From reported thought to epistemic modality: a corpus-based study on the sentence-final particle kana with omou ‘think’ in Japanese

Abstract

This study presents a corpus-based analysis of the Japanese construction kana to omou , which consists of the sentence-final particle kana , the quotative particle to , and the predicate omou ‘think’. Previous studies suggest that the meaning of the construction does not align with the meaning of kana , which typically conveys uncertainty. The present study proposes that the construction is associated with a modal meaning, distinguishing it from an interpretation in which the speaker is reporting their thought, marked by kana , using the predicate omou . Drawing on spoken language data, this study analyzes the contextual distributions and interactional functions of the construction. It is shown that the construction expresses a relatively high degree of certainty and serves highly communicative functions. The theoretical implications are discussed in relation to politeness strategies and the grammaticalization of linguistic units that span syntactic boundaries.