The Japanese expressive modifier baka ‘stupid’ - An evaluation of the individual and the situation

Aug 27, 2026

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The paper investigates the Japanese noun-modifying expressive modifier baka ‘stupid’ and compares it with the English noun-modifying expressive modifier damn. Whereas English damn can target either an individual or an entire proposition, Japanese baka is argued to convey a negative attitude toward both the individual denoted by the modified noun and the overall event performed by that individual in a single reading. The study proposes a new typology of expressive modifiers based on dual evaluability and related semantic properties.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages15

Reading Time38 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Structural property of the expressive modifier baka

Semantic property of the expressive modifier baka

Multidimensional compositional analysis

Comparison with bakana

Variation across expressive modifiers

Conclusion and future directions

2025. Proc Ling Soc Amer 10(1) . 5924. [https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v10i1.5924](https://doi.org/10.3765/plsa.v10i1.5924) . The Japanese expressive modi􀀂er baka ‘stupid’: An evaluation of the individual and the situation Osamu Sawada􀀃 Abstract. The English noun-modifying expressive modi􀀂er damn can express not only a speaker’s negative attitude toward the target expressed in a noun but also the speaker’s negative attitude toward an entire proposition (=propositional reading)(e.g., Potts 2005 ; Gutzmann 2019) . In this study, I investigate the Japanese nounmodifying expressive modi􀀂er baka ‘stupid’, and argue that unlike the English expressive modi􀀂er damn, it simultaneously conveys a negative attitude toward an individual expressed in a noun and an entire event within a single reading. This paper shows variations in and proposes a new typology of expressive modi􀀂ers. Keywords. expressive modi􀀂ers; negative attitude; dual evaluation; individual; event; stage-level vs. individual-level; conventional implicature; variation 1. Introduction. It has been observed in the literature that the English expressive modi􀀂er damn has multiple functions. For example, in (1), damn expresses the negative attitude of the speaker toward an individual, as in (1): 1 (1) (Attitude toward individual(s)) a. The damn Republicans should be less partisan. (Potts 2005:161) b. I hate your damn dog! (It’s not nearly so friendly as my dog.) (Potts 2005:18) In addition to its individual use, the expressive modi􀀂er damn can also express the speaker’s negative attitude toward a proposition, as in (2) (Potts 2005 ; Gutzmann 2019): (2) (Attitude toward a proposition/event) a. Nowhere did the instructions say that the damn machine didn’t come with an electric plug! (Potts 2005:166) b. The dog peed on the damn couch. (= Damn, the dog peed on the couch.) (Gutzmann 2019:18) c. The dog ate the damn cake. (= Damn! The dog ate the cake.) (Gutzmann 2019:95) Gutzmann (2019) calls the phenomenon in (2) an ‘argument extension’. As shown in the examples above, Gutzmann (2019) observes that (3a) can be paraphrased by (3b): (3) a. The dog peed on the damn couch! b. Damn, the dog peed on the couch! (Gutzmann 2019:18) Gutzmann (2019) observes that in (3a), damn can have the couch as the target of its expressive 􀀃 I am grateful to Ashwini Deo, Thomas Grano, Daniel Gutzmann, Ikumi Imani, Hideki Kishimoto, Kenta Mizutani, Andrs Saab, Harumi Sawada, Jun Sawada, Eri Tanaka, Carla Umbach, and the audience at the LSA 2025 for their valuable comments and discussions. Parts of this paper were also presented at the DGfS 2025 workshop “Expressivity: Variation and Change”. I also thank the audience for the valuable comments and suggestions. This paper is based on work supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 22K00554 . All errors are, of course, my own. Author: Osamu Sawada, Kobe University ([sawadao@lit.kobe-u.ac.jp](sawadao@lit.kobe-u.ac.jp)). 1 Note that in (1b), although damn syntactically modi􀀂es dog, it semantically modi􀀂es your dog. The speaker does not express a negative attitude toward all dogs but toward “your dog”(Potts 2005) . © 2025 Author(s) . Published by the LSA with permission of the author(s) under a CC BY license. attitude, but it can also express negative feelings about the fact that the dog peed on the couch without expressing any feelings regarding the couch itself (Gutzmann 2019:18) . Herein, I investigate the Japanese noun-modifying expressive modi􀀂er baka ‘stupid’ in the form X-no baka ‘X-GEN stupid’, as illustrated in (4), and argue that the expressive baka simultaneously conveys a negative attitude toward not only the individual target with which it combines but also the entire event that is performed by the target within a single reading: (4) (Attitude toward the individual and the event) Taro-no baka-ga mata chikoku shi-ta. Taro-GEN idiot-NOM again late do-PST ‘Stupid Taro was late again.’ I suggest that th

FAQs

What core contrast does the paper draw between damn and baka?

Damn can express negative attitude toward an individual or toward a proposition/event, while baka is argued to convey both simultaneously in a single reading.

How is the construction X-no baka characterized structurally?

The paper argues that X-no baka forms a constituent but differs from ordinary genitive constructions: baka is not the head and behaves as a semantic modifier.

What explains the dual evaluability of the individual and the event in baka?

The paper suggests that baka, interpreted as an expressive modifier, is treated as a stage-level predicate, enabling evaluation of both the target individual and the performed event.

Aug 27, 2026

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