The semantics of reduplication in Japanese

Abstract

In this thesis, the author will examine some properties that characterise Japanese reduplicative nouns having plural referents which have not received adequate attention in the past. The author will also investigate some reduplicative adverbs in order to illustrate the semantic features they have in common with noun reduplication. The reduplicative forms dealt with here are the reduplication of a noun, of SONO (that) plus a noun and of a single number plus its numeral classifier. Throughout this thesis, the co-occurrence of numerals with each reduplicative form is examined so that the latter's semantic properties may be further ascertained. The most common semantic features observed in these reduplicative forms is 1. indiscreteness, which in this thesis is when the referents are part of something which cannot be separated from the place in which they are, and are not often separated from each other, 2. variety, that is, a difference in the referents in that they are different kinds of things, or they belong to the same kind of thing but are distinguished by people as being different and 3. stress on impressions, on subjecti.ve perception of the phenomena in question.