CONNOTATIONS OF SURPRISE IN THE CONDITIONALS TO AND TARA IN JAPANESE: A Review and Synthesis

The two conditionals 'to' and ' -tara' in Japanese do not carry neutral connotations. This paper offers evidence to support the claim that '-tara' can carry, among other things, a connotation of surprise in reference to specific past events. However, evidence is also offered to show that the conditional 'to,' contrary to what is stated in most reference grammars, carries connotations of inevitability even when the sentence refers to a specific sequence of past events. (Contains 10 references.) (Author) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *********************************************************************** "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANT D BY


Introduction
Many scholars studying the Japanese language assert that the two conditionals to and -tars can carry a connotation of stqprise when referring to specific events in the past.'For example the Japanese sentence 'mado -o akeru to yuki-ga futte ita' has the literal meaning 'when I opened the window, I discovered it was snowing' (McClain 1981:30).However, some scholars feel that its actual meaning is something closer to 'when I opened the window, I was surprised to see that it was snowing.'A similar observation is made about the -tars structure.For example, the Japanese sentence 'gakkoo-ni it -tars, mada dare-mo kite inakatta' has a literal meaning 'when I went to school, no one had come yet' (Kuno 1973:180).It is thought by many scholars that this construction too carries connotations of surprise as if to say 'when I went to school, I was surprised to find that no one had come yet.' In this paper, I will examine the nature of the to and -tars conditionals and I will offer evidence to show that the -tars conditional does seem to connote surprise in special cases, but the to conditional does not connote surprise--indeed the very nature of the to conditional prevents it from having this particular meaning.

The Conditional to and Surprise
In a conditional expression, to is 'a subordinate conjunction which marks a condition that brings about a noncontrollable event or state' (Makino and Tsutsui 1986:480).
In addition, this noncontrollable event or state must be a habitual, natural, inevitable, or immediate consequence of the antecedent sentence which precedes to (Buechler 1983:8-9).
In terms of grammatical restrictions, the predicate of the consequent clause cannot be a form which expresses a command, a request, a suggestion, an invitation, or a volition ( Makino and Tsutsui 1986:481-82).
This is due to the fact that the consequent sentence must be objective and non-speaker oriented (Hinds and Tawa 1975-76:9).
Finally, S. takes place after S. is completed (Kuno 1973:19).In use to has various meanings such as 'when', 'whenever', 'as soon as', or 'if', and the context usually makes the meaning clear.
A few examples will suffice to illustrate the normal use of the to conditional.
(1) Fuyu-ni naru to Bahama-ni iku.'Whenever winter comes, I go to the Bahamas.' (2) Natsu-ni naru to totemo mushiatsui.'Whenever summer comes, it gets hot and humid.' (3) KabiN-o otosu to kowareru.'If you drop the vase, it will break.' (4) Pno hito-ni kiku to sugu wakaru.'If you ask that person, you will find out right away.' In the above sentences, the conditional to dcas not carry any connotation of surprise.However, Kuno (1973) asserts that there is another use of to which refers to specific events in the past in a way such that there is no logical antecedent-conseque:It relationship between the two clauses, and Kuno adds that there is no particular relationship between this second use of to and its normal use in examples 1 through 4 (193-94).And even though there is no logical antecedent-consequent relationship involved between the two clauses in the second use, Kuno asserts that the relationship must be close enough to paraphrase as 'upon Si's happening (or while S. was happening), what do yOu think happened?S. did' (189).
The following example from Kuno (1973:188) will illustrate this.
'While I was in bed at home, Bill came to visit.' Kuno claims that there is a quality of surprise (or at least suspense) in SI tc S9 in example 5, and this results from the fact that 82 is told objectively from the speaker's point of view, as if to say 'after S, happened, I (the speaker) observed/saw/found Si' (190-91).This corresponds with what Martin (19/5) has termed an 'observation condition' where S, to S, is in the perfect tense and refers to specific events, and thus takes on the meaning 'upon ...ing, I notice(d) that...' or 'when ..., what was noticed was...' (557).
The previous example and the following example from Martin (1975:557)  The very fact that the sentence is told objectively denies any connotation of surprise.
In example 5 the speaker is not stating surprise at the visitor by the use of to, but rather stating that there was an expectation that a visitor would arrive, which was confirmed by the visit.
