Tohru Seraku
Biographic Data
| ID | 965713 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tohru Seraku |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tohru |
| FAMILY NAME | Seraku |
| SIGNATURE | SERAKU T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hankuk University of Foreign Studies |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6684-4826 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The versatile coordinator - ya in Japanese: At the semantics–pragmatics interface
The Japanese coordinator - ya is noteworthy for its interpretive versatility, allowing not only conjunctive and disjunctive interpretations but also what this paper terms ‘partial’ interpretations. Although partial interpretations have been described previously, their distinctive properties, particularly their differentiation from disjunctions, have not been fully elucidated. Another issue in the literature is that, whilst the structural and inte…
Polyfunctional heri (হেৰি) in Assamese: A view from Discourse Grammar
Whilst there is a wealth of morphosyntactic studies on Assamese (Indo–Aryan), little attention has been paid to its semantic and pragmatic aspects. In this paper, we describe the polyfunctional item heri in Assamese, drawing on examples from podcasts, supplemented by film and web series scripts. We show that heri functions as a vocative (politely addressing an unknown person), a placeholder (substituting for a target form), an interjective hesita…
Placeholders and interjective hesitators: A crosslinguistic and functional approach
In spontaneous discourse, a communicator may be unable or unwilling to produce certain words for contextual reasons. An effective strategy to overcome such difficulties is the use of a placeholder like whatchamacallit . It has been observed that in some languages, demonstrative-related placeholder forms also serve as an interjective hesitator, the type of expression illustrated with um, well , etc. This paper reveals that this functional duality …
A versatile placeholder in Hawai‘i Creole: The case of polyfunctional da kine
A placeholder is a dummy element with which a speaker fills the grammatical slot of a target form that they are unable or unwilling to produce. Despite the growing body of work on placeholders, no extensive attention has been paid to placeholders in pidgin and creole languages. In this paper, we characterize da kine (cf. ‘the kind’) in Hawai‘i Creole as a placeholder and describe its grammatical and functional properties through examples retrieve…
Placeholders in written language: The case of Japanese kō and otsu
Japanese unnun as a meta-discourse placeholder: Exploring its grammatical and functional properties
Previous studies have described a range of placeholder (PH) items. A PH fills in the grammatical slot of a target that a speaker is unable or unwilling to produce. This paper argues that Japanese unnun , an expression wholly underdescribed in the literature, serves as a PH and that it may also be used as a general extender (GE). Unlike previously known PHs, unnun is regarded as a ‘meta-discourse’ PH; it replaces a discourse segment, rather than a…
I get off at ten past I'm never going out with you: A study on dissociative syntactic amalgams
Intransparent-Gap Relatives in Japanese
In the present article, we describe what we call Intransparent-Gap Relatives (IGRs) in Japanese. In IGRs, a gap is located within the relative clause, and the head noun appears outside the relative clause. Unlike the standard head-external relatives, the gap in IGRs is not transparently associated with the head noun, but they are mediated through a metonymic relation. We propose a formal account of IGRs in terms of incremental parsing in Dynamic …
Placeholders in crosslinguistic perspective: Abilities, Preferences, and Usage Motives
In spontaneous discourse, a speaker sometimes encounters word-formulation trouble, and she may use a 'placeholder' (PH) such as whatchamacallit and you-know-what, a dummy expression to be inserted into the slot of a 'target form' in the sentence structure of an utterance. It has been widely held that there are two types of usage motives: (i) a speaker cannot produce a target form when, e.g., she does not recall it, or (ii) a speaker does not want…
Grammars for placeholders: The dynamic turn
In verbal communication, when a speaker encounters a word-formulation problem (e.g. memory lapse), she may resort to several linguistic strategies, including the use of a placeholder (PH). A PH is a dummy item with which a speaker fills in the syntactic slot of a target form that she is unable or unwilling to produce. There is a growing body of work investigating PHs in a variety of languages, but the bulk of extant studies provide a descriptive …
Creating placeholders on the fly: A metarepresentational approach
Grammatically unstable placeholders and morpho-syntactic remedies: Evidence from East Asian languages
When a communicator faces a word-formulation problem, they may use a placeholder (PH) such as whatchamacallit to avoid producing a target expression or to delay it. A PH is a dummy element used to fill in the syntactic slot of a target item that a communicator is unable or unwilling to produce (e.g. due to memory lapse). Previous studies have generally been concerned with grammatically stable PHs (e.g. whatchamacallit , you-know-what ), ‘grammati…
Referring to arbitrary entities with placeholders
A speaker/writer uses a placeholder (PH) to fill in the syntactic slot of a target word when she has no immediate access to the word or prefers to avoid explicitly mentioning it for contextual reasons. In the present article, I point out a hitherto understudied usage of PHs: a speaker/writer who does not have in mind a specific target form may use a PH to refer to an arbitrary entity (e.g. person, object, action, event, proposition). I substantia…
