A Study On Moods In Japanese Subordinate Clause Of Reason

Japanese is a language with rich moods which have been sufficiently studied in Japanese linguistics. Close attention has been paid to the research of moods ever since Japanese scholars put forward the opinion that a sentence is composed of propositions and moods. The devotion of many linguists to the study of moods has driven it to a brand-new stage. Nitayosio (1991) and Masuokatakasi (1991) brought up their own systems of moods respectively, which represent two typical schools of thought and have gained common acknowledgement.Researches by Nitayosio and Masuokatakasi mainly centered on the moods in the end of a sentence, while moods in subordinate clauses haven’t attracted enough attention. So far literature on subordinate clauses has focused on their classification, their predicate form, the function of their elements, the relationship between the meaning of some moods and their function, their subordinate degree as well as studies on similarities and differences between "ノテ"and"ヵラ". In particular, attention has been drawn to the comparison of moods in the main clauses of"ノテ"and"ヵラ". By reviewing the previous literature, the author discovered that only a little research has been done about the form and function of moods in clauses of reason, that is,"ノテ"clause and"ヵラ"clause, thus it is of great necessity to further explore this topic.This study focuses on clauses of reason, mainly about the mood form in"ノテ"clause and"ヵラ"clause. Through an analysis of a large number of examples, this paper classified the mood form in "ノテ"clause and"ヵラ"clause into mood of judgment, mood of politeness and mood of explanation. Mood of judgment can be further divided into mood of value judgment and mood of truth judgment. It is found out that normally "ベキダ","ダロゥ"and"ノ" will not appear in"ノテ"clause, about which a causal analysis is followed.Besides, the function of moods in clauses of reason has been identified. By applying relevant theories of the mobility of proposition and mood, this study examined and recognized the function of moods in clauses of reason which indicate the cause of matters, the basis for judgment and the basis for order respectively. The conclusion is as follows: moods in clauses of reason have the same meaning and function as they are in the end of a sentence, but if the mood in clauses of reason doesn’t indicate the speaker’s subjective attitude while speaking, it will lose its function and change into a proposition.In addition, this paper analyzed the restrictive relationship between"ノテ","ヵラ"and moods of main clauses. Many scholars believe that "ノテ"is always followed by declarative sentences showing the cause of matters, and that "ヵラ"can introduce both the subjective mood of assumption, persuasion and doubt and the declarative mood of objective description, however, this study discovered that"ノテ"can be used either in objective description or widely in subjective moods of assumption, will and doubt just like "ヵラ"."ノテ"is particularly used in situations where the cause of matters is emphasized because the speaker thinks that the listener is unlikely to understand it. If the main clause contains moods of persuasion or question, the use of"ノテ"might hurt the listener’s self-esteem by indicating the listener’s poor understanding and, so polite language is often used before "ノテ".Lastly, an analysis has also been done on the restrictive relationship between the mood in clauses of reason and that in main clauses. It is concluded that moods in clauses of reason are comparatively independent, basically without restraint from the mood in the end of sentences. Nevertheless, the author noticed that when the main clause shows the mood of judgment, if the mood in the end of the sentence is a truth judgment with a high probability, mood of value judgment in the subordinate clause can’t be the basis for a truth judgment, therefore it is unlikely to appear in the subordinate clause of sentences with moods of judgment, which is thought to be a valuable subject for future research.