A Semantic Specification of Expressive Small Clauses in Japanese

Abstract

This paper develops a semantic analysis of Japanese expressive small clauses (ESCs)—phrases comparable to English You fool!—within Portner et al.’s (2019) participant-structure framework. We analyze ESCs and the nominal particle -me as conventional-implicature operators that update the hierarchical ranking of individuals. An ESC assigns its referent the lowest rank, whereas -me requires only that at least one individual outrank its referent. This entailment relation explains why -me contributes no distinct status-related content within an ESC but remains meaningful in clausal environments. The analysis also unifies the derogatory third-person and humble first-person uses of -me. We further analyze the honorific suffix -sama as an upward operator that assigns its referent the highest rank. This captures both deferential uses such as Tanaka-sama and self-aggrandizing uses such as ore-sama, while allowing multiple individuals to share the highest rank.