An analysis of Japanese 'synonymous' adverbs and its pedagogical implications

Few studies exist on the semantics and usage of Japanese adverbs (Hida & Asada, 1999). Yet understanding the semantic dimensions encoded by adverbials is important for learners of Japanese, as the Japanese lexicon contains an unusually rich set of adverbially lexicalized distinctions. Surprisingly, Japanese textbooks and references provide little information on these dimensions, leaving teachers of Japanese with only their own intuitions about the subtle semantic and pragmatic differences between closely related adverbs. To advance beyond the beginning level of Japanese, learners must master these subtleties. This dissertation explores a number of these largely unstudied semantic dimensions, and offers pedagogical materials based on the study that are intended to assist learners in acquiring closely related families of adverbs.; Over one year, both written and oral evidence of adverb errors was collected from twenty subjects learning Japanese at the college level. Fifteen groups of Japanese adverbs were singled out as causing particular difficulty for learners, as evidenced by recurrent error patterns. This study begins with a linguistic analysis of these sets of adverbs. Based on the initial analysis, test frame sentences were constructed that highlighted the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic conditions particular to each adverb. Closely related, confusable adverbs were then substituted into the frame sentences, and the sentences were administered to Japanese learners. Results further sharpened the analysis of constraints for each adverb.; For example, sugu and moosugu both mean “soon”, but are not completely synonymous. Morita (1980) states that moosugu can only be used in expressing a future event from the present perspective. This analysis is shown to be insufficient: other generalizations (i.e. moosugu cannot be used in sentences that involve intention on the part of the sentence subject) are made.; Based on similar analysis of each adverb group, pedagogical modules were designed to illustrate distinctions. The modules were constructed by developing an instructionally logical sequence, based on the analysis. The significance of this study lies in the development of a method for explicating subtle semantic and pragmatic dimensions of often-confused, near-synonymous lexical items, and a method of incorporating this information into pedagogically sound language teaching materials.