<Articles>A study on the suffix -tar- in the Japanese Kohoku dialect- its animacy co-occurence restrictions and aspectual behaviors

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  • <研究論文>滋賀県湖北方言の-tar-の性質と機能 --有生性の共起制限とアスペクト--
  • 滋賀県湖北方言の-tar-の性質と機能 : 有生性の共起制限とアスペクト
  • シガケン コホク ホウゲン ノ-tar-ノ セイシツ ト キノウ : ユウセイセイ ノ キョウキセイゲン ト アスペクト

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This paper aims to show the fact that (1) the verbal suffix -tar-, which represents the aspectual meanings in the Kohoku dialect, has strong animacy co-occurrence restrictions with its topic nouns, i.e., only co-occurs with non-animate nouns and (2) because of its high productivity, we can no longer regard the suffix as "secondary" in the dialect. The restriction originates from the feature of the lexifier ar-u, which is the existence verb in the dialect as well as other dialects in Japanese. Contrastively, as previous studies show, the -te-ar- in standard Japanese and the -taRr- in the Keihan dialect, which are the counterparts of -tar-, have gradually grammaticalized and lost this restriction. Additionally, the suffix -tar- follows almost all verbs whereas -te-ar- and taRr- only follow a limited number of verbs in modern Japanese. Because of the lower productivity, these suffixes have been regarded as the "secondary" or "sub" aspect markers in the Japanese aspect system. In this paper, I will provide a precise description of the suffix -tar- so that it supports the hypothetical theory of the grammaticalization of the aspect markers. In addition, I will argue that unlike the counterparts in standard Japanese and the Keihan dialect, -tar- has not lost its features and productivity, that is, it plays an important role in the aspect system of the Kohoku dialect. I will also refer to the fact that some speakers of the Kohoku dialect tend to transfer this feature of -tar- to -te-ar- when they speak standard Japanese. This is an example of how a dialect speaker can apply the features of their dialect to the standard variety.

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  • 京都大学言語学研究

    京都大学言語学研究 38 49-63, 2019-12-31

    Departmental of Linguistics, Graduate School of Letters, Kyoto University

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