Semantic Analysis of the Wa Tautology in Modern Japanese

Abstract

Japanese boasts a wide range of tautological expressions, some of which carry particular semantic features, by which these tautologies fall into three categories indicated by particles, namely, ãƒ(pronounced wa), ガ(pronounced ga) and モ (pronounced mo). Based on the semantic differential of the wa tautology, this paper aims at analyzing the intrinsic semantic properties of this category.