rapaport@cs.Buffalo.EDU (William J. Rapaport) (03/14/89)
UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO
STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
GRADUATE GROUP IN COGNITIVE SCIENCE
PRESENTS
S.-Y. KURODA
Department of Linguistics
University of California, San Diego
The Cognitive Basis of the So-Called Topic in Japanese:
A Contribution to Discourse and Narrative Theory
The Japanese language distinguishes ``topicalized'' and ``nontopical-
ized'' sentences by grammatical means. This distinction is commonly
accounted for in terms of discourse theory. I once proposed an
approach, broadly put, in cognitive semantics, in terms of the distinc-
tion between ``categorical'' and ``thetic'' judgments, the distinction
originally introduced by Franz Brentano and Anton Marty. I would like
to give a fresh look at this distinction; I propose to separate
``affirming'' from ``asserting''. I will apply this distinction to
account for different effects that topicalized and nontopicalized sen-
tences bring to discourse and narration.
Thursday, March 23, 1989
4:00 P.M.
280 Park Hall, Amherst Campus
There will be an evening discussion at 8:00 P.M.,
at Mary Galbraith's, 130 Jewett Parkway, Buffalo.
For further information, contact Bill Rapaport, Department of Computer
Science, 716-636-3193.