PAPERS

DISSERTATION

[Abstract] Dealing mainly with peripheral phenomena in English and Japanese, this dissertation shows that there holds a systematic form-meaning correspondence in the realm of (not only the core but also) the periphery. The systematic correspondence to be demonstrated is characterized in terms of "formal markedness" and "functional specialization" and is described as follows:

Generalization about the Correlation between Formal Markedness and Functional Specialization

If a grammatical form is marked with reference to the grammatical convention of a given language, then the function of that form is more specialized than that of the corresponding unmarked form(s).

This simple generalization makes it possible to capture a number of seemingly unrelated idiosyncrasies as a natural class.

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