In Russian materials that reflect the early 18th century Kagoshima dialect, there are expressions consisting of te + existential verbs (tearu and teoru). Based on the study of those materials, specifically books featuring parallel translation in the Kagoshima dialect and Russian, this paper analyzes the use and meaning of these verb forms by examining the bilingual texts. It emerges that tearu functions as an existential verb in the passive voice and that teoru functions more like a resultative verb. Furthermore, this paper reveals that teoru can take both animate and inanimate nouns as its subject. This linguistic behavior differs from the Kamigata dialect. The difference originates in the system of existential verbs common among western Japanese dialects (which include the Kagoshima dialect) displaying only two existential verbs, aru and oru.
Studies in the Japanese Language 8 (1), 14-28, 2012
The Society for Japanese Linguistics
