A Cognitive Linguistic Study of the Categorization System of Japanese Numeral Classifiers: Focusing on a Speaker's "Construal" of Counting Entities

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K12383
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
• Research Institution: Nagoya Gakuin University
• Principal Investigator: Hamano Hiroko 名古屋学院大学, 経済学部, 講師 (50756971)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 助数詞 / コーパス / コレスポンデンス分析 / 捉え方 / カテゴリー化 / 容認度判定 / 経験に基づく知識量

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study focused on Japanese Numeral Classifiers (JNCs) “-hon” and the alternative JNCs for "-hon" such as "-mai", "-ko", "-hiki", and "-ken", and statistically analyzed the semantic relationship between these JNCs and the verbs that co-occur with each JNC using examples from a corpus.The analysis provided a new means of exploring how the entities are construed when they are counted using JNCs by identifying the semantic features of verbs that are closely related to each JNC.
In addition, I conducted an acceptability judgement task to investigate whether speakers' experiences based on their occupations and hobbies are reflected in the selection of JNCs (Inoue 1999). These results suggest that the amount of knowledge based on a speaker's experiences regarding an entity to be counted may influence the selection of JNCs.

Free Research Field

認知言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究は、従来の助数詞研究において停滞していた助数詞の「捉え方」の問題を進展させることができたといえる。特に、主に分析者の判断を拠り所にしていた従来の分析に対し、コーパスを用いた統計的分析や容認度調査といった定量的な分析を行ったことは、数える者の数える事物との（主体的な）相互作用が助数詞の選択に影響を与える可能性について、より妥当な知見を提供できたといえ、今後の助数詞の意味記述の精緻化にも貢献できるだろう。また、「捉え方」の問題を一般的な言葉の使用にも当てはめていけば、言語教育においてより効果的な指導法や教材の開発に役立てることができるだろう。