Similarly, Example 6 is also a confirmation of something which was suspected by the speaker.
Thus, the conditional to forces a connotat=ion of inevitability even when the relationship between the clauses is not an obvious cause-effect relationship as it is in examples 1 through 4.
Consider an example like the following.
'Whenever Sunday came, it always rained.' There is no known phenomenon which brings rain every week, so the listener may indeed be taken aback by such a statement.Yet this example is perfectly grammatical.
It is undoubtedly the acceptability of sentences like this which leave the issue of surprise in the to conditional open to debate, but I will show that even a sentence such as example 7 does not connote surprise.
In referring to Kuno's interpretation of to, Hinds and Tawa (1975-76:10) assert that the connotation of surprise or suspense is an unnecessary statement, but they do not explain this comment nor do they explore the issue of surprise.Buechler (1983), in his thesis, comes close to denying outright any connotation of surprise inherent in to itself, and it is useful to outline Buechler's thoughts concerning to.First of all, Buechler correctly states that in using SI to S2, the 'speaker suggests that it is possible to predict that on the occurrence of S., S, will occur' ( 14).Examples 1 through 4 above are illustrations of this view of to.
In addition, Euechler tries to simplify the syntactic considerations of the to conditional by stating that to merely connects factual or objectively observed events, and thus both the statements and their relationship are factual and logical ( 14).
And so when Si to S1 refers to a specific sequence of events .the relationship between S 1 and S, can be stated as fact, since the occurrence of the events in sequence has been observed.The speaker is simply recounting events which he has experienced (15).
He also asserts that the connotation of surprise or discovery, if there is such a connotation, derives, not from the use of the pattern S. to S2, but from the fact that the relatiOnship between the events referred to in S1 and S, is unexpected by the listener] (11).
While these observations are generally correct, Buechler does not take them far enough.
Regardless of whether or not the listener is aware of the relationship, the speaker is still expressing a logical relationship by choosing the to conditional, and so no connotation of surprise is intended; and in fact, if the listener understands the proper use cL the to conditional, then no connotation of surprise should be detectable.
Therefore, while the listener may pause for a moment when hearing a sentence such as example 7 above, the sentence will be taken by a native speaker as an expression of cumulative factual experience which seems to be more or less true, albeit not necessarily the result of natural phenomenon.
Thus, when asked, native speakers of Japanese can detect no connotation of surprise in a to conditional sentence.
Indeed, when given an 'observation condition' sentence relating a sequence of past events, native speakers generally detected the connotation of inevitabqity about the events described in the sentence.Two native speakers gave an example of the inevitability of the opening lines of Yasunari Kawabata's novel Yukiouni, which is in the form of S1 to S. and refers to a Ipecific sequence of past events.
.( 8) Kokkyoo-no nagai toNneru-o nukeru to yukiguni de atta (Kawabata 1968:5).'The train emerged from the long tunnel at the frontier and was in the snow country.' This is entirely consistent with the function of to.
McGloin (1976-77:182) has pointed out that to has a tendency to be used in 'generic cases' (rather than in specific instances) because of its air of inevitability.
Thus, it normally means 'whenever'.McGloin also points out that to can be used in reference to specific events in the future, and when used in this way it has connotations of objective fact (182).
Example 4 and the following example illustrate this.
'If you go next week, you can buy it for less.' McGloin's discussion of the conditionals is restricted to non-past events, but it would be surprising indeed if in reference to specific past events the to conditional was to carry the special meaning of surprise since this meaning is the complete antipode of its regular meaning.
In fact the conditional to connects an inevitable clause with its antecedent, regardless of the tense of the sentence.The example below further illustrates this point.
'When the war ended there was rapid progress.' Example 9 does not express any degree of surprise.
Rather, it express.stwo factual events in the past and describes an inevitable relationship between these events.
The speaker wishes to express a particular relationship of inevitability between two clauses and so selects the to conditional, and the listener understands this inevitability even if the relationship was not known previously.This is due to the nature of the to conditional.

The Conditional tara and Surprise
If it is the case that the speaker wishes to suggest surprise at specific past events, then the speaker can use the conditional -tara to accomplish this, for -tara does not necessarily express an inevitable or obvious relationship between two clauses, although it can often do this.The conditional -tara 'indicates an antecedent-subsequent relationship.
