An Introduction to The National Language Research Institute: A Sketch of its Achievements
Third Edition(1988)/ HTML Version(1997)

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II.2.4 Sentence Patterns in Spoken Japanese Part I- On Materials in Conversation

(Report 18, 1960. 347 pages)
This is a study of sentences in conversation to make clear the sentence patterns from the point of view of grammar. Materials were gathered from various kinds of daily conversation. We regarded a sentence pattern as a synthesis of three elements: 1) sentence mood, such as exclamation, statement, interrogative, imperative, etc.; 2) construction as a combination of components; 3) intonation. The work was begun with the identification of a sentence; it proceeded then to the basic studies of sentence moods, construction and intonation. 1. Sentence mood- The structures of expression were broadly divided into exclamations, statements, demands and responses. These were then further divided into 21 subclasses. The characteristic forms at the end of sentences were mainly investigated. 2. Construction- We investigated such patterns of constructions as the combinations of predicates at the end of a sentence with the other components directly related to the predicates. 3. Intonation- We observed the intonations at the end of sentences which were directly related to the formation of sentences. We divided the intonations into five patterns: level tone, rising tone I (/), rising tone II ( ), falling tone ( ) and a special tone. We then examined the correspondence of these patterns with the sentence moods. In the various expressions corresponding with the sentence moods, we examined and put in order what patterns of construction and intonation were used. Further, we presented typical examples. The persons in charge were OISI Hatutaro~, IITOYO Kiiti, MIYAZI Yutaka and YOSIZAWA Norio.

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