Word Formation in Japanese

Abstract

The term “word formation” is used here as a broad term covering a wide array of word formation processes and morphological issues related to syntax and semantics. The reason Japanese is specifically focused on is that this language, though lacking a complicated system of agreement-based inflections and declensions that are common to inflectional and polysynthetic types of languages, is rich in word formation processes that straddle the boundaries of morphology, syntax, semantics, and phonology and is therefore considered to have good potential to contribute toward theorizing the place of morphology in the overall architecture of grammatical modules. Japanese has a wealth of concatenative and nonconcatenative word formation processes that produce complex words by compounding, affixation, conversion, inflection, blending, clipping, and other mechanisms, which are often conditioned by differences of lexical strata (native, Sino-Japanese, foreign, and mimetic). This article chiefly treats concatenative morphology, with brief reference to nonconcatenative morphology. Besides, the agglutinative character of Japanese makes it difficult to identify “words” in a unitary manner as in European languages. Defining the notion of “word” is also a key issue in mulling over the word formation phenomena in this language.

On the nature of morphological awareness in Japanese–English bilingual children: A cross-linguistic perspective

“…Japanese derivational prefixes, which may be either of native or foreign origin, are generally attached to a noun or noun equivalent (e.g., o-share “dressing up”) (Iwasaki, 2002). Sino-Japanese prefixes (i.e., those of Chinese origin; e.g., mu -, hu - and mi -) are among the very few examples of class-changing derivational prefixes (from noun to adjectival noun) that can be found in Japanese, such as shinkei “nerve” → mu-shinkei “insensitive” (see Kageyama, 1982; Nomura, 1973, for more examples). Japanese morphology also represents derivational suffixes, which are more numerous and productive than prefixes, as follows (Iwasaki, 2002): N(oun)-forming suffix atataka-i (Adj) “warm” → atataka-sa “warmth”V(erb)-forming suffix kira (N) “shine” → kira-meku “to shine”Adj(ective)-forming suffix tabe-ru (V) “to eat” → tabe-ta-i “want to eat”Adv(erb)-forming suffix ooki-i (Adj) “big” → ooki-ku “big”…”

Dissociating the processing of empty categories in raising and control sentences: a self-paced reading study in Japanese

“…Typical conditions in which Japanese raising and control structures appear are syntactic compound verbs. Similar to English, the surface string similarity and the functional differences between Japanese raising and control sentences have been widely reported (Kageyama, 1993;Koizumi, 1999, among others). For example, selectional restriction to subject was also reported in Japanese, as shown in ( 5) and ( 6).…”

Grammaticalization from Minimizer to Focus Marker as Upward Reanalysis along the Nominal Spine*

“…In all the three examples in (51), the verb kiru ‘cut’ is used as the second element of a V‐V compound; however, its semantics ranges from a purely lexical thematic one to an adverbial one to an aspectual one, depending on what verb the first element of a V‐V compound it is combined with is (see Kageyama 1993 and Himeno 1999:173‐175 for a discussion). Aoki (2010) shows that four different meanings of kiru in the V1+ kiru type V‐V compounds (which Himeno identifies as ‘severing,’ ‘termination,’ ‘completion,’ and ‘extremity’) have emerged in different time periods in the history of the Japanese language, and argues that the course of development of the different (more or less semantically bleached) uses of kiru is identified as grammaticalization.…”