East Asian Linguistics Workshop: "Frames, constructions, and Japanese FrameNet: what frames tell us about meanings and functions of Japanese constructions," Kyoko Ohara

This talk will introduce the Japanese FrameNet project, which currently focuses on analyzing meanings and functions of Japanese constructions, based on an approach called Frame Semantics. I will show that in describing properties of Japanese constructions, it is crucial to pay attention to their functions. I will also argue that interactional frames that Fillmore (1982) proposed are relevant to various functions of Japanese constructions. The talk will also discuss how constructions across typologically distinct languages, such as those in Japanese and English, can be aligned using a framework called Frames-and-Constructions Analysis.

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Kyoko Ohara is Professor at Keio University, Japan. She received her Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1996 and joined Keio University as a faculty member in the same year. She has been applying Frame Semantics and Construction Grammar in analyses of Japanese and English. She is the PI of the Japanese FrameNet project, which has been building online language resources called Japanese FrameNet and Japanese FrameNet Constructicon. Her publications in English include “Inside the Japanese Constructicon: A Partial Network of Constructions involving Internally Headed Relativization” which appeared in the Journal of Cognitive Linguistics (2019) and Constructicography: Constructicon development across languages (2018), in which she participated as a co-editor and as the author of an article. Her recent publications in Japanese include Contributions of Frame Semantics: Verbs and their surroundings (2022), to which she contributed as a co-editor and a co-author.