Focus-particles and sentence types from the perspective of modality

摘要

A phenomenon very similar to the Old Japanese dzo-type kakari musubi is seen in Ryukyuan dialects. When the particle du is placed immediately after a subject, complement or adverb, the rentai, adnominal, form follows to complete a sentence. Since the particle du not only behaves like the kakari-particle but also phonetically sounds much alike, the phenomenon in question is often considered to be kakari musubi. However, in some dialects of the Ryukyuan language, the particle does not call for an adnominal form in the musubi or predicate. Conjugational forms in the predicate vary from dialect to dialect. Furthermore, in Ryukyuan there are other types of particles similar to the kakari-particle dzo such as ga, kuse, nu and ru. This paper investigates what conjugational forms these particles, including du, call for to end a sentence and also reveals how these particles function in Ryukyuan.