When an NP GA in a sentence indicates the meaning of 'NPX and only NPX' , it is said to have an exhaustive listing (EL) reading. Kuno frequently used a pair of question and answer sentences as a good example of that which entices an EL reading. The GA marked NPs which transpire in the answer sentences below all receive an EL reading.
(46) a. Dare GA dokushin desu ka? who NOM single COP Q 'Who is single?'
b. Jon GA dokushin desu. John NOM single COP 'John is single.'
(47) a. Kinoo okaasan kara nani GA kita n desu ka? yesterday mother from what NOM came COM COP Q '(lit.) What came from your mother yesterday?'
b. Kozutsumi GA kimashita. parcel NOM came
'A parcel came.'
(48) a. Sono naka ni nani GA haitteimashita ka? that inside at what NOM was put in Q 'What was inside it?'
b. Takusan tabemono GA haitteimashita. a lot food NOM was put in 'There was a lot of food.'
It is of interest to note that the notion of EL comes very close to Chafe's concept of contrastiveness previously referred to. Chafe used the sentence, Ronald made the hamburgers. in explaining his notion of contrastiveness, which in his terms involves the three factors of i) background knowledge, ii) the set of possible candidates and iii) assertion by the speaker.
The b. sentences above seem to involve at least two of the three factors proposed by Chafe: a certain assumption by the speaker, i.e., background knowledge, and assertion by the speaker. For instance, the speaker of (46) b. assumes that the person who asked the question
(46) a. assumes that there is someone (within a range understood by both parties) who is single; and by uttering (46) b., the speaker asserts that the person who is single is John. The second factor claimed by Chafe to be involved in contrastiveness, that is, the set of possible candidates, does not appear to be a necessary condition for EL. Some EL sentences may involve a set that is understood by the speaker and the hearer such as (46) b., but for some, like (47) b. or (48) b., it is difficult to imagine that the speaker knows or under stands the limited set of possible candidates the inquirer had in mind; the inquirer might not have had in mind any range of candidates at all. Therefore the second factor suggested by Chafe seems to be irrelevant at least for the concept of EL.
As Kato (1985:82) noted, one of the main issues involved in the analysis of EL in the past has been to identify the factors which induce the reading of EL for GA marked N P s . In Kuno's analysis of NP GA, as seen before, any NP GA could have an EL reading regardless of
the type of predicate it occurs with.
Although in past literature the discussion of EL has almost always been centred around subject NP GA, an EL interpretation is not unique or exclusive to the notion of subject and as such subjecthood can by no means be considered to be a deciding factor for EL.
(49) a. Jon WA nani o nomimashita ka? John TOP what ACC drank Q 'What did John drink?'
b. Koohii o nomimashita. coffee ACC drank
'0 drank coffee.'
(50) a. Oosutoraria de WA doko e ikimashita ka? Australia in TOP where to went Q 'Where did you go in Australia?'
b. Meruborun to Shidonii to Kvanbera e ikimashita. Melbourne and Sydney and Canberra to went
The underlined phrases seem to have an EL reading, since the speaker might well be considered to be lying if he answered with (49) b. and (50) b. when in reality John had not only coffee but also some beer, or when the speaker went to some other cities on top of the three cities mentioned.
Ota (1980:601) explained the instances of EL interpretation in English as a case of a purely pragmatic implication. He states that if a speaker answers 'John' or 'John did' to the question 'who came to dinner?' knowing that John and Mary did, the speaker might not be lying but is violating the Gricean cooperative principle: the speaker is not giving the necessary and sufficient information which is required of him by the above principle in order to establish a successful
interaction between the speaker and the hearer.
In Japanese then, under the Gricean principle any constituent including NP GA which corresponds to an interrogative word will perforce convey an EL reading.9 Taking into consideration the observation that factors such as type of predicate, case marking, do not actually delimit the possibility of an EL reading, it seems most plausible to account for the notion of EL as a pragmatic notion of
implicature, specifically the Gricean cooperative principle.10
Now that the meaning of EL has been identified, the remaining problem is explaining why NP GA is restricted to yield only an EL interpretation and cannot yield a neutral descriptive meaning when combined with certain predicates. The answer for this problem cannot be sought without first understanding NP GA as denoting the subject of neutral description. This is dealt with in the next two chapters.
9 A WA marking cannot occur with an interrogative word in Japanese and thus it cannot yield an EL interpretation.
10 Kato (1985:82) was the first to suggest that the EL reading of NP GA is a natural outcome of observing the Gricean cooperative principle.