Modern Japanese The Ni ¤© ¤± Ru Omitted Performance ¤Î Theoretical Basis ¤È Pragmatic Function Ni Off Su Ru Visits

Ellipsis, which has long been recognized as a ubiquitous phenomenon inlanguages, is found to be extremely common in Japanese and considered to be one ofthe three key features that characterize Japanese.The thesis first sets out with an overview of the research on ellipsis both at homeand abroad. Based on the results of previous research, ellipsis is defined from thegrammatical and the pragmatic perspectives as an incomplete construction derived bythe omission of one or more sentence elements that are essential for contextualmeaning in verbal communication, and the nature of it is argued to be unpronounced.In Chapter 2 the author proposes a classification of ellipses. Instead of adoptingthe traditional linguistic theory that distinguishes ellipsis constructions according totheir syntactic structure, the author classifies ellipses into inside deixis and outsidedeixis according to the verbal and non-verbal means contributing to the generation ofellipsis. Taking into account of the situation that research on grammatical rules ofJapanese still focuses on the rules of vocabulary usage, the author summarizes thegrammatical conditions that allow for Japanese ellipsis mainly in terms of vocabulary.Chapter 3 is concerned with probing into the conditions of the extended use ofelliptical utterances in Japanese. The author considers the linguistic features ofJapanese involving its general linguistic features as well as its internal uniquediscourse structures that could account for the occurrence of ellipsis. Besides, thetraditional linguistic psychology of Japanese people together with the deep culturalreasons is also explored.In addition to contributing to simplicity in communication, ellipsis is of positivepragmatic significance, which has long been neglected ever before. Consequently inChapter 4, incorporating the investigative results from the previous chapter, the authormakes an attempt to explore the pragmatic functions of the elided forms in Japanesein terms of such general principles in verbal communication as the least effortprinciple, the politeness principle and so forth, which specifically cover the following four aspects: ellipsis can contribute to simplicity in communication; ellipsis canhighlight information focus; ellipsis can void direct expressions of purpose; ellipsiscan realize the aesthetic value of implicative expressions. Meantime some suggestionson the appropriate use of ellipsis in practical verbal communication are also providedfor the learners of Japanese.