Synchrony and diachrony of Okinawan Kakari Musubi in comparative perspective with premodern Japanese / / Rumiko Shinzato and Leon A. Serafim.

• Superior document: Languages of Asia Series ; Volume 11
• VerfasserIn: Shinzato, Rumiko,; Serafim, Leon Angelo,
• TeilnehmendeR: Serafim, Leon Angelo,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden, Netherlands : : Global Oriental,, 2013.; ©2013
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Languages of Asia series ; Volume 11.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (348 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.

Rumiko Shinzato and Leon A. Serafim bring a new dimension to kakari musubi (a type of focus construction, henceforth KM) research, incorporating Japanese and Western linguistic theories, and synthesizing Okinawan and Japanese scholarship. Specifically, they analyze still-extant Okinawan KM in comparative perspective with its now extinct Japanese counterpart, while also offering reconstructed Proto-Japonic forms. Major hypotheses on the origins and demise of KM with insight from Okinawan are also evaluated. In addition, viewing KM as consisting of kakari particle + nominalized musubi predicate, they compare KM with its structural analogs, such as (1) Modern Japanese no-da , (2) its corollary in Japanese Western Periphery dialects, and (3) English it-clefts. Finally, the authors apply iconicity-based analyses and grammaticalization theory, interpreting correspondences between deictic-origin particles, which are shared, their epistemically unique musubi forms, and their respective functions.

Table of Contents

Preliminary material -- Introduction -- Question-Forming Kakari Musubi -- Assertion-Forming Kakari Musubi -- Different Developments of Kakari Musubi in Japanese and Okinawan -- KM in Theoretical Perspective -- Conclusion and Prospects -- References -- Index.