Tiempo y oportunidades de aprendizaje

This category includes expressions which have meaning in both dimensions (+2d) and also require an argument (+f). The prime example in this category is that of Japanese honorifics, specifically those that are argument-oriented (called ‘propositional’ by Harada 1976). As McCready (2010) explains, such expressions are predicative in both dimensions, and they can be represented as follows (McCready 2010, Gutzmann 2015): (77) ⟦irassharu⟧ = λx. come(x) ♦ λx. be-honourable(x)

However, there is strong evidence that Japanese honorifics are actually presuppositional in nature. First of all, as noted at the start of the chapter, an account of honorifics in terms of two different dimensions stumbles on the presuppositional (when treated by a two-dimensional framework) woe known as the Binding Problem72:

(65) Dareka irasshaimashita. someone arrivedHON

‘Someone has arrived.’ At-issue: ∃x arrive(x) CI: honourable(x)

As explained before, although Potts’ (2005) initial project of expressives as CIs was immune to the Binding Problem, given the predicated total independence, as soon as truly mixed meanings such as Japanese honorifics are included in the data, the old problem simply resurfaces. At a first glance, the fact that these meanings seem to be

71 _{However, one characteristic of ‘yokumo’ that could testify for a semantic treatment is that it}

conveys a strong factive presupposition, in the sense that it feels awkward to utter a sentence with ‘yokumo’ when the factivity of the complement has not been established (Yasu Sudo, p.c.). Nevertheless, as this also holds for the Greek expressions mentioned above as corresponding to ‘yokumo’, it seems quite likely that the factivity is coming from the exclamative force of the utterances involved, rather than from any specific expression.

72 _{Potts & Kawahara (2004) contend that honorifics cannot appear in quantificational}

constructions, but as shall be explained below, the apparent incompatibility is in fact due to the unnaturalness of their examples.

81 susceptible from a presupposition-targeting malady is an indication that they could be presuppositional in nature.73

Indications aside, however, a presuppositional analysis of Japanese honorifics has already been proposed. According to Sudo (2012), unlike bona fide expressives Japanese honorifics are neither scopeless, as they can be embedded under operators, nor independent, since they can be quantified in. Let’s see how Sudo (2012) shows this with data:

(107) Sono ronbun-no chousha-ga yuumei-na kyouju nara, LSA-ni irassharu hazu da. the article-GEN author-NOM famous professor if, LSA to comeHON definitely

‘If the author of that article is a famous professor, he will definitely comeHON to LSA.’ (108) Demo gakusei-nara, ko-nai kamoshirenai.

but student if, come-NEG come

‘But if he is a student, he might not come.’

In the above example, the speaker is not referring to any specific person he has an attitude towards, but embedding honorification under a conditional operator, essentially entertaining the possibility that the author of the article in question might be a professor and saying that under this condition, they are worthy of respect. As we can see in the immediately following sentence, under a different condition in which that person is a student, no display of respect is needed as shown by the neutral counterpart of the verb. But if honorification is accounted as expressive or else use-conditional meaning, then it should be on a different dimension and as such it should be unaffected by operators such as conditionalisation:

(109) # If Conner is a bastard, then that bastard Conner was promoted. (Potts 2005: 157)

(110) # If that bastard Kresge arrives on time, he should be fired for being so mean. (Potts 2007: 170)

As unlike the above, the example with the Japanese honorific verb ‘irassharu’ is acceptable, it seems that it pairs up more with presuppositions than expressives:

(111) If Aretousa ever smoked, then she stopped smoking.

In the above example, the presupposition that Aretousa used to smoke is filtered by the conditional construction and does not project out, just like in the example with ‘irassharu’ the inference that speaker honours the author of the article does not project out but is contained by the conditional.

However, it should be noted here that Sudo (2012) mentions that the following example is infelicitous, which could potentially be seen as a complication:

(112) #Sono gakusei-ga yuumei-na kyoujyuu dat-tara, LSA-ni irassharou darou. that student-NOM famous professor be if, LSA to comeHON probably ‘If that student were a famous professor, he would comeHON to LSA.’