Interactional and rhetorical functions of placeholders: A relevance-theoretic approach
A grammatical description of the placeholder are in spontaneous Japanese
When a speaker encounters a word-formulation problem in interaction, she may use a placeholder to saturate the syntactic slot of the target expression in the unfolding sentence. Japanese exhibits the placeholder are , which is assumed to derive from the demonstrative are ‘that.’ Despite rich studies on placeholders, no serious attention has been paid to grammatical parallelism and differences between a placeholder and its original lexical counter…
Mi -nominalizations in Japanese Wakamono Kotoba ‘youth language’
This article explores grammatical and functional properties of mi -nominalizations in Japanese Wakamono Kotoba ‘youth language.’ In the standard variety, the suffix - mi nominalizes an adjective stem: fuka-mi ‘deep- nmlz ’ (= ‘profoundness’). This suffix is also used in youth language, but its productivity has expanded considerably. To mention a few, - mi applies to not only an adjective (stem) but also a verb, a noun, a pronoun, their phrasal co…
Grammatical nominalization in Yoron Ryukyuan
Despite extensive research on Ryukyuan languages, relatively few attempts have been made to describe Ryukyuan nominalization. This paper sets out the agenda for exploring Ryukyuan nominalization with special reference to Yoron Ryukyuan, which, we propose, has four nominalizers: - si, hutu, munu , and Ø (zero). We divide nominalization into GB (Gap-Based) and GL (Gap-Less) nominalization. Firstly, - si is the most productive; it realizes GB/GL nom…
Placeholders in Yoron Ryukyuan: A view from Functional Discourse Grammar
Poi in Japanese Wakamono Kotoba 'youth language: A view from attenuation at the speech-act dimension
The affective construction in Yoron Ryukyuan
In Yoron Ryukyuan, passives are formed through the verbal suffix ‘-ari’. In this article, we observe that the suffix is used to form a construction distinguished from the standard passives in several respects: (i) attachment of ‘-ari’ to a wide range of predicates, (ii) ‘-ari’ obligatorily coexisting with the clause-linking suffix ‘-ti’, (iii) the case-marking pattern identical to that of active sentences, among other properties. Semantically, th…
The doubling of giving verbs in Japanese: Convergence and divergence on the implicit side
A Dynamic Syntax modelling of Japanese and Rangi clefts: Parsing incrementality and the growth of interpretation
Multiple foci in Japanese clefts revisited: A semantic incrementality account
Placeholders in Yoron Ryukyuan: A view from Functional Discourse Grammar
Interactional and rhetorical functions of placeholders: A relevance-theoretic approach
Creating placeholders on the fly: A metarepresentational approach
Poi in Japanese Wakamono Kotoba 'youth language: A view from attenuation at the speech-act dimension
Multiple foci in Japanese clefts revisited: A semantic incrementality account
A Dynamic Syntax modelling of Japanese and Rangi clefts: Parsing incrementality and the growth of interpretation
The doubling of giving verbs in Japanese: Convergence and divergence on the implicit side
The affective construction in Yoron Ryukyuan
In Yoron Ryukyuan, passives are formed through the verbal suffix ‘-ari’. In this article, we observe that the suffix is used to form a construction distinguished from the standard passives in several respects: (i) attachment of ‘-ari’ to a wide range of predicates, (ii) ‘-ari’ obligatorily coexisting with the clause-linking suffix ‘-ti’, (iii) the case-marking pattern identical to that of active sentences, among other properties. Semantically, th…
Poi in Japanese Wakamono Kotoba 'youth language: A view from attenuation at the speech-act dimension
Grammatical nominalization in Yoron Ryukyuan
Despite extensive research on Ryukyuan languages, relatively few attempts have been made to describe Ryukyuan nominalization. This paper sets out the agenda for exploring Ryukyuan nominalization with special reference to Yoron Ryukyuan, which, we propose, has four nominalizers: - si, hutu, munu , and Ø (zero). We divide nominalization into GB (Gap-Based) and GL (Gap-Less) nominalization. Firstly, - si is the most productive; it realizes GB/GL nom…
Placeholders in Yoron Ryukyuan: A view from Functional Discourse Grammar
A grammatical description of the placeholder are in spontaneous Japanese
When a speaker encounters a word-formulation problem in interaction, she may use a placeholder to saturate the syntactic slot of the target expression in the unfolding sentence. Japanese exhibits the placeholder are , which is assumed to derive from the demonstrative are ‘that.’ Despite rich studies on placeholders, no serious attention has been paid to grammatical parallelism and differences between a placeholder and its original lexical counter…
Mi -nominalizations in Japanese Wakamono Kotoba ‘youth language’
This article explores grammatical and functional properties of mi -nominalizations in Japanese Wakamono Kotoba ‘youth language.’ In the standard variety, the suffix - mi nominalizes an adjective stem: fuka-mi ‘deep- nmlz ’ (= ‘profoundness’). This suffix is also used in youth language, but its productivity has expanded considerably. To mention a few, - mi applies to not only an adjective (stem) but also a verb, a noun, a pronoun, their phrasal co…
Grammatically unstable placeholders and morpho-syntactic remedies: Evidence from East Asian languages
