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<p>In Japanese, the use of a negative preterite (past-perfective) clause (“…V-<i>nakatta</i>”) is pragmatically constrained, and oftentimes a negative nonpast-nonperfective clause (“…V-<i>te</i> <i>inai</i>”) is used where a preterite clause is expected. This work argues that the Japanese negative preterite invariably represents the occurrence of a “negative eventuality”—something whose existence and ontological nature have been extensively debated—rather than the “nonoccurrence” of eventualities. This has significant implications for the general-linguistic understanding of negation, (i) lending support to the supposition that negation comes in two varieties: “propositional” (or Boolean) negation, which expresses the nonoccurrence of eventualities, and “eventive” negation, which expresses the occurrence of a negative eventuality, and also (ii) implying that some negative predicate forms specifically express the latter. It will furthermore be argued that, while in general Japanese nonpast-tensed clauses specify that the topic time is the present or a future time, this is not necessarily the case with nonpast-nonperfective clauses, making it possible for a negative nonpast-nonperfective clause to represent the nonoccurrence of eventualities in a past topic time.</p>

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Differential coding of the occurrence of negative eventualities and the nonoccurrence of eventualities in Japanese

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年1月22日

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  • David Y. Oshima

摘要

In Japanese, the use of a negative preterite (past-perfective) clause (“…V-nakatta”) is pragmatically constrained, and oftentimes a negative nonpast-nonperfective clause (“…V-te inai”) is used where a preterite clause is expected. This work argues that the Japanese negative preterite invariably represents the occurrence of a “negative eventuality”—something whose existence and ontological nature have been extensively debated—rather than the “nonoccurrence” of eventualities. This has significant implications for the general-linguistic understanding of negation, (i) lending support to the supposition that negation comes in two varieties: “propositional” (or Boolean) negation, which expresses the nonoccurrence of eventualities, and “eventive” negation, which expresses the occurrence of a negative eventuality, and also (ii) implying that some negative predicate forms specifically express the latter. It will furthermore be argued that, while in general Japanese nonpast-tensed clauses specify that the topic time is the present or a future time, this is not necessarily the case with nonpast-nonperfective clauses, making it possible for a negative nonpast-nonperfective clause to represent the nonoccurrence of eventualities in a past topic time.