| This is a semantic study and is interested in the speaker's linguistic reality. The speaker's linguistic reality is the speaker's understanding of the world which is reconstructed linguistically.; The speaker's idiosyncratic view of the world is called the speaker's understanding of the world. We are concerned only with that part of the speaker's understanding of the world which is reconstructable linguistically. This study is cognitive in that its main objective is to investigate the speaker's linguistic reality, and it is linguistic in that linguistic evidence is used exclusively.; This study has three objectives. The first objective is to present an analysis of the speaker's linguistic reality within the Layered Space Hypothesis (LSH) model of mental spaces. The LSH model is formulated within the general framework of Mental Space theory. The second objective is to account for some illocutionary forces semantically. We claim some illocutionary forces are situationally derivative from the semantic representations. The third object is to introduce some of the semantic work in Japan to the western reader.; This study uses Japanese data primarily. The variety of the language is modern standard Japanese (hyojungo), spoken in most parts of the country as a common language. The data presented in the study are all attested and double-checked by other native speakers. English, Chinese, and French are drawn on when data of good quality are available.; Chapter I specifies the scope and objectives of this study. Chapter II outlines Mental Space theory (Fauconnier 1985, 1994), Danwa Kanri Riron (Discourse Management theory, Takubo 1989, Kinsui and Takubo 1990), and the LSH model of mental spaces. Chapter III discusses the hearer's space with a Japanese particle tte and other relevant forms. Chapter IV discusses the hearer's space and the resource space with sentence particles. Chapter V presents the partition model of the resource space. Chapter VI discusses the model utilized in this study. It is an attempt to represent the discourse prominence of mental space. Chapter VII evaluates how our study meets the objectives and the extent to which the objectives of the present study have been achieved. |
