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Article published In: Degrees and Grammar: An East Asian Perspective:
Edited by Qiongpeng Luo, Zhiguo Xie and Xiao Li
[Language and Linguistics 24:1] 2023
► pp. 36–73

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The role of comparison in discourse

The meaning and use of the Japanese utterance comparative expressions sore-yori-(mo) ‘than that’ and nani-yori-(mo) ‘than anything’

 | Kobe University
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 12 December 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lali.00125.saw
Abstract
This study investigates the meaning and use of the Japanese utterance comparative expressions sore-yori-(mo) ‘than that’ and nani-yori-(mo) ‘than anything’ and considers the role of comparison in discourse. I argue that sore-yori and nani-yori can compare individuals at the semantic (at-issue) level, but they can also compare utterances (speech acts) at the non-at-issue level (= conventional implicature (CI)) (e.g., Grice, Paul H. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Cole, Peter & Morgan, Jerry L. (eds.), Syntax and semantics vol. 3: Speech acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Potts, Christopher. 2005. The logic of conventional implicatures. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; McCready, Elin. 2010. Varieties of conventional implicature. Semantics & Pragmatics 31. 1–57. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . 2010. Pragmatic aspects of scalar modifiers. Chicago: University of Chicago. (Doctoral dissertation.); Gutzmann, Daniel. 2011. Expressive modifiers & mixed expressives. In Bonami, Olivier & Hofherr, Patricia Cabredo (eds.), Empirical issues in syntax and semantics 81. 123–141. ([URL]) (Accessed 2022-07-06.)). The utterance comparative sore-yori conventionally implicates that U in sore-yori(U) is more important than the previous utterance, and the utterance comparative nani-yori conventionally implicates that U in nani-yori(U) is more important than any alternative utterance.
An interesting feature of the utterance comparatives sore-yori-(mo) and nani-yori-(mo) is that their pragmatic functions are quite flexible. As for sore-yori, in some contexts, it can function as a topic-changing expression, but in other contexts it does not. As for nani-yori, when it occurs discourse-initially, it functions like the expression first of all, but when it occurs discourse-finally, it functions as an additive reinforcing expression. I argue that the pragmatic effects of utterance comparative expressions arise based on the interaction between their scalar meanings and the general pragmatic principles of relevance/Question Under Discussion and manner (e.g., Grice, Paul H. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Cole, Peter & Morgan, Jerry L. (eds.), Syntax and semantics vol. 3: Speech acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Roberts, Craige. 1996. Information structure: Towards an integrated formal theory of pragmatics. In Yoon, Jae-Hak & Kathol, Andreas (eds.), Papers in semantics (OSU Working Papers in Linguistics 49), 91–136. Columbus: The Ohio State University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar).
This study demonstrates that in addition to regular comparison and metalinguistic comparison, there is a third type of comparison: utterance comparison, and that the notion of comparison plays an important role in advancing the conversation economically/effectively. Finally, cross-linguistic variations in utterance comparison will also be discussed using English and Korean data.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The meaning and use of the utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo)
    • 2.1Sore-yori-(mo) as an individual comparison
    • 2.2The meaning of the utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo)
      • 2.2.1The utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo) operates on a speech act and has a property of a CI
      • 2.2.2The difference with metalinguistic comparison
      • 2.2.3The formal analysis of the utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo)
    • 2.3Deriving the function of topic-shifting
    • 2.4Comparison with typical topic-shifting markers
  • 3.The meaning and use of the utterance comparative nani-yori-mo
    • 3.1The individual comparative nani-yori-mo
    • 3.2The meaning of the utterance comparative nani-yori(-mo)
    • 3.3The formal analysis of the utterance comparative nani-yori-(mo)
    • 3.4Deriving the pragmatic functions of the utterance comparative nani-yori-(mo)
  • 4.The relationship between the utterance comparative sore-yori-(mo) and the utterance comparative nani-yori-(mo)
  • 5.Cross-linguistic variations of utterance comparative expressions
    • 5.1Korean utterance comparative expressions
    • 5.2English discourse-pragmatic comparative expressions
    • 5.3Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
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