The variety of constructional shifts from the diachronic and geographical point of view: Focusing on the formal nouns "Giri/Kiri"

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K16763
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Japanese linguistics
• Research Institution: Shujitsu University
• Principal Investigator: iwata miho 就実大学, 人文科学部, 講師 (20734073)
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 形式名詞 / 文法化 / 日本語史 / 九州方言 / 愛媛方言 / ギリ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In the history of Japanese language, some constructional shifts such as the grammaticalization of formal nouns have been pointed out. This study demonstrated the variety of that kind of constructional shifts from the diachronic and geographical point of view. We focused on three grammatical constituents commonly deriving from the formal nouns "Giri/Kiri". We investigated first "Giri" in 18-19th Kamigata dialect and modern standard Japanese which constitutes an adverbial phrase, secondly "Gii" in Sato dialect (Koshiki Island, Kagoshima Prefecture) which constitutes a conditional clause, and thirdly "Giri" in Ehime Prefecture Toyo dialect which constitutes a determinative sub-particle. We described these grammatical constituents and examined the process of their constructional shifts. As the result, this study pointed out that, while these formal nouns had grammatically changed in a common way until a certain definite stage, the degree of grammaticalizaiton is vaious in each area.

Free Research Field

日本語学