Changes in Sino-Japanese Adnominal Forms from the Early Modern Period to the Present : Assimilation into Japanese

近代日本語における漢語の連体修飾形3種(「-の」「-なる」「-な」型)の勢力分布の推移を調べた。漢語93語を調査対象に、「-の」「-なる」「-な」型のコーパス内出現数の年代推移を調べ、推移のパターンを5タイプに分けた。その結果、多数の語で、近代期に「-の」型と「-なる」型が衰退し、代わって「-な」型が大きく伸張したことが明らかになった。特に、1917-1925年の区間に「-な」型の増加率が飛躍的に高まったことがわかった。注目されるのは、この1917-1925年という年代区間である。これは「-さ」型の漢語名詞用法の出現数が飛躍的に増加する時期と重なる。この時期、漢語は原初的な無標の名詞として用いられる段階を脱し、多くが和語の接辞「-な」や「-さ」のような品詞のマーカーを具え、日本語への同化をより進めたものとみることができる。Sino-Japanese has greatly changed from the Early Modern Period to the Present. This paper deals with chronological changes in frequencies of Sino-Japanese adnominal forms -no, -naru, and -na in that period of time. The changes are divided into five types by examining 93 Sino-Japanese words. The results show that in many of the words the frequencies of -no and -naru decreased and that of -na increased significantly in the years between 1917 and 1925.In that period of time, the frequency of nouns with the Japanese noun-forming suffix -sa saw a similar large increase, whereas that of zero-suffix nouns decreased. This means that Sino-Japanese words which were at first taken into Japanese as nouns with no markers of word class have today settled as fixed adjectives or nouns with a Japanese suffix. This phenomenon can be called "assimilation into Japanese."論文 Article