Unspeakable Sentences? (Evidentiality)
In English, we can use the same word to describe the mental (psychological, emotional, sensation, etc.) states of both yourself and other persons:
| I'm sad. | ..... | Alice is sad. |
| I'm cold. | Alice is cold.* | |
| I want coffee. | Alice wants coffee. | |
| I want to watch TV. | Alice wants to watch TV. | |
| I think Bill is stupid. | Alice thinks Bill is stupid. |
Don't you think this is strange? Do you think the words sad, cold, want, and think mean the same in these sentences? When I say "I want some coffee," I know I want a cup of coffee and that I'm entitled to say so (I'm the owner of that wish). But is it the same when I say "Alice wants some coffee"? How do I know others' mental states? If someone says to you, "You want some coffee," don't you think "Who is she to report my desire?"
In Japanese, you can't use the phrases for expressing mental states of yourself (the speaker) when you talk to and about other people. For example:
| 私は悲しい。 | ..... | アリスは悲しがっている。 |
| 私は寒い。 | アリスは寒がっている。 | |
| 私はコーヒーがほしい。 | アリスはコーヒーをほしがっている。 | |
| 私はテレビを見たい。 | アリスはテレビを見たがっている。 | |
| 私は、ビルはばかだと思う。 | アリスは、ビルはばかだと思っている。 |
With a third-person subject (e.g. アリス, 山田さん, 先生), you must use 悲しがる・寒がる・ほしがる・〜たがる・思っている rather than 悲しい・寒い・ほしい・〜たい・思う.
You may think that this distinction is something similar to want vs. wants: i.e. you can say "I want some coffee," but you can't say "Alice want some coffee." This is not the case, however. What I'm talking about here has nothing to do with grammaticality. アリスは悲しい is grammatical, but you can't use it in a conversation. Hence, the term unspeakable sentence.
悲しい・ほしい etc. can be used only when you have direct access to the source. You can't utter sentences containing such words with a third-person subject because you don't have direct access to others' mental states in ordinary situations. You can only guess/infer others' mental states, but you never know them with the same degree of certainty as you know about yourself. 悲しがる・ほしがる etc. literally mean "show a sign of one's feelings/desires."
So, the existence of the two sets of phrases is epistemologically quite reasonable, isn't it? By contrast, in novels, you can write such unspeakable sentences because as the author, you are omniscient. You can describe your protagonist, 「アリスは悲しかった。」 If you want to know more about this phenomenon, read:
Banfield, Ann. 1982. Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the Language of Fiction. Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Kuroda, S.-Y. 1973. Where epistemology, style and grammar meet: a case study from Japanese. In P. Kiparsky and S. Anderson (eds.), Festschrift for Morris Halle, 377-91. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Now, you can say what you want/don't want to do, e.g. 明日クラスを休みたいです, 宿題をしたくありません, 毎日二時間勉強したくありません, クラスへ行きたくありません, テープを聞きたくありません, かんじを書きたくありません. What else?
* I originally used the adjective "hot", instead of "cold". Some people pointed out to me that "Alice is hot" is obscene. So, I changed it to "Alice is cold". Some say that "Alice is cold" still has a sexual connotation, however. In Japanese, on the other hand, 「アリスは寒い」 is out anyway, but 「アリスは寒がっている」 doesn't have any sexual connotation, I think. Back to the Text.
Copyright (c) 1998 Yoko Hasegawa. All Rights Reserved.
Updated 10/25/98; Comments to hasegawa@socrates.berkeley.edu
Since 5/5/96