Positionally-Sensitive Grammar: Reversed polarity questions in Japanese

Abstract

The present study explores how grammar is adapted to, or affected by, different sequential positions. It presents an analysis of a type of negative question called a Reversed Polarity Question (RPQ) (Koshik, 2002, 2005, 2010) in naturally occurring Japanese talk-in-interaction. The data examined in this study comprises 12 video-recorded everyday conversations. The RPQ examined in this study has been recognized as a relatively new grammatical item with a distinctive intonation contour and is generally considered a resource for a request for agreement. However, the ways in which the RPQ is utilized in actual interaction have not been investigated in the literature. This study, which employs conversation analysis, is thus the first attempt to systematically investigate the RPQs actually utilized by conversational participants. The present investigation is specifically focused on RPQs deployed in first and second positions within assessment sequences. The study reveals their commonalties and differences. RPQs deployed in these positions commonly convey the speaker’s evaluative statement about a particular object or person on the basis of participants’ symmetrical access to the object or person that is established in the preceding or subsequent talk. Such a statement appeals to the participants’ common sense, knowledge, or reasoning, which is invoked by the relationship between the statement and the preceding or subsequent talk. Also by the use of the interrogative formulation, the RPQ makes a response conditionally relevant. However, the RPQ deployed in second position conveys extra-meanings, which fundamentally emerge from the particularity of its second-ness. The statement expressed by the RPQ in second position is designed to be an alternative statement to a prior assessment. That is, by the conditional relevance of the question-answer adjacency pair invoked by the use of the interrogative formulation, the RPQ undermines the first-ness of a prior assessment and establishes itself as a new first pair part (Heritage & Raymond, 2005). Another important finding of the present study concerns the range of practices by which the RPQ speaker establishes participants’ symmetrical access to a matter at hand and thereby creates an environment for the production of the RPQ. Significantly, these practices differ, depending upon the positions in which the RPQ occurs. This difference affects the kinds of actions implemented by the RPQ.