A new approach to Japanese -te-i-: A unified analysis based on spoken data

The Japanese auxiliary construction -te-i- ( -te-iru) is widely recognized for its diversity of aspectual interpretations, including progressive and resultative. However, despite a number of attempts, a truly unified semantic analysis of -te-i- has yet to be articulated. Part of the problem has been a lack of attention to the occurrence of -te-i- in actual language use, particularly unplanned speech (the primordial natural habitat of language). In this dissertation, I present a unified analysis that is grounded in unplanned spoken data, both recorded and anecdotal. I propose that -te-i- invokes non-punctuality (a quality of not being confined to a single point in time) that applies to the situation named by the stem of the construction.;One way in which the non-punctuality can apply to the stem situation is for it to be ordered as subsequent to that situation. In this semantic sub-field, -te-i- overlaps with the past affix -ta as well as the auxiliary construction -te-ari- (-te-aru), which invokes non-punctuality subsequent to the action (intentional event) named by the stem.;Much of the literature on -te-i- heretofore has focused on two interpretations of the non-punctuality, progressive and resultative, and attempted to correlate the occurrence of one interpretation or the other to the semantics of the stem. However, the semantic field of -te-i- is not limited to those two aspectual categories, different interpretations of the non-punctuality can occur with the same stem, and no algorithm such as verb semantics can always predict how the non-punctuality is to be interpreted in a given instance.;A quantitative study of recorded data reveals a number of patterns in the occurrence of both -te-i- and -te-ari- in unplanned spoken discourse: the past form of -te-i- frequently occurs to mark a proposition as the words of another; there is a preference against the use of the non-past form of -te-i- to invoke a past event; and compared to -te-i-, -te-ari- is very rare and highly skewed towards two stems.;These findings demonstrate the advantages of unified analysis of a linguistic form anchored in actual use coupled with study of how context influences the occurrence of the form.