HOMEPAGE

Naoki Otani

Graduate School of Global Studies

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

Email: otani -at- tufs.ac.jp

Degrees:

March 2004    B.A.  Tokyo University of Foreign Studies

March 2006    M.A.  Kyoto University

March 2012    Ph.D. 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:

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

1. Otani, Naoki 2021.  "Reviews of Wallace Chafe (2018), Thought-based Linguistics: How Languages Turn Thoughts into Sounds," English Linguistics 37(2): 247-256.

2.  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.

3. 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

4. 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. 

5. 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.

6. Gries, Stefan Th. and Naoki Otani 2010. “Behavioral profiles: a corpus-based perspective on synonymy and antonymy,” ICAME Journal 34, 121-150.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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

1. Otani, Naoki (to appear) "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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. Otani, Naoki (2006) “A Corpus-Based Approach to the Come Out Construction,” The Fourth International Conference on Construction Grammar, Tokyo, September 1-3, 2006.

18. 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.

19. 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.