When a communicator faces a word-formulation problem, they may use a placeholder (PH) such as whatchamacallit to avoid producing a target expression or to delay it. A PH is a dummy element used to fill in the syntactic slot of a target item that a communicator is unable or unwilling to produce (e.g. due to memory lapse). Previous studies have generally been concerned with grammatically stable PHs (e.g. whatchamacallit , you-know-what ), ‘grammati…
Referring to arbitrary entities with placeholders
A speaker/writer uses a placeholder (PH) to fill in the syntactic slot of a target word when she has no immediate access to the word or prefers to avoid explicitly mentioning it for contextual reasons. In the present article, I point out a hitherto understudied usage of PHs: a speaker/writer who does not have in mind a specific target form may use a PH to refer to an arbitrary entity (e.g. person, object, action, event, proposition). I substantia…
Interactional and rhetorical functions of placeholders: A relevance-theoretic approach
Grammars for placeholders: The dynamic turn
In verbal communication, when a speaker encounters a word-formulation problem (e.g. memory lapse), she may resort to several linguistic strategies, including the use of a placeholder (PH). A PH is a dummy item with which a speaker fills in the syntactic slot of a target form that she is unable or unwilling to produce. There is a growing body of work investigating PHs in a variety of languages, but the bulk of extant studies provide a descriptive …
Creating placeholders on the fly: A metarepresentational approach
Japanese unnun as a meta-discourse placeholder: Exploring its grammatical and functional properties
Previous studies have described a range of placeholder (PH) items. A PH fills in the grammatical slot of a target that a speaker is unable or unwilling to produce. This paper argues that Japanese unnun , an expression wholly underdescribed in the literature, serves as a PH and that it may also be used as a general extender (GE). Unlike previously known PHs, unnun is regarded as a ‘meta-discourse’ PH; it replaces a discourse segment, rather than a…
I get off at ten past I'm never going out with you: A study on dissociative syntactic amalgams
Intransparent-Gap Relatives in Japanese
In the present article, we describe what we call Intransparent-Gap Relatives (IGRs) in Japanese. In IGRs, a gap is located within the relative clause, and the head noun appears outside the relative clause. Unlike the standard head-external relatives, the gap in IGRs is not transparently associated with the head noun, but they are mediated through a metonymic relation. We propose a formal account of IGRs in terms of incremental parsing in Dynamic …
Placeholders in crosslinguistic perspective: Abilities, Preferences, and Usage Motives
In spontaneous discourse, a speaker sometimes encounters word-formulation trouble, and she may use a 'placeholder' (PH) such as whatchamacallit and you-know-what, a dummy expression to be inserted into the slot of a 'target form' in the sentence structure of an utterance. It has been widely held that there are two types of usage motives: (i) a speaker cannot produce a target form when, e.g., she does not recall it, or (ii) a speaker does not want…
Polyfunctional heri (হেৰি) in Assamese: A view from Discourse Grammar
Whilst there is a wealth of morphosyntactic studies on Assamese (Indo–Aryan), little attention has been paid to its semantic and pragmatic aspects. In this paper, we describe the polyfunctional item heri in Assamese, drawing on examples from podcasts, supplemented by film and web series scripts. We show that heri functions as a vocative (politely addressing an unknown person), a placeholder (substituting for a target form), an interjective hesita…
Placeholders and interjective hesitators: A crosslinguistic and functional approach
In spontaneous discourse, a communicator may be unable or unwilling to produce certain words for contextual reasons. An effective strategy to overcome such difficulties is the use of a placeholder like whatchamacallit . It has been observed that in some languages, demonstrative-related placeholder forms also serve as an interjective hesitator, the type of expression illustrated with um, well , etc. This paper reveals that this functional duality …
A versatile placeholder in Hawai‘i Creole: The case of polyfunctional da kine
A placeholder is a dummy element with which a speaker fills the grammatical slot of a target form that they are unable or unwilling to produce. Despite the growing body of work on placeholders, no extensive attention has been paid to placeholders in pidgin and creole languages. In this paper, we characterize da kine (cf. ‘the kind’) in Hawai‘i Creole as a placeholder and describe its grammatical and functional properties through examples retrieve…
Placeholders in written language: The case of Japanese kō and otsu
The versatile coordinator - ya in Japanese: At the semantics–pragmatics interface
The Japanese coordinator - ya is noteworthy for its interpretive versatility, allowing not only conjunctive and disjunctive interpretations but also what this paper terms ‘partial’ interpretations. Although partial interpretations have been described previously, their distinctive properties, particularly their differentiation from disjunctions, have not been fully elucidated. Another issue in the literature is that, whilst the structural and inte…
Linguistics (20 works) · Computer Science (18 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (18 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation (16 works) · Artificial Intelligence (10 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (10 works) · Natural language processing (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Psychology (9 works)