Ewing2014

From emcawiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Ewing2014
BibType ARTICLE
Key Ewing2014
Author(s) Michael C. Ewing
Title Motivations for first and second person subject expression and ellipsis in Javanese conversation
Editor(s)
Tag(s) IL, Subject ellipsis, Pronouns, Javanese, Interactional linguistics, Conversation
Publisher
Year 2014
Language
City
Month
Journal Journal of Pragmatics
Volume 63
Number
Pages 48–62
URL Link
DOI 10.1016/j.pragma.2013.09.023
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

This article examines first and second person subjects in a corpus of Javanese conversational data where ellipsis is common, and shows that ellipsis is best understood as the default mode for subject representation in conversational interaction in Javanese. Thus the relevant question is not why are subjects ellipted, but rather what motivates their overt expression. Discourse functions associated with overt expression include topic and rhetorical structure, contrast, expression of stance and constructed dialogue. Previous discussion in the literature has associated ellipsis in Javanese with politeness, however results of the present study strongly suggest that politeness is a secondary motivating factor for ellipsis. Precisely because ellipsis is so common due to its role as a discourse grammatical device, speakers are also afforded the opportunity to take advantage of ellipsis to mark social relationships through avoidance of explicit pronominal use when this is interactionally expedient.

Notes