The following is a typical use of the -taza construction, which does not connote surprise.
'The buses stop coming after 12 o'clock.' There are several syntactic features of the -tara conditional which could possibly contribute to a connotation of surprise.
The conditional -tara is 'a subordinate conjunction which indicates that the action/state expressed by the main clause in a sentence takes place after the action/state expressed by the subordinate clause' (Makino and Tsutsui 1936:452).Note that this is a very different conditional than to.'Unlike to, -tara implies individual instances and does not imply an inevitable or habitual connection between SI and S2: S, occurs and accidentally S. follows' (Murayama 1 §85:119).
In addition -taia is often used to express a subjective feeling in S2: either invitation, request, determination, permission, and the like (Murayama 1985:120).
This also explains the preference for -tara when S. is an imperative or an interrogative (McClain 1981:31).Thus, the following is a common way of using the -tara conditional.
'When you get to Tokyo, please call me.' Moreover, when using the -tara conditional, the speaker is making an original contribution to the discourse in In addition, -tars tends to be used in specific instances rather than in generic cases (McGloin 1976- 77:182).These features of the -tara conditional could all contribute to a connotation of surprise in In addition, one grammar reference states that '[w]hen S2 in "S, tare S," represents a past action, the action cannot be one intentionally taken by the agent after the actioll or event represented by S.' (Makino and Tsutsui 1936:455).Kuno (1973) asserts the same proposition stating that when the action of S. tara S. is in the past, then there can be no 'self-cohtrollaEle timing' between SI and S, (181).Buechler (1983) defines this as rollows: 'A "self-controllable timing" between two events exists when a single agent controls both events and, therefore, the time lapse between the events' (24).However, Buechler does not agree with Kuno that self-controllable timing is a factor when using -tara, but instead explains that the important feature is that S: be an original contribution to the discourse by the speaker (24-26).' Kuno (1973) states that 'the requirement SI and S: in S. tara S, have no self-controllable time sequence is responsible for the peculiar ovectone attached to the pattern: namely, S, normally represents an unexpected or surprising event' (181-82).
Nonetheless, Kuno's explanation of surprise is seriously undermined by Buechler's persuasive evidence indicating that self-controllable timing is not a factor, and in fact Buechler's argument, while undermining one explanation for surprise, lends support for another, more persuasive element which contributes to a connotation of surprise in the -tara conditional.It is one of three elements on which I will focus as being the primary contributors to the air of surprise in the -tara conditional, but it is best discussed after giving the first element (The features of this conditional given at the beginning of this section above could all possibly contribute to the connotation of surprise, but they are not major factors).The third element involves the actual -tara conditional itself and will be discussed along with the noun toki in the section which follows this one.
First, it seems that a major cause of surprise in the -tara construction is the fact that this conditional is concerned only with temporal sequence, and so one can connect almost any two events with it.Although the relationship may in actuality be cause and effect, inevitability, conditional, and the like, the speaker uses the -tara construction to comment on the events in terms of their temporal sequence.
The following examples are illustrations of the use of tara to connote surprise.( 14) Uchi-ni kaet-tara deNpoo-ga kite ita.
'When I returned home, a telegram had arrived.' (15) Hikooki-ni not-tara Tanaka-saN-ni atta.'When I boarded the plane, I met Mr. Tanaka.' (16) Meari-no apaato-ni it-tara chuushoku-o gochisoo shite kureta.'When I went to Mary's apartment, she treated me tc lunch.' In addition, native speakers of Japanese can sense a connotation of surprise occasionally when S1 tara S 2 refers to events in the pasta Native speakers could detect surprise in the following example from Buechler (1983:47).
'When I stuck my head out the window, it was raining.' In Examples 14 through 17, the two events have no particular relationship apart from the fact that one occurred after the other, or the second event was noticed after the completion of the first event, and so the conditional sentence carries an air of surprise about it.
Thus, it seems that part of the connotation of surprise is due to the accidental temporal relationship placed between the two events.
But the connotation of surprise cannot exist if the speaker does not intend it, and this is where the insistence by Hinds and Tawa (1975-76), as well as Buechler (1983), that S2 must be an original contribution to the discourse enters.
