Contrastive Function of Japanese Particle WA
Nobo Komagata, University of Pennsylvania

The Japanese 'adverbial particle' WA is usually argued to have topic and
contrastive functions. The previous analyses on contrastive function of WA
have two problems. First, they fail to account for 'association with
contrast' in complex NP. Second, the notion of contrast has not been made
explicit enough to account for an asymmetry between contrasts involving and
not involving WA. This paper assumes that the basic contrastive meaning is
carried by phonological prominence, and argues that WA interacts with such a
contrast resulting in a distinct presupposition, following 'alternative
semantics' of Rooth.