昨日：https://topview.jp/t62c792e355722-4531
の続きです。
Starting from the day before yesterday, I have been drawing a comparison between Japanese (J) and English (E). Hope you are enjoying it and welcome your comments.
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned:
E uses personal pronouns frequently as opposed to J, which basically avoids using them.
While reading that, some of you might have wondered: “Provided that E uses personal pronouns more frequently than J, then why is it that the following phenomenon is observed?”
E: basically has one or just a few forms for each personal pronoun: ‘I(/me)’, ‘you (/thou), etc.
J: potentially has tons of forms for each personal pronoun:
‘私(わたし/わたくし)’, ‘僕’, ‘あたし’, ‘俺’, ‘あたい’, ‘おいら’, ‘わちき’, ‘わし’, ‘手前’, ‘拙者’, ‘我’, ‘吾輩’, etc. etc.
‘あなた’, ‘君’, ‘あんた’, ‘お前’, ‘おぬし’, ‘そこもと’, ‘てめえ’, ‘貴様’, ‘われ’, etc. etc.
Based on this fact, you might even say: “Doesn’t the phenomenon contradict what you said? Your assertion seems to be allegedly made, I’m afraid….”
My answer to this question follows:
It would help if you discriminated between (a) “you have such-and-such a form” and (b) “such-and-such a form is frequently used”. These are fundamentally different stuff.
E: (a) You have ‘I(/me)’ as 1st singular personal pronoun, and (b) ‘I(/me)’ is very frequently used.
J: (a) You have ‘私(わたし/わたくし)’, ‘僕’, etc. as 1st singular personal pronoun, and (b) They are really seldom in use.
In other words:
E has one or just a few forms that are frequently used.—E allows “using them a lot”, not “having a lot of them”.
J has tons of forms that are basically avoided.—J avoids “using them”, not “having them”.
The next natural and logical question would be: “Then, in J, why is there a plethora of forms rejecting usage in the first place?” A brown study should bring you the answer. It is simply J’s recusal itself that has historically admitted the resultant abundance of forms: Imagine that in a certain stage of J’s history, one candidate form got tentatively accepted, but before long, it turned out not to sit well with J’s cup of tea (どうもしっくりこないなあ…) and, as a result, gave up its seat to another form. This has been repeated again and again and again in history, producing cut-and-come-again forms…
Note in passing that, as might be evident in the elaboration so far, J’s “personal pronouns” have a somewhat different status from those of E.. Some scholars even insist that J’s relevant forms per se are not “personal pronouns” in the strict sense of the term. This is symbolically shown by the fact that J’s apparent “personal pronouns” have their origin as “nouns”, not “pronouns”: ‘私(わたし/わたくし)’ originally means ‘private person’, and ‘君’ originally means ‘monarch’, and so on and so forth.
では今日はこの辺で。またあした…。
To be continued...
の続きです。
Starting from the day before yesterday, I have been drawing a comparison between Japanese (J) and English (E). Hope you are enjoying it and welcome your comments.
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned:
E uses personal pronouns frequently as opposed to J, which basically avoids using them.
While reading that, some of you might have wondered: “Provided that E uses personal pronouns more frequently than J, then why is it that the following phenomenon is observed?”
E: basically has one or just a few forms for each personal pronoun: ‘I(/me)’, ‘you (/thou), etc.
J: potentially has tons of forms for each personal pronoun:
‘私(わたし/わたくし)’, ‘僕’, ‘あたし’, ‘俺’, ‘あたい’, ‘おいら’, ‘わちき’, ‘わし’, ‘手前’, ‘拙者’, ‘我’, ‘吾輩’, etc. etc.
‘あなた’, ‘君’, ‘あんた’, ‘お前’, ‘おぬし’, ‘そこもと’, ‘てめえ’, ‘貴様’, ‘われ’, etc. etc.
Based on this fact, you might even say: “Doesn’t the phenomenon contradict what you said? Your assertion seems to be allegedly made, I’m afraid….”
My answer to this question follows:
It would help if you discriminated between (a) “you have such-and-such a form” and (b) “such-and-such a form is frequently used”. These are fundamentally different stuff.
E: (a) You have ‘I(/me)’ as 1st singular personal pronoun, and (b) ‘I(/me)’ is very frequently used.
J: (a) You have ‘私(わたし/わたくし)’, ‘僕’, etc. as 1st singular personal pronoun, and (b) They are really seldom in use.
In other words:
E has one or just a few forms that are frequently used.—E allows “using them a lot”, not “having a lot of them”.
J has tons of forms that are basically avoided.—J avoids “using them”, not “having them”.
The next natural and logical question would be: “Then, in J, why is there a plethora of forms rejecting usage in the first place?” A brown study should bring you the answer. It is simply J’s recusal itself that has historically admitted the resultant abundance of forms: Imagine that in a certain stage of J’s history, one candidate form got tentatively accepted, but before long, it turned out not to sit well with J’s cup of tea (どうもしっくりこないなあ…) and, as a result, gave up its seat to another form. This has been repeated again and again and again in history, producing cut-and-come-again forms…
Note in passing that, as might be evident in the elaboration so far, J’s “personal pronouns” have a somewhat different status from those of E.. Some scholars even insist that J’s relevant forms per se are not “personal pronouns” in the strict sense of the term. This is symbolically shown by the fact that J’s apparent “personal pronouns” have their origin as “nouns”, not “pronouns”: ‘私(わたし/わたくし)’ originally means ‘private person’, and ‘君’ originally means ‘monarch’, and so on and so forth.
では今日はこの辺で。またあした…。
To be continued...
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