On the Usage for Degree Modification of Adverbs for Partial Quantities in Modern Japanese

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  • 現代日本語の部分量を表す副詞の程度修飾用法について
  • ゲンダイ ニホンゴ ノ ブブンリョウ オ アラワス フクシ ノ テイド シュウショク ヨウホウ ニ ツイテ

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In modern Japanese, the behavior of the adverbs "sukoshi (a little)," "hotondo (almost)," "zenbu (all)," and so on, which express partial quantities, is not uniform. In this paper, we observed and analyzed the differences in the distribution of these adverbs in terms of their usage for degree modification, mainly in terms of the types of predicative expressions that can co-occur with each adverb and their meanings. As a result, this paper presents an analysis of the differences among adverbs expressing partial quantities in modern Japanese, showing the differences in their respective behaviors. The results show that some adverbs expressing partial quantities can modify degrees while others cannot, that "sukoshi (a little)" expresses a difference in degree from a reference value and thus can easily co-occur with state predicates, mainly adjectives, while "hanbun (half)" requires a "whole scale" in which both the lower and upper limits are defined, and that, as pointed out by Sano (1999), "hotondo (almost)" can express the state of being as close as possible to a specific point without the definition of the entire scale, which is a similar strategy to the "progressive achievements" in English and Korean.

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