Commas as a constructional resource: the use of a comma in a formulaic expression in Japanese social media texts
Fumino Horiuchi, Toshihide Nakayama · Journal of Japanese Linguistics · 2023
Abstract This paper examines the use of punctuation in Japanese in order to investigate its role in formulaic expressions. Specifically, we will study the use of a comma before the copula complexdakedoneat the end of an utterance. Typically, punctuation is considered a matter of style in written representations and is generally not included in studies about the structure of formulaic expressions. However, in a corpus-based study on language use on social media (e.g., blogs, Twitter, online forums), we found that this comma is frequently used for a distinct pragmatic effect. The patterns of use, both structural and functional, are observed to be regular and predictable, enough to suggest that the comma is part of a fixed formal complex that has a unique meaning, i.e., a construction. This in turn suggests that commas, even though they are punctuation, can be a formal resource that constitutes part of a formulaic expression.