘give’, ‘do’, and i, ro, imperative shapes, change considerably. The negative imperatives are equally diverse. Each of the following examples may be glossed as “do not close the window”:

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Linguistics/Revue canadienne de linguistique , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , Spring 1968 , pp. 110 - 121
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Linguistic Association 1968

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References

1 I am indebted to Mr. Takashi Yoshida of Tottori University, Tottori-shi, Japan, for his valuable comments, corrections and suggestions with regard to the contents of this paper.

2 Japanese forms are cited in a systematic phonemic notation, with each morpheme specified in its underlying form. The spaces represent morpheme boundaries, while ⌝ represents the underlying accent. Other junctures are omitted here for simplicity of presentation. Some morphemes must be represented with underlying pitch accent, while others will have accent specified by phonological rules. Each of the strings would, by various phonological rules, be changed into a final systematic phonetic representation.

3 For example, o i “please wait,” o e “please wait” (more polite), o i “please wait” (even more polite). etc. Such constructions as these must also be accounted for by the grammar. However, if the appropriate honorific rules are incorporated, the imperative transformations cited below will, without change, also account for these and other forms.

4 Jorden, Eleanor Harz, Beginning Japanese (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1962).Google Scholar

5 Such phrase markers would be generated by the Base Rules of the grammar. For simplicity, the phrase markers here use labelled subclasses rather than the syntactic distinctive feature model as suggested by Chomsky, Noam in his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1965)Google Scholar. The node labels in the phrase markers are defined as follows: S: sentence; #: sentence boundary; NP: noun phrase; Pred Phr: predicate phrase; VP: verb phrase; V: verb; Vt: transitive verb; Vb: benefactive verb; N: noun; N2p: second person pronoun; Aux: auxiliary; T: tense. The form is an auxiliary morpheme indicating politeness or formality in the verb.

6 In a complete grammar of the language these three rules would probably be more complex; for example, the conditions of identity on the NP’s of T3 would have to be specified in some detail. T1 will account for the te in such varied constructions as te ik ta “(he) took the book” and te i ru “(he) is reading.”

7 The grammar will contain a great many phonological rules. Further, the phonological rules should more properly be formulated in terms of binary distinctive features, as should the phonological shapes of the lexical and grammatical formatives.