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Apparently, in "The Structure of the Japanese Language" chapter 8 page 119, Kuno asserts that the following is grammatical:

John wa Tokyo ni ni wa itta ga, Osaka ni ni wa ikanakatta

I have a few questions. Firstly, what triggers this duplication? Secondly, what difference would it make if we were to replace にには with には? Kuno does not really go into too much detail with regards to this particle duplication phenomenon; however, he provides quite a few examples of this phenomenon, but nothing more than that. I have not seen or heard this type of construction before, but I would appreciate any leads (perhaps a relevant paper) greatly.

Update: Kuno says that the presence of は triggers the duplication (?)

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    What does Kuno say about it, and where does he say it?
    – user1478
    Jul 9, 2017 at 21:21
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    John wa Tokyo ni ni wa itta ga, Osaka ni ni wa ikanakattaなんて言うかなぁ。。そんなの聞いたことも見たこともないわ・・「ジョンは東京には行ったが、大阪には行かなかった」が普通だと思うけど。。。
    – Chocolate ♦
    Jul 10, 2017 at 10:24
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    It only looks grammatical error.
    – user4092
    Jul 11, 2017 at 4:12
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    Takamine, Kaori. "The axial part phrase in Japanese." (2006). にも同様の例が載っていて，「は」無しには成立しないことも述べられています（「僕は東京ででは泊まったが，大阪ででは泊まらなかった」）．「に」と「には」の間にひと呼吸おいたらあり得る気もしてきた…（喋ってるつもりで，「東京に には行ったけど」）
    – Yosh
    Jul 11, 2017 at 4:21
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    「のの」は前の「の」が準体の時に言えると思いますが、「にに」は発話が自然になる状況が思い浮かばない…
    – broccoli facemask
    Jul 11, 2017 at 4:41

1 Answer 1

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John wa Tokyo ni ni wa itta ga, Osaka ni ni wa ikanakatta

=Firstly, what triggers this duplication? Secondly, what difference would it make if we were to replace にには with には?

Update: Kuno says that the presence of は triggers the duplication (?)

These constructions make sense to us and are used to especially emphasise the part right before it. I can't tell if there is a pattern, but we use this type of construction when we feel the need for it. I think that we like to avoid this in formal writing though.

～にには行ったけど、～あなたののはあるけど.
It's even possible without は: あなたのことをを話してるのよ, 東京にに行ったんだよ.

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  • Could someone explain why this need to be downvoted? I feel downvoting is not something easily done without reason. The function says "This answer is not useful". Isn't this quite a strong objection? – karlalou 1 hour ago
    – karlalou
    Jul 10, 2017 at 16:38
  • (Downvote wasn't me, but...) It seems that this sort of particle duplication is controversial even among native speakers, so probably someone thought that your example sentence wasn't valid and downvoted. Examples from other sources might make for a more convincing answer, but probably also hard to find given that this likely doesn't happen in writing so much...
    – Darius Jahandarie
    Jul 10, 2017 at 17:38
  • Well, I don't particularly fond of this expression myself, but I hear them and I don't have any right to reject them.
    – karlalou
    Jul 11, 2017 at 1:22

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