Analysis of Second Person Pronouns at the End of Utterances in the Kyushu Dialects: From the Syntactic and Discourse Points of View

Abstract

This paper presents a syntactic and discourse analysis of sentence-final particles by second person pronouns (SPSPPs) in Kyushu dialects. The syntactic features of SPSPPs often occur independently without other final particles. The modality of the expressive category in which SPSPPs occur is overwhelmingly the informational modality, which is related to the exchange of information rather than the action modality. As a discourse function, they have an orientation toward congruence of information and an expressive function of intimacy. These analyses suggest that the substantive meaning of SPSPPs is bleached and that they function as a pragmatic acquisition of meaning, i.e., positive politeness.