Cover not available

Article published In: Pragmatics & Cognition
Vol. 31:1 (2024) ► pp.156–184

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Japanese unnun as a meta-discourse placeholder

Exploring its grammatical and functional properties

 | Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
Published online: 11 October 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.00043.ser
Abstract
Previous studies have described a range of placeholder (PH) items. A PH fills in the grammatical slot of a target that a speaker is unable or unwilling to produce. This paper argues that Japanese unnun, an expression wholly underdescribed in the literature, serves as a PH and that it may also be used as a general extender (GE). Unlike previously known PHs, unnun is regarded as a ‘meta-discourse’ PH; it replaces a discourse segment, rather than a linguistic form. I develop a cognitive-pragmatic account in Relevance theory, arguing that unnun encodes procedural meaning and that the PH and GE functions emerge through interaction among encoded meaning, pragmatic principles, and contextual assumptions. Further, the account situates unnun in the broader picture of vague language in a theoretically coherent manner. I also suggest that some of the previously described PHs in other languages may be re-classified as meta-discourse PHs.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Descriptive background
  • 3.Theory-neutral description
    • 3.1Data collection
    • 3.2Placeholder usage
    • 3.3General-extender usage
  • 4.Theoretical background
  • 5.Relevance theory account
    • 5.1Proposal
    • 5.2Placeholder usage
    • 5.3General-extender usage
    • 5.4Broader perspective
  • 6.Implications
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • Corpora
  • References
References (43)
Corpora
The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
The Corpus of Everyday Japanese Conversation (CEJC)
The Corpus of Spontaneous Japanese (CSJ)
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2008. The Manambu language of East Sepik, Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barotto, Alessandra. 2018. The hedging function of exemplification: Evidence from Japanese. Journal of Pragmatics 1231. 24–37. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blakemore, Diane. 1987. Semantic constraints on relevance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1992. Understanding utterances. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carston, Robyn. 2016. The heterogeneity of procedural meaning. Lingua 175–1761. 154–166. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Channell, Joanna. 1994. Vague language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cheung, Lawrence. 2015. Uttering the unutterable with wh-placeholders. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 241. 271–308. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Bill. 2013. Relevance theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutting, Joan (ed.). 2007. Vague language explored. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enfield, Nick. 2003. The definition of what-d’you-call-it: Semantics and pragmatics of recognitional deixis. Journal of Pragmatics 351. 101–117. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ganenkov, Dmitry, Yury Lander & Timur Maisak. 2010. From interrogatives to placeholders in Udi and Agul spontaneous narratives. In Nino Amiridze, Boyd Davis & Margaret Maclagan (eds.), Fillers, pauses and placeholders, 95–118. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hengeveld, Kees & Evelien Keizer. 2011. Non-straightforward communication. Journal of Pragmatics 431. 1962–1976. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jucker, Andreas, Sara Smith & Tanja Lüdge. 2003. Interactive aspects of vagueness in conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 351. 1737–1769. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Noh, Eun-Ju. 2002. A pragmatic analysis of kesiki in a Korean dialect. Journal of Pragmatics 341. 1879–1881. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Overstreet, Maryann & George Yule. 1997a. Locally contingent categorization in discourse. Discourse Processes 231. 83–97. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1997b. On being inexplicit and stuff in contemporary American English. Journal of English Linguistics 251. 250–258. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. General extenders: The forms and functions of a new linguistic category. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Podlesskaya, Vera. 2010. Parameters for typological variation of placeholders. In Nino Amiridze, Boyd Davis & Margaret Maclagan (eds.), Fillers, pauses and placeholders, 11–32. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saka, Paul. 2017. Blah, blah, blah: Quasi-quotation and unquotation. In Paul Saka & Michael Johnson (eds.), The semantics and pragmatics of quotation, 35–63, Berlin: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seraku, Tohru. 2020. Placeholders in Yoron Ryukyuan: A view from Functional Discourse Grammar. Lingua 2451. 1–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2022a. Interactional and rhetorical functions of placeholders: A relevance-theoretic approach. Journal of Pragmatics 1871. 118–129. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2023. Creating placeholders on the fly: A metarepresentational approach. Journal of Pragmatics 2101. 109–121. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. in press. Placeholders in crosslinguistic perspective: Abilities, preferences, and usage motives. Linguistics.
Seraku, Tohru, Min-Young Park & Sayaka Sakaguchi. 2021. A grammatical description of the placeholder are in spontaneous Japanese. Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale 501. 65–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seraku, Tohru, Soo-Yun Park & Yile Yu. 2022. Grammatically unstable placeholders and morpho-syntactic remedies: Evidence from East Asian languages. Folia Linguistica 561. 389–421. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shinmura, Izuru. 2018. Kōjien [Kōjien] (7th edn.). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. 1985. Loose talk. In Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 861, 153–171. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1995. Relevance: Communication and cognition (2nd edn.). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sudo, Yasutada. 2008. Quantification into quotations: Evidence from Japanese wh-doublets. In Atle Grønn (ed.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 121, 613–627. Oslo: ILOS.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sunakawa, Yuriko. 2006. Iu-o mochīta fukugōji [Compound particles with iu ‘say’]. In Yasuyuki Fujita & Makoto Yamazaki (eds.), Fukugōji kenkyū-no genzai [Current topics in the study of compound particles], 23–40. Osaka: Izumi Shoin.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tárnyiková, Jarmila. 2019. English placeholders as manifestations of vague language: Their role in social interaction. Brno Studies in English 451. 201–216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wharton, Tim. 2009. Pragmatics and non-verbal communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre. 2016. Reassessing the conceptual-procedural distinction. Lingua 175–1761. 5–19. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. 1993. Linguistic form and relevance. Lingua 901. 1–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Meaning and relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yap, Foong Ha & Huiling Xu. 2022. Indefiniteness, interrogativity, and speaker stance: Insights from the extended uses of ‘what’-words in Chaozhou. Journal of Pragmatics 2001. 158–179. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Grace. 2015. Elastic language: How and why we stretch our words. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Sarma, Abhijnan Pritam, Tohru Seraku & Sweta Sinha
2025. Polyfunctional heri (হেৰি) in Assamese: a view from Discourse Grammar. Folia Linguistica DOI logo
Seraku, Tohru
2025. Placeholders in written language: The case of Japanese kō and otsu. Lingua 325 ► pp. 104008 ff. DOI logo
Seraku, Tohru & Keolakawai K.G. Spencer
2025. A versatile placeholder in Hawai‘i Creole. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 29 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue