Naoki Otani
Graduate School of Global Studies
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Email: otani -at- tufs.ac.jp
Degrees:
March 2004 BA Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
March 2006 MA Kyoto University
March 2012 PhD Kyoto University
Employment:
April 2009 - March 2013 Assistant Professor, Center for English Education and Development, Saitama University
April 2013 - March 2015 Lecturer (tenured), Faculty of Letters, Kyoto Prefectural University
April 2015 - March 2019 Lecturer (tenured), Graduate School of Global Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
April 2019-present Associate Professor, Graduate School of Global Studies, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
Academic appointments:
August 2024 - March 2026 Visiting Researcher, Lancaster University
April 2007 - March 2009 Research Fellowship for Young Scientists, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
July 2007 - March 2008 Visiting Scholar, University of California at Santa Barbara
Area of Emphasis:
English Linguistics; Cognitive Linguistics; Construction Grammar; Corpus Linguistics; discourse and grammar; prepositions and particles; polysemy, synonymy and antonymy
Selected publications written in English
Books, articles, and reviews
Otani, Naoki and Willem B. Hollmann (2025) "From within and beyond: A Cognitive Grammar analysis of prepositional complements of prepositions," Cognitive Linguistics.
Szabó, Martina K. and Naoki Otani. 2023. "Corpus analysis of Japanese and Hungarian negative emotive words from a discourse interactional perspective," 218-225. Proceedings of the 24th Conference of the Pragmatics Society of Japan.
Shibuya, Yoshikata, Naoki Otani, Masato Yoshikawa, Naoki Kiyama and Willem Hollmann. 2023. “Variation research and its implications for Cognitive Linguistics,” Papers from the 22nd National Conference of the Japanese Cognitive Linguistics Association.
Otani, Naoki 2021. "Reviews of Wallace Chafe (2018), Thought-based Linguistics: How Languages Turn Thoughts into Sounds," English Linguistics 37(2): 247-256.
Otani, Naoki 2020. "A usage-based analysis of alternating syntactic constructions: the case of spray/load constructions and clear constructions,” In Ivo da Costa do Rosário and Martin Hilpert (ed.) Gragoatá 25 (52): 856-878.
Otani, Naoki 2013. A Cognitive Analysis of the Grammaticalized Functions of English Prepositions: From Spatial Senses to Grammatical and Discourse Functions. Tokyo: Kaitakusha. table of contents
Otani, Naoki and Fumino Horiuchi 2013. "The Grammatical Function of Under as a Head of Protasis: From Spatial Senses to Grammatical Functions," English Linguistics 30(1): 169-190.
Otani, Naoki 2011. "Reviews of Vyvyan Evans (2009), How Words Mean: Lexical Concepts, Cognitive Models, and Meaning Constructions," Studies in English Literature 88: 222-231.
Gries, Stefan Th. and Naoki Otani 2010. “Behavioral profiles: a corpus-based perspective on synonymy and antonymy,” ICAME Journal 34, 121-150.
Otani, Naoki 2010. “The Discourse Function of the Aside Constructions: From a Cognitive and Discourse-functional Perspective,” In Fey Perrill, Vera Tobin and Mark Turner (eds.) Meaning, Form, and Body, 223-243. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Otani, Naoki 2007. “On THEME / PLACE Alternation in Verb-Particle Constructions for Cleaning: From Cognitive and Corpus-Based Perspectives,” Proceedings of the 3rd Seoul International Conference on Discourse and Cognitive linguistics, 336-347.
Otani, Naoki 2006. “The Conceptual Basis of the Particle Up and Down in English: Asymmetries in the Vertical Axis,” Papers in Linguistic Science 12: 95-115. Kyoto University
Refereed Conference Papers
Otani, Naoki (2025) "The irregular complementation of prepositions in English: The case of far from," 2025 Annual Meeting of the LAGB (LAGB 2025), University of Suffolk, the UK, September 3 - 5.
Otani, Naoki and Willem B. Hollmann (2025) "Prepositional complements of prepositions: a cognitive grammar explanation," the 17th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC17), Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 14-18, 2025.
Otani, Naoki, Ryo Nagata, Hiroya Takamura and Yoshifumi Kawasaki (2025) "Using language models for linguistic analysis: The discourse function of initial vs. final dependent structures," Corpus Linguistics 2025 (Cl2025), Birmingham, UK 30 June - 3 July 2025.
Otani, Naoki, Ryo Nagata, Hiroya Takamura and Yoshifumi Kawasaki (2024) "Using language models for linguistic analysis: The similarities between the usage-based model and language models," The 12th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG12), University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 26 - 28 August 2024 .
Otani, Naoki (2023) "A cognitive sociolinguistic study of prepositional complements of prepositions in English," The 16th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC16), HHU Düsseldorf, Germany, 7-11August. 2023.
Otani, Naoki (2021) "The rise of modal meaning: The case of better off," The 11th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG11), University of Antwerp, Belgium, 18-20 August 2021.
Otani, Naoki (2019) "A constructional analysis of the ‘better off construction’ in English," The 15th International Cognitive Linguistics Conference (ICLC15), Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan, 6-11 August 2019.
Otani, Naoki (2018) "A usage-based analysis of low-level constructions: The case of synonymous verb-particle constructions," The 10th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG10), the Sorbonne Nouvelle University-Paris 3, France, 16-18 July 2018.
Ishii, Yasutake, Yoshihito Kamakura and Naoki Otani (2018) "Describing semantics of English prepositions in English-Japanese bilingual dictionaries based on cognitive semantic approaches," RaAM 12, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, 27-30 June 2018
Otani, Naoki (2016) "A usage-based approach to the spray/load alternation," The 9th International Conference on Construction Grammar (ICCG9), the Federal University of Juiz de Fora, Brazil, 5-7 October 2016.
Otani, Naoki (2016) "Prepositional Phrases used as Complements of Prepositions: A Functional and Cognitive Account," the 4th conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, 18–21 September 2016.
Otani, Naoki (2016) "A cognitive analysis of the use of prepositions and adverbial particles in English," The 46th Poznań Linguistic Meeting, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland, 15–17 September 2016.
Otani Naoki (2014) "Asymmetrical characteristics of up and down within synonymous verb-particle constructions in English," 5th UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Lancaster University, United Kingdom, 29 - 31 July 2014.
Horiuchi, Fumino and Naoki Otani (2014) "The Control Senses Revisited: The Case of the Prepositions Over and Under," 5th UK Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Lancaster University, United Kingdom, 29 - 31 July 2014.
Otani, Naoki and Nathan Krug (2010) “The discourse functions of dependent clauses and phrases: A usage-based analysis of synonymous constructions,” CSDL/ESLP 2010, University of California at San Diego, September 16-19, 2010.
Otani, Naoki (2010) “A Cognitive Study of the Aspectual Function of the Particles Up and Down,” ELSJ International Spring Forum 3, Aoyama Gakuin University, 24-25 April 2010.
Otani, Naoki and Stefan Th. Gries (2009) “Behavioral profiles: a corpus-based perspective on synonymy and antonymy,” ICAME 30, University of Lancaster, 28 May 2009.
Otani, Naoki (2008) “The discourse-organizing function of the particle aside in dependent structures,” 9th Conference on Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language, Case Western Reserve University, October 18-20, 2008.
Otani, Naoki (2008) “Embodied Scales and Asymmetrical Distributions of Antonymy: The Stable Sense of the Particle Down and its Cognitive Basis,” International Seminar on Embodied Cognition for Young Researcher, Kyoto, May 8, 2008.
Otani, Naoki (2008) “The Transitivity Hypothesis and Object Case-marking in Japanese: On the Transitivity of oyogu (Swim) in Japanese,”Workshop on East Asian Linguistics, University of California at Santa Barbara, February 23, 2008.
Otani, Naoki (2007) “On THEME / PLACE Alternation in Verb-Particle Constructions for Cleaning: From Cognitive and Corpus-Based Perspectives,” The 3rd Seoul International Conference on Discourse and Cognitive Linguistics, Seoul, July 6-7, 2007.
Otani, Naoki (2006) “A Corpus-Based Approach to the Come Out Construction,” The Fourth International Conference on Construction Grammar, Tokyo, September 1-3, 2006.
Lee, Jae-ho and Naoki Otani (2005) “Toward a Description of Grammatical Phenomena in Japanese –Based on a Cluster Analysis,” International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Seoul, July 17-22, 2005.
Otani, Naoki and Jae-ho Lee (2005) “Cognitive and Quantitative Approaches to English Phrasal Verbs -Asymmetrical Characteristics in Composite Structure,” International Cognitive Linguistics Conference, Seoul, July 17-22, 2005.