12.1441, Qs: Negation & Focus, Japanese Noun Distinction

[The LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-12-1441. Tue May 29 2001. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 12.1441, Qs: Negation & Focus, Japanese Noun Distinction

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1)
Date:  Mon, 28 May 2001 10:19:36 +0530
From:  "sharbani" <sharbe at vsnl.net>
Subject:  Negation & Focus

2)
Date:  Tue, 29 May 2001 00:29:18 -0700 (PDT)
From:  Alexandra Terano <cassyterno at yahoo.com>
Subject:  Plural and count-mass distinction in Japanese nouns

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Mon, 28 May 2001 10:19:36 +0530
From:  "sharbani" <sharbe at vsnl.net>
Subject:  Negation & Focus



Hello,
I am looking for some work on Negation & Focus. I have tried downloading
Paul Hagstrom's paper on 'Negation Focus & do-suppport in Korean', but
it doesn't work.I'll be grateful if somebody could either suggest some
work or send me some relevant work.
Thanx a lot
Sharbani
sharbe at vsnl.net


-------------------------------- Message 2 -------------------------------

Date:  Tue, 29 May 2001 00:29:18 -0700 (PDT)
From:  Alexandra Terano <cassyterno at yahoo.com>
Subject:  Plural and count-mass distinction in Japanese nouns

Dear linguists and language lovers

I would love to turn to you with a pretty strange
topic. As we all know, Japanese nouns, verbs or
adjectives don't demonstrate number properties (unlike
plural -s in English nouns  or -s in 3d person sing.
in English verbs). For this purpose noun classifiers
are used. However the pronouns and a very small number
of nouns do seem to have plural (e.g. 'watashi' vs.
'watashtachi', 'kodomo' vs. 'kodomotachi'). I am very
curious about which nouns can have '-tachi' as plural
and whether there are other instances of having plural
in Japanese.

Another big topic is the difference between the mass
nouns and count nouns. In English as in some other
languages all is "simple": mass nouns like water do
not pluralize and cannot have an indefinite article
'a'; while count nouns like 'table' can be plural and
have whatever articles they like.  Japanese has
neither articles nor distinct pluralization on nouns.
Do Japanese speakers distinguish somehow between the
count and mass nouns?

I would appreciate replies of native speakers and not
only them. The corresponding references are also
welcome.
	
	
	

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LINGUIST List: Vol-12-1441