Q : E e, z e h i.
yes.
‘P: Won’t you come to my place? Q: Yes, I ’d love to.’
T his is quite com m on in Jap an ese con versation. Here Q ’s u tte ra n c e is in te rp re te d as being a co n tractio n of a sentence like (43).
(43) Q: Zehi ikitaidesu. go want
‘I really want to go.’
In th is situ a tio n , a declarative sentence like (44) m ay be possible. (44) Q: Zehi ikimasu.
go
‘I will go by all means.’
However, an u tte ra n c e like (44) is not acceptable to all speakers. An honorific c o u n te rp a rt of (44) such as th e following is m ore acceptable.
(45) Zehi ukagaimasu. go (HON)
Ukagau (visit) is an honorific (hum ble) equivalent of iku (go). T his sentence involves th e sp eak er’s will a t the m om ent of u tte ran c e .
Uses like (44) or (45) app ear m arginal. However, these exam ples can be an o th er in d icatio n th a t th e use of zehi is affected by p rag m a tic considerations.
7 .4 .4 . N o te s o n s u b je c t- o r ie n te d zehi
In a d d itio n , the following point should be noted. O bserve sentence (46). (46) a. Karera wa ikitagatte iru.
they TOP go want DUR
‘They want to go.’
b. Karera wa zehi ikitagatte iru.
Here, zeh i occurs in a sentence which expresses a su b je c t’s feeling of w a n t by th e T A G A R U c o n stru c tio n .* 1®
T he problem is th a t in this case zeh i is a ttr ib u te d to a sub ject, not a speaker. T h a t is, a use like th is is not regarded as speaker-oriented.
T his deviance can be explained in th e follow ing way. Expressions rendering w ant or in te n tio n range from objective description to a sp e ak e r’s subjective a ttitu d e .
In th e case of the T A I co n struction , it ca n n o t be used for a th ird person subject in presen t tense sentences, w hereas w an t of a first person subject ( = a speaker) can be expressed by the co n stru ctio n . T his c o n stra in t reflects the d istin ctio n betw een subjective expression and objective description of o th er people’s inner s ta te s of m ind.
Z e h i is not affected by such a d istin ctio n . It is basically associated w ith co nstru ction s which refer to th e realisation of an action. F o r th is reason, zehi m ay ap p ear in eith er the objective or the subjective dom ain.
**®In Japanese, tai in the present tense cannot take a third person subject (in speech). Instead, various syntactic devices such as the compound verb involving tagaru are employed.
7 .5 . G e n e r a l d is c u s s io n a n d c o n c lu s io n
T his c h a p te r investig ated adverbs which occur m ainly in im perativ e sentences. T he occurrence of the ad verbs in G roup 1-1 is restricted in im perative sentences (and those expressing pray er). T here are fu rther restric tio n s on types of im perative sentences: those in w hich the speaker assum es th a t h e /sh e has no a u th o rity over the listener. T he tw o c a n d id a te s, doozo and dooka (corresponding to please) serve to specify th e function of im p e rativ e sentences; th eir shared featu re is th a t they ind icate th a t the speaker leaves considerable control to th e addressee, as was explained in detail in 7.3.
T his m eans th a t these adverbs function to specify th e illocutionary force of im p erativ e sentences. T h a t is, th e function of these adverb s is to express a sp eak er’s psych o logical/su bjectiv e a ttitu d e to w ard im p erativ e force.
It is a p p ro p riate to reg ard these ad verbs as form ing a sub-class based on correspondence betw een surface restrictio n s and m ea n in g /fu n c tio n .
G ro u p 1-2 has only one can d id ate, zehi (by all m eans?). It can occur in im p erativ e sentences and functions like those in G rou p 1-2. F or instance, it is used w here th e speaker leaves m uch control to the addressee and when th e speaker assum es th a t th e actio n called for is n o t taken for g ran ted . F u rth e r, th e following poin ts should be no ted . T he basic fun ctio n of zehi is to intensify th e psychological inclination tow ard th e realisatio n of actio n . T his notion is closely related to th e illocutionary force encoded in im p erativ es and so fo rth . Still, th e d istin ctio n betw een perform atives and constativ es is n o t crucial in the use of zehi. This is the reason th a t th e adverb app ears to be sim ilar to those in G roup 1-1 in som e cases and to be like an intensifier in o th er cases. It follows from th is t h a t the zehi occupies special s ta tu s am ong SSA adverbs.
T hese groups handled in this c h a p te r differ from those sum m arised in C h a p te r 6 in term s of occurrence in basic sentence ty pes. T his m ay lead one to suspect th a t th e groups u n der consideration are d ev iant from th e m ajo rity of SSA can didates. How ever, it is possible to re -in te rp re t th is th a t for the c a n d id ates for the SSA categ o ry , th e m ajor en v iro n m en t is a single sentence type. A b e tte r generalisation follows th is in te rp re ta tio n . T he in te g rate d account in reference to this featu re is offered in C h a p te r 10.