A crosslinguistic study of the ecology of the verb 'naru' -- with special reference to the typological contrast between 'DO-language' and 'BECOME-language'

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 20K00537
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02060:Linguistics-related
• Research Institution: The University of Tokyo
• Principal Investigator: IKEGAMI Yoshihiko 東京大学, 大学院総合文化研究科, 名誉教授 (90012327)
• Project Period (FY): 2020-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: なる / ある / 日本語 / 出来（しゅったい） / 推移 / 自発 / 非動作主 / 事態把握

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The Japanese verb 'naru' has been used from the time of the ancient documents
down to the present, always with such high frequencies that it may well be regarded as one of the basic words in the vocabulary of Japanese. It does not cease to develop new meanings even today.This research project aims to examine the uses of 'naru' (and its semantically close verbs in other languages) in the contexts of their historical dimensions as well as in the contexts of their crosslinguistic dimensions. We have confirmed that the Japanese 'naru' started with a very similar semantic structure to its equivalents in the Altaic language family (like Mongolian and Turkish),semantically covering both 'emergence' and‘transition’(like 'werden' in German and Old English 'weorthan') but that it has markedly shifted its semantic focus to 'transition' with the result that the verb 'naru' in Japanese now behaves like French 'devenir' and Modern English 'become'.

Free Research Field

言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

現代の日本語話者にとって、「なる」という動詞はごく身近な存在である。「大きくなる」、「暖かくなる」、「美しくなる」など＜状態の変化＞を表示するのがその基本的な用法と誰しもが感じる一方、「結婚することになりました」などと非日本語話者なら＜強制＞と読み取るような場合とか、「こちらがご注文の品になります」といったぎこちない言い回しなど、第三者的な立場で見ると＜奇妙＞としか聞こえないような表現に至るまで、必要以上と思えるような用法にまでも拡がっている。そのような変遷にどのような背景があるのか、日本語を遡る一方で、他の多くの言語との対比でその生態を探ろうとするものである。