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Choice of Conditional: Nara Nonara and Nodattara

På svenska

Author

  • Niklas Nyberg

Summary, in English

The purpose of this thesis is to differentiate between the usage of three very similar Japanese conditionals: nara, nonara, and nodattara. A questionnaire study to find connections between the choice of conditionals depending on the surrounding expressions was conducted to establish potential rules and patterns of usage.
The research found that short sentences, negative protases, and conditionally realis type sentences correlate positively with nara. Nonara, on the other hand, correlates positively with long sentences, positive protases and conditionally irrealis type sentences. Furthermore, it was found that the conditional expression nodattara is a neutral-masculine expression. This means that the use of nodattara has more to do with the gender of the speaker than with the type of the sentence.
Previous research on the factors that either contributed to the choice of stimuli for the questionnaire, or that are needed to understand the results are showcased. These factors include noda, tense, certain modal expressions and grammatical forms

Department/s

Publishing year

2017

Language

English

Document type

Student publication for Bachelor's degree

Topic

  • Languages and Literatures

Keywords

  • Japanese
  • Conditionals
  • Nara
  • Nonara
  • Nodattara
  • Noda
  • Copula.

Supervisor

  • Shinichiro Ishihara (Reader)