It is interesting to note that the -tara conditional is sometimes interchangeable with the other conditionals.For instance, in example 11 above, -tara could be exchanged for to without a change in the meaning of the 1 sentence.
And so while it can express the same inevitable or logical relationship as that of the to conditional, it can also express surprise when it refers to a sequence of past events.This is explained by the fact that the speaker is choosing information to contribute to the discourse in S. The speaker can choose information which proceeds logically from the first clause, or the speaker can present the second clause as something which was surprising, or the speaker can present the relationship in some other light.
This concept helps explain part of the connotation of surprise in the following example.
'I was thinking that most people would not attend the nine o'clock Chinese class today, but nearly everyone showed up.' Notice that in this sentence the -tara construction is a reversal of reasoning indicating surprise.The use of -tara in the above example is meant to convey to the listener the feeling of surprise felt by the speaker on encountering the event which was not expected to occur.
The Use of toki in Japanese Some may still wonder whether it is the case that the conditionals to and -tara themselves carry their peculiar meanings--inevitability in the case of to and surprise in the case of -tara--or whether they take on their meanings because of the nature of the entire sentence.
I will offer support for the former and will use the noun toki as evidence.Both the conditional to and the conditional -tara necessarily, take the meaning of 'when' in cases where they are used to refer to specific past events which actually occurred (in contrast, a counterfactual statement can refer to specific past events that did not occur and thus take the meaning 'if').However, .if the speaker wishes to make a 'when' statement in Japanese in reference to past events and make certain that the sentence is completely neutral in connotation, then the speaker has the option of using SI toki S2.
Some examples will suffice to illustrate this.
'On entering the bar, I discovered that Taroo was drinking sake.' inevitability given a context which would support that connotation, thus showing that -tara, unlike to is not restricted to a single connotation, but rather depends on the context and the speaker's intent, as well as Lhe perception of the listener.
In conclusion, the conditional to is used to connect a logical, non-controllable, objective consequent with its antecedent.The evidence offered in this paper supports the assertion that the to construction still carries this same connotation of inevitability when referring to a specific sequence of past events.
On the other hand, the -tara conditional can often be used to connote surprise, and it can be used in this way because there are few restrictions upon its use.
It connects two clauses, but they need have no particular relationship apart from the fact that the second clause happened to occur after the first clause.
Thus, if the relationship between the events of the two clauses is an unexpected one, then the construction can express surprise, although the tara conditional can only carry this connotation in describing past events.In addition, since the speaker is making an original contribution, then the speaker can choose to express surprise with the -tars conditional.
Finally, Loki was used to offer evidence showing that the peculiar overtones of the two types of conditional sentences are carried at least in part by the conditional conjunctions themselves, and the speaker purposely chooses one if a particular connotation is intended for the utterance.The suggestions and comments f.romDr. Yamamoto and the other member-, of the course were extremely valuable, and I would like to thank all of them.I would also like to thank the native Japanese speakers who answered my questions on the conditionals--Professors Akira and Fumiko Yamamoto, Kiyoko Metoki, Risa Ueda, and Hiromi Nakamura.Thanks are also due to Norma Sakamoto-Larzalere for reading the paper and offering valuable comments.
The idea for this paper arose in Dr. Maggie Childs' reading course in Japanese, and I would like to thank her for the initial explanation of surprise in the Cara conditional.Any errors, however, are my own responsibility.
The Hepburn system for romanized Japanese is used throughout with a few exceptions.Syllabic n is always written N (i.e.shiNbuN).Long vowels are doubled (i.e.oneesaN, sotsugyoo).
I have often used the abbreviations and 'S' to refer to the first and second clauses re-spectivery in a conditional expression. 2 There are four conditionals in Japanese--to, tara, -ha, and nara.
This paper deals only with the first two.However, there does not appear to be any connotations of surprise or inevitability in the other two conditionals.
I am indebted to the several native Japanese speakers who kindly answered my questions about the conditionals.
Again, thanks are due to the native Japanese speakers who kindly answered my questions and gave their views on the conditionals.6 Toki is a Japanese noun which literally means 'time'.
Thus, when it is modified by an expression, the entire clause has the meaning '(at) the time of ...' or 'when ...'.
illustrates this meaning.