Commas as a constructional resource: the use of a comma in a formulaic expression in Japanese social media texts

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 complex dakedone at 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.