73 _{To be clear, this is not a problem for presuppositions, but a problem for a two-dimensional}

82 However, he observes that this is due to a preference of honorifics for de re readings, which can only be circumvented under the right pragmatic conditions; these conditions are not met in this example as the speaker is acquainted with the individual talked about, but seem to be in the example where the speaker does not know who that individual might be, as in (107). Yanovich (2010) has observed the same preference for de re in gender features, which have been shown to be presuppositional in nature (Sudo 2012): (113) (We know that Jesse is a man.) #If Jessei was a woman, I would marry heri. (114) (We don’t know if Jesse is a man or woman) If Jessei is a woman, I will marry heri. As a result, examples such as (112) do not constitute counterexamples. I will come back to such cases in chapter 5 and put forward an explanation of why they prefer de re readings.

Another example against the scopelessness of honorifics provided by Sudo (2012: 72) is one where the honorific is under the scope of an attitude verb:

(115) Taro-wa [watashi-no shiranai dareka-ga nani-o meshiagat-ta ka] kiitekita. Taro-TOP [I-GEN not-know someone-NOM what-ACC eatHON-PAST Q] asked me ‘Taro asked me about someone I do not know what he ateHON’.

In the above example, the speaker is not acquainted with the person Taro inquired about, thus the honorification can only be attributed to Taro than the speaker. Yet this example is felicitous, contrary to what is predicted by a theory in which honorifics are in a different dimension altogether. Again, this behaviour is rather reminiscent of presuppositions:

(116) Luca believes that Fede has realised that cats can grasp complex mathematical concepts.

Moreover, Sudo (2012) has presented data that have shown that honorifics can be bound by quantifiers, which should not be possible for expressives given their alleged independence:

(117) Onnano hito-ga hitori/zenin irasshatta. female person-NOM one/all comeHON-PAST

‘One lady/All of the ladies cameHON.’ (the speaker respects her/them) (118) Dono senshu-mo irassharanakatta.

which player-NPI comeHON-NEG-PAST

‘None of the players cameHON.’ (the speaker respects all players) (119) Kankyaku-no hotondo-ga o-warai-ni-natta.

audience-GEN most-NOM laughHON-PAST

‘Most of the audience laughedHON.’ (the speaker respects them)

The claim that Japanese honorifics specifically cannot be quantificationally bound was made in Potts & Kawahara (2004: 4)74_:

74 _{Remember that we also mentioned in the beginning of this chapter that Potts (2005) discussed}

83 (120) ??Hotondo-no kyoujyu-ga [pro sono kurasu-wo o-shie-ni-natta to] omotteiru. most facutly-NOM [pro that class-ACC teachHON-PAST C] believe

‘Most of the professors believe that they taughtHON that class’.

However, Sudo (2012) notes that the infelicity of this sentence is not due to the impossibility of the honorific to be quantificationally bound, but to the mismatch between the honorific form of ‘teach’ and the neutral form of ‘believe’. According to Sudo (2012), if we use the honorific form for the second verb as well, the sentence becomes perfectly acceptable:

(121) Hotondo-no kyoujyu-ga [pro sono kurasu-wo o-shie-ni-natta to] omotteirassharu. most facutly-NOM [pro that class-ACC teachHON-PAST C] believeHON

‘Most of the professors believeHON that they taughtHON that class’.

Given the above, it seems that the claim that honorifics cannot be quantificationally bound cannot be sustained. Again, the possibility for quantificational binding is reminiscent of presuppositions:

(122) Most of the band members have stopped using hallucinogenic drugs before going on stage.

Based on the above data and discussion, Japanese honorifics do not confirm core characteristics of expressives or else UCIs, but behave much more akin to standard presuppositions. As Japanese (argument-oriented) honorifics are not just the prime but actually the sole example of functional mixed UCIs provided by Gutzmann (2015), it is proposed that there is no category of functional mixed UCIs at all.