Restrições de predicação em japonês: o lugar do sujeito na gramática da narrativa

Abstract

This work contributes to the long term discussion between those that defend the formal linguistic clues as the main source of meaning apprehended by the reader and those that consider reading as a product of the reader’s creation. A curious linguistic fact in Japanese will be used as an argument towards the first
position. Predicates that denote internal human states, like sad and tired, cannot be used with second and third person pronouns in Japanese, unless they are used by an omniscient author of a narrative, who can violate this norm for empathy reasons. The paper suggests that in languages like English there are also subtle linguistic clues to convey the author’s attitude towards his characters.