An Experimental Description of Deictic and Nondeictic Usages of Japanese Indexicals, ko-, so-, and a-forms

Abstract

This paper experimentally discusses the relationship between the deictic and the nondeictic usages of Japanese indexicals, namely, ko-, so-, and, a-forms. Two hundred and sixteen Japanese native speakers were divided into three groups according to their differences in their deictic usages of the three indexicals. They were asked to make well-formedness judgments on various Japanese sentences including the three indexicals in nondeictic interpretations. A decision tree analysis was performed for these judgments with the three indexicals and the individual differences in the deictic usages as independent variables. As a result, the main effect of the three indexicals and the interaction between the three indexicals and the individual differences of the deictic usages were significant for ko- and a-forms. Further, the correlations between the judgments on the three nondeictic expressions varied in accordance with the individual differences in the deictic usages. These results suggest that some of the governing principles for the deictic and the nondeictic usages are common while some for the nondeictic usage vary according to the individual differences in the deictic usages.