Functions of timeless sentences in Japanese oral narratives

This study presents a functional analysis of timeless sentences, which can refer to past time regardless of the tense form, in 44 Japanese first-person oral narratives from native speakers of Japanese on talk shows on televison. The timeless sentences include two kinds of timeless sentences: timeless RU sentences, whose present tense form RU can refer to past time, and timeless ellipsis sentences, which have no verb or tense morpheme. The goal of this study is to elucidate how these two kinds of timeless sentences function in oral narratives and how their functions can be explained by point of view. This study provides a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the functions of these two timeless sentences in relation to Labovian narrative structure, audience reactions, and evaluation devices.;The analysis in terms of narrative structure finds that these two kinds of timeless sentences differ in function, appearing with different kinds of clausal structure. The quantitative analysis of the functions of timeless sentences indicates that timeless RU is more frequently used when speakers report uncontrollable and experiential perceptions and when they present evaluative summative clauses, repetition clauses, and emphatic causal clauses. The functions of timeless RU sentences proposed in previous studies (e.g., foreground and background hypothesis, boundary marking, evaluation, and point of view hypothesis) remain valid. However, further qualitative analysis of exceptional cases shows that these functions are not the basic function of timeless RU sentences; in fact, a vividness effect was commonly observed. In regards to timeless ellipsis sentences, this study shows the skewed use of direct speech without a reporting clause in Japanese oral narratives. In addition, it finds a tendency for the te-form stop sentences (i.e., the gerund verb form) to appear often with evaluation clauses, which function to mark event boundaries, involving the audience in the evaluation without enforcing the narrator's evaluation.;Quantitative analysis of the audience's evaluative reactions and other evaluation devices with timeless sentences supports the conclusion that the evaluative function of timeless RU, direct quotes, and te-form stop is fairly subtle, and is mainly derived from the context. Furthermore, co-occurrence with other evaluation devices shows that being timeless is just one of many evaluation devices; informational saliency can be conveyed by other evaluative devices as well.;Finally, based on the linguistic evidence, this study shows that various functions of each type of timeless sentences can be explained in relation to point of view by using the cognitive operation called self-projection: the immediacy and vividness effect of timeless RU and direct quotes without reporting clauses are explained by the narrator's self-projection onto point(s) of view in the story world, while the boundary marking function of the te-form stop can be explained by the narrator's perspective in the storytelling world. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that evaluative timeless RU sentences are accounted for by divided points of view that both objectify and subjectify information simultaneously in order to share the information with the audience.