「ったら」に関する考察

Abstract

From its usage as a topic marker to its usage as a sentence-ending particle, I described how the various uses of the postpositional particle “ttara” overlap and expand. First of all, I showed that “ttara” went from being the contracted form of “toittara”, to acquiring an independent meaning that cannot be expressed by “toittara” and, doing so, started to be used as a topic marker, which is its main usage. Furthermore, I showed that, while conserving its evaluative properties, alongside the loss of the predicate, it is being used to “present” or “call again”, and through this is in the process of turning into a sentence-ending particle. Regarding its usage as a sentence-ending particle, adding to its usage as a “re-presentative”, which has already been described in the past, another usage as a marker of “intensity” is also presented in this manuscript. The topic marker “ttara” can be understood in two different ways. On one hand, it is a “re-presentative”, on the other hand, I shed light upon its continuity in relation to “intensity”.