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Research journal "Foreign Languages in Tertiary Education"
ISSN 2072-7607
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Karacharov G. V.

 

Changes in the pragmatic component as a result of morphemes bonding in Japanese demonstratives expressing personal deixis. Pp. 19–27.

 

UDC 811.521

DOI: 10.37724/RSU.2026.76.1.003

EDN: CJLUEN

 

Abstract. The paper provides a morphopragmatic analysis of Japanese demonstratives expressing personal deixis. The aim is to clarify the nature of the pragmatic component of these pronouns, according to the analysis of their morphological structure. The article hypothesizes the existence of a correlation between the bonding of morphemes of demonstratives and their pragmatic component. The methodology of the study is based on the morphemic and conceptual analyzes of demonstratives and their subsequent comparison. As a result of the study, the pragmatic components of individual morphemes of demonstratives expressing the indication of persons were clarified, and the relation between their bonding during formation and the pragmatic component of the pronouns themselves were revealed. The actual pronouns considered were: koitsu, soitsu, aitsu; kochira, sochira, achira; kocchi, socchi, acchi. In particular, the first triplet of pronouns performs external reference, indicating the third person (but implying the second person in some contexts) following the meaning of the first morpheme expressing the indication and the second morpheme meaning the person in the pejorative sense. However, even though the first morpheme is identical, the following triplets of pronouns can indicate the first person and the second person, thus functionally fulfilling the role of personal pronouns. The hypothesis and the method used to confirm it within the framework of morphopragmatic analysis constitute the novelty of this study in the absence of a sufficient number of academic works on the morphopragmatics of Japanese deictic elements written in Russian. In addition, the paper allows to consider the issue of the relationship between the pragmatics of morphemes in the composition of demonstratives at a comprehensive and deeper level. The study of pragmatics in synchrony allows to consider further issues of diachronic nature, including semantic and pragmatic shifts.

Keywords: pragmatics, deixis, grammatical person, morphopragmatics, Japanese language, demonstratives, indexical pronouns, pointing in language, anaphora in language, dynamic perspective, morphology, politeness.

 

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