An Application Of "Middle-of-Sentence Expression Of Modality" To Japanese Focus Particles: SAE, MADE And MO

As is generally accepted, Japanese sentence structure consists of two parts:proposition and modality. Modality, being the "attitude of the heart", is the speaker'smood and attitude. The best part of the many works on modality is onend-of-sentence expression, which is the mainstream of Japanese modality study.However, making progress in the much-studied end-of-sentence expression and evenon modality is by no means easy. In this context, Zhang Wei (2004) proposed for thefirst time the concept of "middle-of-sentence expression of modality", and analyzedand illustrated with Chinese examples without mentioning the Japanese language.This paper will discuss three focus particles: SAE, MADE, and MO, in Japaneselanguage from the perspectives of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Based on "thetheory of scope embedding preference" of Minami (1993), a newly-proposed conceptof "pre-judgment" inspired by the concept of "expectation" of Numata (1986), andthe concept of "implicature" of pragmatics, this paper analyses examples andconcludes that SAE, MADE, and MO, the focus particles are closely related withmodality in both surface structure and deep structure. As it is at neither the beginningnor the end of the sentence, it is included in "middle-of-sentence expression ofmodality" as an "element of modality reference" This paper applies Zhang Wei'sconcept of "middle-of-sentence expression of modality" to the Japanese language andproves its universal applicability.