ABSTRACT
This study focuses on the Japanese particle mo. The particle is probably best described as roughly equivalent to the English too or also, although the difference between the Japanese particle and the English counterparts will be soon revealed as an important part of this study. This study has two goals, which are related to one another. The first goal is to prescribe a monosemous account for what is presupposed by the usage of mo by investigating its constraints on the context. The second goal is to develop a model in which the discourse-level contribution of a linguistic form is explained by its instruction on the hearer’s processing the sentence at the propositional level. There are several reasons why I have chosen the particle mo for this study. Its semantic and pragmatic constraints have often been misrepresented in the existing studies, and its discourse functions are understudied.
