『カレ』の語史とその周辺 : 三人称代名詞が成立するまでのみちすじ

Abstract

This paper discusses the history of the Japanese third person pronoun 'kare' and related phenomena, especially from the viewpoint of the contact between ancient Chinese and Japanese. It also defines the sources and the acquisition process of the third person pronoun in Japanese. The main points of this paper are as follows: 1) We notice parallel phenomena in the system of demonstratives of ancient Chinese and ancient Japanese. That is, it's structure can be captured by the opposition of 'first person vs. non-first person'. 2) Because the structure of the system of demonstratives was the opposition of 'first person vs. non-first person', the diversion of the third person pronoun 'kare' and 'are' from the non-first person demonstratives was used as a 'non-first person pronoun'. That is, it was not used for the antecedent concerning the third person only, but for the listener, in other words, the second person. This is the prestage of the establishment of the third person pronoun 'kare' in Japanese. 3) We can find an earlier usage of the third person pronoun 'kare' in the translation of 'ESOPONO FABLAS' of A.D. 1593, because the parallel use of 'kare' for the second person was not found at that time, and 'kare' had retreated from the demonstrative system. 4) In the Edo period, the third person pronoun 'kare' was not used in colloquial Japanese, but the diversion of third person pronoun 'are' from the demonstratives was used. And in the 'yomihon (読本)', 'tuzokumono (通俗物)' (the translation or adaptation of colloquial Chinese novels), the third person pronoun 'kare' was used frequently. This is the main source of the 'kare' used to indicate the third person singular of the male in contemporary Japanese.