A Pragma-Semantic Account for Negative Island Obviation by Wa in Japanese

Abstract

This paper provides a pragma-semantic account for negative island obviation by wa in Japanese. I propose that negative island obviation by wa is achieved by special discourse effects carried by this particle. In particular, the particle wa loosens the requirement of questions that there should be a maximally informative answer. The proposal does not rely on dense scales and suggests that discourse effects of a particle could play a significant role in the interface between semantics and pragmatics.