文副詞「もちろん」の意味

Semantics of Sentence Adverb Mochiron

Chen Joting

広島大学大学院教育学研究科紀要. 第二部, 文化教育開発関連領域

Bulletin of the Graduate School of Education, Hiroshima University. Part. II, Arts and science education

This paper aims at clarifying the semantics of Japanese sentential adverb mochiron. In the previous research, mochiron is equated with English expression ‘needless to say’, and usually translated as ‘of course’. More specifically, mochiron indicates the speaker’s acknowledgement of -and agreement on-the hearer’s belief or expectation. In this study, however, I argue that the hearer’s belief is not essential in order to use mochiron. As an alternative account, I propose that the proposition p of ‘mochiron p’ is inferred from two premises: p’ and a hidden reason r. That is, the speaker assumes that p’ is shared by all discourse participants as a common ground, but p is not because r may not exist in hearer’s knowledge and belief. As a result, the speaker and hearer may have different belief about p (p or not p), and the speaker expresses p with mochiron in order to convey the idea that p is inferred from p’ and reason r.

inference

knowledge and belief

a hidden reason

public belief

common ground

推論

知識・信念

隠された理由

public belief

共通基盤

Education [ 370 ]

jpn

広島大学大学院教育学研究科

[ISSN] 1346-5554

[NCID] AA11618725