Demo “but”-prefaced responses to inquiry in Japanese

ABSTRACT

This conversation analytic study investigates the use of the Japanese contrastive marker demo “but” as a preface to responses to polar questions. Demo-prefaced responses are one type of nonconforming answers, that is, responses that provide (dis)affirmation to preceding questions without yes/no-tokens. This study explores how question recipients treat the preceding questions with their demo-prefaced responses. The data analysis is twofold: this research first examines the turn-initial demo to scrutinize basic properties of demo-prefacing in responses to polar questions; then the study explores how the basic properties are in effect with a + demo-prefacing (i.e., demo-prefacing preceded by the turn-initial particle a), the largest set of combined turn-beginning elements involving demo in the database. This study reveals that demo-prefacing fundamentally serves to proffer qualification upon implied affirmation. When used with a, demo registers question recipients’ implied acknowledgment of the legitimacy of the question’s presupposition while projecting disaffirmation of the inquired proposition.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Appendix 1

Transcript symbols

Table

Abbreviations

Table

Notes

1. The English translation for demo is provided in the title of this article for the benefit of readers with no Japanese language background. It is not the author’s intention to suggest an absolute correspondence between demo and but.

2. A similar function has been reported for the English but as well. Schiffrin (1987) identifies but as a point-making device. She observes that speakers use but to return to a prior concern that had been interrupted, misunderstood, and/or challenged during activities of storytelling or argument building. See also Choe and Reddington (2018), who examine the use of but-prefacing as a practice of refocusing on the main course of action in public discourse.

3. As discussed later, however, certain properties of demo-prefacing to disagreeing turns which Mori (1999) documents are also observed in demo-prefaced question responses in this study.

4. Iya is one of the Japanese disaffirming tokens. Kushida (2005) points out that while iya can be translated into “no,” iya cannot be used as a free-standing particle and thus has functions broader than those of the English “no.” Kushida further shows that iya can preface both conforming and nonconforming responses to polar questions. In the present study, iya + demo-prefacing always introduces nonconforming responses (n = 7). The possible interactional correlation of demo-prefacing with iya-prefacing should be investigated with more examples.

5. The particle n (or un, nn) is an informal form of an affirmation particle hai “yes.” The affirmation particle n is typically pronounced with a falling pitch. On the contrary, the particle n placed before demo is elongated and produced with a flat pitch, and it is usually used as a placeholder rather than as an affirmation token. Although the length of elongation of n: can slightly vary depending on cases, it is summarized as n: in this table.

6. This data set only includes the turns in which a is immediately followed by demo without a pause in between. In other words, a and demo are through-produced as one turn-constructional unit together with a subsequent turn component produced by the same speaker. Thus, the focal a + demo-preface can be considered as one of the “lexicalized prefabs,” which are “semi-fixed forms consisting of more than one word, but delivered as a prosodic whole” (Thompson et al., 2015, p. 80).

7. A “no” response is used for an affirming answer to a negative interrogative in English (e.g., A: You don’t speak Japanese? B: No.).

8. The demo-prefaced turn examined in Excerpt (1) is also designed with kedo, which is placed turn-finally (i.e., demo mukashi hodo dewa nai kedo ne “Demo they aren’t as much as they were before” in line 6). Ono et al. (2012) point out that the turn-final particle kedo leaves recipients to work out the implications of its contrastive semantics, which were otherwise presented in the main clause. In Rie’s demo-prefaced turn, the turn-final kedo (which is further followed by the utterance-final particle ne) also appears to contribute to the indication of her implied affirmation of the prior question. Mori (1999) also observes the use of the turn-final kedo in disagreeing turns, arguing that it serves to mitigate disagreement or imply partial agreement.

9. This study has chosen to examine a + demo-prefacing among other sets of turn-beginning elements involving demo for two main reasons. First, due to its limited space, this article attempted to examine a combination of demo with another particle/token of which interactional functions as a preface to question responses have been reported in CA literature, that is, a (Hayashi & Hayano, 2018), iya (Kushida, 2005), and maa (Arita, 2021). Second, the decision was further made based on the statistical significance that a + demo-prefacing was the most common collocation pattern or “lexicalized prefab” (Thompson et al., 2015, p. 80) in the current database. Future research on different combinations of turn-beginning elements involving demo needs to be conducted to further advance our understanding of the interactional workings of demo-prefaced responses to polar questions.

10. There are two particles in Japanese that consist of the vowel [a]: 1) a with or without a glottal stop following it, and 2) aa produced with varying elongation typically with falling intonation. In the current database, only the short a is observed in a + demo-preface. For the comparative analysis of a and aa, see Endo (2018), who examines the two particles in responsive turns and documents their distinct workings in terms of speakers’ epistemic stances.

11. Ito (2013) classifies turn-beginning elements into two types and terms them “retrospective oriented elements” and “prospective oriented elements.” The former refers to elements that “display the speaker’s judgment or a change of state” while the latter are “elements that do not constitute an utterance per se, but instead project continuation of the speaker’s utterance” (p. vii–viii). Ito contends that the former are normally placed before the latter. According to his classification, a is a retrospective oriented element and demo is a prospective oriented element. Correspondent with Ito’s findings, a always precedes demo in the current database.