A case study of Japanese emotional adjective ureshii and its triggering causes

This paper examines what kind of events/states causes a person to have emotion "ureshii" by examining so-called adjective predicate construction. Examination of 354 cases clarified the following points: (i) It was assumed in the previous studies that the emotion is caused by some events. However, it was found that some state (something is being in a certain situation) can be a cause. (ii) Among these states of affairs, especially one third of the causes express situations where the person can do something. (iii) The person who feels ureshii generally has this emotion In response to the surrounding states/events, but s/he can be a part of the states/events. In such a case, more or less s/he receives some benefit from somebody or s/he is done something by somebody. When s/he is an agent of an event, the verb expressing the event does not indicate high transitivity. (iv) The third person typically concerns the causing event by giving benefit to the person who feels ureshii.本論文は『研究論文集－教育系・文系の九州地区国立大学間連携論文集－』Vol.3, No.1(2009/10)に査読を経て受理された