Page 46 - Makino,Tsutusi.DictionaryOfIntermediateJGrammar

SPECIAL TOPICS IN INTERMEDIATE JAPANESE GRAMMAR
9I:A7?lo
(???Today, y'know, I, y'know, went to Narita Airport, y'know, by car,
y'know, to pick up my friend, y'know.)

Secondly, the filler and is used to signal the speaker's hesitation about
saying something embarrassing, as in (8a). In (8b) and is used to signal the
speaker's search for the right word or phrase. Too many and's in a single
sentence sounds very awkward as shown in (8c).

(8) a. A: Yj LI:AT-.fjS.,
(What happened?)
B: &*, E+&;klil~b9I:ATt,
(Uhh . . . , I forgot my wallet, you know.)
b. YZI?-3i$, &*, fldbcAI:%b20
(Where is it? Eh . . . I mean the book I bought yesterday.)
c *&DiA28tEl, &Di, gl)i, &a?, '$&~.B?IT%-c,
$3, ALS9 CZ, &a,, &a,
SLT,
LIZ,
b
%!J
(Ah, uh, yesterday, y'know, my mother, y'know, came from
Kyoto, y'know, talked with me after a long while, y'know, and
went home, y'know.)
Thirdly, the phrase 'nan to iu X deshita ka' 'What was X called?' in (9)
becomes 'nan te iu X datta kke' in informal speech. The phrase can be used
whenever the speaker has forgotten an exact name.

(There is a famous bookstore in Shinjuku-what was the name?
. . . Oh yeah, Kinokuniya. I bought four books on the Japanese econ-
omy there.)
Fourthly, the interjection eto used in (10) is used when the speaker is trying
to remember something. Just like the case of and, too many eto's in a single
sentence makes it very awkward.