The historical development of person markers in Japanese: the roles of linguistic signs
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2015
Abstract
This study is an attempt to explain the historical development of person markers in Japanese by means of Kellerian linguistic signs. It begins by assessing two recent papers by Heine and Song that use grammaticalisation theory as a tool to account for personal pronouns. Due to their rich semantic content, Japanese person markers belong to the open class and thus are not compatible with the concept of grammaticalisation. It will be demonstrated that three types of linguistic signs (symptomatic, iconic, and symbolic) and their use can shed light on the rise and development of Japanese person markers. The deployment of linguistic signs creates systematic pathways whose endpoint is the establishment of symbolic communication. The focus of the paper is to demonstrate how person markers concur with the mechanisms of linguistic signs and how social/interpersonal information is conveyed through this communicative activity.
Keywords
Grammaticalisation theory, Icons, Japanese person markers, Linguistic signs, Symbols, Symptoms
Divisions
FLL
Publication Title
Language Sciences
Volume
47
Publisher
Elsevier